Sierra Trip Reports

Location: Lower Sacramento River, Redding, CA

Date: Memorial Day, Monday, May 31, 2010

Anglers: Pat & Nick

Photos: Nick (unless otherwise noted as Pat)

Weather: Intermittent clouds throughout the day. It was raining up in the mountains by Mt. Shasta (and snowing up top), but we avoided the rain all day. A nice 15 mph breeze in the evening.

Synopsis: After skiing 1.5 ft of untracked, fresh pow up at Leavitt Peak at Sonora Pass on Saturday , I headed North to Mt. Shasta late afternoon on Sunday. Pat and I would camp around 5,000 ft. on the approach to Mt. Shasta, and then head down to the Lower Sacramento River in Redding on Monday to float fish with our guide Bryan from The Fly Shop .

After grabbing burgers and beers at The Billy Goat Pub in Mt. Shasta (the town), Pat and I headed up to Bunny Flat trailhead on Mt. Shasta. I was blown away at the amount of snow up there – there were 10 foot snow banks at the Bunny Flat parking lot.

We intended on merely checking out the amount of snow, and then drove back down to the snow line to find a good place to camp. We found this awesome platform around 5,000 ft. with a mulch area, offering us pretty sweet views in the morning (and nice temps in the low 40s at night).

The amount of chipmunks was unreal – literally woke up with about 20 of them surrounding our campsite. Pretty funny little guys (these two were about 6 inches from Pat’s sleeping bag):

After the drive down to Redding, we launched the boat and headed out for a full day (9 AM – 8 PM) of float fishing in the Lower Sacramento River.

The Lower Sacramento is at a 2-year high water level right now and it was running at 15,000 cfs – very high and a recent development due to damn releases up from Shasta Lake. Unfortunately, we think the fish are still getting used to the high water level – so the fishing was not as active. At the end, I caught 3 and Pat caught 2.

Near the put-in for the 1st float:

At the beginning of the day, there were a couple of other boats near us, but we all spread out and gave each other space:

This guy wanted to come along – but settled for the floating branch instead:

The morning session was pretty slow – not really even a lot of hits. We had a buffet of flies – 3 stringed below an indicator and weight. Once again, the water levels not playing to our advantage for nymph fishing.

Still, plenty of beers were drunk.

And despite floating through the town of Redding, the scenery was awesome (fast moving currents, tree-lined banks and mountains in the distance):

Finally, around lunch Pat got on the board with around a 14 inch Rainbow Trout:

The fishing really died down in the afternoon – we tried a wide variety of flies and depths. Note: There is really no dry-fly fishing on the Lower Sac. Most of the fish stay pretty deep, so you need to nymph fish the flies below water.

Near the 1st float takeout, Nick finally got on the board with around a 14 inch Rainbow Trout – really good color on this one:

Our guide Bryan was really cool given the lack of action at that time – while our paid session had ended around 5, Bryan said he wanted to take us for another float at a different section of the river to see if we could find any better fishing. He was offering another 3-4 hours of fishing for free to get us some action. Awesome move by Bryan!

Light was fading in the early evening and it was raining off in the distance – however, temps and the wind were great around our fishing zones. Here, Pat is getting rigged for the 2nd (and more productive) float:

“Productive” in the sense of (i) catching fish and (ii) drinking some beers – here Pat demonstrates the later with the Sundial Bridge in the distance:

Within 20 minutes into the second float, Nick hooked around a 13-inch Rainbow that put up a good fight for around 10 minutes – a real nice fish.

Little guy just didn’t want to get to the boat.

Although not nearly the largest fish of the day, it certainly was the most entertaining:

About 15 minutes later, Nick caught the biggest Rainbow of the day – coming in at around 20 inches. A real beauty with some awesome pink and blue streaks on it:

Pat got back on the board again with a 14-15 inch Rainbow:

We then worked a final zone for an hour or so, but without much action. The scenery, however, was top notch:

A great day and some good fishing on Memorial Day, capping off an awesome weekend started with powder skiing couloirs at Leavitt Peak.

Definitely look up Bryan Balog at The Fly Shop if you are looking for a boat guide on the Lower Sacramento – highly recommended.