fishing for words

(and tossing out random thoughts)

Category Archives: Sierra Nevada


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big lake, up high, big fish: part two

Five o’clock in the morning doesn’t seem to come as early when it heralds a day of late June fishing. A quick “good morning” call from The Wife, a hot shower, a slathering of sunscreen and the packing of lunch and gear took thirty minutes. I was ready for what would be the best Monday. Ever.

Eagle Lake Sunrise

Sunrise on Eagle Lake, June 22, 2010

Tom Loe, who owns the guide service, kindly allowed me to hitch a ride to the marina, while Darryl (guessing at the spelling here), another client, regaled me with claims of incredible fishing and trout of unparalleled quality.

Then it all came to a screeching halt.

I was asked if I had my license. I glanced at my chest. No lanyard, no license. Damn. Rookie mistake. A quick run back to camp. Frantic searching of the car, the bed, the cooler. Nothing. My license was in my backpack. Which was back at the dock. Lesson learned. I should trust in my preparations.

The sun creeping over the mountains signaled that the time had come to head out. Fifteen minutes later our guide, Doug Rodricks, was doing the “guide thing” — watching the Lowrance, peering into the crystal clear water, on the lookout for rock piles and drop offs. Soon enough, anchors were thrown, nymph depth checked, and Don, my fishing partner for this trip, and I cast out. We were fishing.

Don's First Hookup Monday Morning

Don's First Hookup Monday Morning

Helping temper our expectations was the knowledge, reinforced by comments from Tom and Doug, that calm water doesn’t make for good fishing on Eagle Lake. Especially with fish that seem to be a bit more photosensitive than most.

Managing expectations is a good thing; it makes that first takedown all the more sweet.

That sweetness came within the first thirty minutes.  Don’s rod went bendo, big time. Neither of us were prepared for the strength of these trout, nor the overall quality of every fish brought to the net. Soon came my first takedown.

My First Eagle Lake Rainbow-June 21, 2010

My First Eagle Lake Rainbow

One doesn’t simply horse these fish to the net. And each fish brings a distinct fighting style to the game. Head shaking was common. Some would sound for the bottom. Others “play possum” until the boat is in sight, then make a wild dash. A number of fish would take us on blistering runs as far as they could. A few would jump, often more than once.

I quickly learned to hate jumping fish. More than one trout successfully resorted to this tactic to throw my hook. Keep in mind, they threw the hook. I did nothing wrong.

Soon enough, the coolness of the early morning air went unnoticed as Don and I brought a second, third and fourth Eagle Lake trout to the net, slabs of fish rarely measuring less than eighteen inches. Photos were taken; photos much like many seen before, but now featuring these beauties in our hands.

Eagle Lake Goddard Caddis

One reason the bite was on, the Goddard Caddis.

The number and quality of the fish in Eagle Lake are astonishing. There’s no getting used to such strong, larger and exquisite trout. Whether hatchery raised or wild born, all display full fins, with particularly massive caudal fins, and incredible coloration. The main difference between the wild and hatchery fish is in the markings. The wild fish are almost leopard like, with a dense collection of black spots extending from the tip of the nose to the end of the tail fin and below the lateral line.

Doug called it a tough day of fishing. Probably because he had to haul the anchor and reposition the boat more than usual, adjusting to the faint winds. I, however, don’t think a ten-fish day is all that bad.

Don’t get me wrong, we weren’t getting takedowns on every cast. Stillwater nymphing is less about figuring where these trout are; it’s more about finding locations where one can intercept them. Without wind to create ripples, it’s up to the fisherman to impart some action to the flies. More often than this amateur fly fisherman might deserve, a twitch would elicit a strike. Even unintentional twitches, such as the result of a bad mend, would mean fish on.

Monday would end with a boat total of approximately 20 fish to the net. We probably took photos of at least 19. Flies for the day were pheasant tail nymphs, midge pupa and “Agent Orange.” The afternoon was dedicated to caring for sore wrists and forearms.

the big day

In retrospect, Day 1 was a warm up. Tuesday morning brought predictions of increasing winds and the promise of a better bite. The excitement was palpable as we pulled into “Shrimp,” so named because of nearby Shrimp Island. We would end up staying there all day.

