57 Days

That's how many times I was out on the water this past year.
Notable memories:
1. First Carp on a fly
2. First time ever fishing in Kansas and Missouri
3. First Coastal Cutthroat
4. First time fishing the Rogue River
5. First Musky on a fly
This year has brought me many amazing fishing opportunities and I'm looking forward to more in 2013. My goal for in the New Year is to fish more than 70 days. That means cutting back at work and I think that can be done.
I also want to make sure and keep a positive attitude about all kinds of fishing. I don't want to fall into a  "purist" frame of mind, I don't think that's cool. People should fish in whatever way makes them enjoy it most. If you want to use a bobber every time you fish, if you want to use trout beads, if you use a spey rod to indicator fish, so be it. The above are all things I've recently heard people speak poorly of and I sat, listened, and just respectfully nodded.
Just have a great time and stop to smell the air and listen to the river, or lake and the animals that make that place their home.

Hopefully 2013 will bring me closer to this place!

Lower Yuba 12/18

Took the new whip out for its inaugural trip to the Yuba this past Tuesday. It was great. My buddy Chuck and I cruised out at the leisurely hour of 7am and were fishing by 9:30. The ski/snowboard rack works great for transporting rods.

 The water was high and off color but the fishing was good. We spent more time hanging out and looking at the water than we did fishing but managed a couple of nice fish on egg patterns (still some spawning salmon in the river) and big stone fly patterns.
I also spent about an hour swinging a olive/black wooly bugger and had two takes but didn't set well and came unbuttoned.
If you go, use a lot of weight to get the fly way down to the bottom, nothing new there, but with the higher water its even more of a necessity. I would suggest swinging dark streamers also.

Trinity River 12/7-12/9

The original plan was to take my brother who came in from WI and my buddy Scotty who came in from CO to the Trinity on Friday, have them catch a Steelhead, and then leave the crowds for the Pit River. Mother Nature had other plans.
The Pit was completely blown out as was everything else in the area. Luckily the upper section of the Trinity, all the way to about Junction City was fishable. Because of the high water the sections down river further were a little tough to fish.

Carson with a nicely colored Trinity fish

We hit Graveyard hole early on Friday morning and each caught nice hatchery fish. Fish were caught on Hot Turds (Rubber Legs with a bright orange lead bead), Psycho Prince, Prince, Eggs. I swung flies for a while for nothing.
Saturday we fished Steiner Flat road where we could. There were so many people on the river I couldn't get into some of the good spots but that was expected. We only caught a couple of smolts and one Brown.

Scotty with a nice Hen

That night at dinner we spoke with some guys who were drifting with guides and said they did good down river further around Junction City so I think the fish that had come up after the rain weren't quite holding around Steiner Flat Road yet. We didn't want to drive all the way down where all the drift boats were gonna be so we made the call to fish the top section again on Sunday. We went back to Graveyard hole and caught 5 more fish in about an hour. All hatchery fish, but nice fish.

As a side note. My brother and friend were using 6 and 5 weight rods. I get a lot of people in the shop wanting to buy 7 and 8 weights to fish the Trinity but those rods are overkill in my opinion. If you're going I think a 9'6" or 10 foot 6 weight is perfect for this river. A light spey or switch rod is also awesome.

Lower Yuba and Trolling Scotts Flat Lake

I had an opportunity to drift the Lower Yuba this past Monday with friend and colleague Mike Folden. It was great because it was just the two of us and I got some much needed time on the oars. The fishing was slow.
Mike landed a fish on a crazy October Caddis pattern. I don't know how he chose that fly but it worked.
I finally picked up a few fish on a #18 Prince. I had been fishing green caddis pupa and small PT's for nothing. We fished under indicators all day.
We did throw some dries also but with no luck. There were some #18-20 BWO's hatching throughout the day and also some sporadic #12-14 tan caddis. Their bodies are green. Some of the fish were slamming the fluttering caddis which was awesome to see.

