Fishing reports, sports, booze, and tunes news

Spring is on the calendar but the weather seems like summer. Mid to low 90’s last week and over the weekend along with high 80’s and low 90’s forcasted for the week to come. That said the extended forecast has some 70’s and even some possible rain in it over the next 3 weeks. While it seems like summer weather I can’t imagine the heat is here to stay from the last week of April on.

The weather for the trout opener was beautiful and as good as I can remember. I remember previous years it has rained and snowed in the valley and the mountains on the opener. This year was mid 80s to low 90’s with little wind and great flows on pretty much every body of water. I took out some Cast Hope kids and mentors over the weekend on the Lower Sacramento so I did not get out on any trout water that opened. I did talk to a few people that fished up on the Fall, Pit, and NF Feather and fishing was really good. I am going to get out fishing this coming weekend on my own and go check on a bunch of spots locally.

Lower Yuba River – Fishing has been good.  Fish are spread out in the riffles and flats with the higher flows (1800cfs). With good flows in the flats and the riffles fish have holding water in both and are spread out. Most fish are coming on PMD nymphs, Little Yellow Sally nymphs, and golden stone nymphs. There is some opportunity for dry fly fishing but nothing like previous springs with the high water this winter many of the caddis and mayfly hatches seem to be smaller. I am hoping this will lead to another summer of epic hopper fishing starting in late June and going through July.

Lower Sacramento River – Continues to fish really wel. With the jump in flows to 11,000 cfs the lower stretches of the Sac are turning on. Fishing from Bonnieview on down to balls ferry continues to be good with fish eating PMD nymphs, rubber legs, eggs, and caddis. As long as the weather stays night I imagine I will be staying down low on the river from Barge hole to Bend Bridge.

Lower Sac Rainbow 20"+

 

Nice healthy and Hearty bow from the Lower Sac

Shad – With this warm weather and increase in flows on the Sac out of Keswick I imagine the first shad should be showing around Chico soon. I will be out in coming week checking so shad reports to come!

Lower Sacramento Warm Water fishing – spring/early summer largemouth fishing is going in full swing. We have been catching good numbers of Largemouth bass over the last few weeks on subsurface and top water patterns. The small mouth bass should be turning on soon and moving into some of the creek channels to spawn as the water warms as well. I have yet to see any carp up on the flats but I am sure that is right around the corner as well.

Music News – one of my favorite bands came out with a new CD this last week that I have literally been listening to non-stop. The Appleseed Cast released Illumination Ritual and it is one of their best releases ever I would say, for sure the best sense Mare Vitals. The Appleseed Cast is not for everyone, but if you are a fan of instrumental Rock with some sparse singing mixed in it is solid stuff. Kinda of in the same vain of Explosions in the Sky, but I think a bit more accessable as most songs have some vocals and are around the 3-8minute range, not the sprawing 10-20 mins songs of Explosions.

My band The Remainder will be playing May 10th at Cafe Coda in Chico, CA with another great indie rock band, West by Swan if anyone has absolutely nothing to on May 10th. 

The Remainder preparing for their next show...outside drinking beer at the moment the pictures was taken...seriously we practice though

Sports Report – So the giants can’t seem to 1) hold a lead 2) seal the deal in extra innings…the good news they can come back from being down after loosing the lead but then loose the lead again, so the good news is they can come back. It is a long season and lets be honest they are scoring runs which has not always been their strong suit. That said their pitching has looked really good and really bad. Cain is concerning me…Lincecum jury is still out, he seems to be kind of hanging his toes over the edge, could fall of the cliff any minute. Like I said though it is a long seaon.

Notre Dame faired well in the draft with Tyler and Manti’ going in the first 2 rounds then a few other getting picked up in later rounds and then even more getting signed as free agents. Still dissecting the spring game…overall I was happy with how the defense looked but a bit concerned with how our QB looked.

From the desk of feather and fur – I get a bunch of emails with regards to fly tying, asking question, wanting tips, or just plain suggestions, so I am going to start writing about tying and what I am tying. Right now I am finishing up some samples of a new March Brown pattern that I developed this spring. Usually I don’t send a pattern up to Idylwilde until after a few season of testing but this thing hammered fish on the Sac and Yuba this spring for myself and others so why not. After that it is on to Striper and bass flies….One tip I can give everyone as they tie up spring striper and bass flies is if you have a pattern you like or works for you make sure to tie it in 3 sizes. I tie all my standard or go to striper and bass flies in small, medium, and large sizes for the given pattern. This is important as size seems to be one of the most overlooked areas of striper and bass fishing when it comes to flies. With trout most of us have size 18-12 of any nymph that we fish a lot and rarely do we have that spread in sizes of our favorite bass or striper flies.

Booze News – Margarita season is upon us and I have been mixing up Lime Juice, triple sec, tequila, and a shot of orange juice margaritas way to often. These things go down way to easy and get me south of sober way to quick. Because of this I bought some beer to fill in the gaps so to say…Some bud light lime (my go to yard work beer) and some Modelo Especial (my go to sit on the couch summer beer). I have yet to buy and Sierra Nevada Summer Fest but I hear this years is pretty solid.

Stay hydrated while doing yard work my friends