Fishing Report Sacramento River Shasta Lake Rogue River Salmon Trout Shad IGFA Certified Captain Fly Fishing

A big thank you to all of you that dropped by our booth at ISE Sacramento this past weekend. It was good to see old friends and make new ones.

Sacramento River Steelhead & Wild Trout Fly and Conventional Gear Fishing - Rain, rain and more rain raised the Sac to unfishable levels. Mud is flowing out of Keswick Dam as well as all the tributaries. The river will likely remain unfishable for the rest of the week. Before the rains, trout had been quite cooperative most days as long as we have good water clarity. Copper Johns, micro mays, and egg imitations have been the best producers for our fly fishing guests. Trout fishing has also been productive with conventional gear. Salmon roe and crickets have been the top producers.

Sacramento River Salmon - Salmon season is closed on the Sacramento. The pre-Christmas rains brought a push of salmon into the Red Bluff area providing our guests with some nice fresh king salmon. Once the final salmon counts are complete and the PFMC makes its predictions for the 2010 run, we will find out whether or not we will have a late fall season this year. Initial estimates of the fall run are 60,000 salmon which is 62,000 short of the escapement goal. We do not expect to have an early fall run season in 2010. That doesn't mean that we won't be fishing for salmon. We will just be changing our location. We will spend August & September targeting ocean fresh king salmon on the Rogue Estuary.

Smith and Chetco Steelhead - We spent last week on the Smith and Chetco Rivers after the most recent storms. While the fishing was not red hot, we did manage to find some biters like the one that Julie landed and released on the Chetco (middle pic). We will not return to these rivers until after the ISE show, but if you want to fish these gorgeous steelhead rivers the rest of January, call us for top notch guide and lodging recommendations.

Rogue River Estuary - We enjoyed some great fishing for ocean bright kings on the Rogue Estuary this year. We will back on the Rogue next August. Sign up for our newsletter to receive money saving offers and up to date fishing reports.

Shasta Lake Landlocked Salmon and Trout - Recent rains and low discharges are bringing up lake levels on Shasta. We will be back on Shasta next April.

We are pleased to announce that Bill Divens recently became the first IGFA Certified Captain on the northern Sacramento River. In addition to keeping records, the IGFA drives conservation, research and legislative efforts relating to both fresh and salt water fisheries. We are proud to be associated with this fine organization. Click here to learn more about IGFA.

On December 1, 2004, I was fishing with retired guide Herb Wilson below the Bend Bridge in Red Bluff. It was a beautiful cool sunny day and with most of the guides in this area fishing the Barge Hole and environs we had this section of river pretty much to ourselves. We were backtrolling T-60 Flatfish with the autopilot on and had just seen a bald eagle dive into to the River and fly away with a 14” squaw fish.

We were commenting on the gorgeous scenery, no other boats in sight and how salmon fishing is so much more than just catching when my rod tip dove into the water. I hooked the fish and handed it off to Herb. After multiple runs at the boat where we were sure that the fish got off and after a good 5 minutes of lying on the bottom and refusing to move, I looked down into the clear water and saw the T-60 Flatfish looking like a small shiny speck of silver and chartreuse at the front of a huge silvery ghost. After a few hard runs away from the net, we finally landed this 55 lb. chrome beauty. What makes this story really cool is that Herb was the guide that taught me the River in the early 90’s and has since become one of my best friends. A decade ago, I was catching salmon from Herb’s boat. It was really fun to have him catch this monster from mine!

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