The Last Pale Light in the West

I took five days to trophy hunt in northern California.  The Truckee river left me with a bittersweet taste after losing what would have been my personal best brown trout.  Kypezilla has been on my mind ever since.  Those 20+ inches of copper colored scales, butter yellow fins and belly, kyped out jaw… yeah that big buck has haunted me ever since.

The clouds gray and ominous driving northbound.  I was out of the loop of the wildfire situation in the greater Tahoe region.  Work has had me in zombie mode and tunnel vision of the Truckee river from when I last remembered it, was all that I could see.  National weather warnings interrupted the dull beats of modern country music, all that would come in frequency driving through rural California.  Stubborn as I am, I still had my sights locked on the river, smoke and all.  Only the grim reaper would be able to pry my flaming charred hands away from kypezilla.

The Donner pass looked like a highway to hell.  A caravan of Oregon firefighters blazed passed, disappearing into the smokey horizon.  I was told that approximately 3,000 firefighters were trying to pacify the fire.  I probably should have turned around and headed to the Trinity river.  As the Truckee river came into sight, I immediately realized this is not the river that I once remembered.  Car sized boulders were denuded from the river, flows were low enough to make sections a stillwater fishery.  I knew there were sections of massive elevation change and rapids still had to exist.  I gave myself two days to figure it out.

I battled it out day after day.  Stripping streamers, dead drifting crays, everything that made sense for the time of year.  Crayfish were molting in the slow runs and I figured the big browns would be feasting on lobster dinner.  I worked a section methodically, swimming my rabbit strip streamer in between the boulders.  Electricity.  The line went tight and my streamer was hammered by a hog.  As usual I failed to seal the deal and everything went limp.

Frustrated and ready to throw in the towel.  I called upon the Obi Wan Kenobi of the Truckee river.  I met BigFly on the LT a few years back.  Ever since, I check in with him every now and then to see how the river is doing.  One of these day's i'll be lucky enough to get out on the water with him.  After a lengthy conversion, he steered me in the right direction and I was on my vise tying up some new patterns.  Think smallish caddis pupae, the type that hatch in October.  Only once have I seen this magnificent hatch while on the Deschutes river in central Oregon.  It is a bug that can nearly match the massive salmon fly in size.  After tying a handful, I headed downriver to give it a run.

I began working one of my favorite runs and immediately began getting grabs on the caddis nymphs.  A few in the 14" range and 16" rainbow.  Still not the monsters I was searching more, my thirst was not yet quenched.  The sun was setting low on the ridge and a few locals were sitting on a big hole about 50 yards from me.  As the light faded to dark, the locals set their beer cans aside and pulled out their fly rods from the truck.  They gave me a cold one and watched them throw mouse patterns at the edge of a submerged log.  It didn't take long before I saw my first trout blow up on a mouse.  I was shaking with unrelenting energy.  I wanted to experience this myself.  I called my fishing buddy Charles to help me devise a game plan.  As always the plan gets sucked into a vortex by paranormal forces beyond my power.  The next day, winds were up at the crack of dawn and smoke was about as heavy as it could be.  The Truckee was left in my rear view mirror and hopes of that big brown was to be saved for another day.  I'll be back.

My last hope of a two handed grip n grin was to drive north.  The Trinity flows were up in the 3000 cfs and just recently lowered to 450.  Ideal flows for this river and steelhead for sure would have made it up this tributary.  I followed the pale light set between a funnel of black clouds.  Rain began pouring and lightening flashes set off like paparazzi on the red carpet.  One disaster into the next.  Long story short, I got a short sweet taste of chrome.  Its going to be a long lonely winter with a cold dim light waiting for me at the end of the tunnel.

For the Love of Bass Part Deux

Only mere hours separated our red eye small mouth run and our midnight dash southbound.  I planned on sleeping on my Kelty air bed in the camper of my truck bed, after an hour or so high beams and loud chatter drew my out of my slumber.  With only an hour of sleep, jello legs and road buzz, we were asking for another long hot grueling day.

