Sacramento River

Fishing the Sacramento River

The Sacramento River runs from freestone headwaters near Mt. Shasta, through two big dams and Redding, and out into the slow, wide water of the Sacramento Valley. Two stretches have their own Barbless pages, The Upper Sac and The Lower Sac; this page follows the whole river. The Upper Sac starts on the Trinity Divide, where the North, Middle and South Forks gather in Lake Siskiyou behind Box Canyon Dam. From that dam to Shasta Lake at Lakehead is about 30 miles of pocket water, riffles, runs and boulder pools, with I-5 and the railroad alongside past Dunsmuir, Castle Crags State Park and Sims Flat. Below Shasta Dam the river moves for about 2.5 miles before slowing into Keswick Lake. Below Keswick Dam, The Lower Sac is a big tailwater through Redding and Anderson to Bend, reached from the paved Sacramento River Trail, city parks and ramps, with old volcanic flows to cast from between Jellys Ferry and Bend. Past Bend it turns into valley river: deep runs, gravel bars, islands and side sloughs. The gates of the old diversion dam at Red Bluff were raised for good in 2011, so the lake that once backed up there no longer forms. The river then winds through orchards past Sycamore Grove, Gravel Pit Road, Mill Creek, the Tehama Bridge and Kopta Slough to Woodson Bridge, and on past Hamilton City and Ord Bend toward Colusa and Princeton, where the fishing turns on migratory fish passing through rather than resident trout. Trout do best from Shasta Dam to Red Bluff, with a very heavy caddis hatch in March and April. CDFW lists the Sacramento among the Central Valley's major American shad rivers; shad of 2 to 6 pounds peak from April through June, best around Woodson Bridge and Los Molinos. Spawning striped bass push upriver toward Colusa and Princeton in spring. Fall-run Chinook salmon fishing reopens in 2026 after a three-year closure, with a general season from mid-July to mid-December; the exact dates and boundaries for each section are in the Freshwater Sport Fishing Regulations. The state record Chinook, 88 pounds, came from this river. Steelhead, the sea-run form of coastal rainbow trout, run with the salmon, and you need a Steelhead Report Card. White sturgeon are catch-and-release only, with seasons split by section, so check the current map first. Green sturgeon are federally protected, and fishing for them is illegal. On the Upper Sac, wade and fish nymphs all year and dries from April to November. Below the dams most anglers fish from boats or drift, because the current is strong and the channel large; newcomers should hire a local guide. Low water opens gravel bars and wadeable riffles, and high water sends you to the bank with bait and lures. Drift glo-bugs through runs up to about 6 feet deep for steelhead, and swing chartreuse or orange shad flies through medium flows. Regulations change and differ by section, so check the current California regulations from CDFW before you go.