With The General Trout Season Opener Around the Corner, How’s The Fishing in Siskiyou County?

With many of Siskiyou County’s best fishing rivers due to open on Saturday, we thought we’d offer up the forecasts of a pair of local fly fishermen.

First, local outfitter Craig Nielsen of Shasta Trout offers up his latest fishing report, which – if you read between the lines – offers a lot of information about how his clients have been clobbering fish on the Upper Sacramento, Lower Sacramento, and Pit River.

His take? The Upper Sacramento is high but fishing well (you have to pick your spots – much of the river’s unfishable). The Pit River is fishing beautifully, but is crowded. And things are looking good for the McCloud and Fall River openers, though access may be an issue on the McCloud.

Meanwhile, local fly fishing blog The Trout Underground offers his typically quirky take on the area’s rivers and fishing prospects here, though we’ve excerpted one small portion for you:

This year – due to an above-normal snowpack in California’s mountains and rainy/snowy spring weather, a lot of rivers will likely be high.

(Note I said “high” and not “unfishably high.” The last time I pronounced the Upper Sac “blown out and unfishable,” someone wrote to say they’d had their best day ever on the river.)

What follows is a loose assemblage of rumors, half-truths, guide promotion and outright lies.

At no time should any of my readers actually believe anything they read in this forecast (I’m a fly fisherman after all), nor change their carefully laid plans based on this information.

(Void where prohibited by law.)

Click here to read his lengthy forecast on river flows, access, what’s hot, and what isn’t.

Enjoy the 2010 trout season!

Fly Fishing on the Klamath and Upper Sac

Trips on Northern California Rivers

February 9th – 15th

What a week!  We started out with an epic afternoon on the Pit River which during any other time of year would have been fantastic.  To experience catching fish after fish in the dead of winter was just too good to believe.  On an afternoon on the Upper Sac we did not have the epic proportions, finding fewer fish but all were sizable, most well into the teens.

This week the bite on the Klamath turned on for us as well, particularly when we swung flies, on a few runs we enjoyed multiple grabs. We are in the midst of prime time with increased water temps and spring like weather.  Just before the weekend, Scott and George found several fish including a couple brutes.