I crashed at a friends house on Monday night and then fished Scotts Flat lake with Yuba guide Keith Scott and Plumas County ninja Jon Baiocchi. Jon has this awesome technique for trolling that I had never done before so I was pretty pumped to learn something new, apparently he kills it on Lake Davis.
We stuck a ton of fish trolling small wooly bugger/seal bugger like flies although they are different. I can't remember what he called them.
We only fished for a few hours and then Keith had to go so I drove back down to the Yuba on my way home. I was tired of indicator fishing from the day before so I just strung up my 105 Beulah Switch rod and swung caddis for a couple hours. I went 1 for 3. Great way to end the day!

2 1/2 hours on the LT

Jordan and I went to Truckee this weekend to hang out. I figured I'd get a few hours of fishing in and then we'd go skiing on Sunday. We didn't get the snow we expected on Saturday night so we skipped skiing on Sunday and now I'm at home writing this post.
She dropped me off at the last parking lot along the LT below Stampede dam at about 11 am on Saturday. I fished a few holes for 3 landed small fish and one fish I lost that was a little bigger than the rest but it was such a short hookup I never got a good look at it. All fish were hooked on size 20 bwo nymphs.
The river was crowded as always which is why I never fish it. I should have fished the Truckee instead but I wanted to fish some really small stuff just because I hadn't for a while. I really was hoping for a nice BWO hatch but it never happened. At least not between the time of 11am til 2pm. It was a really great day to be out though. Check out the pics.

Western Rivers Conservancy and Henry's Fork Foundation

This past week I was fortunate to be a part of fundraising events for both of these great organizations.
On Wednesday night Jim Cox and Henry Little of the Western Rivers Conservancy came to Orvis and gave a talk on the goals, and accomplishments of Western Rivers. On Thursday night I was invited to the Henry's Fork Foundations annual event.
Western Rivers is a small, nimble group that basically buys property that needs to be rescued. They are committed to making it available for public use. For more information go to http://www.westernrivers.org/pages/main4.html

You can probably guess what the Henry's Fork Foundation does. I have never fished the Henry's Fork of the Snake River but after hearing how passionate these people are about preserving this world class piece of water, its higher on my fishing bucket list.
http://www.henrysfork.org/

Most of the people at these events were people that I would otherwise probably never come in contact with as they mostly fish with guides, or on private water. I admit, I have a little bit of a chip on my shoulder regarding that type of fisherman, but after seeing the amount of money they donate to keep the waters we all know and love clean and safe for the future, I can tolerate them a little more.

Lower Yuba

I was excited to get back to the Yuba. It had been a while since I last fished this river and its my favorite river to fish. I got to the river around 8 and gave a lesson then started fishing at about 2pm.

I'd been following Tom Page's reports. Tom owns Reel Fly Anglers shot in Grass Valley. I also keep up with reports from guide and friend Keith Scott and it sounded like small egg patterns were still producing. 

The weather was perfect. No wind, mostly sunny and about 55 degrees during the middle of the day. With every cloud there was a little BWO hatch and sporadic size 12/14 Caddis, I think Hydropsyche.

The fishing ended up being slow but the fish were active so maybe everyone was using the wrong flies. I committed to swinging flies and after an hour with no fish decided to start dead drifting some flies, nothing. At around 330 pm the fish started getting really active, jumping out of the water and I thought they must be chasing emergers. I continued swinging flies with my 10-5 Beulah and finally hooked up with a nice rainbow about 15".

My buddy was fishing a stone fly and green caddis pupa under an indicator and hooked up with a beast of a rainbow. The fish jumped after about a 5 second fight and easily broke his 4x tippet. That was his first fish of the day. The only other fish he hooked was an 18" sucker. He landed that one. It also took the green caddis pupa.

