Category Archives: Brownlining

We’ve covered our usual haunts and the larder is empty

neat_gravel You can’t fault them as it’s worked well for the environmentally conscious types.

Stop the creek with a well placed cork, extinct everything but ATV hellions and gravity donations from the housing dispossessed – and when no one’s looking – slap up new signs to keep out the dog walkers and environmentalists.

Are they worried someone will destroy the perfection of their mounded symmetry?

The latest batch of signs that surround a couple billion pounds of spawning gravel excavated out of the surroundings of my newly dampened – dirty little creek.

… soon to be part of your driveway or that subdivision up the road that’s dampening the resale value of your home – due to jinglemail and foreclosure.

It’s one of many changes I logged while tromping through the underbrush this weekend, part of the yearly Spring ritual which maps the newly deepened, the undercut, and the shallow.

… and the living, although there’s not much of that left.

Saturday yielded two turtles lounging in the shallows, away from the sterile scour of the main stem – proof that some of the larger life had made it through the de-watering and subsequent flood.

Root Ball upgrade, air conditioning

Old cars being a lifeform of a sort, and most are disgorging their contents independently of the chassis. This old Chevy moved a couple dozen feet closer to the Sacramento, complements of the root ball it has created.

I managed to sting one bass up at the Siphon hole, and the departing ripples suggested at least a pair of carp remained from the school that inhabited the area last year, so some small brood stock remains.

There are no minnows in the shallows, nor fry of any type.

goodweed Benthic drift suggests the smallest insects repopulate first, and the larger organisms follow. This may be why the watershed is dominated by Trico’s – who have yet to stage an appearance.

All algae and weeds are limited to the secondary channels which are typically dry by June. New growth is readily apparent and I stomped through the dense sections to assist Mother Nature in releasing plenty of algae and sprouted growth to repopulate the sterile sections downstream.

Sunday it was the upper stretch of the river, which had been completely dry last year.  The creek is running about four times normal, so crossing the main channel required trepidation and tree limbs morphed into wading staff.Sheared cleanly and starting to sprout

No sign of fish or weeds apparent, drastic bank removal complements of the earlier flood, and the bottom cobble covered with a thin layer of brown algae.

Much of the willow growth has been sheared cleanly, evidence of the flood’s ferocity.

What’s left is being eaten by those beaver that survived, and the ample tracks in the drying mud suggested numerous survivors.

After covering nearly five miles of creek in two days and finding visual evidence of fish in only a single spot, things look grim. It’s not unexpected, and the increased flow likely hides additional detail, but it will be some time before anything more than casting practice is offered.

Tags: rebirth of the Little Stinking, turtle, largemouth bass, grass carp, fly fishing, brownlining

He gives Cyprinids the Fat Lip

Roughfisher Ties one on Friend Roughfisher is adding his expertise to the USCARPPRO ezine, with a monthly column on flies for our favorite Cyprinid. It’s a great fit and a monstrous ezine, 150 pages of technology and insight into all forms of carp fishing – most of which we never knew existed.

Fly fishermen have more than our fair share of snooty types, with the balance either market hunters or fishermen. Cracking the cover on USCARPPRO suggests they have an equal leavening of elite anglers, elitism, and enough precision engineered tackle and angling minutiae to give fly fishermen a run for their money.

We devote four pages to synthetic tailing materials, and they’ve got four pages of hand cast lead weights with finishes that mimic rocks. We’ve got Bimini Twists and esoteric single purpose knots – only they’ve got twice as many, most of which we’ve never encountered.

We’ve got fly patterns in the tens of thousands, and they can match us one for one with boilies, popups, and wafters – all of which sound like Willy Wonka’s Everlasting Gob Stopper – only in Vanilla and Black Licorice.

Which gives them the edge on us as they can eat what they throw.

Best of all is the lack of outstretched arm posturing – there’s no need to exaggerate fish size, as most are unable to lift the bloated behemoth past their knees…

… and they’re smiling. Ruddy faced grins celebrate a worthy quarry, something that’s only occasionally seen in our glossies.

If you thought fly competition hooks were expensive – these fellows pay double for theirs – I couldn’t help but salivate over the shapes and reinforcement – we don’t have nearly the options we once did with X-Strong fly hooks.

