Mid-June Ted Fay Fly Shop Fishing Report
Bob Grace
6/18/26 Ted Fay Fly Shop Report
Sacramento River
Flow: 345 cfs at Delta
There is a smattering of all kinds of insects: small caddis, march browns, yellow sallies, pale morning duns, wasps, ants, termites and a sizable number of golden stones. Though few in number, there are a few green drakes about. On days with a glaring sun and no clouds, fishing is better in the morning or the evenings. On rare cloudy days, even the mid-day can fish well. Tight-line nymphing the bubbly pocket water is a great way to bring fish to the net. Use heavily-weighted small nymphs like a purple perdigon, a brush hog or a tungsten beaded pheasant tail. If fishing a 2 nymph set up, a large stone nymph or cased caddis is always a good choice. Let the nymphs swing at the end of a drift because that often triggers a fish to strike. Golden stones are hatching in the evening and that brings the fish out of the depths to feed.
Green Drake
McCloud River
Flow: 204 cfs at Ah Di Nah
Summer is upon us and days have been in the 90s. River temps in the McCloud stay cool even on the hot days and the river below Ash Camp was 50 degrees at noon yesterday. Patterns like a chubby chernobyl golden stone and a small baetis dropper (Little Amigo, Perdigon, Weiss Nymph) are still the ticket. Just make sure your dropper can get deep. Yesterday, with a dropper-dry set up, even though there were very few surface feeds, more fish were coaxed to take by the dry up until about noon. When the fish want a snack, they are keyed into the goldens. Fish the shady spots, like beneath the giant leaves of the riverside Indian Rhubarb. It’s highly effective to carry 2 rods, one for the dry-dropper and another with an indicator set up, with a heavily weighted stonefly nymph and baetis, so you can get in the deeper spots of holes. At 3:00 a small hatch of march browns started to hatch in the fast water and the fish started to feed. We switched to a Brown Parachute Adams (#16) and coaxed a few fish to strike. If you see fish rising, don’t hesitate to put away the nymphs and fish a single dry that imitates whatever is hatching!
Indian Rhubarb