American River and Truckee River

This past Saturday I gave a nymph and swinging demo on the American River to about 10 people. My friend and co-worker Sebastian and I met everyone at Riverbend park at 8am. The river was really crowded, mostly guys swinging big treble hooks and sinkers trying to snag salmon.
The demo went pretty well. Everyone said they learned something but there aren't really any Steelhead in the river yet.
Around 1pm I got to do some fishing of my own. I went down river a ways and fished a favorite spot for some half pounders. I hooked one really nice one that got off after a nice fight. He was hooked swinging a #16 green birds nest. I hooked two more fish in the same run on the same fly.
There are a lot of salmon in the river. Most of them are dark and dying. It never ceases to amaze me how powerful those fish are. Sebastian hooked a couple swinging a big egg pattern and even in their depleted state they were difficult to land.

I drove up to Truckee late in the afternoon and met up with some friends. We fished Herschdale road the next day. I caught fish on a bunch of different patterns but was most successful with caddis soft hackles dead drifted. I'm sure any caddis or mayfly nymph would have worked but the key seemed to be moving around. The fish were found in pockets. I would fish 100 yards for nothing and then hook 2 or 3 in the same hole.
I also swung a streamer. I used a sculpin pattern from 9-about 1130 for only one grab and one small follower.
The weather was great. 75 degrees and sunny. No wind. I would post pics but my phone was wrecked when I fell head first into the chilly Truckee water. Complete submersion.

Fishing - October 17th-21st

Back in Kansas. I was pretty excited when my district manager asked if I wanted to go back to KC for the Grand Opening of the Orvis Leawood store. When I was there about a month ago I met some cool people and was looking forward to seeing them. 

Up early to try and find some carp

I also wanted to see some more of the fishing that the area had to offer, including some more carp spots. I called Nathan, the fishing manager and asked if he would be interested in fishing a spot he really likes called Taneycomo, which is in Southern MO, about a 3.5 hour drive from KC. He was raving about how big the browns are that come out of there and assured me that the fishing would be good.

Trail next to the carp stream

The weather left something to be desired for the first couple of days. I flew in on Wed and it was really windy and rainy until Friday. It didn't matter much though because all I did was work from sun up to sun down Wed, Thur, and Friday. I did get a couple hours on Friday during the middle of the day to get out and explore a carp spot but didn't see anything.

Saturday morning I went out with Joe and we had a shot at a couple big carp but failed.

The big day was Sunday. 

Nathan, his wife Sarah and baby Henry picked me up at my hotel at 5am. We stopped after about an hour and a half to drop the baby off at Nathan's parents place, and then drove the final couple hours to Branson MO, where Table Rock Lake is located. Taneycomo is the tail that drops out of that lake. If you've never been to Branson, it's basically the Wisconsin Dells with a shit load of Southern Babtist churches.

The drive was gorgeous, the leaves where turning and we were in the northern part of the Ozarks. I couldn't wait to get my line wet and try for one of the massive trout I had been hearing about. 

My excitement quickly abated once I saw the parking lot to the public fishing area. At first I was just mildly concerned, because Nathan and his wife didn't seem surprised at all at the 30 or so cars parked in the FIRST of two lots. I figured there would be enough room and fish for everyone. Well, I was correct about there being enough fish, but I was definitely wrong about there being enough room.

The first thing we did was look at the fish ladders to see if there were any trout headed up to the hatchery. I don't know why, but I thought that we would be fishing for wild fish, definitely not the case. Every single fish in the river comes from the hatchery and there are something like 16,000 fish or more per mile of this river.

When I finally looked over the staircase leading to the river it was like something out of a nightmare. The river was literally lined with "fly fisherman" and spin casters. We had to find a hole in the lineup and get in. We walked behind some dude and made sure he saw us, then I guess we weren't fast enough so he decided to brush us with a back cast. To make matters even worse, the water was only about 2 feet at its deepest point, it was like a goddamn trickle and you could see all the trout just swimming around everywhere. They had no fear at all of people and would just swim  up to your feet to eat the stuff kicked up from the bottom. I couldn't believe it. 

At this point I would have driven straight back to Kansas City and spent the rest of the day carp fishing, but Nathan and his wife had really gone out of their way to take me down here, and we did drive over 3 hours so I had to make the best of it. Luckily Nathan and his wife are happy, fun people and that kept my spirits high.

