The Upper Sacramento River is one of the most well-known fly fishing rivers in California. Ever since I started fly fishing I’ve read many good things about it and have personally heard from others about how great of a fishery it is. This trip to the Upper Sac was a long time in the making and I was excited to see what I could find.
One of the few reasons why I’ve never made it to the Upper Sac is due to the +2.5 hour drive. Typically if I’m going to be making a trip out that far I usually like to have different options nearby in case the fishing is a bust. The Upper Sac has very few options along the way which makes it a bit of a gamble in time and gas. I took a chance and was out of the house by 6am with plans to fish the entire day and make the grueling drive back after the sunset.
I started the day at around 9am near the Pollard Flat access. The flows were about 650 CFS which was a bit high but still pretty fishable. The water looked great and there was already a bunch of insect activity throughout the section. I planned on nymphing throughout the day so I used a euro-nymph set-up with a dark lord and BWO pattern. I fished some super fishy spots, seams, slow water, behind rocks, etc however the fish were not where they were suppose to be. I finally hooked my first fish in a small pocket that appeared to be stacked with more fish than the better parts of the river. The time was about about 11am and I thought that the river had finally turned on however I couldn’t be more wrong. I hiked further up to the I-5 overpass which was about a mile upstream and made my way down fishing the spots that looked good. I only managed to find two more fish through this entire section.
As I made my way to my car I thought maybe it was just this section that wasn’t fishing. I drove further upstream to Sim’s Flat to test my theory. As soon as I jumped into the river I noticed that this part of the Upper Sac was a bit cooler than the Pollard Flat section. Perhaps the water temperature had something to do with the productivity I thought to myself. I nymphed a small pocket and caught a few small rainbows and once again thought I had figured it out. I worked my way downstream to a much more fishy spot and had absolutely zero strikes.
With poor fishing results I ended my day at around 4pm. I simply became frustrated and disappointed considering the fantastic conditions. Once I had internet service I looked up fishing reports which stated the fishing was good. I talked to a friend who has frequents the Upper Sac and he told me that I had a pretty good day out there.
I’ll probably give the Upper Sac one or two more tries before making my final judgement. Ideal flows on the Upper Sac are 400 CFS so I’ll most likely try again after the run-off around June or in the fall when the weather cools.
