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.