I was rigged with three rods this time around.  My Sage Bass for throwing a big Dahlberg diver, TCX 7wt for punching my 330gr outbound short long range.  And a 6wt with floating line and a small mouse pattern.  My first fast ball thrown at me was within' the first 15 minutes of fishing. Still under the cover of night, I chose to fish a large diver fly to create a resonating pattern in the upper water column.  After a few dives, I let my fly settle on the surface.  A terrifying surface blow up nearly made my heart stop.  I pulled the trigger too slow and missed my shot at a largemouth lunker.

Several more takes were taken on my diver, yet nothing on the magnitude of the first one.  I couldn't manage to get any to stick on this fly.  Perhaps it was the weed guard, but most likely it was my poor reflexes.  It was a mistake to compromise this trip with lack of rest.  I switched out the Bass rod and decided to throw mice.  After what felt like 100 casts, I finally find a large mouth ready to rumble.  Not a large fish, but enough to make the 6wt dance with joy.  My first fish on a mouse pattern.

By now, the sun has risen over the crest and the topwater bite turned off like a light switch.  I grabbed the 7wt and headed toward the center of the lake.  It looked like bombs were exploding in the distance like there was a war going on.  The bass were leaping on the school of baitfish, it was a blitzkrieg.  Explosion after explosion, cast after cast, fish after fish.  It was fly fishing nirvana.  Never have I experienced anything like it.  Bombing casts into the frenzy and stripping shad patterns warp speed back to the boat guaranteed a pull.  The next four hours was high bore adrenaline pumping bass on the fly action.  We were up in the triple digits as our catch rate never seemed to slow down.  None were monsters, but all were respectable sized bass in the 2-3lb range.

We left the lake with bass thumb and the muscle memory of the bass tug.  Until next year...

For the Love of Bass Part 1

For years I have been trying to get myself a river resident smallmouth bass.  Trout fishing has always taken priority when passing through this part of the county.  Flow rates were always good in the head waters I was aiming to fish, however the smallmouth water was typically blown out during high water years.  This year has been exceptionally dry and trout water critically low.  The smallies were now accessible and the trout distraction absent.

We left to the river under the cover of night.  It was going to be a hot day.  The canyon would be hovering around 100 degrees F.  Our intention was to hit the trail before sunrise, find our small mouth and get the hell out.  Like usual, our plans dissolved.

After a gut busting breakfast in town, we made the drive up the winding road to the river.  The sun was already breaking over the canyon ridge and the mercury was rising.  I rigged a 4wt for stripping small streamers and 6wt for banging the banks with poppers.  We geared up and headed up a narrow deer trail that ascended up and over a steep escarpment.  The descent looked gnarly and I questioned how we were to climb our way out.

 Once we scrambled our way down to the water, figuring how to get out had already become a forgotten after thought.  I made a cast across a current and let it swing through the back eddy.  I held it for a moment and began stripping upstream suddenly getting vicious grabs.  The takes were rapid and strong, for a moment I had a powerful smallmouth bend my 4wt deep into the blank.  As usual, I lost another heart breaker.  What a trend for this year.

Further upstream, we found some pocket water with short rapids.  It didn't take long to get a smallmouth to stick.  A cookie cutter 8 incher, but it was the species I was looking for.

We made our way upstream and I switched out my 4wt for my 6wt.  I tied on a crayfish pattern and dead drifted the tail outs, hoping to stick a pike minnow.  Another species that I have had missed opportunities catching. I missed a grab from my dead drifted crayfish as I foolishly lifted my rod before a proper downstream presentation.  It was getting stiffling and my brain was turning into mashed potatoes.  We foolishly pushed forward upriver only to waste hours of precious travel time back home.
In just 8 hours we were to gear up for another 300 miles southbound for some epic largemouth bass fishing.  Two days of straight driving and fishing, who needs sleep when your driven by addiction.  Die by the fly.