Slanting early morning sun and a breeze wrinkling the water equated to a quick start to the catching. Multiple doubles throughout the day would bring twin trout to the net. Intermittent winds marked the first half of the day, and the catch rate was directly proportional to the wind.

Don's Big Fish

Don's awesome Big Fish of the Trip

Agent Orange was the name of the game. So strong was this fly’s power to entice a grab, Doug doubled up our rigs, using Agent Orange as both the top and bottom flies.

Once and a while Doug would reposition the boat, adjusting to a shift in the wind, and we’d glimpse large fish cruising the shallows.

After one repositioning, I let my flies dangle in the water while Doug adjusted the depth of Don’s rig. I wasn’t paying attention and soon felt a familiar, slow tug hinting that I had snagged bottom. Starting to flush with embarrassment and moving slowly as to not catch Doug’s eye, I carefully angled the rod to help free the fly.

Line began to peel off the reel. I ended up landing a nice, fat Eagle Lake rainbow. The slowest and the easiest hookup I’ve ever experienced fly fishing. I hope that Doug appreciated this hookset; he’d admonished me the entire trip to slow down in setting the hook.

My Best Looking Eagle Lake Rainbow

My Best Looking Eagle Lake Rainbow, a Wild Fish

Then a few funny things began to happen. I’d solidly hook a fish, only to have the reel scream as the trout ran, possibly jump, and eventually throw the hook. This happened five times. Doug swears he didn’t straighten my hooks.

Also, as the afternoon wore on, the wind would die, leaving Don and I to believe we’d get a respite from the wrist straining action. Not so. Contrary to expectations, the bite continued despite the mirror like surface and I, for one, ignored hunger pains so as to keep my flies below the surface as much as possible.

Eight hours later, and with over 50 fish between Don and I, Doug gave the 15-minute warning. Both Don and I made good use of the time…both landing one more Eagle Lake Rainbow. The wind was picking up just as we headed back to the marina, but that good feeling fatigue that comes with a day of hard fishing guaranteed only a half-hearted lament.

Crazy fishing.

The Evidence:
(Use “Compatibility View” in Internet Explorer if pictures overlap.)
[nggallery id=68]


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big lake, up high, big fish: part one

It’s still hard to decide if I just got it right or if it was the trout throwing me a bone.

Crazy fishing.

The morning of June 19th marked the start of my inaugural trip to volcano country in the northeastern corner of California. A driving time of 5 hours and 30 minutes would bring me to my destination at the east edge of Lassen National Park, roughly 93 miles south of the Oregon border and 40 miles from the Nevada state line.

Shakey's Special Pizza

Shakey's SpecialTM Pizza

Like many fly fishing trips, it began with food. When it came to my attention that Oroville was home to one of the few Shakey’s Pizza restaurants in my end of the Golden State, I appropriately adjusted my route. Pulling into Oroville, a town surviving on the generosity of travelers passing through, the old school design of the Skakey’s was a good sign. Not so good was the new school menu. That meant no Bunch of Lunch buffet (a $9.95 lunchtime experience) for me. The pizza, however, was a memory inducing event. Shakey’s pizza, at the older restaurants mind you, is one of the few foods that matches what I remember from childhood.

After dosing the body with slices of Shakey’s Special and Diet Coke, it was on to Chester, where I met up with Tom Maumoynier, owner of The Lake Almanor Fly Fishing Company. Tom’s passion about the area and the fly fishing it has to offer can be contagious. He’s so passionate about fly fishing, and his wife apparently very understanding, that Tom seems to spend many an evening “testing” various venues around Lake Almanor, and the lake itself. With advice from Tom, a close examination of an area map and a handful of flies, it was time to wet a line in Yellow Creek.

I checked into the modest but quite comfy Cedar Lodge, and headed down Hwy 89, along the western shore of Lake Almanor. A few miles later I pulled onto one of the nicest Forest Service roads I’ve had the pleasure to driven. Tom told me it was eight miles to the creek. Thankfully, signs to the Yellow Creek Campground kept me on the right path. Until I crested a hill to find the road branching in four directions.

