Captain Justin Thompson with our first Sacramento River King salmon of the 2021 season!
The 2021 Sacramento River King salmon season is underway and we are catching fresh run Kings, beginning today! We started our morning at about 2:30 am where we drove to Red Bluff from Redding to launch the boat. The Sycamore launch ramp in Red Bluff was busy at 3:00 am and there were dozens of boats that had launched and already in the water. We made our way downstream in the dark and settled into the hole we were going to fish at first light. We were not alone. Just minutes after legal fishing time at 4:53 am, everyone had started fishing for this years class of returning King salmon. We had deployed our Brad’s KF 15’s and 16’s and Just before daylight, Captain Justin Thompson hooked the first fish of the day in the hole we were fishing. With over a dozen boats hovering over the deep hole, the bite never really turned on and we didn’t see another fish hooked for the few hours we were there. We left the hole a few hours into the day looking for some water less traveled, but found every hole to have way too many boats sitting over the holding salmon. We had a few tugs before finishing the morning and heading in. Overall the catch numbers were a little low, but thats not unusual for this time of the year. It’s very early in the season now and the salmon fishing on the Sac will build daily through September into October. Catching a King salmon on opening day is a ritual here on the Sacramento River, it has been so for decades. Time will tell, but we’re optimistic we will see a solid King salmon return and look forward to catching hundreds of big kings with our great clients again this year. I think it’s safe to say we will have lots of good days this year and encourage anyone looking to fish for river salmon this year to give us a call and let us help your group catch some great King salmon. The salmon are big again this year from what we’ve seen in the ocean catches and from what we saw on the river today. This could be the year we see a descent number of forty pound class Kings and maybe even a few over fifty! Now is the time to book your trip folks! Now that the procrastinator anglers are seeing salmon caught on the Sac, we’ll likely fill our remaining available dates. It’s unfortunate, but we see so many anglers wait too long to book their trips some years and miss out on a chance at catching a big King salmon or two to fill their daily limit. Even if you can’t arrange for a trip with one of our guides, we can help you find a good guide with another outfitter/guide service to fish with. Thanks and have a great summer!
Captain Jeff Goodwin
7/16/21 Fresh caught Sacramento River King salmon!