I caught a trout on a little Sculpin pattern after about an hour. The idea had been to strip streamers for the big browns, none were caught all day.

I put on a nymph rig for a while just to change it up a little and caught a couple of fish on a scud and a disco midge but didn't really get any satisfaction out of it. Most of the guys around me were hooking up from time to time and I'd bet 75% of the hookups were false hooks due to the low water level, and drifting flies over reds. The other popular spot was right where the water comes out of the hatchery. There were probably ten guys lined up as close as possible to the entry to the hatchery drifting nymphs under indicators. Fun?

I guess in summary I would say that it was a sad place to fish and I'm really grateful to have thousands of miles of awesome trout fishing here in CA, and back home in Wisconsin that I can always count on. If you're going to MO or Kansas to fish, just bring the Carp and Bass gear, or take a trip to the White River or Little Red river way down in Arkansas.

Musky, Carp, Steelhead, Marriage

Yep, I got married exactly two weeks ago today. I feel pretty much the same so let's move on to the fishing.
The week preceding my wedding I went to the Musky capitol of the world, HAYWARD Wisconsin to try and catch a musky, and I caught a goddamn Musky, in fact I caught two Muskellunge, and my brother Carson caught a couple of nice Pike.
My brother bought us a drift boat trip with the Hayward Fly Fishing Company. These are nice guys who knew where we had a shot at some good musky. We drifted the Namekagon river.

The guide wouldn't let us hold the fish. I don't know why but I just thought, fuck it, if that's how you do it than that's fine.

We fished the lake where our cabin was for a few hours over the next couple days and some guys saw some big musky but we didn't catch any more. Just a few small bass and a walleye or two.

When I got back to Madison I did some Carp fishing over by the UW hospital. I didn't catch any Carp but it was a lot of fun.
The picture above is the little inlet from Lake Mendota that i was fishing. There were a lot of carp but the water was really low and clear. I had a few carp turn on my flies but didn't take.

When I got back from the wedding I went with Sebastian up to fish the confluence of the Trinity and the Klamath rivers. The fishing sucked. Not much else to say. We should have gone to the Rogue where everyone is catching nice chrome. Fuck.

Catching up on Half Pounders and Carp

It's been a while since my last post, although I have been fishing a little. I was in Wisconsin for a wedding, no time to fish. Then I was in Kansas City opening our new Leawood, KS location for an entire week. In between all of this my fiance and I have been planning our own wedding.
I got out to the Lower American on Sept 2nd with a couple of friends to see if we could hook up with some of the half pounders that were said to be in the river. I landed one nice true half pounder (about 15 inches) on a green soft hackle. I hooked a few others that came off, and landed a bunch of smolts but not much else. One of my buddies, Rob, has since been back and said the fishing is steadily picking up. Small egg paterns and nymphs are working.  Also small dries like PMD's and Adams will work early in the morning and evenings if there is a hatch.

I didn't take time to research the fishing opportunities in Kansas City before I left because I knew we would be working long hours and I wouldn't have my own rental car any way.
I arrived on Sunday evening and we worked till about 5 on Monday. I decided to take a run but didn't really know where to go. I just planned on running around aimlessly for about 40 minutes or so. On my way out of the hotel the lady at the front desk asked if I wanted a map to a nice running trail. I took the map and was on my way. I was running for about 5 minutes when I realized I was running down hill to what looked like a small river or creek. Sure enough the running route she led me to was along a nice urban creek, the name of which I will keep a secret. (A promise I made to a new friend) Even though I only have 15 followers, and none of them in the KS area, a promise is a promise.
As soon as I started along the trail I saw a guy in waders releasing a fish! I couldn't believe it. I was kicking myself for not taking a rod. After taking a look at the water, I thought, "that must have been a carp" I didn't want to bother the guy so I went on my way and decided that on my way back if he was still there I would ask him what the deal is.
I checked a couple of spots and saw some nice carp along the way and then I stopped on my way back and spoke with the carp fisherman who's name I learned is Joe Ferber.

