No fishing and No skiing?

Because of work commitments, I haven't been fishing since that last Yuba report. I've been so busy that I haven't even tied a fly. The only fish related stuff I've been doing is reading blogs and forums, and even that has slowed.

The last couple of winters I've felt very out of sorts. Skiing has been my winter addiction for more than 28 years. Each season, I've managed to get out between 20 and 50 days (100+ in my youth) at either a ski area or hiking into the backcountry for more excitement. In fact, moving to the Bay Area from Los Angeles was partly to put me closer to better skiing. Unfortunately, something has happened the last couple of years. My skiing has ground to a halt. Last year, I had an excuse. My son was only a few months old and leaving to ski once or twice a week wasn't going to happen. And this year, I don't know what's going on. The lack of storms? The stronger drive to fish year-round? I'm not sure. All I know is that I almost feel depressed because I haven't even gone once.

So, with that said, I've promised myself to get out there this week if I can swing it. Fishing, will have to take a back seat.

I know this is a fly fishing blog and I won't make a habit of posting about skiing. Just felt like I haven't posted anything here lately, and since I haven't been fishing, I figured this is the next best thing.

Report: Yuba

The Yuba is fast becoming one of my favorite rivers. Not so much for the amount of fish caught, because frankly I can catch many more elsewhere. It is probably for the challenge. I think the fish in this river are smart. That, or I just get a case of the stupids every time I get on this water. Just yesterday, I decided to push my luck once again and give her a try.

The Yuba is farther away from me than I'd like it to be. It takes me almost three hours to get there. That means waking up at 3AM if I want to get there by sunup. As you can imagine, I did exactly that. In fact, I was there at least a half hour before there was any light whatsoever.

I parked under the 20 bridge and headed upstream. No one was around. I had the river to myself for at least an hour. I stepped and swung through the same run a couple of times trying different flies on each pass. I've caught fish here before, so I figured I'd give it another shot. This time, I crossed the river to get a different look at it.


Within the first ten to fifteen minutes, I had a bite. After some fighting, I pulled in and landed a 20 or so inch nice looking rainbow. Possibly a steelhead that has been to sea. He had some brightness to him. Hard to say for sure because I didn't get him out of the water. I cradled him under his belly and took the hook out. He had plenty of fight left and he swam away quickly. He gave me the finger on the way out too. My face was soaked from his splash.

This guy was caught on a 5 inch long egg sucking bunny leech with a stinger hook. I tied it just the other day on a whim. It was fished on a 7.6ips sinking poly leader in the heart of a run near the end of a swing. What a day this was going to be! Or so I thought.


The Yuba has a way of taking it away from you. That was the last activity I'd have for several hours. A guide and his drift boat came by to unload his clients. I was down at the end of the run about to go back to the top to start over. But alas, they had stepped in. Some of you fly fisherman, and you know who you are, don't move. Sit and cast till your arm falls off. Since I didn't feel like waiting around, I went upstream for greener pastures.


Several hours went by and I fished various runs pretty thoroughly. Various flies were tied on to no affect. Smaller soft hackles, winged wets, hair and feather wing steelhead flies, you name it. Stupid me, I put that egg sucking leech on my baseball cap to dry and when I bent over at one point, it flopped into the water. I didn't have another. What I did have were some other marabou flies I have recently tied. They were tried too.

As I was about to leave a run, the shooting head was being brought back in. When it got within 15 feet of me, I was startled to see a good size salmon well over 30 inches chasing my fly. Keep in mind I wasn't trying to catch him. I had no idea he was even there until this moment. At the last second he turned and darted away. My heart jumped just seeing him. Never mind if he took.

After witnessing that guy, I realized a few more salmon were in this run. They were moldy looking and had to be near the end. I hope they had the chance to do their business and make lots of babies.

Eventually I walked upstream a ways as the crowds started rolling in. For a Tuesday, I was surprised to see so many people. The primo spots were being sucked up by the squatters, and I needed to find empty water where I could step and swing down the runs.

It was now early afternoon and fish were starting to rise. Skwalas were landing on my arms and face driving me nuts. However, I don't think the fish were keyed in on them. They looked to be chasing smaller bugs on the surface. I tried everything in the book to catch these guys and couldn't do it. I saw small and large fish rising. I also saw some 24+ inch rainbows cruising the slower water. They all ignored my offerings. Really smart, or I went really dumb. Take your pick.

Nearing the end of the day, I went back downriver and tried some spots from earlier. I caught some smaller fish with soft hackles. I witnessed a large, perhaps close to 30” rainbow leaping out of the water a good three feet. He would leap once, twice, three times in as many seconds. It was crazy. He was no more than 10 feet away in shallow riffly water. I worked hard to get him, but it just wasn't meant to be.

