Upper Sac Salmon

Down at the fish cleaning station last night, every boat coming in limited yesterday, over 3" of rain here fish are moving, you should do well this weekend.

Nice to hear! 

Down at the fish cleaning station last night, every boat coming in limited yesterday, over 3" of rain here fish are moving, you should do well this weekend.

Nice to hear!

Ended up doing pretty poortly myself - my dad caught two 15-20 pound fish the first day which was good to see. Apparently it was really good - limits for everyone -until the day we got there. The guides said that all the rain pushed a lot of the fish in the upper sac up into the hatchery. I thought the rain was going to be a good thing. The second day we drove over to the trinity and fished a lot of holes from junction city down to del loma. Saw quite a few fish but couldn't get them to take anything - we threw roe with sliding bobbers, bounced roe, spinners, jigs, even tried a quickfish. My brother got a small trout and that was it!

This weekend made me feel like a total noob but we gave it our best shot. Definitely going to hit the ocean next weekend if the weather is good - need to redeem myself!

I am mostly interested in what techniques people use to drift roe from kayaks. I have used a sliding bobber before and I think that might be what I will try the most. Thanks for the info!

I have very little experience fishing the Sac, but I've done quite a bit of kayak fishing for salmon and steelhead on the Trinity and Klamath.  When fishing roe from the kayak, I prefer boondogging.  When you locate a nice drift or pool, paddle into a lane of current, chuck your drift rig (preferably with a Slinkey, Bouncing Betty, or some other less snag-prone weight) about 30-40 feet upstream, and just let the current take you downstream so your bait is directly upstream of you.  Holding your rod with one hand and your paddle with the other, you can use the paddle to make minor adjustments as you drift downstream so you don't get thrown into an eddy and your drift gets messed up.  The strikes will feel vicious when boondogging because when a fish grabs your bait, your kayak continues to drift downstream so it feels like they really hammered it!  Another cool thing with boondogging is you can cover long stretches of water in one drift.  If the depth increases through the drift, all you have to do is let out line until you're bouncing bottom again.

Can't say I've tried a slip float from the kayak, but I don't see why it wouldn't work.  I think it'd be great for those deep pools where salmon will sometimes suspend mid-water.  A potential issue I could see is if your float is moving at a different speed than your kayak, in which case you'd have to make some adjustments to keep up with your float.  Also, if your float is adjusted to drift through a shallower part of a pool and all of a sudden the pool drops off into deep water, you'll have to take the time to reel in and adjust the position of your float stopper so your bait gets deep.  At least with boondogging, all you have to do is let out more line once you're no longer in contact with the bottom.  My two cents anyway  .

Thanks for the input! Boondogging sounds like a great technique and also sounds really fun. - i'll have to look into the rig used because I havent fished that technique before. I'll definitely let you know how it goes this weekend. Is fishing the Trinity this weekend an option? I have seen pictures before and it looks beautiful.

No problem!  Just look up "steelhead drift fishing rig" and you should find the rig.  It's extremely common among salmon and steelhead anglers.

As for the Trinity: yep, definitely an option this weekend.  That's why I'm headed over there Friday morning.  Going to do a 2-day float in a stretch of river I haven't fished in nearly 4 years.  Great scenery, far fewer people, and oh yeah, there's fish too  .

Hey I posted about this weekend but couldn't figure out how to quote several people at once hehe. Howd you do? Probably way better than us!

Hey I posted about this weekend but couldn't figure out how to quote several people at once hehe. Howd you do? Probably way better than us!

Darn, was hoping you guys would score on the Trinity!  The guides are right about the rain: when the river is rising, it convinces the fish to go into "migration mode" and they steadily move upstream without stopping.  It's extremely difficult to get them to bite when they're in "migration mode".  The good thing with the rain this time of year is that it cools down the water temperature and also convinces fresh fish downstream to migrate up.  By the time the flows are dropping, hopefully a batch of fresh fish will arrive where you were planning on fishing.  That's good news for salmon, because you want the freshest fish available as their bodies start to decompose while they reside in freshwater.  You guys might've hit a lull in between pods of migrating fish.

As for us on the Trinity: we did quite well!  I posted a report in the Members Only reports board.  It was almost entirely a morning bite, with the fish shutting off by 1300.

Hey I posted about this weekend but couldn't figure out how to quote several people at once hehe. Howd you do? Probably way better than us!

Darn, was hoping you guys would score on the Trinity!  The guides are right about the rain: when the river is rising, it convinces the fish to go into "migration mode" and they steadily move upstream without stopping.  It's extremely difficult to get them to bite when they're in "migration mode".  The good thing with the rain this time of year is that it cools down the water temperature and also convinces fresh fish downstream to migrate up.  By the time the flows are dropping, hopefully a batch of fresh fish will arrive where you were planning on fishing.  That's good news for salmon, because you want the freshest fish available as their bodies start to decompose while they reside in freshwater.  You guys might've hit a lull in between pods of migrating fish.

As for us on the Trinity: we did quite well!  I posted a report in the Members Only reports board.  It was almost entirely a morning bite, with the fish shutting off by 1300.

I took a quick look at your post - I am going to check it out later, even though it makes me a little bit depressed! hehe

It took a little while for me to figure out ocean fishing. It is just another learning process that I'll have to go through. I think we did hit a lull because the fish that were around were swimming right by everything I was tossing out there. People nearby us only were getting fish occasionally. Looks like you guys hit a good spot - nice job!

This week I'm installing a depth finder - planning on trout this week and rockfish this weekend - gotta make up for it!