After fishing the McCloud for a full day we stopped by the Upper Sac in Dunsmuir to assess the river.  It was high, but not tooooo high and, in the fading light of dusk, the sky was full of stone flies.  These weren’t the little dark stones of winter or the bright little Yellow Sallies, these were the big boys, the Pteronarcys Californica, the Giant Stonefly. I quickly put on a big, massive foam stonefly and had a few grabs before the light faded.  I knew we had to get to dinner anyway.

My folks bought dinner for Matt Hansen and I and then Matt bought a few more beers afterwards (on the drive back I got word that my divorce was finalized, so, we were celebrating), all at the Dunsmuir Brewery Works, which I like because it is open late and, well, its a frigging brewery.  What’s not to like? Matt liked the Pale Ale, I dug on the Porter and we both had enough that we had some sore noggins in the morning.

After I made some Mother’s Day breakfast we set off for the river.  The river was indeed high, but Matt started off the party with a little bow followed by a nicer one. The Upper Sac in high water is not unfishable unless the water is off-color.  High water just means the fish are out of the riffles and sitting on the seams in the more protected and slightly deeper water. You find those places, you find fish and we found fish, although the number of places we had to fish was greatly reduced.

Matt at Prospect

The Upper Sac is a wonderful river.  It has about 40 miles to fish and has access to just about every single bit of it.  Railroad tracks and the highway see to that. Because of the access and the tracks and the highway, it doesn’t maybe get the respect that more remote locations get.  It’s too easy to get there.

If you are fishing the Big Hole, odds are you either drove there or flew there and it took a long time. It took the opening of wallets and dedication of time.  To get to the Upper Sac you just drive up the highway… 4 hours from San Francisco.

Kinda purdy out here.

Still… it is beautiful, even in high water when the fishing is compressed and you can’t get in and wade around the place like you can in mid July.

We hiked up to Mossbrea Falls and then decided to head back South. It was a good day on beautiful water.  The fish were there, but largely stayed hidden in the bigger water, despite those massive, impossibly large awkward flying stones that passed by like slow moving hummingbirds. Had a couple grabs on the big bug, but the fish were largely elusive. We had a few fish to hand, but nothing big and not too many.  Such is the fickle river.  Maybe she was a little upset that I waited until May to visit her. She’s open all year now and must have noted that I fished Cuba before I fished the Upper Sac in 2012.  Sorry honey.

Mossbrea Falls... part of it, anyway.

A great trip.  The McCloud, the Upper Sac… my rivers.  I miss them and I look forward to seeing them again.

It is a story you want to read… guides from Kiribati entering a fishing competition in Tasmania.

“It might be our first time catching this fish — there’s no trout and no rivers in Kiribati — but I’ve seen pictures before,” Bataeru says as he practises his casting from a small wooden boat on Tasmania’s Arthurs Lake.

“And we all have grown up fly fishing for bonefish in our coral lagoons, although this is different. The trout are a little harder to catch, they’re on the surface, and you use dry flies, so we do have a bit to learn.”

Read the article here.

It is a tiny creek just minutes from all the money and might of Silicon Valley.  In some stretches the deepest part might be 4 inches. I have not fished this creek in a few years.  It is closer than is reasonable and I have not fished it for an unreasonable length of time.  I set out today to right this wrong and that’s what I did.

I think even The Trout Underground would approve of the expedition.  Small stream, small fish, solitude and beauty.  It was a nice way to spend a couple of hours.  A park ranger stopped me as I walked back to my car… just to see how I’d done.  “We don’t see too many fly fisherman these days.”

The fish are tiny.  Maybe as long as my finger… maybe smaller.  They are tiny, but what they lack in size they make up for in splendor, and that’s why I sought them out.

Here are some pictures from the trip.

I had my last day on the water, a short session, just a couple of hours.  Landed some fish, including a couple out of a little pocket up against the bank that has been producing for me for YEARS.  Love that little slot.  Made me happy to pull a couple fish out of there.

