Fly Fishing Report 4 /25/25 - Spring Northern California Fly Fishing

Matt Formento • April 25, 2025

Both the Weather & Fishing are heating up. Lower Sac, Shasta Lake,  & the McCloud River are all excellent options.

Best Northern California Fly Fishing

Spring fly fishing in Northern California is in full swing. We have two more months of these prime conditions and couldn’t be more excited as we head into the heart of our spring season.



Lower Sacramento

The Lower Sac has been putting out consistent reports of good fishing all week. Flows briefly bumped up to 10,000 cfs to help outward migrating juvenile Chinook on their journey downriver, and are now back down to 6,500 cfs. The fishing remained solid when flows were at 10k cfs and have stayed great as it drops. Later in the morning has had the most consistent action. There have been decent hatches of PMDs and Caddis, with a few yellow sallies starting to show up as well as a few of the larger stonefly varieties present. The good ole rubberleg stonefly imitation has been putting fish in the net from top to bottom and has been a top fly for many guides. Looking into the coming weeks we expect these hatches to continue building and the bite only getting better. These hatches are when PMD imitations like the split back PMD and classic Frenchie will work the best. In May we typically see some of the biggest hatches of PMDs of the season and you can expect the fish to be feeding aggressively in the shallow fast water when this happens. Some of the most exciting fishing of the year on the Sac is coming up soon with the chance to catch fish in extremely shallow water for this big river.


Lake Shasta

Shasta Lake is no doubt the hottest fishing report we have, the last two weeks have been nothing short of phenomenal. One guest fishing with us on Shasta recently reported that it was “the best fishing of their entire lives”. The hard fighting spotted bass are being caught by the dozens and from the sounds of it, you will have sore forearms from fighting fish all day if you go fishing on Shasta Lake right now. It also sounds like a plethora of tactics are working, but the most consistent is the deadly effective “Float n Fly” technique that imitates a wounded shad. Spotted Bass will continue this ferocious bite into May ahead of their spawn.


Walk & Wade


Upper Sac - McCloud - Pit - Hat Creek

We recently received an excellent report on the McCloud River from our guide Travis Babin who fished it on 4/22. The flows were ideal and there was even some dry fly action to be had. It’s officially go time on the McCloud and we expect May and June to be prime time on this river. When flows and temperatures become ideal, the first few weeks of fishing on our walk n wade rivers can be the best of the entire season. Uneducated fish from the winter will be excited to take advantage of the first major bug hatches, and a keen angler will be sure not to miss this opportunity.  We recently received an excellent report on the McCloud River from our guide Travis Babin who fished it on 4/22. The flows were ideal and there was even some dry fly action to be had. It’s officially go time on the McCloud and we expect May and June to be prime time on this river. When flows and temperatures become ideal, the first few weeks of fishing on our walk n wade rivers can be the best of the entire season. Uneducated fish from the winter will be excited to take advantage of the first major bug hatches, and a keen angler will be sure not to miss this opportunity. 


The Upper Sac is flowing 2,000 cfs at Delta which is higher than most like to fish it, so not many folks have tried. We fully expect it to be receding from these high flows in the near future, so it definitely needs to be on the radar. We haven't had any guides on Hat Creek over the past week but this should also be a good option in the near future with the nice weather and increased bug hatches.

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