SACRAMENTO RIVER KING SALMON FISHING TECHNIQUES
- JD Richey
- Jul 12
- 12 min read
SALMON SEASON SET TO OPEN FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 3 YEARS!
BY JD RICHEY
With king salmon season on the Sacramento River (the Feather, American and Mokelumne Rivers too!) set to open soon for the first time in three years, I figured I'd give everyone a quick refresher on technique. This time around, let's take a look at trolling...
TROLLING THE SAC
While the upper river features classic salmon holes and flats with a cobble bottom, the Sac’s lower reaches, say from Verona down to Rio Vista, serve up the best trolling options. Down there, the bottom is relatively snag-free and of uniform depth for long stretches. The current is generally minimal there as well and since the Sac is more like a big ditch in that reach— it’s like a salmon highway — the fish don’t spend much time holding. That’s where trolling is the way to go.
Though the scenery in that part of the world is less than awe-inspiring — rip-rap banks and levees that seemingly go on forever — the quality of the kings more than makes up for the lack of scenic vistas. Since the fish aren’t loitering in the lower river, they tend to be chrome bright and often even sport sea lice even though they are close to 100 miles inland at that point.
Timing
Feather-river bound kings are available in the lower Sacramento when the season opens (usually July 16, but subject to change) but the main issue at that time of year is the water is typically well over the 70-degree mark. You can catch a fish or two in that boiling water at times, especially near the mouth of the cooler American River, but I do much better when things cool down into at least high 60’s.
Sadly, that may not be until late September or even early October. For that reason, I book my trolling season dates from early October though Thanksgiving. It seems as if the fish are coming in later and later these days, so early December is worth a shot too as long as rains haven’t muddied up the river.
Trolling Lanes
The Sacramento Metro area is one of the most popular zones for trolling. Countless kings have been caught in the shadows of the downtown high rises by anglers fishing out of Discovery Park and Miller Park. Downstream, Garcia Bend and Stan’s are popular launches for accessing Haycock Shoals along with Garcia and Freeport bends. Below the Freeport Bridge lie well known trolling lanes like Scribner’s Bend and the Clarksburg Flats, which can be accessed through the 4x4 ramp below the town of Clarksburg. From that sandy launch, you can also head downstream and fish near Courtland and Paintersville.
Below there, the river necks down nicely between Walnut Grove and Ryde and the fish are a little more closely packed together as they move through the area. The closest ramp is just a mile or so downstream at Ko-Ket Resort. As we get closer to the California Delta, Isleton is one of the busiest salmon trolling spots, easily accessed via Vierra’s Resort. Finally, the Sacramento enters the delta proper just above Rio Vista and the river gets huge down there. Rough water and weeds can make fishing problematic in that area at times, but it can also be very good — particularly near the ferry at the mouth of Cache Slough and the West Bank below the Rio Vista Bridge.
Tides
The entire lower Sacramento system is tidally influenced all the way up to and slightly above the Capitol City. The tide actually turns around every 6 hours up to the Isleton Bridge and sometimes above. Further upstream, the river never switches direction with the tide but instead its level rises and falls.
The river is deep enough throughout its length (and the current is so minimal) that the fish don’t require tidal assistance to move upstream and thus, they wander upriver whenever they feel like it. You can catch fish literally at any point during the tide, but the hour leading into, though and after high tide is the time I look forward to most each day — especially when it coincides with the low light of early morning. Conversely, the bottom end of the out-go is my least favorite time to fish as the water is often pretty silted up by drifting sediment at that point.
Trolling Rigs & Techniques
As I mentioned, there aren’t many stacking holes in the lower end of the Sacramento, so trolling — more specifically downriver trolling — is the best way to get on the fish. By going downhill, you can crank up the trolling speed -- which allows you to cover more water and, thus, find the fish more quickly. When you’re fishing for stale upriver kings, slow speed is a priority, but when you’re targeting fresh, moving salmon, faster is better.
This technique also works because I’m convinced that kings in these areas are still very much dialed into their ocean feeding habits. When a plug or spinner goes whizzing downstream past them, it triggers the “eat me” response. All the salmon I catch this way turn around and chase the lure down – which doesn’t exactly fit into the “they bite lures because they’re annoying” theory. I’m not so sure that a slow wobble would solicit such an excited response from them. After all, an anchovy or herring is going to run like hell when it sees a king swimming by!
360 Flasher Rig
Just as it did on the Columbia River many, many, years ago, trolling 360 flashers with Cut Plugs and SpinFishis the go-to technique on the Sacramento River salmon fishing scene. As it turns out, southern Chinook appreciate the rig just as much as their northern cousins do and many Sac anglers have since made the transformation from the spinner and plug show of yesteryear to the new system.