I love the Yuba. Even though it wasn't an impressive day as far as catching fish. It was another great experience on a very warm sunny day.

Report: Lower Stanislaus

It has been a little while since I'd been to the Lower Stanislaus. Figured it to be as good of time as any to give it another look-see.

After waking up and leaving earlier than I should have, I arrived at Tulloch Road about 45 minutes before sunrise. This gave me time to get a little more sleep in while I waited for enough light to walk down to the river.

My first destination was under the dam. I immediately noticed the water was low clear. Because of the low light, I couldn't see in the water, but knew fish must be around because they were already rising to BWOs. The ones coming to the surface were rather small. A splash here and there, I swung some wet flies without much results. I had a few dries with me, but since I rarely fish them, I didn't have the right size or color, so I tried to match something close with soft hackles and winged wets. The idea was to fish them right under the surface film.

I tied a size 16 soft hackle in front and a size 10 or 12 winged wet trailing behind. That got some attention. The fish that were attacking them were rather small. And after catching a few, I realized catching bigger fish would not be possible in this location because of the little guys.

I didn't need much convincing to move on. It was cold and the mist coming off the falls wasn't all that pleasant as it pounded me in the face. I moved slightly downstream.

The water seemed less riffly than usual, I'm assuming because of the lower flows. I wouldn't be able to go as far downstream as usual without running into very slow water. Since I don't fish with indicators and I wasn't doing the dry fly thing, it made little sense to stay in this area. Not enough current to keep the swing going. So, with that in mind, I went back upstream a little bit and flopped my line around where a dam side channel meets the river.

After hiking back up the steep path, I went further downstream and found more riffles. I swung various soft hackles and winged wets. I don't remember getting any bites at all. No matter how many flies I tried or what depth of the water column I was in, nothing seemed to be working. Even the rising fish seemed to lessen while the hatch continued. I found myself tying on some of my larger flies and just watching how the patterns swam in the current. If that gives you any indication how slow the fishing was, I don't know what would. I continued fishing the usual spots for another few hours with nothing to show for it.

The original plan was to cross the river and go downstream for some exploration. For whatever reason, I just wasn't in the mood. Instead, I fished the same places I always fish and by 12:30 or 1pm, it was time to pack up for Two-Mile.

I did notice a lot of dead salmon parts laying in the stream bed. Skin, chunks of meat, skeletons, you name it. Later that evening as I left, I spoke with a Park Ranger who told me that the salmon count was up this year quite a bit. That was good to hear. I'm hopeful that it will continue to climb. Fingers crossed.

Like Tulloch, the lot at Two-Mile was empty and I had the river to myself. I saw absolutely no one the entire day. Well, I take that back, I saw a couple of drunk guys on an ATV. They were flying around their property wearing cammos. I'm not sure if they were hunting or not, but it was an interesting experience. From a distance, one of the guys yells to me, “Hey boy, where's your fishing license? [slight pause] Get off my property,, I hope you can swim fast! Cause we're coming for you!” I knew they were kidding around, but it was a little strange. Then a few minutes later after one of them takes a leak, the other says loud enough to make sure I could hear “Get a head shot, make sure he doesn't get away!”. Again, I realized they were kidding, but it wasn't something I like to hear in the middle of no where with no one else around. As they drove off, they slowed down and waved to me. Whew.

I covered Two Mile very thoroughly and experimented with all kinds of flies. By the time I gave up for the day, I caught three or four 10-15inch fish and lost as many. Like upstream, it was slow. The larger fish seemed to be hunkered down, even while a ferocious hatch was going off around 2pm. Only the dinks were coming to the surface.

I kept waiting for it to get better. I convinced myself to stay until dark because the bite would surely turn on! As the sun went down, the action didn't change. It was complete dead. I can't recall the last, or if ever, I've seen the Lower Stan this unproductive. Still, it was a nice cool day on the water.

Fly #40: Blue Marabou Spey

Instead of using the "usual" spey hackles, I opted for marabou. It probably doesn't meet the exact definition of a spey fly, but it is close enough. I'd imagine it will look great in the water. I'll report back when I've found out.