I found it an enjoyable departure from our media, an interesting glimpse at a sport taken every bit as seriously as our own – with the added comfort of knowing there’s some poor angler paying more for his rods than I am.

Sure it’s bait fishing, but us fishermen do that.

While you’re there – tell Roughfisher we ain’t on speaking terms until some of that homemade sausage makes it to my side of the Rockies. Fly fishing is fine and all – but withholding eats is unconscionable.

Tags: Roughfisher.com, USCARPPRO ezine, cyprinids, boilies, popups, wafters, bimini twist, Willy Wonka, carp

Lucy pulls the football away at that last critical moment

This was the weekend where my newly placid and emerald alma mater was to be violated cruelly by my large feet. Flows were perfect, the sun was out – and a balmy 67° predicted.

Friday night was the prenup. Rods inspected, reels freshly oiled, boots sterile from chemical bathes and three months of enforced idle, flies neatly ranked by size and color – and experimentals squirreled away in secret compartments safe from prying eyes …

Saturday morning was corporate taxes, income taxes, laundry, and groceries – aided by the whirlwind “guy clean” of bathrooms and footpaths, sinks and dishes, and I plunged into the sack knowing that on the morrow, order would be restored to the Universe once I felt the first new leak in my waders.

… and while I slumbered fitfully, the light patter of rain turned foul.

Charlie Brown version

Now I know the endless grief that was Lucy pulling the football away at the last bloody second, and how Charlie Brown suffered horribly.

I returned home a broken man.

Tags: Charlie Brown, Little Stinking, season opener, brownlining, disappointment,

Audubon California lectures while they pass the humidor

It’s only a blip on my radar, and  few are losing sleep over a dirty little dustbowl lined with “Quad” tracks.

This morning commences the Cache Creek Aggregate Producers Breakfast, where they’ll be attired in top hats and too-tight vests, an abundance of hearty backslaps and thick cheroots, and some environmental pipsqueak trying to be heard over the din champagne corks and water jokes.

Yes, these fellows are the “evil industrial complex” that saw fit to drain my creek dry to fuel their “13% more tomatoes grown during a third year of drought.”

Monitor a dust bowl, Mr Fat Cat

I’m being overly melodramatic – these are actually the “evil indrustrialists” that make a moonscape of the watershed, and after peeling Mother Nature’s brassiere off – they’ll donate her pock marked form to the county – thereby collecting enormous tax write off’s and engendering good feelings …

… and they don’t need a lecture from  Audubon California (as will be featured) reminding them of their civic responsibilities, as they’ve decided a riparian zone dustbowl is plenty good for buzzards and rodents.

There hasn’t been any water in four months. And as the last ragtag squadrons of wild fish are coming up the Sacramento, again there’ll be nothing to spawn in.

… save the little beaver pond to the left of the table groaning of pastries and sausages, whose inhabitants desperate actions dammed the last trickle to build a shrinking pond in the middle of a desert.

Over the last couple of years I’ve removed my support from our traditional conservation organizations because I believe their priorities are wrong. I understand they mean well, and are trying desperately to preserve things they cannot keep operational. It’s this attempt at saving the rarified names, and fancy watersheds – while ignoring the commonplace that has me disgusted.

… and so they play the game. Today’s breakfast it’s Audubon California handing out conservation plaques to the guys that bulldozed a shitty little brown trickle that no one cared about.

… the salmon cared a great deal, as 50 miles of perfect pea gravel has been denied them.

I’ll assume there’s some great plan out there, where they’ll trade my 50 miles of unknown for 400 yards of really prime real estate somewhere far north of me – someplace it’ll take me a hundred dollars to get to – but as they lack budget to manage it affectively, I won’t really want to go there.

This month’s eco-bulletin will announce a major victory, acquiring the very tree that Joaquin Murrieta pizzled on while being chased by cavalry. The price will be a couple of scientists having to hand some fat cat a plaque – and he’ll want to wash his hands after …

Thanks Mr. Aggregate for January, grower of watery pink tomatoes which become slightly gray under the hot lamps of Wendy’s, I hope you choke on an English Muffin.

