The Northern California Fly Fishing Board

Just back from a few days at Ah Di Nah. Friday rainy and cold, Friday night just plain cold. Sunny and warming the last few days, though. The river is in excellent shape, with much improved visibility. There's still plenty of silt on the bottom to stir up, however, making wading downstream hazardous, slippery, too. Each evening, as the days got warmer, we saw more and more October caddis on the water (and in camp). While a few flies start coming to the water when the sun goes off it, the "happy time" only lasted 45 to 30 minutes before too dark to fish. Fish were rising freely to the caddis, but not with the gay abandon that comes as soon as the hatch reaches it's peak. Soon, though, I think. We had our best luck on the flat water.

Also seen were the usual suspects: small to middling caddis and mayflies. The campground was full (of course, it was a long weekend), but we saw no one in the overflow camp. Lastly, a word to the wise, fairly fresh bear scat spotted in the meadow at Ah Di Nah, so exercise precautions.

Anglerboy

Bruce,
Thanks for the report...glad to hear that the orange guys are showing...I'll be in the U. Sac area for 4 days this week and want to fish big orange not, tiny BWO.

Petri Heil,

Paul (from 166 Maiden Lane)

Paul,

We had the big boys fluttering around the lantern at our camp site at Ash Camp on the evenings of Sept 27 through 29th. During the day in the shade we had fish rising to parachute adams and cripple emergers on all three days of fishing. We didn't see enough October caddis to see if they would key on them. Plenty of calibaetis on the reservoir and smaller stubby brown may flies. Bear scat, but not that fresh below the dam. No guides or other campers competing for space. Camp site was not disturbed for the duration of the trip by bears either. It did get down into the 20's on Friday night by reports of other anglers. No wonder I froze my tuss off that night. Friday Shasta got a nice dusting of snow which melted the next day. After the front moved through, it started to warm up again. Starter went out when we dropped off the first in our group back home. Sure am glad that the starter worked at Ash Camp. That would have been a long walk back to McCloud to call AAA for a tow.

Fishing was worth the trip. Only pics are of Mossbrare Falls. Who takes pics of fish? All fish were caught on dries.

Hope this helps.