Blue Marabou Spey

Hook: Size 4 Steelhead/Salmon
Tag: Flat Silver Tinsel
Body: Green Floss, Oval Tinsel Rib, Ginger Angora Dubbing
Hackle: Blue Marabou
Collar: Wood Duck Flank
Wing: Bronze Mallard

Report: Putah Creek

Early last week, I made another trip to Putah Creek. I'm giving it another chance because so many people seem to be in love with it. Personally, and although I'd like too, I just don't have the same warm fuzzy feelings. However, I felt it necessary to give it another fighting chance to sway my opinions

Arriving at sunup, I put my rod together, pulled up my waders and walked down to the river. Just below the bridge, I started off in probably the most crowded section of the creek. Lucky for me, only a few people were there at the time. To be honest, I don't even remember what flies I had on. That's what happens when I wait a week to write the report. Sorry about that. Whatever they were, there were two of them and my guess is that I started off with a small soft hackle and winged wet. This is my usual morning setup.

After about 30 minutes of flinging my rod around, I realized that I wasn't very comfortable here. It wasn't crowded at this point, but there were enough people that I couldn't move freely. I felt restricted. I did get a few bites, but didn't actually hook anything. Normally, I'd keep moving, but many people were sitting in a spot and not budging. Not my idea of fun.

I walked downstream only to come across a young kid fishing to a rather large trout that was plainly sitting on a redd. He happily pointed the giant fish out and I tried to encourage him to fish somewhere else and let it do his thing. The kid was still there by the time I left 15 minutes later. Sad.

I walked upstream towards the dam. I wanted to check out some of the water I saw while float tubing here in the Summer. Fished a couple of sections with no results. I did see a few more fish spawning, so I left them alone and went back to my car. By this time, the lot near the bridge was filling up and people were piling out one by one. What a zoo. Good thing I was ready to go.

Prior to leaving the house, I studied a satellite map and printed out the locations that I'd like to fish. This is a great way to figure out where to go. The problem is, you never know what time of year that satellite image was taken and the river could be completely different looking because of the flow. Fortunately, it seemed to be pretty accurate and I found some nice riffles to fish in. And best of all, these locations were less crowded.

I can't even tell you where I was. Other than being somewhere downstream of access #1. Found some decent looking water and got a few hookups. But the fish were able to disconnect by running down river or rubbing the line up against some rocks. It was tough to get them to me.

As more people came down to where I was, I packed up again and went to the next spot marked on my map. More of the same. Eventually, around 1 or 2PM, I went to access #5 and fished the island. The water was very low here. Much lower than last time I visited. I came across more than a few people and those that I spoke with weren't catching anything. Sadly, I started to feel good that I even hooked a few fish.

After leaving #5, I found some nice runs after some exploring. Not my ideal fishing locations, but they worked. I also came up on more people fishing redds. This seemed to be a common theme. I don't know what it is, but a lot of people are trying to pick off spawners here.

Towards the end of the day, I found the best spot. There were only a few people, but it seemed remote enough, and there wasn't the usual amount of garbage laying on the trails that I felt almost as if I were somewhere else. It was a good feeling.

I bushwhacked my way upstream and judging by the lack of trail, I don't think many people fished this spot. There were some nice runs and I finally started catching fish. None of them were huge, but they were decent 15-20 inch fish. Brought five of them to my hand and lost a few more. My large-by-Putah-standards size 8-10 steelhead flies were getting the interest as I swung them down the current.

I don't want to say this will be my last, but it will probably be one of my last Putah trips. I can see myself grabbing the float tube and going again in the Summer. However, for wade fishing, there are so many other rivers in the area that better fit my style. To each their own.

New Years Eve

I spent yesterday at Putah Creek. I'll have a report shortly. In the meantime, I had to post a link to this video I came across from the North Umpqua.

http://theflyshop.com/Mikes_Folder/kindofabigdeal.mov

This is one of the better videos I've seen from the net for both steelhead fishing and two handed casting. The vantage point that the camera man has is excellent. Not only can you see the casting perfectly, but you can see the steelhead going after the skating fly. And of course you see him catch a couple as well.

Most of the videos I see are people casting endlessly and then magically they cut to a guy with a fish on. In this video, you actually see him catch the fish.

We need more of these!

Fly #39: Earth Tones and Muted Colors

Now that I've been tying larger size 4's, these size 10's are starting to look puny. Regardless of what I think, these flies work! Not only do the trout suck them up, but steelhead around here love them too.

Basically, this fly is a miniature version of the larger spey flies. Only with very muted colors. Trout absolutely dig these when swung in the current, and steelhead will grab them too.

Fly #38: Green Hornet

The following fly was tied on Christmas night after my wife and son fell asleep. Again, it is another feather wing spey. This time on a size 8 silver hook.