Joe was pumped about Orvis opening in town and offered to take me out the next evening. I borrowed an old 7'6" 4/5 from the store manager Mary and met Joe on Tuesday evening. He supplied me with his own pattern and we were off. I only casted to two fish before I landed my first carp, beginners luck. I didn't land the Carp on the 4/5. I got a snag and quickly took another rod in order to continue to cast to the fish without spooking it. I hooked it with an Orvis Frequent Flier, I'm not sure what weight it was, either a 6 or 7. That was fitting.

Supercharger

Not the prettiest fly but hopefully will be effective.

North Fork and Middle Fork Stanislaus

Last weekend Orvis gave a free clinic on dry fly fishing and Nymphing on the North Fork of the Stanislaus at Boards Crossing. I have to admit, I wasn't really looking forward to getting my ass up at 4am and driving 3 hours but I was getting paid to get out on the river so I knew I couldn't complain.
There was also the promise of getting in some personal fishing later in the day so I was looking forward to that since I've been so busy lately and will be busy through the middle of September.

 I met Steve and Nathan out in the east bay and we cruised up together. This was a relief because my car is really starting to be a piece of shit, and I was looking forward to chatting with Steve and Nathan for a while. We met Mark from San Jose in Arnold and all rolled in together around 8am. There were some fish rising to tiny black midges, size 28 or so. We got everyone geared up and I gave my tight line nymphing demo. I caught two fish while giving the demo. They were little 12 inch hatchery fish but I was excited because I knew that our students would get into some fish, and they did.
I was really enjoying teaching these guys some basics of nymphing. One guy caught his first fish ever and I could tell he was trying to be modest about it but he was so damn excited he couldn't hide it. That was by far the best part of the whole day. I could tell right away that he was gonna be a life time convert to the religion. Hell yeah!!

After we stopped for lunch, Steve, Nathan, myself and this dude from England from the class Phillip went down and fished Camp 9 Road on the Middle Fork. The water was raging which I think spread the fish out. Make short story shorter, we didn't do too well. We swung streamers and nymphed all the water and hooked 5 fish between all of us. I hooked one good fish and lost it in the current and landed one smaller rainbow and Mark landed 2 lost 1.
Mine was caught on the Shaggy wire caddis, green. I don't know what Mark was using.

A quick note on Fish Porn

I love looking at pictures of fish that have been caught and released to be caught another day. I don't care how big the fish is, I'm much more interested in how the fish was caught. What was the setting, what bugs where hatching, what time of day was it, why did you decide to fish that place on that particular day, etc...what is the STORY behind that fish?
When a true "Trophy" sized fish is caught I can appreciate someone's excitement and need to show others but for me, it's kind of like when a guy scores a touchdown and does a big victory dance. Act like you've been there before.
My friends are excluded in every way from this. The above only applies to strangers.

Falcon's Ledge Utah

Spent Thursday night, Friday, and Saturday fishing out of a lodge called Falcon's Ledge. It is an Orvis endorsed lodge and they put us up for free with the expectation that we would of course have a great time, and send clients back.
I had expected the fishing to be good. After all it is mid summer in the rockies, and we're all pretty experienced sticks with guides so... yeah, it was good.
We only had 2 full days of fishing so we had to choose what rivers we were going to fish. There are about 10 choices within approximately 30 min from the lodge so the choice was tough. I decided not to go to the high mountain streams because I can do that stuff in CA, even though I'm sure it would have been awesome. Some of the other people that were there chose those streams and had a great time.
I decided to fish a river called the Strawberry the first day, and was super lucky to have my name pulled out of a hat for a drift boat trip on the Green River on Saturday.
The lodge was surrounded by ponds which were fun to screw around on in the evening and early morning. I caught some fish out of those. I also caught my first Tiger Trout which is a brown mixed with a Brook Trout; they're really aggressive.

