Anglers look for strong trout opener
Come Saturday, anglers across California will try to turn their fishing rods into magic wands.
At many lakes and streams, they just might be able to do it.
Unlike a year ago, conditions are good for the most part for this year’s opening of trout season.
The official opener takes place at most streams in the Sierra Nevada and Northern California, and lakes in the Eastern Sierra. The date is a symbolic rite of passage, even at streams below dams that are open year-round, as well as lakes across the Bay Area and the foothills of the Sierra, Cascade and Siskiyou ranges.
After warm weather Wednesday with high temperatures in the high 70s in the mountains and 80s in the foothills, the forecast Saturday is for party cloudy skies with high temperatures in the mountains ranging from mid-50s to low-60s. In Northern California, where the best prospects are, a low-pressure system could drop the high temperature to 50 degrees with a chance of showers.
The best destination is where Fall River, Upper Sacramento River, Hat Creek and other streams are in good shape, with moderate flows and good clarity, though cold water temperatures. The Lower Sac, from the Posse Grounds in Redding on downstream, open yearround, has been fishing good all month on float trips with drift boats.
In addition, many lakes with good trout fishing are in great shape, 90 percent full or higher. Campgrounds are open at lakes and streams across the foothills up the mountain slopes into national forest to roughly elevations in the 4,500-foot range, with some exceptions by region.
In the Bay Area, trout plants are at a year’s peak and bonus trout programs are in place at 10 lakes in Alameda and Contra Costa counties.
Great start to summer
To put the conditions of this year’s opener in perspective, just remember what we faced one year ago on this date: a mammoth snowpack, high, muddy and cold rivers, many unfishable, with water temperatures and radical
weather a better fit for Admiral Byrd than trout anglers. The recent weather has been radical in the mountains: It snowed a week ago, approached 80 on Wednesday, and will be followed with a chance of rain Saturday.
Of the prospects for the opener, one of the best examples and destinations for Saturday is along the Sacramento River corridor.
Above Shasta Lake, the river looks great from Pollard Flat to Vollmers, as well as
from Sims to Pollard. In Dunsmuir, the stream has been planted for the opener. Stream flows have been steady this week at 725 cubic feet per second (cfs), ideal for fishing, though the water is cold, as is typical for the early season, and if you don’t adjust to lighter takes, you can get the ki-bosh. Access is good at many spots from cutoff spurs off Interstate 5, but by raft, you can hit all the spots unavailable to those who wade.
Last year, the Upper Sac hit
flows as high as 32,000 cfs in the floods and ran 3,000 cfs to 5,000 cfs for most of the early spring.
Downstream, Shasta Lake is gorgeous, 92 percent full of cool, clean water. Trout fishing is good trolling up the lake arms, best well up the Pit Arm, as well as along the Shasta Caverns on the McCloud arm and up the Sacramento River arm at O’Brien.
Below Shasta Lake, some guided trips in drift boats out of the Fly Shop have reported some mind-boggling catchand-release numbers this month. It’s best side-drifting from the Posse Grounds in Redding on downstream.
Open/closed
Another prospect is Hat Creek in eastern Shasta County. Along Highway 89, the Department of Fish and Wildlife has stocked it twice, and on Wednesday, the National Forest Service opened the campgrounds along the stream here. The Wild Trout Section of Hat Creek, near Highway 299, is expected to be crowded with flyfishers at the best riffles.
In the north Sierra, the open/closed line is at about 4,500 feet elevation. At Stumpy Meadows Reservoir, the beautiful lake at 4,200 feet in Eldorado National Forest, the Forest Service will open its campground this week. Yet up the hill from Placerville, at the Crystal Basin Recreation Area, the Forest Service plans to open the campgrounds at Camino Cove at Union Valley Reservoir (4,870 feet elevation) and Gerle Creek Reservoir on May 18. The other campgrounds at Union Valley, plus the camp at Ice House Reservoir, is scheduled to open the following week, on May 24. Loon Lake (6,410 feet) isn’t planned to open until June 15.
In the Bay Area, 10 lakes have trout programs, most where anglers pay a daily trout-fishing fee and that money is used to stock trout beyond that provided by the Department of Fish and Wildlife. Those 10 lakes are Del Valle, Chabot, Shadow Cliffs, Don Castro and Temescal in Alameda County, and Los Vaqueros, San Pablo, Lafayette and Contra Loma in Contra Costa County.