Fishing, beer, music, carnies.

The weather has been all over the place the last week or two. Cold Rain to hot to beautiful spring weather. Last week I spent most of my time on Sac outside of chico and up out of redding. There are so many options for fishing right now that it is hard to pick…here are some reports and other earth shaking ramblings.

Lower Sac outside of Chico, CA – Shad are in. I spent 3 evenings last week shad fishing and while the cooler weather can turn the bit off the fish are in. We did not catch huge numbers but we did get into 20+ fish and most were good size fish. Only a few little dinky males. Most were fat females or nice big males.

Stripers are active and by covering water and putting in some time we got into a few nice 5-10lb fish last week and this weekend. Fishing for stripers will remain decent while the shad are around and then get really good through July and August.

Largemouth and Small mouth bas fishing has been hit or miss with the weather and barometer moving all over the place. I had a great day of smallmouth fishing with Simms Rep John Sherman last week and then hit the same spots a few days later and didn’t touch a fish…finicky those small mouth are. Largemouth top water fishing has been good even as the weather has fluctuated but definatley is better with warm temps and a stable barometer.

Nice River Smallie

Top Water Largemouth back in the Sloughs

Lower Sac Trout -  Trout fishing up through Red Bluff to Redding has been good with stable warm weather. I had a Cast Hope trip and fishing was good as the fish were grabby eating PMD nymphs and sucker spawn eggs. There were a few caddis around but I had no luck on birds nest and Fox Poopah.

Doubling up...no big deal

Lower Yuba – I have no reports from here I have not been on the river for a few weeks and have not talked to anyone who has been here but I know the flows have been stable around 1500cfs. I imagine with the fluctuating weather the hatches have been thrown outta whack but with some stable warm weather things should stabilize.

JUNE is nearly Booked up Here is what is COMING UP in JULY

-       Trout Fishing on the PIT,

-       Hopper fishing on the L. Yuba,

-       Striper fishing on the L. Sac.

-       Hex Fishing on the Fall River

-       Almanor Smallie and trout fishing

-       NF Feather and Yuba trout fishing

Available Dates:

Evening Trips: June 3, 4, 5

June 13, 29

July 1-3, 6, 8, 9, 11, 24, 25, 29-31

Fly Tying Report – I recently bought a new fly brief case and reorganized my Carp/Smallmouth Flies, really what I did was consolidate and organize.  I was running about 3 different boxes for smallmouth and carp. 2 C&F boxes for carp and one busted up plano box for smallies. I love organizing fly boxes and I am totally anal about it so this was fun. In doing this reorganizing I free’d up two C&F boxes so I decide to consolidate 2 stonefly boxes into on of the new boxes. This resulted in throwing a ton of old rusty stoneflies away and having to fill up some spots in this new box. I never tie stoneflies…usually just buying Jimmy Legs and fishing those. So, kinda been fun tying and coming up with some variations of patterns I usually buy.

Stoneflies with some room for more

Smallie flies

Carp flies and a few over flow smallie flies

Music Report – I got a few new CD’s recently as I was searching for “bands like the Gaslight Anthem” on the inter web. I bought a band on Epitaph call The Menzingers. Pretty good mid tempo punk rock with pretty good lyrics and catchy melodies.  I also bought the new Wonder Years CD The Greatest Generation…pretty good catchy mid tempo pop, punk, emo…whatever you want to call it.

Beer Report – I have been enjoying the Sierra Nevada Summer fest in a can but I got a hankering for something a bit more hoppie so I picked up a 12 pack of the Lagunitas IPA. Been trying off and on the Lagunitas brews. All of them are good hoppie copper to dark brews.

A little IPA 

Fair Report – I took the family to the Silver Dollar Fair this last weekend and the $8 entrance fee for my wife and I was well worth the people watching. I easily spent $75 with rides, food, games, and entrance fee. Totally well spent as my kids had a blast and love the fair. That said the people watching consist of some of the most white trash people I have ever seen. It is like a white trash wood stock. I saw so many things just defy all logic and rational thinking...I lost count of seriously overweight dudes in TapOut gear...Really please tell me how you are such a big cage fighter. More importantly I want to know how all these people that look like they climbed out of a homeless shelter can afford the money to go to the fair. 

Swerving on the buggy...avoiding carnies while eating funnel cake

Report...

As I reported I had a short bout with the stomach flu which put a cramp in my fishing and recreational plans. This has been followed by my yearly allergy flare up followed by a sinus/ear/larynx infection...I take this in stride though as my yearly penance for living in the valley of northern california. I feel I am equally compinsated for my yearly bacterial infection/yellow snot fest by the year round fishing, true seasons, and small college town lifestyle of Chico, CA. That said I have not been fishing or guiding in the last week, not a problem though for fishing reporting as all my friends and I talk about is fishing, sports, and music...oh and our plan for Northern California to secede from the rest of the state and form the 51st state. Not so much the State of Jefferson as the Bear Flag Republic. Oregon can keep Southern Oregon and its meth labs and depressed logging towns.

Lower Sacramento Trout, Shad, Striper, Bass, Carp

Trout
Talking to a few of my buddies who have been guiding on the lower river (say Barge Hole to Red Bluff) fishing is starting to turn on down through there. Usually not the big fish that you get up river but some of the coolest scenery and fishing on the river and really good numbers of hook ups. There are usually far fewer crowds and many times of the year you can have a whole float to yourself. These stretches usually fish best during the summer months so fishing down through here is just starting to heat up.

Shad
There are reports of shad being caught outside of chico starting to role in and with the warm weather and lower flows lately fishing should be getting going. Traditionally, low water years are good shad years and this year should be a fairly low water year. I am going to get out next week and start swinging some flies and seeing what is around. The weather has cooled off today and is going to stay cool for a few days so I should be right on time for the warmer weather.

Stripers
I have heard of a few stripers being caught down around Rd 48 and "the Pumps" and good numbers of fish down around Colusa. Most of the migratory stripers are spread out now and with the salmon smolt thinning out stripers are spreading out. I have not had a chance to really go out and pound the water to see what is around and eating but I am sure there are some fish around and eating.

Bass and Carp
Most of the bass and carp are through spawning or just finishing up. Bass fishing should stabilize with some stable warm weather. On hot days top water fishing during the evening has been good and then on cooler days fishing subsurface in the afternoon has been best. I have hooked into some nice size bass so far this year but have yet to find any carp up on flats yet. I think most of my carp flashing is going to be on some of the local lakes this year instead of the river with the lower flows.

Lower Yuba River
The Yuba is hanging around 1500cfs and spring early summer is in full swing with Caddis, PMD, Little yellow sallies, and a few reports of early gold stones showing. The Yuba will fish well throughout the summer as long as flows stay up and stable. I like to nymph in the morning and then look for rising fish in the flats mid morning and then nymph again midday day until evening when fish start looking for caddis in the riffles. Hopper fishing should be good again this summer and as long flows stay up and the hoppers don't get baked on the rocks.

Sports Report
I am not going into detail on anyone event or team but Sharks 2nd round Playoffs, Warriors Western Conf. Semi final playoffs, Giants baseball....solid sporting events on nightly. Tonight all 3 teams play. Nights like this is why the "last" or "previous" button on the remote was invented as well as the ESPN app for IPhone.

Short and Sweet...

All fishing activities and otherwise fun things were canceled for me this weekend thanks to the arrival of the stomach flu....but if you live around Chico, CA this is happening Friday.


More detailed dispatches to come...

Happy Friday...

Yes, this is a real picture and this IS on the way to a store near you....

As are these to a tailwater that drains into the San Francisco Bay....