Upper Sacramento River (Dunsmuir)
Dunsmuir / Mt Shasta canyon · near Dunsmuir · Shasta Cascade
Fishing
At a glance
- Difficulty
- intermediate
- Best season
- Year-round (Box Canyon Dam to Shasta Lake); prime May-June & fall
Permits and booking
- Licence required
- Yes
- Licence detail
- CA license (16+). The Box Canyon-to-Shasta Lake reach is open year-round under simplified CDFW trout regs; sections above Box Canyon and tributaries can differ - confirm current CDFW reach regulations. No steelhead card needed for resident trout.
What is here
- Features
- Blue-ribbon wild-rainbow freestone · ~38 river miles of pocket water · Recovered after the 1991 Cantara spill · Superb access via I-5 and the rail canyon
Worth knowing
- Dogs
- Allowed
- Good for a first timer
- No
Fishing detail
- Water type
- river
- Water
- fresh
- Methods
- Fly · Spin
- Boat
- shore
- Target species
- Wild rainbow trout
- Nickname
- The Upper Sac
- Intl tip
- Pocket-water wading with superb access - over a dozen I-5 exits open the canyon near Dunsmuir. Salmonflies in late spring, October caddis in fall. Much of it's now year-round; confirm the reach rules. Ted Fay Fly Shop in Dunsmuir has the beta.
The guide
The Upper Sacramento is one of the great comeback stories in American fly fishing - a fast, tumbling freestone river through th…
In the Guidebook
Everything above is yours for free. The written guide to Upper Sacramento River (Dunsmuir) — what it is actually like, and what we would tell a friend before they went — comes with the Guidebook.
Getting there
- Coordinates
- 41.208, -122.272