I fished my favorite spot again today – Prospect Ave. on the Upper Sacramento River.  It is a special place.  I have a long, long history with Prospect.  I remember when there was a bridge at Prospect that got washed away one winter.  I’ll bet not even the Trout Underground can claim they remember it when there was a bridge at Prospect, but there was.

The river is undergoing reverse development.  There are old, abandoned homes along the river and places where bridges have been wiped out, but there aren’t any new homes being build, nor foundations for future bridges.  It does turn the clock back a bit.

I’ve seen this river in high water and low water and in the morning light and in the dark of night.  I’ve had good days and bad days at Prospect, but many, many more good days than bad ones.

I learned to fly fish here.  It is my home water.

If I’m good and the startup I’m at does really well, I might just get to know some bit of tropical flat in the same way that I know this place.  That would be something worth doing.

Home

I GTFO and headed North.  Got there in time to hit the river.  It was exactly what I needed.

Not big... but pretty. Love these fish.

And after a few hours of fishing… this…

Beer at the Dunsmuir Brewing Company

It is April… APRIL and I just landed my first trout of the year.  There is something really weird about that, but there it is.  This was also the first time I’ve been trout fishing this year, so, at least I haven’t been skunked.

I’m up in Dunsmuir while my daughter is on Spring Break (from Pre-School).  I actually had to go and buy a 2011 Fishing License.  Yes… I didn’t even have a fishing license yet and it is APRIL.  Uff da.

I have to say… I’m pretty disappointed in Union Pacific.  The railroad that nearly killed off the whole river thanks to a train derailment (back in 1991) has decided to cut off the parking access that folks use to get up to Mossbrae Falls.  This is douchebaggery.

Note: My folks have lived in Dunsmuir for 42 years and they cannot recall anyone ever being injured by a train along the tracks to get to Mossbrae.  That has got to be tens of thousands of people that have made that short hike in those years.  I think that is a pretty good testament to common sense.  Union Pacific seems to think that we’ve run out of common sense to the point that we are now in danger of falling asleep on the tracks and suing them.  This is a good example of everything that is wrong with the mentality of “better safe than sorry.”  It kind of pisses me off.

Keep it classy, UP... keep it classy.

The river is beautiful.  It’s high, sure, but the color is good and the Upper Sac can be fished at very high flows so long as the color is good.  You just need a good supply of tin shot and, presto, you are fishing.

The gateway to awesomeness.

My batting average wasn’t too hot.  I hooked three very, very, very nice trout but was 0/3 before I got one fish to cooperate enough to actually come and shake hands.  Not a big fish, but, a wild, beautiful trout. That will do wonders for your mood.

Officially on the board for 2011 in the category of "Trout"

Ah… that’s nice.

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I got to fish the Metolius with my dad.  That’s a nice day, no matter how the fishing is.

My dad said “So, what time should we meet back at the car?”

It isn’t that kind of river, I told him.  We’d fish the good water together and then we’d walk… and we’d do a lot of walking.

Lots of this on the Lower Metolius

The Lower Metolius is a different animal from the Upper Metolius around Camp Sherman.  The river above CS is skinny water and a river you can cross at will.  You can get in, wade upstream and catch a lot of little fish.  The Metolius has a reputation for being tough, but that Upper Metolius isn’t what folks are talking about.

The Lower River, on the other hand, has earned its reputation.  It is not a river you cross… you can’t cross it except by bridge or catapult.  There is a lot more river… I’m not good at math, but I’d estimate it is roughly 8 billion times bigger, give or take a billion.  There are a bunch of tribs that come in below Camp Sherman and the Highway 99 Bridge (where I think most people would agree the demarcation begins for the “Lower” river).

That there is a whole mess of water.

Fishing the the lower river is about finding spots that hold fish. Most of the river is moving too darn fast to provide anything resembling holding water for your average trout.  When you find water that slows down and provides some shelter, you’ll find some fish.  You might even find some fish eating dries.

The fish and beyond, the fish's home.

These are some pretty fish.  I was taken with this fish… the color and spots extending to the jaw and belly of the fish.  Beautiful.