Green Hornet Spey

Hook: Size 8 Tiemco Silver
Tag: Gold Tinsel
Body: Green Floss, Oval Silver Tinsel rib, Black and Green Dubbing
Hackle: Black Schlappen
Collar: Natural Guinea
Wing: Bronze Mallard

Fly #37: Another Strip Wing

Here is another size 4 using a Bronze Mallard strip wing. I'm still finding my way with spey flies, but they are looking better each time. I'm also concentrating on making them more durable by doing the little things to keep them from shredding apart after some use. This one will hopefully hit the water soon. The Holidays have kept me indoors with family.

No Name Spey

Hook: Size 4 Partridge
Tag: Silver tinsel
Body: Hot Orange Floss, Purple and Red/Orange dubbing with Pearl Tinsel rib
Hackle: Black Schlappen
Wing: Bronze Mallard
Collar: Guinea

Fly #36: New Materials

Santa arrived early this year and delivered a bunch of material. I've been tying when free time permits and below is one of my creations.

I just recently received a steelhead fly tying DVD featuring Marty Howard and Dec Hogan. Marty is in my opinion, one of the better fly tiers out there. His work is not just effective, but nice to look at. Likewise, Dec is not only a world class steelheader, he can also tie up some beautiful flies. After watching the DVD, I discovered some new techniques and was able to learn a lot. Some of that is represented below. Check out Marty's website here if interested in his DVD (I do not benefit from this link, just want to point out good instructional material).

Hot Orange Spey

Hook: Size 4
Tag: Silver Tinsel
Body: Hot Orange then Orange Floss with Black/Purple Dubbing
Ribbing: Oval Tinsel
Hackle: Orange Spey
Collar: Mallard Flank
Wing: Bronze Mallard

This guy hasn't seen the water yet. However, I know it will do well. And confidence is half the battle when swinging for steelhead.

Fly #35: Teal and Mallard

Santa is delivering a lot of tying material for Christmas. I can hardly wait to get to work. In the meantime, you can check out another fly from a frenzy of tying activity that took place in the last week or two.

Another simple fly, this guy was tied on a size 10 Tiemco 7999. The tag is silver tinsel, the body is brown/yellow dubbing, wire rib, and mallard flank hackle. Lastly, the collar is a blue/green guinea feather.

This fly hasn't seen the water yet, however, I know just by looking at it that it will be successful. I cannot wait to try it out.

Fly #34: Blue Guinea Wing

While messing around with different ideas, I quickly tied up this simple fly on a size 10 Tiemco 7999.

The components are pretty self explanatory. Silver tinsel tag, tan dubbing with wire rib, a natural guinea collar, some flash, and two blue guinea feathers for wings.

Report: Trinity

For one reason or another, I've been having a hard time finding motivation to write this report. Finally here on this Monday morning, where I'm even less motivated to begin work for the week, I've decided to finally sit down and peck this out.

I drove up to the beautiful and productive Trinity River a couple of weeks ago. Unlike the other trips so far, this would only be a one day excursion. With the price of gas falling, I felt a little better about short time spent on the water. Still, this is quite a drive for only one day of fishing. Although I think the results made it worth it.

Arriving before sunrise, I started rigging up by my car's dome light. The air was cold and I needed a few layers to be comfortable. By the time the sun was high enough to see, I was ready to head down to the water. My location was somewhere along Steiner Flat Rd. This was chosen for a couple of reasons. First, less driving distance. Second, the area was worth more exploring.

As usual, I started with a set of smaller flies to get a feel for the fish and what their mood is. I had an intermediate poly leader with a couple feet of tippet separating the size 10 and size 14 flies. The front and smaller fly was a winged wet, the back was a bead headed soft hackle.

Within ½ hour of swinging, a large fish was hooked. The bite took place about 60 feet away from me just after the dead drift as the fly started to swing across. The fish was strong and bolted for cover near a large boulder. That was the end of that. The fish was off and after a closer inspection, I could see that my soft hackle hook was bent.

I found a similar replacement in my box and tied it up front where the winged wet was and then tied on a slightly larger generic spey fly on the rear. If I catch him again, maybe he'll go for the stronger salmon/steelhead hook and it won't bend. I decided to leave this fish rest a bit, hopefully he hadn't left the run completely.

Went downstream to the next good looking spot and swung through with no results. Now, it was time to go back upstream and try that initial run again.

After getting back to almost the same exact spot, I hooked another strong fish. Was it the same one? Who knows. It didn't matter, it was a nice fight that lasted a few minutes and put a good bend in my 7-weight. I tailed the wild fish and removed that spey fly from his mouth without lifting him from the water. Since I didn't pull him out, I couldn't get an accurate measurement against my rod. I'd guess he was somewhere between 22 and 26 inches.

