Lower Sacramento River Fly Fishing Report

Hogan Brown, Hogan Brown Fly Fishing

Lower Sac outside of Chico, CA - Shad fishing remains good. Some nights have been just plain insane. Definitely one of the best shad runs in the last few years. Not sure how long it will last but we are going on 3 weeks strong of really good fishing. Best bite has been about 4pm -7pm and while fish continue to grab after 7pm to dark it is just not as fast and furious. Saturday evening was the first evening where we began to see larger males and a fair amount of large females in the mix which usually means we are getting close to the peak of the run. Get your shad days in as it will end sooner this year then previous years as fishing started earlier this year. 

Smallmouth are starting to get active and we have hooked some large females full of eggs over the last weeks dragging crayfish patterns and smaller bait fish patterns. The window to catch the big lower sac smallmouth is pretty small most years. The next month will be prime for these guys.
Largemouth continues to be good with most fish coming on poppers during the evening and those that won’t eat a pooper will eat a small baitfish pattern fished on a floating line right under the surface. Lots of sight fishing this time of year for largemouth. 

Stripers are starting to eat but the biggest ones we have caught are just over or just below the 18" mark…basically the fish that can’t fit a shad in their mouth. Striper fishing is still a few weeks away from getting good as the shad will need to thin out for the stripers to really go on the feed.