My guide for the first day was named Grant. He was a lot of fun to fish with. We used Yellow Stimi's because the Yellow Sallies were hatching, we dropped big size 14 Red Copper Johns underneath them.
We caught fish on both flies at a pretty equal rate. I caught two 20" browns and a few others that were over 15. It was a great day. Grant's grand parents and some of his aunts and uncles are little people.

Woke up the next day at 5:30am and hit the road with Tucker for the Green at 630. Met our guide Nick Johnson in Dutch John.
The river was crowded with rafters but it didn't really effect the fishing, just kind of ruined the serenity of being on the river. They were having one hell of a good time but I wish they'd have chosen to play in a reservoir instead of one of the most beautiful and trout filled rivers in the world.
There were a number of other drift boats out too but everyone got along just fine. Accepting one dumb ass on a huge raft that was alone. He low holed us once and Nick gave him a dirty look, he didn't come too close after that.
We fished dries all day which was awesome. The hot fly up top which was Tuckers idea was a black spotlight caddis, size 18. I hooked one on a renegade also.
We dropped a PT size 18 off of a hopper down low and started hooking rainbows on the pt's. The last fish of the day was a nice brown on a hopper.

Lots of fish caught. Lost one brown at the boat that was 20"+ and another rainbow that charged the boat that was probably around the same size but its tough to say. The smallest fish was 14".

Lower Yuba 7/15

Fished up river from Parks Bar bridge from 2:30 - 6:30. It was about 100 degrees when we got there and we wanted to fish until dark. There's no way I could have stuck it out all day. I hadn't fished the Yuba for a few weeks so I had no idea what to expect. I decided to set my buddy Rob up with a nymph rig and all I did was swing soft hackles on a greased line all day. I hooked two nice fish on either a birds nest or a Partridge with green body, I never was able to tell and they both came off. Caught a dink on the Birds nest.
Rob didn't hook up but I used his rig in one spot and hooked a nice fish on FKA Prince. That fish was probably 13-14"

We went down river around 7pm and fished a nice flat until dark. We hooked 3 fish total and I landed one that was about 12 inches. It was hooked on a Partridge and green. It hit the fly and I felt the bump, I continued to let the fly swing and it came back and smacked it pretty good.

I didn't see any caddis all day but the fish seemed to like the swung caddis patterns anyways. I'd call the fishing fair. Around dark there were some tiny mayflies hatching but I don't know what they were. There weren't many of them around, they were a light grey color and size 18-20. There were an amazing amount of Dragon Flies around and I wonder if they were eating any hatching insects making them difficult to see flying around. I only saw one, maybe two real rises from feeding fish all day.

McCloud and Pit 6/30 - 7/3

I love teaching people how to fish, but I was definitely relieved when we did our last class on June 30th.
As soon as we were finished I drove up to Ash Camp on the McCloud river and fished an awesome Golden Stone hatch. I didn't bring my camera so I don't have any pics but suffice it to say that I haven't seen a hatch like that in a long time.
Ash camp was full but some guys were nice enough to let me set up my tent at their site. The next day I hiked down the Pacific Crest Trail about 25 minutes toward Ah-Di-Nah and fished the whole way back. This took me about 9 hours and I saw only one other guy all day. I caught fish in nearly every hole. Olive Micro May was working good. Then I used a #16 natural birds nest because I saw some caddis coming off. I also had takes on the Golden Stone nymph. Hooked a few fish swinging that birds nest which was fun. Most fish were caught tight line nymphing. I had some follows from big browns in a couple pools where I took a moment to string up a big heavy sink tip but no takers.
Camped at Ash camp again that night and drove over to Pit 3 the next day. The best fly of the day was a #16 black Micro May but the big Jimmy Legs was working well also. I fished my lucky birds nest in the evening for some real hogs. The fishing was really REALLY good. Hardly any thing was rising and I fished until almost dark.
I got pretty beat up fishing for approximately 20 hours in 3 days on the McCloud and Pit so by tuesday I was tired. I met up with friend and Orvis guide Chuck from Wild Waters Fly Fishing in Mt. Shasta on Tuesday morning and he showed me an awesome spot on the Upper Sac where all of the planted trout hang out. We hooked about 20 fish in an hour and then I drove home.

