Finally hooked into some of the larger fish on the Upper Sac. In the past my largest fish was about 12-13". Also, the average size of fish was bigger than in the past. The Upper Sacramento is considered the stretch between Lake Siskiyou near Dunsmuir, CA and Lake Shasta. The river is a fraction of the size of the Lower Sac below Redding & Lake Shasta and is a trout fishery. The lower has salmon, steelhead and trout along with shad and striped bass.

Love being able to use the train tracks along the river to hike around.

Weather was cold and windy but luckily the fishing was great that day. Was worried the cold spell would turn off the fishing but I lucked out. 

The rainbows of the Sacramento and McCloud rivers are the prototype for what a wild rainbow should look like. Incredibly beautiful fish--I think the best looking of trout. This is their native range and the strain that came from the McCloud/Sacramento rivers is what was originally used to stock the rest of the world with rainbow trout ~100 years ago.

The #8 Rubber Legs and #16 black Frenchie caught all the fish. There were a few Baetis around as well as the occasional Oct Caddis laying eggs. The Oct Caddis will emerge at dusk/at dark and will mainly lay eggs at that time as well. Upstream of Dunsmuir is where there are a ton of Oct Caddis. Below Dunsmuir, not so much. 

Fire ravaged the area around Putah Creek back in August and the charred remains of trees were left over. Luckily the fish didn't seem to be effected. The south or west bank of the river was burnt pretty good but the north or east bank was largely unaffected. 

The section everyone fishes is the short 2-3 mile stretch between the dam below Lake Berryessa and Lake Solano. This gets a ton of pressure as it is just an hour or so from the Bay Area and the fishing is good, but difficult.  

Lost a massive fish very early on but was later able to get a good sized fish towards the end of the day. Wasn't as big as what I had hooked earlier, but it was a very nice fish. I lost a ton of fish overall and I think it was due to large fish and small flies. I started out with #18 Frenchies and #20 midge patterns but later switched to #16 Frenchie and #8 Rubber Legs and I started to land more fish.

Flows were at an ideal 300 cfs or therabouts. I was only able to cross the river at access #5 however. The water temps were cool and the river was clear with a green tint. The CCR song "Green River" was inspired by this river (CCR is from the Bay Area, not the Bayou!).

This fish was a tank... what a fight! Hammered the Rubber Legs. Who says you need 6x-7x tippet and #20 midge patterns to catch fish here? Jokes aside I did see lots of small midges and micro caddis under the rocks and to fish it consistently I am sure you have to go small most of the time.

Fishing on the lower and upper sections of Hat Creek. The upper is considered above Baum and follows highway 89 up to the Old Station area. This section is mainly a stocked put and take area and the public fishing is upstream from the bridge along highway 89. The lower section is below Baum, though a little bit downstream from there below the Pit #2 powerhouse. And within this lower section, the river can be divided between above and below highway 299. The section above highway 299 is the "famous" section where the powerhouse riffle is and where spring creek dry fly fishing Hat Creek is known for is location (carbon flats).

The section below highway 299 wasn't very good. Didn't see many fish in the ultra clear water and it was surprisingly shallow and fast moving, except for the part where it hits a small spillway before entering the lake downstream. I did see two good sized fish which I spooked in the shallows, in this deeper water near the lake. I caught a lot of 6-8" fish here before moving on. I didn't bother fishing the faster water upstream as it seemed to hold very poor holding water. This whole section was maybe 1.5 miles I am guessing. I next made my way up to the section above hwy 299. 

The section above hwy 299 was an impressive spring creek. Too bad it has fallen on hard times as it used to be one of the best spring creeks in the west. There are still fish in here but there aren't many and they are a lot of small fish. I did spot a couple of very large fish while looking down from a small cliff, but they were nearly impossible to reach as the water was deep right to the bank. My attempt to reach them failed. They seemed to be feeding on midges along the bottom in 6-8 ft of water.

​I did catch a somewhat rare brown trout which surprised me as this river is I believe 90+ percent rainbows. I didn't get to fish the famous PH #2 riffle as an older dude was camping it out for 2+ hours. I didn't see him catch anything, nor did I not see anyone else catching anything. I think I saw baetis flying around and some miniscule midges. Fish were rising here and there.

Upper Hat along hwy 89 was disappointing. I was expecting to catch tons of stockers and maybe get into some decent wild fish away from the campgrounds but it appeared nothing had been stocked and the wild fish were 2-4". Too bad as the river would be fun to fish with that clear fast water in the narrow creek bed. Wish they would have a delayed harvest section here as it just gets wiped out fast after each stocking. Any wild fish of decent side don't have much a chance. This is a very popular catch n keep section. 

A continuation from part I last week. 

East Walker double!

Love fishing in the desert. Saw my first Bighorn Sheep as I was getting my waders on. You can barely see in the upper left a Bighorn Sheep standing on the hillside and acting as a lookout for the group below. There was male with massive horns. I wouldn't have noticed them if I didn't hear them walking down the cliffside. 

Fishing was fantastic as the fish were incredibly aggressive feeding on baetis that seemed to be in every section of the river and hatching all day. It was a mix of about 80% browns and 20% rainbows. The average size fish was fairly small but they were wild and fought well. 

The flows were 75cfs and that seemed perfect for this section of river--I would guess 75-125 cfs would be ideal for the Nevada section. River seems to widen slightly here compared to the lower CA section.

There are large fish on the Nevada side, but they are mainly in the section upstream of where I was at, near the CA border.

I will post part II next week. I got a lot of great footage and decided to break it into two videos. The angle of the sun made for good conditions for filming.