Upper Sacramento

Got away yesterday to fish the Upper Sacramento. It's springtime and in the spring the water level, or flow can be high, really high. Well as high as it is, it's very fishable. Fishable as in stay on the bank if you are below Castella and cross with caution above. I experienced little bug activity in the form of insect hatches. The trout love to eat mass quantities of these bugs and as anglers we hope and dream of being present when massive numbers of aquatic insects make their move to become full fledged winged adult flies ready to mate, lay eggs. The trout get really stupid during an insect hatch. They are easy to trick into eating the fly on the end of your line way out there on the water. Anyway, lest I digress, the fishing was fair. I did get into some long fish, in other words, they were on the skinny side. So they were nice for skinny fish. So, it's early to really expect any true quality fishing on the Upper Sac, at least where I was fishing which was between Sims and Sweetbriar. I covered a lot of water, miles to be exact and caught long fish. Once the insects like caddis, stoneflies, mayflies start to get active, the fish will eat aggressively, gain weight and look like rainbows worthy of photographing.
Maybe the better fishing is up around Ney Springs. I would have gone up there, but by late afternoon, I was done. I fished a #14 BH Bird's Nest, mainly swining the fly with split shot placed a few inches above the fly so I could alternate between short lining/high sticking to a greased line presentation. I know using split shot is not the appropriate way to swing flies, but I don't care. I put the flies in front of the fish, and they ate. End of story.