dry creek, natomas, 3-12-11

dry creek with Matt

very tired

cherry island to discovery

approx 13 miles

5.5 hours on the water

enjoy the pics and go do it    last pic today is right before the NEMDC pump house    then camera batt died.

oah yeah, marked some fish on sonar, found some great fishing holes, and did not fish    next time though 

jim

nice looking trip guys, thanks for sharing, cameron

That looks like big fun you guys. Watch out for the cow pies! Looks like Sonoma county almost. Where does the creek dump into?

NOW THAT'S SOME HARDCORE STUFF!!  I never even knew it was possible to float that section.  Maybe a cruise down fisherman's lake might be of interest to you guys?  I usually catch bass (I've seen some 5+ lbrs pulled out recently) along San Juan in the canals.

Nice pics... those are some of my fav' types of places to fish.

Water still a little high and muddy.  Maybe in a week or two till next month should be good. 

thanks guys 

the longer version:

Dry creek, a partly ephemeral stream that flows from the northern central portion into Sacramento, becoming a drain canal and emptying into the Sacramento river at the American River confluence , the Sac R. boat ramp is actually on the drain....sweet.

We launched way up on elverta road at Cherry Island Golf course.  the fist half was trhough a mixture of moderatly incised riparian zones with mature riparian forests, and a high sandy bed load. Average water depth after a failrry wet spring in the upper reaches was 1 to 2.5 feet. After mile 4, aferage water depth became 2.5 feet, bed load remained sandy, water remainded clear with 12 to 15 inces visibility. Leaving the riparian forest and enerting onto incised stream through pature land with the occasional bank-anchoring tree, we began encountering significantly more woody debris, sometimes piling up all the way across the channel, necessitating a couple of portages through teh pasture.  Meeting up with teh NEMDC, within a short period of time the flow was doubled by regional drain discharge. Note: nearly the entire volume of the stream is overland flow and shallow graining stream infiltration, becuase where incised the bottom of the stream, rests partially in a very thick layer of hardpan... based on observation reaching 6-8 feet in thickness. traveling down teh channelized stream with 30 foot -high levees on both sides, but thick thick thick riparian brush, some sort of invasive I fortget what it's called with pods and a million little sprouts, we began encountering even more channel-blocking debris piles, now composed of up to 20 percent plastics.  We also began observing the tell-tale detritus from both transietn wastes and transeint encampments from high water we had earlier in th spring.  We spotted our first tent not long after that.... a really big safe that had been dumped off the bridge.... after it had a hole touched in the side. Some points were sob ad that we couldn't pass in the main channel... fortunately the channel was overbanked in large portions of the channelized region, so we were able to move out into the floodplain with our kayaks and avoid the channel-blocking debris.

As we continued down, the water velocity remained high, visibility was now minimal, we began marking more fish... especially on the edges of the brush.  Average water depth was now roughly 4 feet. Passing Arcade Creek, we encountered the sinuous stream portion again, and then continued having to make maneuvers around branches and trees and mess.. and a couple more portages.  Once we passed into the flood plain of the American River, we were paddling basically along Garden Highway, the road noise picked back up, but we still had lots and lots of birds, average water depth increased to 10 feet and the fish habitat looked insane. We marked a bunch of fish on the sonar. we had one more major portage around a bridge and continued on paddling through the narrow channelized area with 10-foot high partially submerged weedy brush, over 10 foot deep water and a 60 foot high riparian canopy of cotton woods and California wild grape.

At the very end we swung through some tight corner and deep water, and pulled out on the boat ramp after 5.5 hour of paddling nonstop with an average velocity while moving of more than 4.5 miles per hour.

Although I only made about six casts, I definitely have new fishing spots and perhaps the closest to Missouri float that I've done in ages.




Jim



Striper Slayer - YES, Let me know when and I'll be on it    I know some really cool places off the canals and sloughs    but have never put in...lol

yester - yes, there should be a couple places to get a little stream fish to bite up above the NEMDC, and below should be awesome once the water goes down a little....though I still have not fished either 

ravensblack - here's the route  http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=4347614   but you'll have to zoom out 

Now THATS a report!

I'm happy to see that you guys had a good time, without any incidents.

It's interesting to see that area from a paddlers point of view after patrolling it for years by truck.

lol, Cant believe the "long version" I posted.  Though, I was drunk with exhaustion...
not really recovered yet either....  13 miles is way too much for a 5.5 hour trip!   But, Now I know where to break the float into fish-able sections 

jim

Jim, that is one awesome and impressive scouting ya did! So happy that ya fond some places that look promising. 13 miles and 5.5hrs in a hellavu journey!! Thanks for the report, looking forward to seeing how ya do on your next trip out there

You picked the right time to go.

Creek levels are flooding yards and lapping at the bottom of the bridges.

So are there any details to this post?
Bear river is just down the road from me and thought about trying a trip down and getting out at Spenceville flew over it in a plane and discovered it has several water falls in canyons.
Great adventure thanks for the post.

So are there any details to this post?

sorry, I didn't give out specifics on where I went.  I don't want anyone else getting all my fish 

thanks 

- want to do a run on the bear?  I want to float the section below CFW Res for smallies.  I know its closed part of the year, but not sure when