The Sacramento River is California’s largest river, flowing from Mount Shasta to San Francisco Bay with an approximate total length of three hundred and seventy-five miles. The eight-five mile stretch of river from Shasta Dam to Sacramento is known for its magnificent variety of year round fishing. It supports four runs of salmon a year and with those runs combined, their numbers has topped the two hundred thousand fish tally in recent and past years. It is also known for its abundant and world-renowned other species, including its rainbow trout, steelhead, striped bass, sturgeon, and shad.

The Sacramento salmon fishing season opens the middle of July for the section of river below the Red Bluff diversion dam. The upper section, above the diversion dam, opens on the first of August, with the fall run peaking in September. The late run fish, which are usually, the largest and brightest arrive in November and December. The Sacramento King Salmon normally average fifteen to eighteen pound, but twenty and thirty-pound fish are not uncommon. A few fish in the fifty-pound range show up each year with the state record caught out of this stretch of river that weighed in at eighty-eight pounds. In 1999, the Department of Fish and Game, trapped, filmed and released fish they estimated in the ninety-pound range.                                                                  

The shad season usually begins in May with thousands of fish moving up river until approximately mid-July. These fish average between two to four pounds, with some approaching seven to eight pounds. During the peak of the run, it is not uncommon to catch fifty to sixty fish a day.