Putah Creek Fly Fishing Report

Jordan Romney Reports on 4.13.2016

(530) 304-8421

Next Available dates April 19, 20

The flows are slowly starting to creep up on us, so our window for walk and wade trips to access the entire creek is starting to close. The flows are around 225 this week and will be up to 500 by mid May. Once the water starts to get over 300 several of my favorite spots become unfishable, but the time 500 comes around there are very few places to get to unless you are a bold wading angler.

Fishing has been fair to good on the creek over the past couple of weeks. There is a lot of silt in the river that came down from the rain storms we had in early March. All the hills round the Creek burnt last year during the wragg fire providing lots of mud in the river this spring. There are a few runs that are now unfishable, the food is smothered and the fish would be too vulnerable to sit over such a light colored bottom. My hope is that the summer flows will clean out the silt but we will know when we know.

There have been better midge hatches this spring than I can ever remember. The fish have really been keyed in on the small stuff. On the flip side I do not know where the mayflies went. We usually get periods of the day where there are clouds of baetis dancing across the river. This spring has been very bleak wit the mayflies but the caddis hatches are making up the difference. I cannot remember ever having such good spring caddis on Putah Creek. It has been a lot of fun swinging a caddis soft hackle and getting grabbed by the smaller fish. The bigger ones prefer the dead drift and are less likely to make mistakes.

With the bigger water over the last week the streamer fishing has started to pick up. I really like using a sculpzilla because the articulated hook and the heavy head that gets down fast. Another great Putah Creek streamer is a black slump buster. There are a lot of 3 spined sticklebacks in Putah Creek, the slump buster is a good representation of that.