I’d like to say I took the macho course of action (Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, catch a tiger by the toe…), but that hill was a blessing. Wimping out, I checked the cell phone for a signal and called Tom back at the shop. It was the middle road, he told me, clarifying that just about the time you think you missed a turn a few mile back, you’ll arrive at the campground. He was right.

Yellow Creek is a fantastic medium-sized creek, meandering through a meadow nestled within a gentle valley. It doesn’t offer much fishy water immediately downstream from the campground, at least not early in the season, when most of the moving water in the area is high. A 15-minute hike, however, brings nice looking riffles and pools into view.

I rigged up with Tom’s recommendation of a light green drake, which had worked well for him the previous evening, with a pheasant tail nymph dropper. Casting as I walked, the first take came a few minutes later and yielded a small, wild brown trout.

Yellow Creek Brown

Yellow Creek Brown

I believe that, like many things in life, confidence is a big factor in fly fishing. So, after 30 minutes of a lot of nothing, I switched to my “confidence flies”: a yellow-green bodied stimulator trailed by a bead-head A.P. Nymph.

A few minutes later, an 8-inch brown ate the nymph. Another nailed the stimulator on the surface. The total for the next 90 minutes was five browns and one rainbow to the net, twice as many missed strikes, and the farming of one of the “toads” I was warned about.

That toad, perhaps a fair 12 or 13 inches (big for a creek this size), didn’t hesitate when it took the nymph. Stunned that it had been fooled, it didn’t move for a minuscule but still discernable amount time. Then it exploded downstream, jumping three times before turning upstream and burying its nose in the weeds at my feet. Gaining the angle and applying gentle pressure, I turned the fish back into open water. I blinked, and with one final jump, he was off. Good times.

While I collected myself and gathered up my net, allowing my flies to swing in the current, I missed another strike. That’s a hint how fun the fishing can be on Yellow Creek.

The downside of tracking down more remote creeks and the wild fish in them is the drive out on unfamiliar dirt roads in the dark. Let’s just say that I was grateful to find pavement after a wrong turn that had me, for the first time, thinking I might have to spend the night sleeping in the car.

Instead, I got a restful night’s sleep at the motel. Good thing, too. I would soon find out that I needed it.

The plan Sunday was to head back towards Yellow Creek, but to stop short at Butt Creek, which I crossed the previous day. I had been warned that the unseasonably cold water and air temperatures were limiting insect hatches, and thus trout feeding, to the evenings. But I was there and I had the means to cast a few flies.

If one were to use my results as scientific measurement, there are no trout in Butt Creek. I did have beautiful weather, and after a few hours, enjoyed a streamside sandwich. Fly fishing, in beautiful country, is never a bad thing, regardless of the catch rate.

That afternoon I visited Susan Creek, a portion of which is maintained as a wild fishery. Yes, I only visited it. To say the water was too high would be an understatement.

As darkness descended, I was comfortably secure in my Kamping Kabin at Eagle Lake RV Park. Eagle Lake was less than 200 yards away.

Why I was there:

Eagle Lake

Eagle Lake. Looking southeast, with conditions looking good.

     

  • Surface Elevation: 5,098 ft./1,554 m.
  • Surface Area: 24,000 Acres/97.1 km2
  • Maximum Depth: 85 ft./26 m.
  • Location: Lassen County, Calif. (40°38′42″N / 120°44′38″W)
  • Second largest natural lake entirely in the state of California.
  • Home to the Eagle Lake Trout, which are uniquely adapted to the lake’s alkaline waters.


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where we’ll be tomorrow

For those who haven’t traveled Tioga Road – where out two-wheeled fly fishing day trip will take us – here’s an interesting time-lapse video. (We’ll travel a tad bit slower.)

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=12742304&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1
Google Street View: Tioga Pass Road from Austin Leirvik on Vimeo.


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motorcycles, fly fishing, fun, and good eats

It’s on in 7 days and 4 hours.

That’s when we set out on the inaugural Konoske Boys Two-Wheel/Fly Fishing RoadTrip 2010.

After years of talking about it, miles of practice rides, a few hours of tinkering with gear, and a sudden opportunity to stay at the family cabin, it’s nearly go time. The route is planned. Soon the bikes will be sorted.

