What can I tell you about fishing? Well, I have been fishing the Lower Sacramento here in Redding everyday this month. All in all it's been good. Lot's of rainbow trout have eaten the artificial flies I have thrown in their water. The trout are 14"-18" and beautiful! Did I mention they are wild. Wild as in they reproduce in the river that is the Lower Sacramento. Speaking of reproducing, as April approaches, many of our river's rainbows will start to spawn. Please don't fish for these fish. It's easy to spot spawning fish. Not cool to fish for them since they are literally creating the future of our great fishery. If you are not sure about how to avoid spawning fish, just don't fish for fish you can see from April-July. Rising fish that are eating insects are usually exempt, but I have seen spawning fish rising to emerging insects. Please go easy on the spawning rainbows...it's the right thing to do.
I have been seeing good numbers of Salmon Flies on the river. Some golden stones too! The Salmon Flies are the ones that amaze me. Beautiful insect. They are returning to the Lower Sac thanks to the control of river temperatures and water quality that dates back to 1987. Salmon Flies need cold, clean water to survive and the Lower Sacramento has maintained those conditions since 1987. Today, a temperature control device at Shasta Dam maintains favorable river conditions for the endangered King Salmon. The trout fishery and diverse insect population are purely incidental to the master plan of saving the salmon. In addition to the Salmon Fly, I have spotted Hexagenia from Redding to Anderson on the river. This past February, I witnessed intense hatches of baetis, BWO's and some PMD's. March Brown's are in the mix today as are other drakes that I can't identify. A certain type of yellow mayfly with red eyes has been prominent in the middle of the day. Caddis of various orders are active from February-October. When releasing fish back into the river, I can feel what must be caddis casings in their bellies. Trout are known to crub on the river bottom by turning tail up and burrowing their heads into the gravel. As a result of this burrowing activity, insects are dislodged and many are cased caddis. Maybe that's why a #18 P.T. works so well. The P.T. (Pheasant Tail) looks like a cased caddis.
I have been seeing good numbers of Bald Eagles. For a few days in February, I saw around twenty a day. That's a lot of eagles. What's better is at least 50% where juvenile birds. The eagles I saw below Anderson have left, but a few remain in the Redding area. I recently saw and eagle attack and osprey that had a fish in it's talon's. The eagle escaped with a piece of fish and the osprey recovered the other half. I guess the eagles have figured out how to let the osprey do the dirty work of fishing, while the eagle goes in to steel the bounty.
The Lower Sacramento has a very active, thriving wild animal population from birds, dear, otters, bobcats and even the rare puma. Soon, the spring run of salmon will be here and they are a brighter, more aggressive salmon than the fall run. They can be seen slashing the surface chasing juvenile salmon fry. Might be a good time to tie on a streamer to see if they will chase your fly.
Try to get out and go fishing. The time is right, weather is good and the fish are biting.
