Lower Sacramento Fly Fishing Report

Dave Neal reports on 4.13.2016

Fishing continues to be rock solid on the Lower Sac this week. We have been experiencing periods of fishing that’s as good as it gets. Generally bigger fish and more crowds have been on the upriver floats while the downriver floats have seen far fewer people with more (albeit smaller) fish. Take your pick.

After several days of cooler, cloudy weather (some drizzle & light rain) temps are forecast to return to the high 70’s and low 80’s by the weekend… typical mild and beautiful spring weather in northern California. This is a fantastic time to float the Lower Sacramento River – get on it before the summer heat comes to visit for the summer!

Spring bug hatches are progressing each week. Been seeing more little yellow stones and salmonfly each day and when the warmer temps return these bugs should really get going. The PMD varietal mayflies are steadily hatching in the afternoon, and while the hatch hasn’t been super prolific there’s plenty of the small light colored bugs around to keep the trout keyed in on them in certain times of day and sections of the river. Running a two or three fly rig we’ve been hooking fish on the whole assortment: top, middle and lower bugs… which leads me to believe it’s more about finding the feeding fish and putting the usual suspects down into their zone while nymphing. There have been a few days where it seemed fish were super keyed in on particular patterns, however, so some experimentation in patterns or fishing flies that other anglers are not, might pay off. As far as dry fly fishing there can be some potential for that right now for the patient and observant anglers… commit to it and you might have some epic moments.

I had a few schedule changes and now have a few open dates this month: April 18, 19, 20, 22, 26 – contact me asap, let’s go fishing.