One day up to Twain Harte and one day back. From sea level to 9943 feet/3031 meters over 530 miles/853 kilometers. Squeezed into that total is a one-day, 250-mile/403-kilometer loop up and over and back over the Sierra Nevadas.

Kinks just past Sonora Pass.

The first leg of our one-day tour will take us over Sonora Pass (elevation 9624 ft./2933 m.). This is the only stretch that gives me pause: 15 miles with 9 blind or partially blind hairpin turns, often with steep uphill or downhill grades. The greater cause for concern is oncoming drivers cutting corners short. We’ll take it slow, to be sure. We’ll put our training to good use, following the adage “Look ahead, then look where you want to go.” We’ll be looking as far ahead as we can.

First stop: East Walker River. Reports put this tailwater fishery a bit high right now, but with any luck a dry/dropper combo will get us into some brown trout.

A quick ride south, past Bodie and Mono Lake, will put us in Lee Vining. A left turn and we’re gaining elevation again, up Hwy 120 toward Tioga Pass (elevation 9943 ft./3031 m.) and Yosemite National Park. Hopefully we’ll wet our lines again in a section of Lee Vining Creek. That’s if we don’t have to hike through too much snow to reach what we trust will be hungry brook trout.

After the Tioga Pass entrance station we’ll wheel past likely still-snowy Tuolumne Meadows, with a stop here and there, perhaps at Tenaya Lake (no fish there), and Olmsted Point, before winding up the engines, flicking into fifth gear and making tracks for Old Priest Grade.

A portion of Old Priest Grade.

A portion of Old Priest Grade.

Old Priest Grade is one heck of a road. Two miles long with an approximately 1,500 feet elevation gain and an average gradient of 14 percent. To compare, New Priest Grade (SR120) is three times as long with twice as many curves, and an average gradient of less than 10 percent. However, Old Priest Grade is a great shortcut with relatively new asphalt. It just commands a bit of respect. So we’ll take the shortcut. At least that’s the plan for now.

After Old Priest Grade, it’s an easy and fast road toward the cabin, with the promise of a dinner of our favorite burgers fueling anticipation.

As for this weekend, I’ll be selflessly gathering fodder for future fishing posts by dragging myself up to the Eagle Lake area for a few days of playing with big rainbows in the lake and making a few casts on nearby streams and rivers. Rotten business, I know, but I do it for you.


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watching, waiting

Recent picture of the plowing efforts to open Tioga Pass Road, near Summit Meadow, on the Yosemite Valley side. Counting the days until I can take a weekend Sonora Pass/Tioga Pass Fishing drive, or ride.


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opening day 2010 – new wild places

Each Opening Day Weekend — with or without company — I charge into the Sierra Foothills in pursuit of the first trout of the season. This year Older Son Sean accompanied me.

Sean left earlier than I could Opening Day — I had a commitment — and he had some luck flogging a few spots before my arrival. We met up at The Cabin late in the afternoon. Sean brimmed with confidence that this would be the year he outfishes dad. The refrigerator was stocked with beer and the pantry with basic staples and, with daylight waning, we opted to warm up on the surprisingly trout-friendly irrigation canal behind town.

Opening Day brings nearly half the town to the canal, knowing that sometime during the prior week, days or hours, that the state DFG hatchery truck will have dropped a load of pan-sized rainbows into the water. I’ve seen everything brought to bear on the canal — the ubiquitous baits of questionable manmade formulations, bass lures, even 10 foot saltwater rods — with the results being full stringers, as well as the seemingly inevitable string of injured, dead, or dying stocked rainbows. (Wild or not, wasteful in my book.)

Snow along the way, in late April.

Snow along the way, in late April.

The first full day began with a five a.m. departure. This year it meant driving east on Hwy 108 during at dawn. Not surprisingly, remnants of dirty snow appeared at approximately 4,500 feet and drifts defined the snowplow’s reach after 5,000 feet. Most summers I will end up driving this route at least six times. Sometimes to destinations before the summit; other times to traverse Sonora Pass as I make tracks for the East Slope of the Sierras. So, knowing full well (and happily) that Old Man Winter laid down a healthy snowpack, we set out Sunday morning to reach the Promised Water, the Clarks Fork of the Stanislaus River, which is littered with boulders and sprinkled with wild trout and their domesticated brethren.