The rest of the day was almost a mirror image of the early morning. I hooked around a dozen fish, landing 6 of them (I caught several smaller trout, but I don't count those). All of them caught were healthy and strong in the range between 18 and 25 inches. A few of them were very bright.

The Trinity continues to be one of my favorite destinations. I hope to get out there again in the not so distance future.

Fly #33: Mallard and Orange Spey

It has been quite a while since the last fly post. Because my latest tying obsession is feather wing spey flies, I may as well show one here.

This particular fly was responsible for that decent sized rainbow on the Yuba river.

Mallard and Orange Spey

If you'd like to build your own, here are the specifics. Tiemco 7999 size 10 hook, Hot Orange Spey Hackle palmered up the dubbing, guinea collar in natural color, mallard flank wing. There is a silver tinsel butt, an orange and red dubbing with wire ribbing to give a little weight.

Report: Yuba River

I had an opportunity to sneak out for a day of fishing, so I decided to give the Yuba river another swing. After December 1st, the water above Highway 20 is open again, so I figured this would be my target.

I arrived a little late (the morning fog slowed my driving time.) I was finally fishing around 8:30am or so. I had walked to a point upriver where I had never been. Saw some riffles well past a rather long stretch of still water that went for many hundreds of yards. Since a cliff blocked my access on river left, I needed to cross. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a shallow enough spot, so I walked back downstream to the last decent looking fishy area.

Early morning; looking downriver.

I was swinging various wet flies. I had a two fly rig with a smallish winged wet in front and a soft hackle in back. The flies were rotated every so often and mixed in with some hair wing steelhead flies as well. As mentioned in another post, I've been tying a bunch of hair and feather wing flies. My most recent builds even included my first official entry (to be classified as a true spey fly, it must meet a few requirements that I hadn't yet done) into a spey fly. I'll post pictures of those soon.

By noon, I had gotten a few tugs, but nothing more. It was rather quiet. Typical Yuba fishing. The only thing I was getting, was a plethora of casting problems. I'm not sure what happened, but I regressed a little and my casting was sloppy and I had a hard time getting the distance normally accessible with my two handed rod.

I changed setups several times trying to guess where the fish were. Started with a 3.9 ips sinking poly leader, then went to a furled neutral leader, then finally settled on a intermediate sinking poly. I threw on a little split shot to sink my unweighted flies a little lower. This is something I had never done before while swinging. It worked out pretty well.

Around 2pm, I was downriver from where I started, but still well upstream of the 20 bridge. A size 10 bead head soft hackle in the rear and a size 14 winged wet upfront made up my rig. That bead head was giving me some depth, where I assumed the fish must be. My current target was the tail end of a small rapid section, and more specifically, the seam from fast water to slow. On one of my casts, when the swing crossed that seam, wham! The jolt was so sudden, it almost pulled the rod from my hand.

As quick as it came, it was over. The fish released himself and I never saw as much as a flash. I imagine he was pretty good in size. He hit me really hard. This is why I love swinging flies! Hard hits that can scare the crap out of you.

About ½ hour later I started swinging just below the surface while a hatch was going off. I caught and landed a few smaller fish in the 12-15 inch range. Towards 3:30pm I was swinging one of my new spey flies (pictures below), it was accompanied by a size 10 soft hackle. In the heart of the swing, I felt another huge jolt.

Immediately, the line started ripping across the current. The fish was probably 70 feet away from me and had covered at least that distance cross river in the blink of an eye. He stopped in an eddy and I gave a few cranks on the reel. That woke him up and he zinged down river and it stripped more line off. I had a player this time.

About 10 minutes later, I muscled a 24-26 inch beautiful missile shaped rainbow to my hand. He was hooked squarely in the side of the mouth. This is the one of the biggest fish I've ever caught on a fly rod. And he gave a real good fight. In fact, this was one of those time I actually needed to use two hands to keep him under control. even noticed that someone had stopped at the road above me and got out of their car to watch the battle. Luckily for them and more importantly for myself, I didn't disappoint and lose him.

The fish was lifted out of the water very gently and I quickly removed the hook. After putting him up against my rod for a measurement. He was lowered back in and I let him sit behind my leg for a few minutes while he was cradled with my left hand.

I was a little concerned because he showed no sign of trying to get away from me. I moved him a little bit out into the current to try to get some oxygen to him. But, I didn't want to lose my grip and have him belly up. After a few more moments he gracefully swam out of my hand and sought refuge in a stream depression about two feet below me. He stayed there for another few minutes before swimming off like nothing ever happened.

While there was still another 45 or so minutes of fishing to come, that would be my last catch of the day.