It must be why them backwoods fellows always get tagged with toothless and inbred, their lack of interest in Physics is what separates them from their urban kinfolk.

Despite ample deer tilting with MAC trucks, locals don’t gather them up and fling them off the Interstate to see whether they splat or splash – while their urban cousins delight in the practice.

Discussing particle physics with Bud Light, only the particles are washing machines and dead domestic animals and bob in the current almost as well as the beer cans.

I call it home.

I’ve spent the last couple of months trodding the rarified waters, some considered clean, and some fit for laundry. Standing in the shade of the bridge I’m struck by the real difference between where the river starts and where she finishes is the shape of the trees, and local interest in  physics – big particles, goat sized even …

The Underwear is twice her normal size – so the Shad may be done until next year, and the Little Stinking hadn’t seen me for some time – so I paid my respects to her bony remnants.

New trash and new “NO Trespassing” signs caught my eye, the river is about 1/10 normal flow – and the beavers have moved in to claim what’s left. The Cache Creek Conservancy has posted the banks to ensure no one alters the foliage, but the channel is forgotten – and anyone can have their way with the damp part.

Funny how the watershed can be parceled into dry part and wet when money hangs in the balance.

The creek is now only a series of beaver dams, with a thin rivulet of water connecting them all. The largest edifice is nearly four feet tall and marks the Conservancy proper, a warm currentless holding pond we’d call “frog water.”

The size of the dam is inspiring, keeping a mile of river channel filled to historic norms, where it’s bridged again by another beaver family both above and below the housing development.

Not many fish visible – and most of those were young-of-the-year rather than holdover fish. I stung a couple of four inch Pikeminnow and managed the capture of a live crawdad – which answered some of the questions I’ve had about their swimming style and streamlining characteristics, taking a couple of reference shots to capture their live coloration.

They’re fast movers and with legs and antennae tucked under them, swim as gracefully as minnows – in short bursts.

I’m struggling with testing a Reddington RS4 6 weight and matching reel (for a later product review), nothing’s amiss with the rod other than letting TC set it up as a “cast right, reel left” – more evidence them woodsy types have trouble tying their shoelaces.

…. by my account that 4″ fish took 86 feet of fly line – might’ve spooled me if I hadn’t discovered I was surrendering line with every turn of the handle. That’s the beauty of the path less trodden, flip the reel on top the rod and crank like you mean it.

… and no witnesses to point and laugh.