Outside the car windows the air was crisp and cold, and snow began to dominate the landscape. That should have been our warning. Apparently the road to Clarks Fork doesn’t warrant the same attention as the highway when it comes to snow removal. Disappointment was tamed somewhat by the acknowledgement that we were taking risk this time around by checking on waters never before visited this early in the season.

The next attempt to reach unvisited water— Sand Bar Flat and Spring Gap on the Middle Fork of the Stanislaus River — was prevented by (1) lack of signage and (2) lack of a Stanislaus National Forest map. Fishing near Spring Gap can legitimately be called epic: a few years ago Christopher and I stumbled upon it late in the afternoon; late enough that we had about two hours of fishing, but those two hours yielded some beautiful wild rainbows. But Sean and I weren’t getting there this year.

Apparently gluttons for the punishment doled out by Forest Service roads, we threw caution to the wind to set the GPS for Wild Trout Stream X. It’s been mentioned here before as a location revealed in confidence by two old and grizzled fishermen who appreciated the fact that Sean and I were fly fishing and practicing catch and release. We had visited the stream in the off season, when flows were about half of what we’d find, and saw a good number of dark shadows that presaged good times. It’s about ten miles from pavement, on roads littered with potholes (and mud at this time of year) winding through dry pine forests, by meadows and over one river and a few creeks. Sean claims that no matter which direction we were headed that the potholes seems to line up on his side. It certainly wasn’t my driving.

Was the long, 20-miles-per-hour drive worth it? You betchya.

Smaller streams are always a great excuse to get out my smaller 3 wt. rod, so while I was getting that ready Sean nearly ran to a pool downstream of an old-school stone bridge. You’d have to ask him, but I would swear that it wasn’t more than one drift before I heard an exclamation affirming a hook up. Sure enough, a small wild rainbow was the first of many rewards for the torturous ride in.

What I call a Trophy – a wild rainbow in Stream X.

I’m always amazed to find trout in streams like this one. It was rarely more than six feet across and more than two feet deep. Its crystal-clear water danced over the rocks, creating riffles and small plunge pools. Short stretches offered a riffle-pool-tailout configuration in miniature.

This small stream made the day. There’s nothing like wild fish. Particularly in light of The Unaccomplished Angler‘s “Adages as Pertaining to Smallish (Wild) Fish”:

  • What they lack in size, they make up for in beauty.
  • A size 22 fly in the mouth of a 2-inch fish is equivalent to a size 2 fly in the mouth of a 22-inch fish. Or something like that.
  • It’s not about the size of the fish in the fight, but the size of the fight in the fish. And little fish are scrappers.
  • There’s more fishing than catching big fish.
  • Small fish, in the hands of those with small hands, look relatively large.

While I hear that Mr. Unaccomplished is good in the small hands department, it’s not so true for me. We’re in agreement on everything else.

Sean on Stream X.

Sean on a fish.

And the wild fish at Stream X were h-u-n-g-r-y. We were casting a dry/dropper rig (a dry fly with a dropper, i.e. a subsurface nymph imitation) and these little guys chased both flies with abandon. Even the dry fly, despite it being a size 12 stimulator in my case. (The dropper was a size 18/20 Copper John.) As a relatively new fly fisherman who cut his teeth on nymphing as a nearly surefire way to dredge up trout, the last two years I’ve gained a greater understanding for the pure joy of presenting a dry fly in a manner adequate enough to elicit a strike.

Rubber-legged stimulatior doing the job.

Rubber-legged stimulatior doing the job.

Steam X also offered plenty of dry fly fun. Sean spent much of his time at the downstream pool, while employed my shorter rod in dappling various riffles and plunge pools as I made my way upstream. Disappointment was rare. Fish would rise out of bubbles of plunging water to inhale the rubber-legged stimulator. Others in riffles would pounce on the dropper at the last minute, just as it began to drift toward the water’s surface on the swing. Nearly four hours flew by. We capped the day with a great buffalo burger at the well-known Diamondback Grill in downtown Sonora.