Guide buddies in the Pacific Northwest keyed me into the rotating flasher program early on and I used it to great effect in California in secrecy for many years before the rest of the fleet finally caught on. When I was the only one running the rig, the results were eye-popping. Now that many folks are now fishing in similar fashion, my advantage seems to have diminished a bit but there’s no question in my mind that this rig still out-fishes the old methods by leaps and bounds most days.
Let’s take a quick look at the rig. The most popular flasher for this technique in the Sacramento area is the Pro Troll 11-inch Pro Chip model. This flasher features a small diagonal fin on its bottom end that helps “kick it over” at slow speeds. In other words, the unit will rotate a full 360 degrees when dragged at minimal trolling speeds.
Just be sure to grab the “Pro Chip” and not the “Hot Chip” model as the later doesn’t have the fin. I have also found the Fish N Chip flasher to be effective as it will “kick over” at even slower speeds.
There are, of course, tons of other brands out there and a million colors so you can, if you want, go hog wild! The new Brad's Evolution flasher is pretty cool that it comes with a built-in release.
As far as flasher colors go, good ol’ silver prism is numero uno for me but chartreuse and silver and green and sliver also work well. In the early morning hours or when the water is off-color, the lighted models are effective.
Behind the flasher, I run mainly 3- or 4-inch Yakima Bait SpinFish or Brad’s Super Cut Plugs. As the name would imply, the Super Cut Plug looks very much like a plastic version of a plug-cut herring, with the classic double 45-degree cut on the leading edge and rotating action. The SpinFish is of is of similar design but has a different spin to it. Both lures work well in the Sacramento but I’ll give the edge to the SpinFish over the last couple seasons that I guided the Sac.
These lures are perforated and have hollow body cavities in which you can add scent. The most popular “flavor enhancer” is oil-packed tuna but the sky’s the limit here and I have also had success filing these baits with sardine and anchovy chunks, small roe clusters, tuna belly, mackerel and combinations thereof. Another way effective scent combo involves adding your favorite commercial bait oil to your tuna. I like Pro Cure’s sardine and sand shrimp flavors but the number of potential concoctions is limited only to your imagination.
To add bait or scent to a SpinFish, grab the head and tail end of the lure and pull it apart. Cut Plugs open horizontally. Simply slide the rubber band off the tail and open the lure body. Just be sure to slightly under-fill the cavity as over-stuffing it and smashing it shut will cause the lure’s hinge to fail.
Down in the lower sections of the Sacramento, silver/chartreuse is a top-producing color in both lure styles but some of the metallic baitfish-type patterns also work well. In the SpinFish lineup, I like Silver/Chartreuse Scale, Double Trouble, Monkey Pickles and Silver/Black Scale. Similarly, Super Cut Plug colors that work well on this system include: Jackpot, The Honeydew, Rotten Banana and Black Jack.
RIGGING UP
What’s really interesting about this whole setup is the fact that there are a bunch of different ways to rig it. From the leader and dropper lengths to the hook rigging, there are many ways to skin this cat and it seems that everyone has a slightly different take on it. Just the lures themselves can be rigged up in a dizzying array of ways using combinations of swivels, plastic tubing and beads and either single or treble hooks (or combinations thereof).
I have found a double hook setup with two 3/0 or 4/0 Gamakatsu Big River Bait Hooks is pretty deadly, but you’ll need to experiment with different configurations to see which ones best match your fishing style and gear. In other words, your hookup ratio can be greatly influenced by the speed at which you troll, the action of your rods and the type on line you’re using.
I start with 65-pound test braided main line from the rod and slip a sinker slider like a Short Bus Slide N Lock over the end. This is what the sinker will will eventually snap to. A device like this is super important to help minimize line twist as it has a groove on the downstream end that holds your snap in place, which keeps most of the spin of the rig happening down the line.
Next, I tie a duo-loc snap with a P-LINE (or similar) rolling chain swivel attached to it on the end. If you need to fish close to the bottom, you can run a 12- to 18-inch dropper off the snap on the slider and attach a cannon ball sinker to the other end of it. In most cases, however, the whole setup seems to work better when you forgo the dropper and simply attach the sinker directly to the slider snap. Sinker weights are determined by the speed and depth of the water but 6 to 8 ounces is the general rage...which is waaaaaay nicer than the 24 ounces and up some of the Columbia guys need.
The flasher wont have a lot of action to it if it’s got a sinker directly ahead of it, so you need to have a "bumper leader" between it and the weight to separate them a bit. The most common bumper leader lengths range between 18 inches to 30 inches.
You can use stiff mono like 80-pound test but I prefer cable bumpers from the likes of Hawken Fishing and Good Day Fishing. You’ll have to experiment a bit to figure out what works best for you — just make sure that the bumper is longer than your dropper if you have one otherwise tangles will ensue. Next, snap your flasher to the end of your bumper.