Tags: Yolo County Parks & Resource Department, Cache Creek Aggregate Producers, Riparian monitoring, Little Stinking, fishless fishing

You’d better hope they’ve got short memories

Little wonder that your typical Brownliner can get a little overbearing and evangelical, our beloved fish are tortured without mercy – just because they can be …

… and while you smack your lips in anticipation of the still beating heart – spleen or other choice viand, what you don’t know is our fish fight to the death rather than face live capture.

If the current science suggests fish eat via “pattern matching” rather than cognitive powers – you’d better hope they’ve got mighty short memories.

Tags: live carp dinner, pattern matching, fight to the death, deep fried carp

Laundry day on Sporting Creek

Seeing a muskrat sends shivers down my spine.  It’s “freshwater Taliban” whose yen for burrows and tunneling are the source of hyperextended knees, unstable footing, and cursing fishermen.

Laundry Day on Sporting Creek I’d seen a couple last week and made every effort to move slow near the waters edge – and even slower in the water, but the little bastards got me…

I’m easing into position all sneaky like – can’t see my feet due to an oil slick and brown water, and then the bottom fell out.

Ten inches of water turned into five feet of coffee colored, cigar destroying, lukewarm  goo – compliments of a Muskrat tunnel whose roof collapsed, sending me down the muddy slope into the deep end.

On the one hand it was a welcome dip on a mighty hot day – but on the other – calling it water was being generous.

The path less trodden means you skinny out of your clothing without fear. A suitable rock to park your laundry for ten minutes and let the 103° temperatures work their magic. The eye-scorching whiteness of all that exposed flab likely fried some muskrat retina – so we’re even.

I’d been thinking it was time to get out of the sun anyways – but as I was testing out a new rod and a “hot weather” vest-prototype, I had lingered a bit longer.

Echo Classic 9' #7, 4 piece

The above Echo Classic is what that Redington RS4 should have been. I’m becoming a huge fan of Tim Rajeff’s Echo rods – and it’s not surprising, both of us spent our youth learning from them mean old guys at the Golden Gate Angling and Casting Club.

… we share the same school of Kung fu ..

As I was “squelching” my way back to the car I located the Largemouth Bass nursery, and took out my remaining ire on stuff smaller’n me.

Sporting Creek Largemouth

These little guys were responsible for baitfish spraying out of the water like leaping frogs. I had hoped it was something bigger chasing them – my best was about five inches long.

Tags: Largemouth Bass, Muskrat, Echo Classic 790, Echo Rod Company, Redington RS4, Taliban

Wherein we apply the boots to her watery midsection

I’m on unfamiliar turf, unsure whether to be melancholy, maudlin, or go with chest thumping bravado. Guys are always conflicted that way as we aren’t allowed to “tear up” when Old Yeller gets lead out behind the barn, nor are we supposed to get melancholy when we see our home water laying there with bones exposed and buzzards her only companion.

Dry as a bone

On May 9th my beloved Little Stinking had the stopper pulled and ran bone dry. A couple months ago I wandered the lower stretch and saw the only water remaining was four large beaver ponds. This morning I had the nerve to go up to the big fish stretch to see what remained – as the gauge read that water had been restored.

The creek was dead, completely dewatered and dry as a bone.

As it was early still and heat wasn’t an issue I elected to hold a wake. I’d wander down through the normal jaunt and see how deep each hole was and collect a few lost flies.

I must have made quite the spectacle as even the ATV crowd gave me a wide berth. I’m fully geared with hip boots, vest, and rod – and crunching through dry creek bed like I was expecting to fish sometime soon.

My already dubious reputation was lowered a couple of notches, I suppose I’m the “Wild Man of Crap Creek”, “tetched” in the head by too much sun. Mothers no longer wave back – they gather their kids close as I pass …

Wally, where's the Beaver? Dead and desiccated beaver were scattered near their burrows. While agile underwater they’re clumsy prey on dry land, easy pickings for coyotes or someone’s Rottweiler.

The pelts were too far gone for my road kill honed reflexes, and I left them for the buzzards.

Even the deep stretches were dry, at best with a bit of dampened mud at the bottom. No fish carcasses were evident but they would’ve been picked clean and skeletal.

It’s a complete wipe. Bugs dead, fish dead, and the wildlife in the area foraging for water as best they can. I found a couple muddy traces that had an inch of water remaining, and the volume of animal tracks nearby were moot testimony to the deer, coyotes, and birds having to make do.