The Grey Ghost

The California Corbina has been on my radar since I first tried sight casting to them last summer.  Since I primarily spend most of my time and finacial resources on trout, other options are put on the back burner.  Since this year has been especially dry, most if not all of California's trout water have been critically low.  Hence, the lack of posts…

At least there are options… Coastlines, bays, and lakes are convenient and productive under ideal conditions.  However, for whatever reason, fresh water bass fishing has been SLOW.  Bays are hit and miss.  The surf has always been the last option.  Honestly, the only species of interest to me in the surf is the Corbina.  Everything about them is pretty interesting and a challenge to catch on a fly.  Unfortunately, these fish make themselves available to sight casting during the peak of summer beach activity.  Nonetheless, when they commit to take a fly, the ride is well worth the wait.

They are shape shifters, moving with the undulating current.  Shadows darting in and out of the rolling waves like ninjas disappearing in a plume of smoke.  These fish demand finesse presentations and absolute focus.  The take is not always detectable either, it is important to be able to see the fly and where the fish intercepts it.  The take can be as subtle as a winter time trout taking a size 22 midge and selective as any picky fish can be.  A true challenge and fight worthy of any fly angler.

Rod: Sage TCX 9' 7wt
Line: Rio Outbound short 330gr
Leader: 10lb - 8lb fluorocarbon leader 9'
Fly: Size 6 orange over blue clouser. Size 6 merkin variation (both red dumbbell eyes)

A Graveyard Without Bones

A lone Osprey 

The hunt for the elusive Cortez bonefish continues.  Charles and I made the trek down to the San Diego south bay, somewhat prepared.  With some GPS coordinates and no GPS, we had to use some guess work and the depth finder to find suitable bonefish habitat.  The Sage XP 8wt got some love on this trip since my saltwater 6wt is now in Twin Bridges, Montana for some R&R.  The 330 grain outbound sink tip made quick work of sinking my flies down to the strike zone.  I fished a tandem rig with a size 6 orange over blue clouser and a size 6 rabbit strip bonefishy sort of fly that I spun up the night before.  The catch rate was about 50/50.

The existence of these bonefish are becomming questionable.  Maybe they are just a rare encounter or I am just simply fishing when water temperature is less than ideal.  Searching for rare fish was one of my sole purposes to pursue fly fishing years ago, starting with the California heritage trout challenge. After completion of the challenge, my interests of uncommon fish have evolved beyond mountain streams.
The sea has provided me with a bounty of mysterious encounters that have left me in contemplative wonder.  I suppose that is why I return to chase what seem like mere specters of the deep.  I'll see if I can pick a bone out of this graveyard closer to spring.

Sand bass. A new addition to my species list.  A real wall hanger.

The spotties were slightly larger than Tidelands.

Searching For Bones

Tuck and I decided to explore the southern waters of the San Diego Bay in search of the Cortez bonefish.  We arrived around high-tide and the tide movement was weak.  The depth of the bay ranged from 6' - 40' with steep drop offs along the shelf of the bay.  This particular body of water seemed lifeless since the eel-grass itself looked black and desiccated from lack of oxygen.

south bay

The fish finder didn't give any fish alerting beeps until a random school of fish cruised under which was most likely a school of mackerel.  I was fishing a single size 4 ghost shrimp pattern I tied the night before.  Tuck was fishing with his signature tandem C4 fly with a clouser dropper.  His tandem rig got hit by a team of respectable spotted bay bass.  His one of many double hook ups of the day.

We were optimistic that the fishing had finally picked up.  The next hour was just casting practice.  Not even a tug or bump.  We crossed paths with a fly guy in a kayak and discovered that the bonefish that we were looking for were more commonly found on the opposite side of the bay.  The pram wouldn't have made the trek across the bay and we were burning daylight.  We decided to fall back on some better known waters and headed to tidelands.  

