Aaron Grabiel reports on May 14th, 2025

Lower Sacramento River – Redding to Red Bluff

Target Species: Wild Rainbow Trout
Conditions: The flows are bouncing around a bit, but should stabilize going forward.
Hatches: PMD, golden stones, salmonflies, yellow sallies, caddis and March browns. 

Report: The Lower Sacramento River is fishing fair to great.  It's been inconsistent to say the least, but we are getting enough fish on the slow days to keep us entertained. When we get consistent flows and trout are actively feeding, it is really good. There are enough options to go check out other locations if the Lower Sac happens to be slow. It's that time of year where you can fish just about any stream or river and have a solid day. We are really looking forward to the temperatures heating up and more prolific hatches and extremely consistent fishing on the Lower Sac.

Upper Sacramento River – Dunsmuir to Shasta Lake

Target Species: Rainbow Trout
Flows: Moderate to high; approximately 1,450 CFS at Delta.
Hatches: Salmonflies, black caddis, baetis, March brown and green drakes.

Report: The Upper Sacramento is in fair shape. While flows remain elevated, water clarity is good. Anglers are finding better wading opportunities above Simms. Nymphing with rubber legs, springtime Koudous patterns, small mayfly and midge patterns is working well, and small streamers fished deep in the runs can trigger strikes. The old Chubby Chernobyl as a dry dropper rig with a Perdigón style fly to cover riffles can be very productive. Don't forget when nymphing, to focus some time on the softer edges, especially when there's not a substantial hatch.

Hat Creek – Powerhouse Riffles

Target Species: Rainbow and Brown Trout
Conditions: Clear water with consistent insect activity.
Hatches: Salmonflies, PMD's, black caddis, sculpins, golden stones, and yellow sallies.

Report: Very short nymph rigs, dry dropper, Czech nymphing and dry fly fishing will all produce fish. On Hat Creek, I would typically stick to whatever you know best, if you're out there on your own without a guide. The fish are very finicky so just fish your strengths and find the fish that will commit to those techniques. There's always fish eating something in that creek just a matter of presenting inside their little window that they want to feed in without spooking them.

Other Small Streams

Conditions:  Runoff is beginning to slow and many of the small streams around are beginning to fish very well.  It's time to go, book ASAP.

Report: The small streams are fishing very well it's time to get out there and do it before they get too low or a ton of people start showing up. If you're interested in doing some really cool walk and wade stuff on small streams with hungry trout, give us an email or text and we can discuss which fisheries might work best for your outing.

Bass'n – Shasta Lake / Trinity Lake / Lake Oroville

Target Species: Bass and Trout

Hot Techniques: Float and Fly, stripping small minnow imitations.

Report: Shasta Lake continues to produce both trout and bass. Bass are bedding so sight fishing to larger fish is in the mix.  There are also pre and post spawn fish chasing shad balls around and trout can show up to the party anytime. With the current water temperatures, the bass are feeding aggressively so you can go out there and catch a bunch of fish. Haven't seen a good topwater bite yet but it should happen anytime now.

Trinity lake has some spawning fish. Seems that the smallmouth are spawning pretty well. We did catch one post-spawn largemouth, but it seemed that most of them had not spawned yet as of last week - though they should be pushing shallow in big numbers. You can fish from the shore down to 10 feet at this point and never have to go any deeper and catch a bunch of fish.

Lake Oroville though we don't have the permitting to guide this lake, we were able to help out with the cast hope benefit tournament. It was a lot of fun, those Oroville bass sure are chunky. They were fighting super hard and average in the 2+ pound range. It is truly a cool fishery. Certainly message us if you'd like to participate in the tournament next year. It is fly fishing only and the food, lodging, company and fishing are great. 

George Revel Report on 6.24.2021

Fishing was excellent mid morning from 8-11am or with some Trico and PMD spinner falls. In the evening the Pmd's and Sallys were coming off with regularity. We predominantly fished dries during these prime times. In the middle of the day nymphing and leeching was the ticket as fish moved to their deeper mid day hiding holes. 

