Sacramento River around Red Bluff...kayak-fishable?

Hey clayman I might be able to bring you a coosa or cuda 12 depending on the date to use for this trip. I put together some numbers and ideas.
Put in at Anderson river park, river mile 283
It's about 2 miles to deschutes bridge where we can start fishing for salmon
At River Mile 271 is the famous barge hole. About half way through the first day.
River Mile 263.5 is massacre flat. It's BLM land that we can camp on.
 River mile 257.5 is the bend bridge boat ramp where we can take out. That's 26 miles total with 20 the first day. Sounds far but remover your floating at 3 to 4 MPH. The short second day will also help with more time to get home if we go Saturday and Sunday. Drive to redding Friday night, launch first thing Saturday morning off the water by noon on Sunday.  Who's in?

Launch at Jelly's Ferry and pull out in Los Molinos would be pretty cool. Bypass that whole bargehole and gravel bar cluster f*ck altogether. There is a big badass hole with a rock wing right above where mill creek dumps into the sac a couple miles up from losmol... I'd be down.

Btw clayman, i would go minimalist and mobility.

Hey clayman I might be able to bring you a coosa or cuda 12 depending on the date to use for this trip. I put together some numbers and ideas.
Put in at Anderson river park, river mile 283
It's about 2 miles to deschutes bridge where we can start fishing for salmon
At River Mile 271 is the famous barge hole. About half way through the first day.
River Mile 263.5 is massacre flat. It's BLM land that we can camp on.
 River mile 257.5 is the bend bridge boat ramp where we can take out. That's 26 miles total with 20 the first day. Sounds far but remover your floating at 3 to 4 MPH. The short second day will also help with more time to get home if we go Saturday and Sunday. Drive to redding Friday night, launch first thing Saturday morning off the water by noon on Sunday.  Who's in?

Roosters landing is immediately fishable and not too far from ARP. Plus bypass those clay chutes down from ARP and that super lumpy stretch full of snags where cow creek dumps in. However, that would be kind of fun...

I'm game

I'm good the 2nd or 3rd weekend of October to go.


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I want in, I want in !!!  hell we might have enough to take over the barge hole lol 

I would be interested if given enough time to prepare. I have fished from Grimes to the feater river overnight. I have a freind that owns 500 acres about 12 miles down river. We stayed there on the bank and shoved off early to catch more salmon. We also should keep the feather in mind. I havn't fished it some time but always caught fish from below Marysville to Verona.

John

Wow, this could be a great river-centric kayak GTG!  Awesome  .  So it sounds like we'll need to hash out a couple things:

1) The float we want to do
2) The date

For the floats, I'm having to look at maps since I'm relatively unfamiliar with this river  .  But, I'm leaning towards something that's not 26 miles total.  If we find a big concentration of Chinook it'd be great to really work them over and fish them hard, versus having to look at the clock and leaving fish because you have 20 more miles to float.  When I've done 13 mile floats on the Trinity, having to leave actively biting fish was tough.  So perhaps a float in the 10-15 mile range would be ideal.  I like Grimkeeper's idea of avoiding the Barge Hole + gravel bar clusterf*** altogether.  And I do remember those clay chutes just below ARP...they didn't look enjoyable when I drifted through them in a drift boat.  I do like the idea of a more brief float on the second day for loading, shuttling, etc.  So, I think my two choices would be: 1) Rooster's Landing to Bend Bridge, or 2) Jelly's Ferry to Bend Bridge.  The abundance of BLM land in between Jelly's and Bend Bridge sounds great for camping.

As for the dates, I think I'm pretty open for most weekends between September 7 into early October.  When's the best time to be on the river for relatively bright Chinook?  After reading beenfishin's link, it seems most of the fish are getting dark by mid-October.  It would be great to fish during lower flows, but if all the salmon are crusty by the time that occurs then that'd kinda be a bummer.  So I'm willing to put in even if the river's still running a little high.  If you guys want, I can set up a poll (Doodle.com) to see who is available which weekend.  Personally, I'd prefer a September float.

I'm getting excited for this!  Plastic Navy takes on the Sacramento River and comes out with salmon limits! 

Great thoughts Clayman.  While 20 is totally doable on day 1, it may make for long rushed days if you are trying to fish it hard.  Even at 3-4 mph drift rate, that's 5-7 hours of just floating.

I can go almost any weekend.   

-Allen

Yea that might be a little far if were fishing it hard. Jessy has a lot more experience on the river then me so I'm good with his suggestions. I'll check the calander and a see when I'm available. Thinking the last week of September ish

I'd vote for Roosters (Balls Ferry Launch) to Bend Bridge, staying the night just below Jellys Ferry Bridge.  By mid-October the fish have definitely turned dark, but they'll be stacked big time and everyone should have a very good shot at pulling on some fish.  For chromers we'd need to hit it now.  I have Sep 21/22 or Oct 12/13 as my only open weekends.

So I chatted with a CDFW fish bio colleague of mine today about floating the Sac and fishing, and received some great info.  He said camping at Massacre Flat (in between Jelly's Ferry and Bend Bridge) is awesome, and he recommended floating from Rooster's Landing to Bend Bridge.  There are good salmon holes both above and below the Barge Hole, he threw a few names around that I'm sure beenfishin will recognize (Ink's, the Rock Hole, etc.).  He mentioned that there was a brief lapse in fishing up high near Anderson, but the fishing had just picked up significantly downstream near Chico.  He also recommended September as being an ideal month to do this trip.

In addition, he said the trout and smallmouth fishing can be stellar in this stretch, and recommended bringing either a fly rod or light spinner for these fish as well.  I also asked him if they've ever had any trouble with leaving vehicles overnight at Balls Ferry and Bend Bridge, and he said they've never had any issues.

September 21-22 is sounding pretty good  .

21-22 is no good for me, but the following weekend would be good. I'll be using fly gear so smallies would be awesome to get into.


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 Nope, no smallies in there. And if there were, they definitely wouldn't pick up hula grubs in slack water around stumps

I'm in.