Northern California Fly Fishing Report - Trinity & Lower Sacramento Rivers

Here is a quick Northern California Fly Fishing Report & recap of our last month or so of fishing, and a look ahead into what we are excited about coming up.

Trinity / Coastal Steelhead:

 Over the past month we've had some great weather windows to target winter steelhead. Successful winter steelhead fishing is measured by simply getting the opportunity to target them with good conditions, but so far this season we are happy to report our nets have been staying wet and rods staying bent with positive catch reports in all the rivers we fish. There has been a good push of wild adult fish in the upper reaches of the Trinity. Our guides were busy catching them throughout all of January despite the higher than normal releases from Lewiston keeping many anglers at home. For many of us who are addicted to chasing these fish, the last month has been an onslaught of good times on both the coastal and inland steelhead fisheries. Our Coastal fisheries up and down the entire coast saw a great window of opportunity with prime flows throughout the entire last half of January.

Looking forward, we are excited about what this new round of storms will bring. If rain doesn’t happen, steelhead fishing will get stale. This year, that worry can be considered gone. We have an awesome freshet renewing the lifeblood of our favorite steelhead rivers as we speak, and without a doubt when that water recedes it will usher in a fresh push of fish from the salt. We can’t be certain of exactly when this will happen, but be assured that the first few days after the rivers drop, it will be game time. It looks like there may even be a short window to fish the coast in the later part of this coming week. If you have flexibility in your schedule, go time could be coming very soon. In the meantime, we celebrate that all of the fish in our systems have the chance to migrate far into the headwaters and spawn safely. 

Lower Sac:

Another winter highlight over the past month has been the solitude on the Lower Sac. A few of our guides have fished it consistently over the past month and have had great success. In winter, you can often find yourself all alone on the big river. It may not always be the numbers slay fest of the warmer months, but if the sun peaks out and the bugs hatch in that mid-day glory, hold on tight. Winter is typically when we see some of the biggest fish of the year come out of the depths and try to get a little snack time in as they wait for the longer feeding windows of spring time. 

The Lower Sac will see some high flows these next couple of weeks and is up to 60,000 cfs as of this writing. Even with these current high flows keeping us off the river, we fully expect March to line up for great flows and great fishing on the Lower Sac. Although we expect the flows to drop significantly into March, we are not at all afraid of high water on the Lower Sac. Many of us have experienced some of our best days ever in extreme high flow conditions that keep many folks at home. The higher flows will create soft pocket feeding lanes near banklines which will uniquely congregate the fish. The first warm days of spring will also bring us the first major rounds of insect hatches. When this happens, you want to be trout fishing. The lack of fishing pressure all winter will have the trout uneducated and ready for the first dead drift that comes near them.