Monday would mark Sean’s last day of the trip and a responsible but unfortunate decision to leave a bit early to make it to class. His original plan was to skip class to spend a bit more time on what I’ll call Hatchery Creek. (More on why later.) We were on the water just after sunrise, but with the water temperature at 50°F, there was no love that morning. Two hours or so later, Sean made his fateful decision. As for me, perhaps I’m too stubborn. Sometimes stubbornness pays off.

First fish of Opening Day 2010.

Hatchery fish, Opening Day 2010.

Mid morning, with sun dappling the water and the air temperature rising enough so that I could no longer see my breath, bugs began to hatch. A few small mayflies darted here and there. Then the bite was on. During the next two hours I would hook fourteen fish and bring ten to the net. (I’ll attribute the hooked/landed ratio to the fact that size matter that morning…nothing larger than size 18 got their attention.) Every fish was a cookie cutter stocker, ranging from ten to twelve inches. I’ll give ‘em credit, every single one of these fish put on a good show, either jumping multiple times or offering me a challenge by sounding for the bottom. I stuck around through the afternoon, trying to land that last fish. It never came. The evening entailed cleaning The Cabin and packing most of the gear.

The last bit of fishing for this trip came when the last load of laundry was in the dryer. I made the short drive to The Canal and casually walked upstream with drifting a couple of nymphs through likely locations, particularly the undercut bank just underfoot. Things looked good after the second case, when a colorful, ten-inch brown absolutely nailed the lower fly, a Copper John. During the 30-minute walk up to flume I picked up two more trout, both brownies. Below the flume, where the force of the water create a pool full of eddies, another five fish came to hand. (I missed two hooksets as well.)

Overall it was a great Opening Day trip. The catching wasn’t red hot as it’s been during previous Opening Days. Stream X, however, offered the highlight of the trip, the kind of fishing memory that will grow grander with each telling. But don’t ask for the GPS coordinates. You’ll only get there if I take you there. Blindfolded. Probably in the trunk.

First fish of Opening Day 2010.
Wild rainbow from Stream X.
Looking upstream from the bridge over Stream X.
Another look at Stream X.
Rubber-legged stimulatior doing the job.
Nice wild rainbow trout from Stream X.
Good looking fish.
Sean on the Stream X Bridge.
Sean with one of the numerous wild rainbow trout caught that day.
Sean on Stream X.
One of the hidden valleys along the way to Creek Y.
Closeup of coloring.
Sean with an Opening Day trout.
Snow along the way, in late April.


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manly fishing and food

By now you know that the Older Son and I are likely having a heck of a time. We’re headquartered at the cabin, fishing a few rivers and small streams for trout. Maybe even tainting our lines to chase bluegill and bass in a nearby pond.

During the fishing there will be manly bonding that can only come over fierce friendly competition; competition that likely will be won by guile and cunning rather than youth and strength. In between fishing there will be a visit to our favorite hamburger place. Thankfully, forecasts portend fantastic spring weather. Yeah, a heck of a time.

I can feel your sympathy.

Without a decent laptop, much less a reliable connection to the interwebs, any updates will erratic or nonexistent. In the debate of fishing vs. blogging, well, you can guess the loser.

More words — and taunting — to come. Just can’t say when.


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the starting line

Stepping up to the plate to help educate novice fly fishers tomorrow morning in the basic skills needed to play and land a fish means shoving aside the desire to fling a fly at oh-dark-thirty on Opening Day of Trout Season 2010. (The offer of a free lunch had something nothing to do with volunteering.)

Unfortunately, there’s 125 miles between the classroom and suitable trout water, which means — without too much traffic — I won’t put a fly in or on the water until sometime after 4:00 p.m. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. That magical twilight hour can mean good times on a few of the rivers and streams on my list.

The plan’s a bit in flux until Saturday morning, when older son Sean will decide on his departure hour and whether he’ll stop at the Bass Pro Shops store in Manteca…and how much time and money he might spend there. (Thankfully, he doesn’t have to worry about a wife discovering that Bass Pro offers something for everyone.) His timing will determine on which water will begin his annual attempt to out fish the old man.

A portion of our arsenal.

