The Northern California Fly Fishing Board

Changing weather in the North State caused a little bit of slow action this a.m. on the Lower Sac. Lots of clouds, not many midges and BWO, and very few caddis.

Noticing a few salmon millin' around, I decided to try my favorite "bad weather" go-to a little earlier in the year than normal.
The first two hours, we scored 2... OK this may work.....then an hour with nada... uh-oh.... then got into an area with some active salmon, and POW !! Got 'em right in the kisser! My guys nailed 11 fish from one 'bucket' while I was anchored in the dead water off to the side of said 'active salmon'. They weren't paired up and digging/dropping... just staging and playing grab-ass I guess. Whatever it was, the 'bows were there. The largest went 20 1/2 inches and was a perfect fish. One was 20 and pretty skinny, and the others were all the normal fat 17-18" range.
We also scored fish on Birds Nest, Princes, and PT's.

Looks like the egg bite may be comin' early this year.....

Gonna try the same tomorrow to confirm.

Great report! One thing I have noticed in Alaska is that the rainbows & char move with the salmon even if they are not actually dropping eggs. I was chasing a school of silvers that were heading upriver at a fast clip and while I didn't get any of them to eat, I did nail quite a few large char that were coming up with them on beads. And the silvers weren't spawning yet! So those fish are smart and they know if they follow the salmon eventually they will see some eggs!

Sorry, I just couldn't resist.

Don't ask, don't tell.