Earlier this summer, a good friend who’s a fellow guide told me that he was done guiding for stripers on the lower Sacramento. After a great June with lots of big fish to the boat and a mid-July shad run, fishing had gotten tough. Warm and low water had made big stripers hard to come by during the first week or two of July. We figured that most of the bigger fish were gorged on shad, and we were left with swarms of 12-to-14-inch stripers that would nip a Clouser all the way to the boat.
This situation got me thinking, though. I changed my game, explored new types of water, and eventually began to find the bigger fish again. They weren’t impossible to catch — they just weren’t acting the way they usually do every summer. Flows that were 50 percent of normal, water temperatures nearly five to seven degrees higher than usual, and the appearance of all those shad at midsummer had changed things, so as a guide and angler, I had to change how I fished. This, in turn, got me thinking about how the drought is going to affect fall fishing this year for trout and steelhead on the valley tailwaters. The drought will be more evident than ever come late September through October as flows on rivers such as the lower Sacramento, lower Yuba, Feather, and American are kept at federal minimums and reservoirs reach capacities so low that they may resemble the rivers they once were. It will not be business as usual for anglers, and these conditions will force all anglers to reevaluate and adjust how they fish if they want to be successful.
We have already started to see the effects of low water and warmer water temperatures on this year’s salmon runs. No matter what method of fly fishing an angler prefers, there is no debate about the fact that trout and steelhead feed heavily during the fall months on eggs laid by chinook salmon that migrate up the valley tailwaters to spawn. There is an astonishing symbiosis between the trout and steelhead in these rivers and their close relatives, the salmon, that come home to their natal rivers to propagate their species and die each year. This year, the salmon are late to show, and those that have shown up are moving upriver fast to find the coldest water.
On the lower Sacramento River, salmon fishing opened July 15 from Red Bluff downstream. I was on the river guiding for stripers that day, and I talked to the Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist who surveys anglers via jet boat while driving up and down the river. At 4:00 p.m., he had not yet found an angler who had caught a salmon. Once the river from Red Bluff up to the Deschutes Road bridge opened on August 1, anglers began catching salmon in the Barge Hole area, because water temperatures are much colder farther upriver. In mid-August, when I wrote these words, there were a few reports of salmon in the Yuba and American, and the Feather was fishing well in the upper reaches around the dam outlet, but the fish were concentrated in the closed section above the dam outlet, where water temperatures are substantially lower.
What does all this mean for anglers that regard the “egg hatch” from late September into November as offering some of the best trout and steelhead fishing of the year? It means they are going to have to adjust, adapt, and be persistent if they want to have success. The first thing anglers will have to understand is what the low flows and warmer water temperatures will do to the chinook salmon as they spawn and lay their eggs.
The Effects of Heat
The biggest issue is the warmer water temperatures, according my good friend and fellow guide Anthony Carruesco (www.acflyfishing.com), who also has a fisheries biology degree. Anthony guides the lower Sacramento and Klamath Rivers and has spent a few summers in Alaska guiding, so he knows his salmon. As Anthony explained it, “In the Sacramento River drainage, chinook salmon eggs that have been deposited in water temperatures warmer than 60 degrees Fahrenheit will experience a 90 percent mortality rate. Unfortunately, last year through most of October, the water temperatures up in Redding were consistently 60 degrees or higher.” It is a safe assumption that most of our valley tailwaters will see water temperatures above 60 degrees this year, because the lower Sacramento is usually colder than the others, since it has more volume.
Anthony also explained that the elevated water temperatures have changed the behavior of the spawning salmon: when water temperatures are 60 degrees or higher, salmon tend to back off redds or stall their spawning. Evidence of this is the presence of empty redds in riffles that may have had fish on them the day before. Anthony said that not until water temperatures are consistently between 53 and 57 degrees will salmon stay on their redds and have the chance to spawn successfully.
Trout and steelhead behavior will be affected by these changes in salmon spawning success and behavior. They won’t be found where they usually can be located. As salmon begin to stage in the runs and then move up into the riffles to cut their redds, trout and steelhead follow them to gorge on the bugs that are turned up as the salmon move rocks and gravel to create their spawning sites. Then, as the female salmon began to drop their eggs and the males move into fertilize them, the trout and steelhead gorge themselves on eggs in the shallow riffles.