It was science at this point. What happens when fish detect lowering water and the temperature rises to unacceptable? Do they slide downstream until blocked – there to die, or can they sense the calamity and migrate before the inter-pool riffles dry and block passage?

At the end of my downstream leg and after tromping nearly two miles I found the last pool of water remaining. A family of four mink (might have been otter) were swimming in four feet of of clear water in a pond I could nearly cast across.

The last oasis

In the past this had been the home of all the really large smallmouth, with the far bank a deep slot nearly ten feet deep. Now it was a large swimming pool of half that depth.

I’d never seen mink on the creek – even in her final moments the Old Gal was still full of surprises. I sat on the gravel bar above and watched them swim around a bit. The water was full of fish, everything that could swim downstream had done so – now marooned by shrinking water and likely will be eaten by the four mink in residence.

Not much a fellow could do other than remember the big fish landed or lost on the same stretch.

… but Singlebarbed ethics require me to add my boot heels to the watery bitch’s midsection and I strung the rod for one last go. We’d make this an “Irish” wake and dispel melancholy with a few fingers of adrenaline.

The Little Stinking had one last surprise in store – surrendering my first Black Crappie. It was a bit bittersweet, but I’ve now landed every fish on the “Lethal Mercury – Do Not Eat” sign posted on every bridge crossing.

…most would consider it a dubious honor, but I was thrilled.

The Black Crappie

Say hello to my little friends, they’ve entertained both you and I these last couple of years …

The Sacramento Pikeminnow – the lateral line moves upward as it approaches the gill plate, about the only distinguishing feature separating it from the equally common, Sacramento Sucker.

Sacramento Pikeminnow

The Hardhead – nearly indistinguishable from the Pikeminnow except in the larger sizes, where it’s entire belly becomes an orange-yellow. (whereas the pikeminnow remains white)

Sacramento Sucker

I landed fifty fish in about an hour; bluegill, sunfish, pikeminnow, suckers, smallmouth bass, and crappie. Each displayed its unique characteristics that I’ve memorized over time. Pikeminnow adore the large fly stripped fast (as do the suckers), and Bass love to inhale flies as they sink.

It was a great way to part company with an old friend – and while Winter’s rain will replenish the water it will take longer to refurbish the food sources and fish.

If the creek had invasives, they’ll be dead too.

I’d like to be really angry about the demise of this fishery, but it’s merely a symptom of a larger problem. Drought to be sure – as California has been suffering for the last three years, but the more painful thought is the realization that water is bought and sold for profit rather than metered for efficiency or environmental concerns.

Recently outfitted with a water meter, it’s plain that even the rural communities will be paying for water by the gallon, while the big agricultural interests resell their water back to cities for enormous profit.

Yesterday, the Hanford Sentinel broke the news that Sandridge Partners, a Westside “family farm”, was planning on selling 14,000 acre-feet of Sacramento San Joaquin Delta water a year to the Mojave Water Agency, San Bernardino County, for a mind boggling 5,500 dollars an acre-foot.
Who wants to be a millionaire? This deal will yield 77 million dollars to, wait for it, multimillionaires. Sandridge Partners is owned by the Vidovich family of Silicon Valley, who already amassed a considerable fortune turning Silicon Valley orchards into housing tracts. More recently, according to the Environmental Working Group, as detailed in an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, Sandridge Partners were the biggest 2008 recipients in the entire nation for federal subsidies for thirsty cotton, wheat, and peanuts for their farms in three San Joaquin Valley counties. Think of them as Kern County’s Welfare Kings.

(via The Trout Underground)

Equip your house with solar panels and you can resell energy back to the grid, so why aren’t you credited with money for the water you conserve?

Drinking water is fast becoming the world’s most precious commodity. While many have giggled at the crappy brown mess I fish in – they aren’t laughing when I name the communities that are drinking it – and my cigar butts.

When water reaches four bucks a gallon some type of reform will resurface the issue of salmon versus watery tomatoes – and which we want to eat for ten cents a pound more …

Until then be content that despite the iron grip of a third consecutive year of drought, California tomatoes shrugged it off with alacrity:

It’s shaping up to be a record year for California’s processing tomato contracted production with a forecast of 13.5 million tons, 13 percent above the previous record year of 1990.

