09
Nov 09

Upper Sacramento River… no bonefish

Up at my folks place for a few days.  My daughter went down for her nap, I went down to the river (grandma was at home, I didn’t just leave her there alone!).

Happy to be hitting the water, even in the rain.

Happy to be hitting the water, even in the rain.

It was raining, the parking lot was empty and I had the river all to myself… except for the dog, down by the river, that came down and followed me around  for a bit.

One think I know is that no matter how long I have my bonefish fixation, I’ll never know a piece of water as well as I know this piece of water.  This is my favorite run on the river I’ve fished hundreds of times.  I only had 2 hours, but landed 12 fish.  11 on  a size 14 Eng Theng (like a prince and a PT had a love child) and one on an October Caddis dry (I was fishing a dry/dropper rig).

Nice little Upper Sac Bow

Nice little Upper Sac Bow

November on the Upper Sac.

The leaves have mostly fallen, the river is empty.  Love it.

The leaves have mostly fallen, the river is empty. Love it.

There were no bonefish today… but I expected that.


26
Sep 09

McVay’s Gotcha

I’m not a wizard at the vice.  Mostly, I tie simple nymphs (like the Eng Theng) designed to fool trout and I find that trout are pretty easily fooled when it comes to nymphs (I’m in that “presentation-is-king” school of thought).  To satisfy my bonefish fixation I’ve taken to tying bonefish patterns.  When it comes to bonefish patterns the king (as far as I know) is the Gotcha.  The Gotcha is just a really easy fly to tie and it’s pretty easy to vary an element or two to make it your own.  I tie a lot of Gotchas.  Really, I tie way more than I could really use in the next decade of fishing.  Still… I keep tying them.

Pink Gotcha with some white fox tail

Turns out the Gotcha is McVay’s Gotcha and it has a pretty quirky birth… cab carpet fibers.

There is a tutorial here, at Fly Fishing In Salt Waters Magazine.