When trout and steelhead are feeding in shallow water, they feel exposed. The cover of low light and fast, riffley water can help offset the risk, but it is really the huge food supply that motivates them to take the risk in the first place. With the low and warm water this fall, that food source may not be as consistent. Trout and steelhead will not risk being exposed in shallow water if the egg buffet is not there or if the salmon are not actively making redds, turning up rocks and dislodging bugs to eat. It is much safer to drop back into the runs and to hang there, eat there, and wait for the salmon to move up.
In years past, during August and September, I have found that trout and steelhead shadow salmon moving upriver and hang around them as they hunker down in deep water, waiting for the free meals they know are coming later. I imagine when warm water forces salmon off their redds, the trout and steelhead will follow them out of the shallow riffles as they drop back to find cooler water when the redds heat up over 60 degrees.
The timing of the salmon runs may be off this year, too. Those most in the know have forecast big returns of fish for 2015. With water temperatures in the high 50s to low 60s, however, cooler weather and early fall rains are going to be needed to reduce the water temperatures to where they need to be for fish to spawn at their usual time.
What’s an angler to do? Come mid-September, start watching evening water temperatures. You probably won’t be driving to the river with a stream thermometer, but you can pay attention to published nighttime lows on the river that you want to fish. The first light on any river will offer the coolest water temperatures of the day, so if you are looking for salmon on their redds and trout behind them early in the season, early morning fishing can be the key to success.
And do carry a thermometer when you’re on the rivers this fall. A few degrees can make all the difference in the world, and a good digital thermometer is a great investment. I tend to forget to measure water temperature when I arrive at the river and start fishing, but if the angling starts to get tough, I usually remember to take the water temperature, and it may tell me why. Of course, many times, the water temperature is within the acceptable range, and temperature probably has nothing to do with why fishing is slow.
Carrying a thermometer is also a way to be a good steward of the river. Keep an eye on water temperatures around midday, and if the water gets up to around 70 degrees, the point at which the stress of being caught can kill a released fish, go take a nap or hang out until the evening, when water temperatures cool.
Modify Your Rig
With much lower f lows on valley tailwaters this year, anglers will also have to change their rigs a bit. I was forced to do so as early as this spring, because flows on the lower Sacramento, lower Yuba, and Feather Rivers were at all-time lows. I have found that when fish are feeding in shallow water, using smaller split shot and fishing a smaller indicator on a nymphing rig is key. There is one school of thought that says when fish are in shallow water feeding below redds, you need a very heavy weight to get down right on the bottom in front of the fish. I tend to agree with this, but this year, I think most of the redds on our rivers are going to be in much shallower water than usual, and the single SSG or two AAA Sure Shot split shot that I usually use (1.6 grams of lead) will hang up and not achieve a natural presentation. I began to experience this on the lower Yuba last year when flows dropped down to nearly 600 cubic feet per second during the fall. I switched to much lighter split shot and to a much smaller, less intrusive indicator. Something white or light blue worked better for me than the standard bright orange or chartreuse. One thing I noticed last year was that many salmon eggs that were laid were not successfully fertilized or incubated due to the warmer water temperatures. This resulted in a lot of eggs in the drift that were not the typical color —a “dead” egg is a very different color than a healthy fertilized or unfertilized egg. An egg fly that is the pale yellow or off-white color of a “dead” egg is not a pattern that many anglers carry, but such flies will be important this year, and I found them to be hugely successful last year. Also, with the repetition of high water temperatures this year, there will be many more “dead” eggs than newly hatched salmon — alevins — in the drift later in the year, because much of the early spawn will be unsuccessful. Consequently, swinging or dead drifting salmon smolt patterns or fry patterns may not be the most successful angling method later in the year.
Beyond these particulars, with the lower flows we see this year, you will have to change your overall approach to fishing the valley tailwaters. As a guide, I usually spend most of my day in a drift boat, with anglers fishing up and down the runs from the boat. Last winter, when flows were incredibly low, I realized that on smaller rivers such as the lower Yuba and Feather, by running through a riffle in the drift boat, I would spook fish out of the shallows or out of the entire run. With low flows, getting out of the boat and fishing runs by wading becomes important. For bank anglers, stealth becomes critical, and many times, not getting the soles of your boots wet will be key to picking fish off on shallow redds. (And never, ever wade into redds.) Overall, I remain an optimist. Our rivers and fisheries have survived other droughts and decades of human interference, so I am sure they will make it through this drought, as well. In the meantime, we all still want to get out on the water this fall and experience some success, but to do so, we are going to have make some adjustments. Don’t be afraid to try new approaches this fall. One thing I have learned after two years of drought is that it changes conditions for all species of fish, and the ways I have fished in years past don’t always work. Like the fish, I have had to change my ways.