Planted and harvest acres are forecast at 308,000 and 307,000, respectively, according to statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Acreage drifted from areas where there wasn’t adequate water supplies, with acreage up significantly in Kern and San Joaquin counties.

Fresno still leads the state with the most 2009 contracted production with 102,000 acres. San Joaquin County is second with 44,000 acres and Yolo County rounds out the top-3 with 34,000 acres.

… and then they sue the state because we cut back water to save a few hundred salmon.

Dry creekbed and a few posies are all that's left

Something stinks, and it’s not the corpse of my creek. She smells of hot rock and a few posies … all that remains.

Tags: California tomatoes, little stinking, pikeminnow, sucker, crappie, bluegill, wake, smallmouth bass, California drought, water politics, potable water, drinking water

California water districts consider cage match between Quagga Mussel and Black Carp, winner to get citizenship

In an earlier post I’d made a joking reference to the next great gamefish being the common carp. Assuming plenty naturally; the continual destruction of the pristine water via human interaction, global warming, acid rain, and all other ills.

That theory may have more legs than first imagined.

Of greatest concern to states, water districts, and the populations they supply is the Quagga Mussel, whose prolific reproduction clogs pipes, pumps, and all that precious infrastructure that takes water from its source and out your tap.

These same entities are less concerned about environmental issues, fish populations, or what it does to your moored boat – they’ve got a full plate serving up an incompressible liquid to a burgeoning population.

With California in the grip of a 26 Billion dollar deficit (this year) and the potential for many more lean years ahead, everyone is frantically searching for something that will repel the little beasties and keep the water moving to the desert.

The state Department of Food and Agriculture has added quaggas to checklists at inspection stations. Since the first find in Lake Mead, 249,000 boats, canoes and kayaks have been stopped in California. Of those, 21,728 were drained and dried after evidence of mussels were detected. Nearly 400 have been quarantined.

Little wonder that the issue is growing with great ferocity, as nearly 10% of the recreational boats inspected are coming up “dirty.”

Of particular interest to us fishermen is the option of introducing a second invasive species to eat the first. Apparently the Black Carp is a voracious eater of the Quagga (as is the Red-Eared Sunfish), and a last ditch option may be to introduce Carp to the water supply.

I assume they’ll be sterilized triploids or something similar, but I’m not so sure:

Introducing carp to eat the sharp-shelled quaggas has not met with similar zeal. Still, Steve Robbins, general manager of the Coachella Valley Water District, sees value in allowing black carp to be used if the state’s power and water delivery system is overrun.

“I haven’t dropped the idea,” Robbins said. “We’re being successful right now. But if we weren’t successful” the district could seek a permit to use carp.

Nibling said some other species make meals of quaggas, such as the bottom-feeding redear sunfish.

“A number of fish eat quaggas,” he said. “The problem is they can’t eat enough.”

That’s great news for us fellows that aren’t timid about our admiration for Carp as a gamefish – but does bring some really interesting questions to the fore…

You’ve got a “Quagga Lawnmower” in the Black Carp, but you’ll probably need a sustainable (or growing) population of carp to diminish the growing population of mussels. Planting them as juveniles will cause all those monstrous White and Largemouth Bass to gorge themselves, which will piss off the water district manager (who really isn’t interested in the fisheries angle) – so in addition to suing the State of California for not delivering all the water they need to save Salmon, he’ll be suing the State again as those fat Southern California Largemouth are dining on regiments of his Quagga shock troops…

Theoretical Model of Black Carp Distribution

… and then the US Fish and Wildlife Service sues him for introducing an fertile invasive – with the potential for destroying most of the East Coast.

Water politics and “who ate whom” is liable to convert “fish bums” to the legal profession, as lawyers will spend more time on the water than the rest of us combined.

The good news (if any) is us apocalyptic brownliner’s will be plying our craft at every stop of the California Aqueduct, touting the merits of one Carp species over the other – until we’re recognized as a tangible threat, then we’ll join the long list of defendants summoned to the docket on a trumped up terrorism charge…

… as the Lockerbie Bomber only got eight years, we’ll be defiant as always.

The down side is that just as they clap the manacles on us – some fellow will boat the new World Record Largemouth Bass – weighing 63 pounds, and while incarcerated – and mindful of our posterior, we’ll miss out on the Great SoCal Largemouth Shootout. Southern California becoming the New West Yellowstone, drawing anglers and tournaments – lured by the prospect of lazy bloated fish barely able to tread water.