Finally, you have the leader that runs from the flasher to the lure. Since everything spins with this rig, add another bead chain swivel to the snap on the bottom of the flasher. To the other end of that is where the 40-pound leader from the lure attaches. Again, you can poll 100 anglers and get 102 different opinions on the best leader length. Keep in mind that one of the real keys to this whole program is that the flasher imparts extra action to the lure when you run it close enough behind.
Troll these lures on their own and they look good in the water — but all they do is spin. Add the flasher just ahead and then every time that big 11-inch slab of plastic twirls and flops, the bait speeds up and slows down and jerks and changes direction. I think that’s the real foundation to the effectiveness of this system. You have a good looking bait that smells good and then you add the thump and flash of the 360 flasher and you end up with a deadly combination.
As far as leader length goes, everybody has their own take on the matter but I generally run between 24 to 36 inches. As a basic guideline, go longer if you feel like the fish are being a little finicky and run a shorter one when they are aggressive.
One of the chief complaints coming from anglers who use this rig is that there’s a lot of drag on the line caused by the big license plate-like flasher when you have a fish hooked up. That's were a break-away flasher release device comes in handy.
As noted before, you can buy flashers like the Brad's Evolution that has the release built in. Or, if you already have your own flashers and just want to add a break-away, you can buy them from Hawken Fishing and Good Day Fishing. And just to be clear: Don’t worry — you don’t loose the flasher — these things just make it so that the top end of the flasher disengages so that drag is reduced during the fight.
When it comes time to put the rig in the water, hold it next to the boat for a moment and make sure the hooks aren’t tangled and that the lure and flasher are all working as designed. Slowly, let line out until you get to the bottom and then reel up a couple cranks. Most of my Sacramento kings are hooked just above the bottom but there are times when I’ll see them suspended on the graph and then run my gear up higher in the water column.
Much is made of trolling speed and some anglers get manically precise about it. I’m more of a “feel” guy and instead of taking speed readings I’ll watch how the rod tips are working. I’m looking for a steady rhythm in the rods and trying to get the flashers to rotate about every 1.5 to 2 seconds, which can be observed in the pulsing of the rod tips. Don’t be afraid to speed things up, however, if you aren’t getting bit. Some days, the fish just seem to like things faster.
Rods, Reels & Line
Trolling rods for the Sacramento need to have slower tip sections to allow the lures and flashers to swim properly. A soft upper end also is critical during the strike — you’ll want there to be enough “give” in the top of the rod so that a king can grab (and hopefully turn with) your lure without feeling a lot of resistance.
Since we are talking about salmon that can potentially reach very impressive sizes, the rod can’t be soft all the way through its length, however. You’ll need some power in the bottom end to be able to lift big fish up to the surface. There are lots of quality rods designed for this technique on the market and my favorites include Okuma's X-Troll series.
For reels, I have been using round, Okuma Coldwater Low Profile Line Counters now for a few years and have had zero issues with them.
Either way, I’ll spool up with 65-pound P-Line's Zero Fade Braid, which goes down to the first swivel. The Sac generally only has a couple feet of visibility so a top shot of mono isn’t necessary.
The Grab
Once the rigs are down and fishing, I’ll put the rods in the holders. When a king strikes, you’ll often see a solid “thump” on the rod tip before it slams down and starts pumping. I like to fish a light drag and let the fish turn with the rig and start running before picking up the rod.
Old School Trolling
Before the rotating flasher revolution, we all trolled either spinners or plugs off a 3-way rig. Popular to contrary belief, kings in the Sacramento haven’t stopped eating lures fished in this fashion and, in fact, there are times when this system will still out-fish the new stuff.
I rig up for this style of fishing with a 3-way swivel off my main line, with a dropper for my sinker off eye number two and the leader coming off the third. There are no hard and fast rules governing the length of your droppers and leaders because it depends on the type of lures you’re running and how much lead you’ve got on. When running diving plugs like K15 Kwikfish and T-50 FlatFish, I will usually go with a 24- to 36-inch dropper and a 5- to 6 ½-foot leader. With spinners, my basic setup consists of a 12-to 18-inch dropper and a 3- to 4-foot leader. As a basic rule of thumb, your lure should be running 1 to 3 feet up off the bottom and have only intermittent contact with the riverbed.
COMEBACK??
I grew up salmon fishing the rivers of the Central Valley and guided them from 1998-2020. These days, I'm busy guiding for giant Lahontan cutthroat trout at Pyramid Lake in the fall and winter and Lakers, kokes and more on in the summer and Coho Salmon in Alaska in the fall.
Many folks have been asking if I might, per chance, come back and do some Sacramento River salmon guiding this season??
Well...never say never! I don't have any plans to yet but enough of you get excited by a comback, there's a chance we could put something together for November....
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