Lower Sacramento Fly Fishing Report
These past couples of weeks have been fantastic while we experience a return to
more typical Spring Season weather in the NorthState. The days have been
sunny and fishing has been pretty darn good on the Lower Sacramento River,
from Redding to Cottonwood these past 2 weeks.
After enduring a crazy wet cycle (that lasted for an eternity) and watching
flows on the Lower Sac blow up to 40,000cfs we have finally got the break we
needed to get back on the river. Flows were lowered slowly to around 5k as
they drop into the weir at Caldwell Park… this won’t take long, been at 5k for a week or so… flows will be going back up very soon due to Shasta Lake @ 11 feet from its crest as of 5/2/2019.
The CDEC website shows releases increasing to 8k by Friday 5/3 and nothing
posted beyond that date (check the CDEC website under Scheduled Reservoir
Releases). I suspect we will see flows go up around 15K+ which is just fine for
spring and early summer fishing. I love the higher water, personally, and it allows for longer floats and seeing more of the Sacramento River.
Bug hatches have been very sparse lately - but these wild trout will eat the
staples which include: Caddis (seeing more bigger summer varieties) and
stoneflies (Salmonfly, golden and little yellow stones) along with PMD's at
certain times of day… There are occasional egg eaters, too.
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