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Know Your Fish: The Sacramento Splittail

June 5, 2012 By JD 7 Comments

Here’s an interesting critter that most folks have never encountered: The Sacramento Splittail. Even if you live in its home range of Nor Cal’s Central Valley and Delta regions, it’s not a fish commonly encountered. Part of that is due to the fact that Splittail aren’t considered a gamefish and their relative obscurity is also a function of them not being present in large numbers anymore. Sure, there are isolated populations of these guys but they’re nowhere near as abundant as they were before the valley’s rivers were dammed.

These cyprinids prefer to spawn on flood plains, but with reservoirs controlling the flow of the Sacramento and her tributaries, the flooded spawning habitat they prefer occurs only intermittently these days.

While they kinda look like a mountain whitefish crossed with a pike minnow, Splittail are actually kinda cool looking beasts when you get ’em up close. The oversized upper lobe of the caudal fin for which they’re named give’s them a bit of a “brown bonefish” vibe. Unfortunately, splitties can’t burn line like the bones of the flats, but they can actually put up a decent scrap on light gear.

Splittail once ranged from San Francisco Bay to Redding but now are most commonly found in the Delta and the Sacramento’s lower reaches…up to about the town of Verona, at the confluence of the Feather and Sacramento rivers. He’s a greedy little bugger that mainly feeds on the bottom on clams, crustaceans, and insect larvae, though I’ve seen them take insects off the surface in the early mornings and I’m pretty sure they also eat small fish.

In the winter, they’ll migrate upstream and look for flooded areas in which to spawn (typically in March).

Filed Under: Exotic Species Tagged With: delta, sacramento river, san francisco bay, splittail

Striper Time!

March 15, 2012 By JD 4 Comments


March showers bring the big striped prowlers. I’m just saying…

Filed Under: uncategorized Tagged With: sacramento river, striper

Was this a World Record King Salmon??

March 10, 2012 By JD 7 Comments

This huge king carcass measured 59 inches...without the tail!!


Holy crap! Get a look at this: Ray Fairfax sent in this photo of a giant Chinook salmon carcass he ran across earlier this winter while steelhead fishing on the Smith River in Northern California.

“We were fishing the Bailey Riffle and found a salmon carcass of amazing length,” says Fairfax. “All that was left was the jaws and backbone, but what a fish it must have been! I straightened the backbone out the best I could and laid my STR1025C Loomis down next to it. It measured 59 inches…minus, of course, the tail!!”

Fairfax says that the jaws looked almost as if the fish was a female, which is even more mind-blowing!

“If you add a conservative few inches for the tail, how big was this beast?” he asks.

Well, just for comparison’s sake: Les Anderson’s 97.3-pound All Tackle World Record Chinook was 58.5 inches long!! Of course, we’ll never know how big the King of the Smith was in his prime…but let’s just hope he spread a bunch of his genetic material around!

And here’s another one: The 50.7 incher found dead in a tributary of the Sacramento River a couple seasons back: GIANT SALMON CARCASS FOUND

Filed Under: Trophy Room Tagged With: kenai river, king salmon, sacramento river, Smith River, world record

Nor Cal: Water & Snow everywhere!

March 24, 2011 By JD 4 Comments

The Howe Ave. parking lot on the American River underwater


Tthe calendar says “spring” but Northern California has been getting hammered by a series of huge winter storms all week which have delivered serious amounts of rain to the lower elevations and many feet of snow to the high country…the likes of which we haven’t seen since I was a kid.

Of course, all that weather isn’t without complications. Most NorCal rivers are raging and the reservoirs are full. The Sacramento River is currently running around 100,000 CFS and getting very close to flood stage. With all the snow in the high country, let’s keep our fingers crossed that there are no Pineapple Express-style warm storms heading this way! On a positive note, we should have plenty of water this year!Click here to read more…

Filed Under: uncategorized Tagged With: american river, flood, lake tahoe, sacramento river, snow

CDFG releases 16.5 million Chinook salmon smolts

June 23, 2010 By JD 5 Comments

Live long and prosper, little buddies!!

Hope this helps…the California Department of Fish and Game just completed a release of 16.5 million Sacramento River fall-run Chinook salmon smolts on June 15.

The majority of the fish were placed into acclimation pens in San Pablo Bay prior to release, while others were released in rivers that flow to the bay. Smolts that survive to adulthood will return in two to four years to spawn in Central Valley rivers, boosting the recovery of the species in California waters.

“We hope this year’s above-average water flow and the use of a variety of release sites will improve the overall survival of the smolts and increase the return of adult salmon to their home rivers,” said Neil Manji, DFG Fisheries Branch Chief. Click here to read more…

Filed Under: uncategorized Tagged With: fall run chinook salmon, sacramento river

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