I'm gonna go fish the Yuba next week so stay tuned.

Lower Yuba 6/18

Fished down river from hwy 20. 1800cfs. Sunny, clear, 90 degrees. Started around noon. Got two near the bridge right away on the Red Headed Stepchild. Then didn't get a grab until later in the evening. Met up with Kieth and went way down river. Hooked a few swinging a natural Birds Nest #16 and a few more on a #18 Film Critic. Really big PED and Stone Fly hatch starting around 6pm and going until dark. Hardly any caddis seen.

Yuba

Drifted from hwy 20  bridge to Sycamore Ranch. Caught fish on hoppers sporadically. We fished nymphs also and didn't get anything. Used black stones, various mayfly nymphs and some caddis subsurface for nothing. Fishing was fair to good. We got a lot of looks and refusals, I think the dry fly action will get better in the next couple weeks as fish start looking up for hoppers.
Fished for stripers for a few hours in the evening. Tom caught 1 at about 19".

Cheap Beer, No Crowds....Wisconsin

Ahhhhhh....for a brief 4 days last week I was back home in Madison. We fished for bass in lake Wingra, fished for nice brown trout in the driftless, got sunburned, drank some beer, and I probably only spent $40 the whole time.  The bass were taking top water and we were one of only 3 boats on the whole lake...and we rented our little boat with a trolling motor for $25 bucks! We fished for over 5 hours! That 5 hours included me falling in the lake.
There were a few cars on one of the trout streams we fished but it was Saturday. All of the cars were from Illinois. I won't get down on trout fisherman from IL, it's probably not their fault they live in that shit hole to the south, and if I was stupid enough to move there, I would be coming to WI to fish also.

Small but ferocious

Preparing

Fishing

Fish

Rain, Snow, Oil Change, Truckee, Radiator, Big Fish

Thursday:

• Oil Change 
• "you have a small leak in your radiator, we fixed it"
• Pick up Sebastian, drive to Truckee
• Arrive at 1130pm. 
• Watch "Superbad"

Friday:

• 6am - Wake up
• Sunny but cold
• Bacon, Eggs, Coffee...more coffee
• poo
• Nymph with new two handed 10 foot rod
• Fish, fish, fish...snow...wind...cold..fish...big fish....
• Swing big streamers...no fish
• Drive to Little Truckee
• lots of snow
• Drive back to Truckee
• Big fish
• Safeway
• Huge Hamburgers
• More Coffee
• Snow. Lots of snow
• Drive three hours 
• Blow up radiator
• Push car to side of street
• Drive Sebastian's truck home
• Sleep

John Rickard - The McCloud River

I was fortunate to be able to fish with John for a couple of days this past January. It was two of the best days of fishing I ever had and it wasn't just because we caught a lot of big fish. John is a true ambassador for the art of fly fishing and has blended his passion with an amazing photography project.
Please support his effort to get this book published.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/johnrickard/the-mccloud-river

Yuba

Finally made it back to my favorite river after a couple month hiatus. Started fishing around 10am and walked up river from Parks Bar Bridge. There were a couple guys fishing in some of my favorite spots but I picked up fish at every hole. Size 18 red headed stepchild was the most productive fly for the morning.  

Weather was perfect. 85 degrees and sunny.

Took a break at about 1pm and then fished again from 230 - 5. This time I walked down river.

Swung a #16 Birds Nest for 3 nice fish. Lost one of them after a good hard fight.

Hooked up a couple more with a #16 FKA Prince high sticking seams.

Fish ranged from tiny dinks to the biggest that I farmed at probably around 18 inches.

It never fails to surprise me how strong these fish are. The 16 inch fish in the pic below felt like a 20 inch fish in any other river.

Yosemite Small Creeks