It’s certain that we’ll mix it up a bit this year. Water flows will dictate whether of not we visit the Clark Fork of the Stanislaus River. The regular, local spots are also on our list. So is Brook Trout Stream X, a small trickle of a creek discovered last year thanks to two local retiree/fishermen, who gave specific instructions to ‘…go down that there road ten miles and you’ll find it.’ No mention that nine of the ten miles would be Forest Service road. We’re hoping that after a long winter that these wild brookies might be a tad hungry enough to be fooled by adequately presented dry flies.

We’ll have the new waterproof camera with us, hoping it’ll be baptized photographing some decent fish.

Our days are about to flash by at a more frenzied pace, but there are fish in our future and more than a few waters — a well-known lake in Northern California, a Washington river, and untold Sierra rivers and streams — in which we’ll wet our fly lines for the first time. We’ll reacquaint ourselves with familiar waters along the way. Then there’s the long-planned Tioga-to-Sonora Pass Motorcycle Fly Fishing Tour.

We’re packed and ready to go.


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the pre-season hatch

An ASVAB score pointing to Army MOS Field 92 foretold of our penchant for long-range planning. That same long-range planning fuels fly tying and anticipation of the coming trout fishing season.  What’s slowly becoming an annual effort of logistics planning and matériel acquisition is underway.

We’re warming up. Figuratively and literally.  Spring’s officially around the corner.

Mid-March marks the beginning of the end of winter and sounds the four-week warning bell for The Club’s annual auction, where we’ll donate cold hard cash in exchange for not necessarily warm or soft flies.

And fishing plans are being hatched.

Long before the felt vs. rubber-soled wading shoe debate.
Heck, long before any environmental concerns.

It all begins the last weekend of April.

We’ll be out the gates Opening Weekend with a quick three days of fishing Sierra west-slope streams and rivers in the hope that they’ve suitably recuperated over the winter. The oldest son might join me, though it’s hard to tell if it’s the fishing he’s after or a buffalo burger at Diamondback Grill. Regardless, we’ll be going where the fish are and cell phones hopefully don’t work. And once the trout season opens, the rush will be on to squeeze in fishing weekends as we can.

Next stop: the Upper Sacramento. This late June trip with The Club will incorporate “bugology” and on-the-water education. This’ll be yours truly’s first visit to this much talked-about far nothern stretch of the “Nile of the West,” fulfilling the self-made promise to try at least one new trout water each year.

But wait. There’s more.

The visit to the Upper Sac will be immediately followed by two days of guided fishing on Eagle Lake. The excuse is that we’ll be in the neighborhood. Mostly. The truth is that Eagle Lake is on the all-too-long bucket list. Best to start early whittling down that list.

The midsummer plan is to hit up the folks who raised us for lodging and grub, then chase Puget Sound salmon with the bro’, pa and few of their friends. It’ll be a quick trip…one of a length that now appears too short since dad’s stepped up to join us for a float on the Yakima and there’s a possibility of getting onto some local water, backed by the local knowledge of fellow fly fisher who’s offered whatever tidbits he might grudgingly share in exchange for a pint or a lunch or a dinner.

The year’s shaping up to be a windfall of new waters. Four new venues in just as many months. The months that follow will offer the comfort of the familiar.

Nothing’s set in stone for the dog days of summer, but history hints at a few weekend stays at The Cabin, punctuated by high-speed runs leisurely drives over Sonora Pass to wet the line in one or more waters: the rivers Walker (East, West and Little), Lee Vining Creek, Saddlebag Creek, and the Lyell and/or Dana forks of the Tuolumne.

Favorite late fall target: High Sierra brook trout.

We’ll officially mark the start of fall with a three-day stay at Tom’s Place Resort with perhaps a dozen club members spreading out to their favorite (lower) Eastern Sierra Waters. From sunrise to sunset we’ll be educating trout and testing home-tied flies on Rock Creek and Crowley Lake, with stops at Hot Creek and the Upper Owens and East Walker rivers. Dusk to dawn will mean home-cooked meals, homemade beer and sleep, in that order.

That’s where specific plans end. Rest assured, the looming closure of the season will bring renewed and somewhat frenetic energy. Energy for quick weekend trips, again headquartered at The Cabin, with day trips here and there.

Trying to live the life of a gentleman fly fisherman is tough. But I’m trying my best.