A good looking fish.

The true drama of the day is sadly lacking in photographic evidence, but I’ll relate the tale to you anyway.

At the lowest of the  best water we were fishing I was standing on a large log in front of a big eddy.  I was fishing with an indicator and weight, since below Bridge 99 weight is again deemed a worthy and acceptable way to fish.  I hooked a decent fish, about 14″ and had it near the log when a large, dark, trout-like shape appeared and began trying to eat the hooked trout.  This, of course, was a Bull Trout (or Dolly, depending on which camp you are in).  I was stunned as I watched the trout trying to avoid the big Bull (about 24-25″).  At one point I was fairly sure the Bull had the trout in its mouth, but it let go and the trout got off and the whole frantic circus ended just as quickly as it had begun.

Wow.

I fished for a little while longer using my nymph rig and then could not resist temtation any longer.  In this instance, temptation took the form of a Bucket Mouth Bow… a monster of a fly… on a 5/0 hook.  This was purchased at The Fly Fisher’s Place in Sisters (they don’t have a built out e-commerce site).

I put some 1x on, tied on that monstrosity and wondered if the thing would sink or swim.  I threw it upstream and gave it a few strips, trying to get it to sink, but it didn’t matter.  Again, the dark greenish shape came out of oblivion and tracked the big ole’ Bucket  Mouth Trout, eventually eating it right in front of me, about 5 feet away.

I was pretty much dumbstruck.  I cleared my line and the fish went down stream (where it rolled right in front of my dad), then up.  Somehow, along the way, it threw the hook, which then found the flank of the fish.  With all the  leverage in the world the fish came back toward me and went under the big log I was standing on.  There, it got me hopelessly tangled in the branches on the underside of the log.  I never saw the fish again. I broke off the fly, but I can’t be sure the fish actually survived.  My dad assures me it is still alive.  Sounds like something I might say to my daughter, even if I knew it wasn’t true.

I hope it is still out there.  Fish like that are few and far between.  I’d hate to be the last person to experience that beautiful Bull.

I can’t say I recovered from that fish.  We fished another hour or two, but I couldn’t get my head right.  I was still in shock… equal parts elated and devastated.  Such is fishing.

We both caught some fish on a tough river and we saw a bull trout try to eat my rainbow trout and then eat my impossibly large streamer.  A good day.  I got some exercise too, which can’t be all bad.

The Metolius is a beautiful river with many different personalities.  For sure it is one of the most beautiful places on earth, and that includes the white sand beaches where bonefish are found.

I’ll be back… and next time, I’m bringing my 7 wt. and more than one Bucket Mouth Trout.

Yes, I am secure enough in my masculinity to take pictures of flowers.

I fished the Metolius today… family vacation up to Camp Sherman in Central Oregon.

Now, the Metolius is known for a couple things… being really tough and really beautiful.

Today, I found the river to be as beautiful as ever, but not that tough… at least for tiny fish.  I found the small fish in the Metolius and I caught them… all of them.

That's a pretty river.

I caught a bunch of these... a bunch.

Dry dropper... and yes, I caught a couple on that massive stonefly dry.

This is what passed for a bigger fish today.

The Green Drakes were out… all 3 of them.  The hatch was far from epic.  Still, fish were caught on the dries.

My guess is the big fish are lower… the certainly weren’t in the bit of water I was fishing, or, if they were, they were not in the mood to play.  Fun day on the water though.

Yum.

Get out yer split shot.

That water is high...

That should do the trick...

bingo.

Fishing the Upper Sac is like that sometimes.

When you get out there, on the water, you give yourself the chance to see things others might never see in their lives. One thing that fits into this category, I’d think, would be an Aquatic Garter Snake catching and eating a rainbow trout.

I’ve actually seen this four times.  I saw it on Hat Creek.  I saw it twice on the Lower McCloud (in the same spot in different years) and today I saw it on the Upper Sacramento River, across the street from where I grew up.

Is that what I think it is?

Well... it sure is... a Garter Snake eating a Rainbow.

Suffocated first...

Down the hatch.