Clearly I got the trick rather than the treat. It’s been raining steady all weekend which has forced me to double up on the coffee and fly tying ration. In a fit of rebellion, I figured getting wet was no big thing – I’m more comfortable with a leg full of water than dry.

The Bridge Pool beckoned, and with the rain and breeze I assumed I wouldn’t have to crouch behind the abutment while Carp finned lazily giving me the finger…

Instead Humanity saw to that.

I like a goat burrito as well as the next fellow, but enriching the watershed with 400 pounds of skins, hooves, entrails, and viscera, is hardly green.

Sure, it’s recycling – but you don’t call it that when the wind shifts.

Right about then a couple of kids open up with belt fed .22’s – and I realized I was really behind on my flytying.

The Bass bite has been winding down even with the weather being stable. The Central Valley of California lacks seasons and much of the deciduous foliage that marks the change in weather patterns, and right now the fish are the best indicator.

This weekend the weather was in the mid 80’s, which is hot enough to spark a good thirst when stomping gravel beds, but not hot enough to be burdensome.

Saturday evening Kelvin and I fished the Upper river, me with six new colors of flies to try – and Kelvin outfitted in soccer coach regalia. Soccer is the politically correct version of football, where the kid gets to preserve those precious kneecaps and ligaments – so’s they can blow them out later on a greasy bottomed trout stream, or hyper-extend them walking into a muskrat burrow.

I’m still waiting for a shipment of colored yarn to complete some prototypes, but the Cardinal flavor enjoyed a warm reception with the Pikeminnow.

I added some orange rubberlegs from last weeks living rubber skirt shipment to the mix – but the Bass remained aloof and unyielding.

Kelvin scored early and often on the large sized Manhattan leech, so I abandoned all the scientific study in favor of getting bit.

It’s a face only a mother could love, the author, hisself.

It’s a brownline “Penitentiary Face” pose, regal almost – minus the double chin and big gut. The greasy curly brim adds that sweat-stained patina of wisdom, accented deftly by the white chin hair and pronounced arse. Not likely to grace the cover of Fly Fisherman anytime soon – and I’d be hard pressed to get service from the fellow behind the Orvis countertop..

I don’t see many pictures of myself, as I fish alone mostly. Now I understand why the Gangbanger’s and ATV crowd gives me a wide berth, not so much threat as imagination – anyone crazy enough to wade through a cocktail of Selenium and horse crap could be packing …

The Bass was the culmination of a slow evening, it ate the Manhattan Leech and I managed to stay connected. Kelvin was gracious enough to snap a few pictures – and now I know why he was grinning while doing so.

I spent the balance of the weekend playing electrician – it’s a close relative of fly fishing; lots of swearing, sweat and toil, the reward is a rush of adrenaline and a shower of sparks, with the biggest difference being able to suck on your fingers when injured. You sure can’t do that where I fish…

It’s the other number I’m afraid to compute – the number of miles hiked versus pounds of fish caught, only this metric doesn’t require you to blush and stare at the ground when asked.

Between Saturday and Sunday I added another 10 miles to the boots, which are starting to look mighty worn. Every other usage winds up with one leg or the other full of water – it’s like a car that’s starting to show the cumulative wear and tear.

Saturday I fished with Singlebarbed reader, Scott V – who braved the Little Stinking bare-arsed without ill effect. The small fish remain aggressive and the larger fish are without the urge to cooperate, something we’ve all seen before.

Sunday I moved higher on the river and fiddled with a spey line and third phase trials of the crayfish fly. Olive is the go-to color, but I tied additional in brown, flamingo, black, purple, and orange – I’m still waiting for the shipment of Cardinal (red/black) to arrive.

Based on the below, “cardinal” may well prove to be as popular as the olive, it’s the other color combination I’ve seen in abundance in the native crayfish, bright red and black. This fellow was about 6 inches long, so I may increase the fly accordingly.

I managed a half dozen nice fish on the brown fly Sunday, and got some half-hearted grabs on all the other colors, there’s no question the fish are suddenly aloof – content to watch the fly pass, rather than chase.

Pikeminnow continue to inhale the pattern with great relish, why they take it so much deeper than the bass is still a mystery. The brute below inhaled the entire fly, with only one leg visible in his gob.