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let my hatchery trout go

The hard times faces by many rural California communities
might just get harder if the Pacific Rivers Council and Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) deem Homo sapiens, like trout, to be an introduced species in high Sierra watersheds.

Four years after filing a lawsuit centered on the idea that stocked hatchery trout and salmon have ‘deeply hurt’ native trout, salmon and amphibians, in a press release issued today the CBD unsurprisingly judges the California Department of Fish & Game’s final environmental impact report (EIR) to be a failure. But reading the naturally strongly worded press release — and without wading through the legalese of the original lawsuit filing — it seems that the CBD’s goals seems nigh unreachable.

In response to lawsuits brought by the Center for Biological Diversity and Pacific Rivers Council, the California Department of Fish and Game has released a final environmental impact report analyzing the impacts of stocking of hatchery trout and salmon on native species, including native trout and salmon and amphibians deeply hurt by a century of planting of millions of hatchery fish.

An EIR going back 100 years? We’re all for protecting the environment, but isn’t that reaching a bit much?

The CBD’s approach as perpetuates the piecemeal attempts to save salmon citing a federal study then blowing past the comment about habit quality to focus on hatchery fish.

One federal study concluded that the “longstanding and ongoing degradation of freshwater and estuarine habitats and the subsequent heavy reliance on hatchery production were also likely contributors to the collapse” of salmon stocks. The state’s new report does not propose any specific mitigations to address the impacts of hatchery fish on native salmon stocks.

For catch and release fisherman, the original concept of the lawsuit could have been interpreted as a way to protect wild trout populations from their hatchery cousins. And while the yellow legged treefrog was the poster amphibian for the CBD lawsuit, the lawsuit encompasses 36 ‘imperiled’ species in 47 streams, rivers and lakes. It’s not hard to remember the last time a fisherman bragged about that unarmored threespine stickleback or hard head minnow. It didn’t.

The pullback in DFG stocking could easily amplify the current economic slump in communities that have benefited from stocking. It’s ironic that on the same day of the CBD published its press release that Alpine County’s Markleeville was used as an example in the aforementioned San Francisco Chronicle article regarding the economic reality in rural California communities.

Markleeville is a jumping off point for a good many fishable streams, rivers and lakes, some stocked and some not. The Chronicle covered the community’s hardship from an economic standpoint. Back in November, the Sacramento Bee reported on Markleeville’s response to the elimination of Alpine County lakes and streams from the DFG stocking list:

So when the state Department of Fish and Game this week released a list of lakes and streams that won’t be stocked with fish until at least 2010, it landed in Alpine County with a thud. “These waters are our economy,” said Skip Veatch, an Alpine County supervisor and its former sheriff. “If they are not populated our economy is going to go down the drain.”

And a blogger for Bakersfield.com reported on the dramatic and immediate impact of the Dec. 30, 2008, compromise on stocking that prevented stocking of fish in water that held certain “species of concern.” That meant no fish for a section of the Kern River.

So stocking in the Kern ended a year ago this month.

There was no notice, nothing,” Donna James, who with her husband runs Camp James on the Kern River near Kernville, said. Almost overnight, she said, fishing dried up — and then so did her business.

Some businesses in the Kern River Valley saw as much as a 40 percent decline, said Jim Hunt, former president of the Friends of the Hatchery, the Kern River hatchery that farms the rainbow trout Fish and Game uses to stock the river.

I’ll admit to periodically enjoying some waters that regularly used to receive hatchery trout, particularly when snow blocks routes to high Sierra streams. I’m also all for easing pressure on existing wild and native trout populations. However, in my opinion, Noah Greenwald, endangered species program director at the Center, misses the mark himself when it comes to the recreational aspects of fishing.

Fish and Game has missed the mark with this review, which fails to consider alternatives that better meet their mission to conserve native wildlife,” said Greenwald. “On top of that, it’s questionable whether the current fish-stocking program effectively provides fish for recreation or commercial purposes.”

In my small world there are two types of fishermen: those who catch and release, and those who don’t. For the latter, hatchery trout tend satisfy their ‘recreational purposes.’ So, without an ‘appropriate’ level of stocking, am I wrong to worry that fishermen who want to keep their catch might horn in on waters previously left to the eccentric and lone fly fisherman?

Where’s wise Solomon when you need him?