Like clockwork, the fish start sipping trico spinners at 8am. The tricos lay trapped in the surface film of the water. Trapped after laying their eggs the night before the spent spinners float downstream and collect in the seams and swirls. 

The rainbows jockey into position to sip these tiny bugs with gentlest of ease. The gentle sip is the tell-tale sign that fish are eating spinners. With no concern of the dead bug flying away the fish can afford to such laziness in eating their breakfast. For this reason, even the slightest drag on your fly will not be tolerated by your quarry. Pair that with crystal clear water slowly meandering and you have the recipe for a chess game that can ensue for the coming hours. Stealth and presentation become paramount. Fishing become more akin to hunting. 

My spring creek spinner leader is 12ft 4x with 3ft of 6x fluorocarbon. The fluorocarbon sinks just below the surface film of the water removing the dimples the tippet causes on the surface film of the water. These fish will not eat your fly otherwise. 

To catch this fish my client and I slowly got into position and watched the pod until we spotted the largest fish in the pod. We watched him sip flies at very regular intervals. Knowing where he was eating was likely several feet behind where he was holding, we slowly positioned ourselves to make a perfect presentation. A quick pep talk about how one bad cast will put this whole pod down and description of the cast that I thought would fool the fish was spoken softly so as to keep our nerves down. We made a cast well upstream of where the big fish was feeding, trying to be careful to not put the fly in line with one of the other smaller fish that were feeding in the area. To catch a smaller fish would be failure and put this larger fish down. The cast landed exactly where it should have. The arial reach mend put the line above the fly so as to avoid a noisy on water mend. Seeing where the fly lands is so important in spinner fishing because often the fly is very hard to see as it lays flat on the water. We feed the line down to the fish with zero drag. My heart was pumping knowing that this drift stood a real chance.  Just as I was beginning thoughts how to phrase our next cast the fish rose to sip the fly seemingly in slow motion. 

Rebecca and I headed up to Clearwater Lodge to fish Fall River & Hat Creek. We fished late on Sunday evening on the powerhouse 2 riffle. A storm was blowing through leaving sporadic raindrops and cracks of thunder. The 1 billion mosquitoes out were a sign of a good hatch to come. I was thankful for the Simms Bugstopper Shirt and Ben’s 100that I had brought in anticipation of this particular...

Wildwaters reports on 5.1.19

Hat Creek

Although Hat Creek was a very social scene and crowded Saturday Sunday proved otherwise. Our guides and clients found very good fishing at the Power House 2 riffle both days with Sunday being far fewer anglers.

The creek is in excellent shape running a bit high but gin clear. We witnessed occasional PMD’s and Caddis but nothing to get excited about….yet. This is...

Aaron Gabriel reports on 6.28.18

Hat Creek

I have been fishing the rifle portions of hat creek. Czech Nymphing with a small soft tackle, size 16-18 as my top fly and the dropper has been a small jig style fly with a tungsten bead, size 14. 

This has been producing incredible action for 6-12 inch fish with the occasional large trout, 14-20 inch. If early morning fishing is your thing don’t forget the...

Day 2 of 5 Rivers Challenge: Another fun day and happy anglers fishing the wild trout waters of Northern California– Fall, Pit, McCloud, Upper Sacramento rivers and Hat Creek. We have 8 two-person teams out on the water, testing their angling skills to see who catches the most fish and the biggest fish. Congrats to Steve Johnson and Mikk Anderson for both catching a 19” from the Pit and Fall rivers. So far the competition has one team far ahead the rest, but with one more half-day fishing today, let’s see how it turns out. Thanks to Mike Wier for the photos; he joined teams on the McCloud River and Hat Creek, with a little hex in the evening on Fall River. 

Golden Stones, PMDS, and caddis pupa are to be expected this time of year. 

Hex’s are popping on the Fall River too!

Dave Neal reports on 5.24.18

Hat Creek 

The crick is fishing well and is pretty consistent this time of year. Cloudy and rainy afternoons can lead to epic conditions! I like fishing Hat and Pit 3 in the same day for a contrast of experiences (nymphing Pit early and then hunting w/ dry flies on Hat for the evening). Or fish Fall River and then Hat for another change of pace. Look for lots of small...