Return to a River

I was a fly fishing guide for the blink of an eye. One season, that was it. I was lucky to do that guiding on my home waters and with some really good guys. All of this went down about 14 years ago, so this is not recent history.

Toward the end of that season I got stuck doing a Hat Creek Morning/Pit River Afternoon program and I got a little burned out on the Pit River. Really, I didn’t go back to the Pit after I stopped guiding… until today.

With my dad awaiting heart surgery tomorrow I headed down to visit with him in the hospital, but I took a long route that brought me to the Pit River first. The flow regime has changed dramatically since I last fished it over a decade ago and there is now much more water flowing through the river canyon. While the roads were familiar, the river was like a whole new body of water.

The Pit is notorious for being a horror to wade, but I’ve always managed not to end up ass-over-tea-kettle and today was no different, which was nice.

The river produced. I had my section to myself… well, myself and a family of river otters, which I managed not to get a picture of. Always a highlight to see the otters. They move so fluidly through the water.

I caught fish and got a feeling for the river again. It is a river that plays to my strengths and I think I’ll be back again before I let another decade slip by.

A Pit River Trout. I'm no longer burned out on the Pit.

A Pit River Trout. I’m no longer burned out on the Pit.

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1 comment

  1. Kelly J. Bandlow

    The Pit, along with the NF of the Feather are very similiar and IMHO are vastly under rated rivers.

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