Stripers in San Francisco Bay

I'm no longer employed by one of the worlds largest fly fishing companies. After 10 years on our current lease in San Francisco, Orvis decided that the rent went up to much and shut the store down. While I am a little bummed that they couldn't figure out how to open a smaller store and keep us employed, I'll never say anything bad about Orvis as a company. They treat their employees well, or as well as any other corporation I guess.

What I'm most bummed about is the lack of money going into my bank account every 2 weeks. Don't worry, I've got some stuff in the works for new revenue streams. However, until that happens I have decided that I will stick close to home, save gas, and study the pursuit of Striped Bass. 

I have a few buddies who know some killer spots in the Bay Area for Stripers. I had some success fishing yesterday just before high tide on a chartruese and white clouser tied on a 1/0 hook. I was stripping in fast with a pause every few strips. I have heard of other stripping techniques and I think all can be productive although the fast, hard strip seems to be what most guys are doing.

Today, I went out with my buddy James and when we left the house, it was warm, sunny, no wind. As soon as we parked the wind came in strong and we were pretty much doomed. It was blowing right at us, angling in from the west. I was hauling pretty hard when a gust came up and blew my fly right into the path of my right hand. If you've never buried a 1/0 hook with barb into your hand, don't start trying. And remember to de-barb your hooks. That's all I'll say about that. After I pulled this thing out and cleaned up the blood all over my rod and hands I re-tied and fished for about 20 minutes. Didn't touch a thing.

I look forward to posting more reports in the near future. I will be fishing a lot until I'm tied into another job. Stay tuned!

San Diego Bay and the Truckee

Went out with Bob Day of "En La Mosca" fly fishing outfitters in San Diego bay a couple of weeks ago. Bob is an Orvis endorsed guide and I highly recommend him if anyone wants a nice easy day of fishing while in San Diego.
I took my buddy Latane who had never caught a fish on a fly rod. Latane used a spinning rod most of the day but asked Bob if he could use a fly rod. Bob had him casting a 300gr sinking line in about 10 minutes and Latane landed his first fish on a fly rod...awesome.
Bob put us on tons of fish, he knows the bay really well. We also boated a yellow fin croaker, lizard fish and a bunch of smelt. We used small to medium sized clousers and the bass were hitting pretty much anything. Even after my little clouser was totally trashed and hardly recognizable they kept biting.
I used a 6 weight which was perfect for the 12-14 inch bass. They put a nice bend in the rod.

A few days later I was with my brother and we were on our way up the hill to Reno NV. I had never fished the Truckee outside of CA and was really looking forward to exploring some new water. My buddy Jan at Orvis in Reno gave me some great info on flies and access points so I was pretty sure we'd get on fish.
If you've never been to Reno, its kind of like a trashier, smaller Las Vegas. The casinos are pretty nice though and the hotels are cheap which is awesome since the Truckee access points are only 15-20 minutes from downtown Reno.
The fish were in slow water and on the first day we saw a decent BWO hatch and hooked up with some nice fish. The weather was awesome, warm and sunny.
Saturday was really tough. We fished a spot that was super snaggy and I lost tons of flies. There was trash everywhere and the fish must have had lock jaw. The only fish caught all day was a nice fat bow that carson hooked on a little wd-40.

This is a section of the river closer to Reno. Most of the river didn't look this trashed. A fucking disgrace.

On Sunday I was really hung over. We spent a few hours at the casino on Saturday night and when I woke up I knew it was gonna be a challenge getting to the river. I pushed the curtains back on the window in the hotel room to reveal a cloudy, rainy day. I had heard about some recent epic BWO hatches on this stretch of the river and knew that today might be the best day yet.
I nursed my hangover at Denny's for about an hour and a half and then we hit the river around 10am.

This section is where we fished on Friday and hooked up using small black mayfly nymphs in the slow water.

It ended up being the best BWO hatch I've ever fished. It wasn't easy hooking up but we both hooked and landed some really nice browns and rainbows. Mostly on dries but also on small black emergers.