The river continues to deepen – adding about 4 more inches since the week prior, and all the surrounding irrigation ditches were dry. Quail hunters are out in force – most are the older wiser types with dogs, I don’t mind sharing – but “the Young Guns” that roar up, dismount, and blow hell out of everything have to be watched carefully. Adrenaline is a heady drug, and most are uncaring about where their shot pattern is headed.

There’s little finer than watching a talented dog work a drainage, and I stopped to chat with a couple of old timers as I was leaving. They wanted to know how I’d done, and I was interested in their morning – so I jawboned while sneaking both dogs chunks of “hooter” bar.

I asked the fellow seated under the sign, “that sign says one meal a month for fish, so how’s them Quail taste?”

His buddy immediately chimes in, “yea, Bob – they’re all drinking the same crap, how do they taste?”

Apparently I’d uncovered a hunter’s metric, one where he blushes profusely and stares earthward, not sure which one it was though – it could be that he was quietly tossing Nature’s Bounty – hoping his buddy didn’t know.

Roughfisher and I have been jawing over the use of spey casts and switch rods for chasing prey through the dirty water, and both of us have decided to give it a shot.

That’s the easy part, now it’s gear evaluation and assimilation, and the begging that goes with the budget that has significant other’s demanding chores, feats of carpentry, electrical work, and sweat – something foreign to the both of us.

I was hoping I could remain the “Paris Hilton” of angling dilettantes, but with a three to four hundred dollar purchase pending, it ain’t going to happen.

Yesterday I found the “big water” where this kind of tackle would be useful, and the big bass that inhabit deep slots shielded by overhang, culminating in me swearing loudly after getting busted off on 4X tippet. The fish broke water afterwards to give me the finger, so we’re past dating and into the matrimony portion – he’s wearing one of my flies, and I’m wearing the sting of defeat.

No, I don’t consider it undermining the foundations of traditional marriage, but I’m still feeling rather cheap..

Today I’m doctoring the hook holes in body and waders, as yesterday’s bravado and adrenalin have been replaced by “old guy” mortality. I’m replacing the dozen flies lost yesterday, while groaning for sympathy. It never gets us out of the lawn responsibility, but it is good practice for later – when stuff really hurts, or an NFL championship game is close to airing.

I’ve got a bunch of oddities coming out of the vise, and I’ll share as soon as I rewire the kitchen.

I’m sure that fish was thinking, “Sweet, there’s two of them.”  – at least he was thinking that right up until I wadded the hook point through his gob..

I’m afraid he’s going to hold it against me, as he “arpy-chucked” half the meal when I grabbed him. On the one hand I could take this as the ultimate confirmation of “matching the hatch” – but it could just be a random happenstance.

Igneous Rock showed on the doorstep yesterday, ignoring the wind and blowing topsoil, insisting we stomp creekbed. I’d just finished another batch of LSO’s (Little Stinking Olives) and some other mid-sized nymphs and instead of all those empty compartments staring back at me, I had something visible in the flybox.

With wind-induced right angles, I would’ve been pleased with a tailing loop, it was classic “chuck and duck” weather, where the fly has about a fifty percent chance of hooking you as hitting the water.

We hiked down river to the stretch we’d sampled last week, a long slow bend that had carved the far bank, leaving an overhanging bank with enough height to break the wind slightly, although it was still difficult casting.

Hearing the crack of fly impacting fishing vest, I glanced at older brother’s hydration pack expecting to see a leak; it’s another layer of armor between sharp hook and tender flesh, a feature I hadn’t anticipated – but there’s some comfort in knowing you’ve got extra layers of protection.

We started hitting Bass almost immediately, both of us are flinging LSO’s hoping we’re not the next victim, there’s a nice boil where my fly landed and I’ve got a smallmouth on – an 11″ fish that wished he was somewhere’s else.

I get him up close and reach down and he “yaks” a big reddish object out of his gob. I pull my crayfish out of his jaw and release the fish, lean down to inspect what he barfed up, and it’s what’s left of a real crayfish.

I’d love to think I’d “Cloned the Crawdad” – but it could be just an aggressive, greedy, fish with eyes as big as his stomach..