June 1st - Official start of summer....in my world.

Love fishing the flats...

Summer is here. In my mind June 1 is the official end of spring and beginning of summer. That said the weather is still spring like as is the fishing…Lots of mid to high 80s and Low 90s in the forecast for the next few weeks fishing all over the place should keep plugging away…Here are some reports and what is coming up.

Lower Sac outside of Chico:

Shad fishing remains fair to good. There are still plenty of fish around and    while numbers    caught each night have taken a bit of a dip the size of fish has    increased with some nice females in the mix on most nights. I would imagine that shad fishing should remain fair to good over the next few weeks and began to tapper off the 2^nd or 3^rd week of June.

Hooked up on a nice Shad

Hooked up on a nice Shad...again

            Striper fishing is starting to pick up as some smaller keeper fish and shaker size are starting to be caught. I imagine fishing will get good over the next few weeks as the shad thin out and fish began to go on the feed. Best time of year for striper is June-September. There are still some prime dates open in June-August.

Love these guys

        Large and Small Mouth Bass fishing remains good. We are starting to see some smallies up in the shallows and catching a few large females full of eggs as well as some smaller fish in the creek mouths and shallows. Sight fishing   for largemouth and top water fishing for largemouth continues to be a great option on most evenings as well.

Small Jaw from the Lower Sac.

Nice top water slough Largmouth on the Lower Sac

Lower Sacramento Trout: fishing has been fair to good. Pretty standard numbers of trout being caught on most floats. Options for numbers and size of fish right now just depends on how one floats and fishes the river. The Lower Floats are a great place to fish June-August. I look forward to getting out of the motor boat mid summer and floating Jelly’s to Bend each year and fishing for trout.

Clearwater Lodge Water: Pit River, Fall River, and Hat Creek are all fishing well from what I have heard. I will be up there guiding a few days in June and look forward to getting my feet wet and running my raft down the Pit. All these rivers are such a treat to go fish as they are one of few places I get to go “close by” that feel like I have traveled “far away”.

Love floating the Pit

NF Feather River and NF Yuba River from what I have heard are both fishing well. Both fisheries will be in trouble this summer with the low water so get your licks in over the next month as I imagine these will get tough come July/August.

Time to get out on the NF Feather!

Lower Yuba River is fishing fair to good depending on the day from what I have heard. I have not been over there lately but flows are hanging around 850cfs which is low but not “I wouldn’t go” low. June is usually a GREAT month on the Yuba as it gets very little pressure as people are fishing on all the mountain trout rivers and pass right by the Lower Yuba. There is plenty of hatches and opportunity to fish some great Caddis hatches in the evening.

Sports News: The Giants are playing great baseball even though they split a 4 game series with the Braves over the weekend. They had the shot to win Sunday but an bad error by Ryan Crawford cost them the game as well as the fact Sergio was not able to pitch left Casilla in some unfavorable matuch ups. Not a problem though they are .5 out of first and have been looking really good through the month of May. Curious to see how 3^rd base shakes out now that Casey is down in Sacramento and how Cain comes along. Overall when I look at the pitching rotation they have been rolling out and the line up they post every night I am pretty stoked to be only .5 out of first place.

In other sports news this last weekend was one of the best for college baseball, the Regional Round of the NCAA Div 1 College tournament. I would say it rivals the basketball tourney in my book…even may be cooler sense I am not as big a basketball fan. The college game of baseball is so much fun to watch as it is so fast passed compared to pro ball. The aluminum bat changes the game in huge ways for the hitters and pitchers. I watched a lot of innings of college ball over the last 4 days, even a 14 inning Cal Bears WIN over Texas A&M at Texas A&M.

Music News: So, Summer is concert season right…so I have already bought some tickets to see Built to Spill in Sacramento in July and put a Rocky Votalato and Dave Hause concert in SF on the calendar for August. Jason Isbell is also playing in Reno August 9^th and I haven’t got tickets yet but I am sure I will.…I also put a bunch of local chico bands that I like on the calendar for local shows. Also my new band Royal Oaks is recording in June and should start playing some shows in June/July around chico…so lots of music over the next few months.

Also some new albums coming out I am fired up about. Jason Isbell has a new album “Something more then Free” coming out July 17. Great summer driving music, The Chris Robinson Brotherhood has a new album coming out tomorrow June 2, just in time for long summer road trips.