Cash prizes courtesy of the Water Districts, naturally …

Tags: Brownliner, Black Carp, Quagga Mussel, Lockerbie Bomber, West Yellowstone, California Aqueduct, largemouth bass, red eared sunfish, fish bums, Fish and Wildlife, bass tournament, Coachella Valley Water District, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, lawyers, California water politics

The feverish debut of Sporting Creek

Evidence of the Sporting Fraternity Doctor Mom would’ve given me a good scolding, the Evil Eye, and an increased ration of Chicken soup.

 A significant relapse this weekend suggested I’d returned to work much too early, and after feverishly climbing back into bed Saturday, I was just as feverishly climbing out of bed Sunday morning.

For the next couple of months we’re enduring “plus change” weather, you add 100 degrees to the “change” and if you can’t get it done by 10AM it’ll have to wait until tomorrow morning…

I felt pretty good after securing the groceries and laundry by 6AM, so I packed a couple liters of water, rod and vest, and took off adventuring before I thought better of the idea.

Rumors of a vast fetid waterway full of Carp, yet limited by my tenuous health meant all the ground-pounding would have to be complete before the sun became oppressive.

Sporting Creek, in all her Glory

I had premonitions of success as I drove past the perfumed ziggurat of decaying garbage. My directions had omitted landmark detail, but a ponderous mound of earth, electrified fence, and airborne garbage bags marked the resting place of Solano county’s unwanted leftovers.

I was getting my hopes up thinking I’d be fishing something other than little insects, as a refuse pit offers so much more variety than traditional stream fare. I’m thinking partially digested Filet O’ Fish imitation, complete with golden deer hair “bun” and big treble – how the fish would pirouette lazily in appreciation before inhalation.

I squealed to a stop upwind and cross referenced the debris field with my map – but the thin blue line I was after was further east; so it would be regular-nasty and absent taint from buried leftovers.

… which was probably for the better, as most dumps have an onerous fee for parking…

I call it "carbon bridge" It’d be gracious to call it “stained with tannin” but the abundant alfalfa fields, herds of sheep and corn, made it more muck-coffee colored; bigger than I’d anticipated and with a lot of miles available for exploration.

The tell-tale puffs of mud in mid-channel confirmed carp, and “kissing” sounds from the Tules suggested additional quarry, bluegill and possibly some largemouth bass.

I was fast running out of gas, the combined weakness of doing too much physical too soon and increasing temperature. I’d covered a mile of the south bank – getting a feel for changes in depth and bottom structure.

It’s a perfect fishery for a two man team, one to spot fish or mud plumes from the roadbed – and the other to cast using the spotter’s directions. Once down at water level only tailing fish can be seen, and they’re understandably skittish despite their size.

I hooked two large Carp on the march back to the truck, both took the Laughing Damsel I’d tied for lake fishing. The brass bead chain gets the fly to the bottom instantly, and I just rolled it through the mud plume while watching the tip for a hint of movement.

Both fish scrubbed me off in clumps of elodea, and I was thankful as the idea of feverishly chasing after double digit fish on a 45 degree incline was daunting.

I call it “Sporting Creek” due to the amount of soccer balls, footballs, and basketballs at the high water mark. I counted 33 decaying balls in the first mile of bank, there’s some hidden story yet to be revealed.

The Creek ends here

I may have been just a tad hasty distancing myself from all those blueline trout fiends –  now that I’ve been banned from all other venues, some dry fly purist dam operator just gave me my comeuppance.

The Creek stops here 

Add three consecutive years of drought, a ton of tomatoes, and a satanic water manager with a grudge, and it’s time for a profuse apology.

“I love trout fishermen and their pristine environs, in fact, some of my best friends fish dry flies...”

Rings kinda hollow, but it was a semi-sincere first attempt. I figured a stunning Mother’s Day bouquet left on his porch tommorrow, with the inscription, “Me sorry, now turn the creek back on Mother%$**r.”

The “home water” is no more. Potholes and the deeper runs will contain water, but as temperatures grow and the flow isn’t restored – it’ll be a dead creek shortly.

Not much a fellow can do other than empty his hydration bag in the deep spot, and stifle the sobs with Shad.