I switched to a blue clouser variant and began catching spotties with the outgoing tide.  The remainder of the day still proved to be slow and catching a handful of bay bass was hard work.  As soon as the tide hit a low point, the bite came to an abrupt stop.  Lizardfish began feeding during low tide and my only assumption is they  are opportunistic and feed when larger predators are less active.  Maybe I'll try tying some lizard fish patterns in the future.

Synthetic Trout

Measured 26" and shy of seven pounds.

I fished with Ben, one of the pro staff members at my local fly shop.  We failed to connect with the stocked tailwalker trout the week before and only managed a few large mouth bass.  The holiday weekends must have hammered this fishery hard and we planned on a second attempt the day after trout stocking.  Since the trout in this lake typically pod up in schools, it is relatively easy to produce a take limit (5 trout per angler).  Although it is not always easy to find the pod, especially when boats are only allowed to travel at trolling speed.  In other words... it took all day.

It was a red-eye day for me since my work shift began at midnight.  Twelve hours later we are sitting in the middle of a sun scorched lake casting our fly rods to unwilling fish.  Massive bass and blue-gill have already staged into the shallow spawning grounds, uninterested in any fly pattern in either of our boxes.  By mid-afternoon we switch our quarry to target what we essentially came for.

The trout stocked in this lake are typically Lassen strain or Nebraska Tailwalker.  The Tailwalkers are actually hard fighting fish for being farmed raised.  The size range can be anywhere from 2lbs - 12lbs.  While these are no majestic wild born fish, they can be finicky and a challenge to accept a fly.  Ben brought a stomach pump and pulled a load of gray and black midge larva from the trout.  I have seen the success of several midge fly fisherman at this lake, however I lack the patience to pursue such a task, instead I strip streamers made of radioactive colors to entice these fish.

We fished until the dim lit glow of the sun reflected off the lake.  The fish seemed to jump into our boat at this point and it became mindless fun.  My last cast produced a heavy pull and the bend in my 4wt z-axis curled under the boat.  The king of the trout pod decided to rumble.  I pulled it out from depths below the boat and steered in into open water.  It gave me a few hard runs until it flat lined into cardiac arrest.  Its not often one gets to see a trout have a heart attack.  Just one of the highlights of fishing for synthetic fish fed on a synthetic diet.

LMV Midge Larva

After it slammed its head boat side.  Don't worry it wasn't released.  We made some salmon sized fillets.

214 Days Later

Things have been pretty turbulent since last June.  Most of my favorite trout water within reasonable distance have been fishing poorly due to a devastating drought year.  By early summer the streams were   unseasonably low and I headed north, in search of big water and big trout.  My journey took me to the Truckee river, pitting my skills against some brutal water and beastly fish.  On my second day, I finally found what I was looking for, a monster brown.  It took five split shot and a size 4 double tungsten stonefly nymph to hit rock bottom.  My line came to a abrupt stop, I swung the tip of my Winston 6wt downstream and set the hook on the giant.  A ferocity that I have never experienced overcame my rod and all I could do was hold on.  The mighty brown surfaced and with graceful ease, it gave a head shake and released itself back into the deep.  Devastating is a understatement.

Fishing slowed down considerably in my life thereafter.  I needed a break.  The trout fever had made me looney.  I put down the fly rod in exchange for a longbow.  Archery and bowhunting became my new obsession however it didn't take long until the river was calling me back.  Thanksgiving was approaching and traditionally the Upper Owens river begins to fill with migratory trout from Crowley Lake.  These fish are not your typical river run rainbows.  These muscle bound trout are steel-head like in appearance and size.  Well, maybe half the size..  These are a fish of a thousand casts and it took me at least twice that to finally connect and land a beautiful 22" hen.  A follow up trip in late December was not as successful as people were swarming the river to test their skill and luck against these beauties.

Without a lick of snow in the weather forecast it looks like my trout season may be coming to a close.  Stay tuned.