“You’re keeping an eye out for snakes, right?”

You can’t help a furtive glance at your feet when you hear that refrain. Here I’ve been stomping around the Little Stinking with impunity and I’m getting the real story from one of the landowners who stopped to chat.

Against my better judgement I’d taken a dawn hike up the river to see if there were any Carp above the normal spots fished. Last year I’d gone up an extra two miles and found a riffle feeding a deep pool, figuring that might block any upstream migration, and with the low water, eyeballing it might be appropriate.

Last week’s success required failure, as fish aren’t very smart – but they’re vindictive as hell. A momentary weakness for the “X-Factor” nymph means this week they’ll feign disinterest and give you the finger. Hoping to outsmart my destiny, I had a pocket full of new experimental variations of X-Factor nymphs and other beaded monstrosities.

They got the finger too.

The only bright spot was San Mateo Joe’s “Buffalo Stone” nymph. I’d been holding these in reserve for that special moment when you want to crush the spirit of the angler next to you ..

“Buffalo Stone? Never heard of it, what’s the pattern?”

“Buffalo shed.”

I figure just enough emphasis on the wrong syllable will have the guy reaching for plastic bags and a shovel… 

Black Hackle tail, shed buffalo fur for the body and thorax, with a couple turns of black rooster under the wingcase. It proved a slow sinking “change up” – which fooled a lot of bass this morning.

I spent two hours chasing a pod of six carp fruitlessly. I resolved to stop fishing for the “patrolling” fish, if it isn’t feeding, don’t cast to it. Tried every fly I had with me, including those from Minnesota and Oregon, and merely spooked a lot of large fish. 

OK, so the Carp are gone, and despite the 100 degree temperatures I feel … invigorated, refreshed even. Clay substrate is like grease – and the budding naturalist interested in Carp photos was taught a lesson.

At least I had one shot in focus … and an underwater camera.

The affect of low water is a boost to the bass population. Tules are now coming out of the creekbed and offering ample cover for hundreds of smallmouth. Most of the fish are four inches long – and should be six to eight inches by the winter flood. I’m hoping that’s large enough to survive the surge – and next year could be something special.

Remains to be seen, but that’s a lot of cover for small fish – and most should escape the herons, egrets, and mergansers. This stretch used to have only three large bass – now it has hundreds of small bass hiding under the mats of vegetation.

My inventory shows one water and a six month old “hooter” bar, the bane of the social angler. I’d found it trapped in the catch pocket of the passenger side door, knew it tasted like granulated cardboard when new – so age could only be an improvement.

“Hooter” bars are shown on TV – always some fit, smiling, office denizen skipping the fatty lunch for the pleasure of a rich and satisfying soy-laced, protein substance, glazed with a faux sugar exterior – often resembling chocolate.

What they don’t show is the percussive effects of such a hearty, well balanced treat. The fat doesn’t melt away, it bloody vaporizes … Age didn’t help the flavor, and right now some coyote is wondering what in God’s name he ate.

I go by visuals and my eyesight ain’t what it once was, he lives by a keen sense of smell, both of us should have been smarter.

The riffle and pool combination had some feeding carp that I could get to – but like the earlier fish, wanted nothing to do with flies. I flung and stripped, left them on the bottom, dead drifted over the top, and were either ignored or caused the fish to spook and run for the deep water.

Sorry, but if you think selective trout are difficult, I’ve got something much worse.

I’ve got to rethink everything, as something is fundamentally wrong with what I’m doing. Large flies spook the fish, whether bright or somber, and the only fish I’ve landed took a #14 caddis emerger.

Watching them feed is a bit of a conundrum, they’re not mowing weedbeds, rather they’re in the muddy areas siphoning the bottom like a vacuum cleaner. Outside of the “burrowing nymph” class of insects are the tiny clams – that’s the only visible prey I can see when wading the same locations.

Roughfisher has an imitation that I’ll try next week, “Clam before the Storm” – and if that doesn’t work I may try creamed corn, just to get even.

The landowner that paused his work to visit was a cheerful and informative fellow, he was astounded that I’d walked the entire length from town and lived.

“Once they flood the ditches the Rattlesnakes are all over, killed two in my driveway yesterday.”

That may be the reason my right leg is full of water, remind me to check for fang marks.

“… and we had a mountain lion here in March, big fellow ..”

Hopefully he likes Hooter bars, at least I’d hear him coming.