Category Archives: Fishless Fishing

You won’t find this at the Fly Fishing Film Tour, and with good reason

I was thinking it was one of many hundreds of reasons why fishing in agricultural waste is superior to its rarified blue water cousin …

Outside of the obvious, how there’s plenty of brown and damn little blue, how brown is close and blue far, brown being cheap and blue expensive, and how blue water fans scrub their boots and waders out of fear for the environment, and we scrub anything wet for fear of what we’ll introduce to our garage …

… and while the Blue water crowd pouts at water bottles and the isolated candy wrapper, us brown water types “dumpster dive” the high water mark for West Hollywood Classics, knowing even our litter is dirtier than the trout stream equivalent.

Big_Naturals

Which is a comfort for a fishermen out on a morning he knows to be too cold, in a river swept clean of fish, with more miles of carrying the fishing rod versus using it.

Nothing like coming home to a warm fire and the questionable embrace of “Super Naturals” – featuring a bevy of round-bottomed Valkyrie, each bursting with … ample … uhm … stuff.

No, I’m not going to link to the site – it’s liable to BLIND the dry fly purists.

But those were Trout, which is a fairly amiable fish

I remember my first attempt at feeding a visible fish ended badly, with my own nerves subconsciously willing my arm to pull the Adams upstream and away from the monstrous brown trout that was so keen on eating it.

That was the problem with a kid whose best fish ever was 10 whole inches, who’s only mastery was the Wind Knot.

Monstrous Brown Trout being akin to the Tooth Fairy, something that was commonly talked about, but rarely seen and impossible to verify.

Later we fought the “yips” and demonstrated our coolness under pressure, when we discovered the high Sierra lakes could be mastered with a black floating ant – so long as you cast it out before the fish got near, and hid in the brush as they finned closer.

I remember seeing the stark white of their mouth as it opened prior to rupturing the surface, and how gratifying it was to watch the slow arc of intercept without fear of my committing a horrific faux pas, complements of my steely nerves.

But those were Trout, which is a fairly amiable fish – largely unsophisticated and outside of a generous helping of skittish, being fairly predictable …

… now I find myself repeating those same lessons, only each lesson ends with a Polaris-class shadow accelerating into an intercept course – before fading back into the massive root ball whence it came.

If you’re in just the right place at just the right afternoon hour, the sun’s rays can penetrate deep enough so you can alternately watch your fly and gnaw on the bloody stumps of your fingernails. The Bad News being our quarry is a Largemouth Bass, known for fits of pure stubborn interlaced with lockjaw and irascibility.

I’ve just discovered him and his pals in a snarl of downed timber. Their location suggests they’ve seen everything in my fly box save the hinges, and I’ll have to invent something unknown and irresistible just to spark interest.

One of the smaller ships in the Fleet

Complicating all this is the need to get my offering past the smaller fish in his battle group, as a stung or caught fish scatters them to the four winds.

After many hundreds of rejections, the on-again off-again controversy over bead headed flies comes to mind. How the Bulletin Board’s erupt in righteous fury when someone suggests all that mass might make them lures instead of flies …

… suggesting I might want to downplay my latest idea, how I might present a live mouse on a cedar shingle with a 3/0 Stinger rubber banded around his hindquarters – and would that make me merely a lesser Demon, or the actual Anti-Christ …

By Wednesday there’ll be no reasoning with you, so digest this before you lose rational thought

As next Saturday is Opening Day of trout season in California, and lacking any true originality, most of you will be practicing your sudden onset of infirmity, or dry eyed and grief struck over the sudden death of a heretofore unknown close relative, and all this simply to cut out early on Friday …

… I figured I would add a bit of caution to your giddiness …

spitting_tricos

The above was taken yesterday in yet another fishless fishing trip among the sordid little ditches of the Central Valley. The white specs are not cottonwood dander or disturbance on the surface, those are Trico spinners – doing what they know best.

This is not normal for the end of April, this dense a flight bespeaks late May or mid-June.

As I’ve mentioned in other fishless posts of the past few weeks, the overly warm Spring has enabled most of the traditional insects to come off earlier than normal – and was I in a panic-rush for the Sierra, I’d be stopping at the fly shop and grabbing a fistful of bugs better suited to an early summer bite.

Forget the big drakes and salmonfly’s, go heavy on PMD’s and little yellow stones.

Consider it public service brought on by a moment of weakness. I’ll be skipping the Opener knowing hordes of desperate anglers will be crapping behind every bush to lull my Boss into thinking I’m the Perfect Employee. Naturally, I’ll “drop dime” on all absent brother-anglers who call Friday morning sounding like they’re within an inch of Death’s Door.

“Really, a kidney operation? Didn’t he donate both of those to his Grandma last year at this very same time ? … (snicker)…

Where we call everything by its Glitterati name

I’d planned to watch a little glitz last night, mostly because of Billy Crystal, who manages to make sport of Hollywood’s reigning elite, yet gets invited back as his humor somehow skirts lasting injury.

The Oscars are actually a couple of shows in one; the first where they award gleaming statuary for popularity in acting and immenseness of box office, and the second watching all the folks you grew up watching, how they’ve spread wider in their seats. Once lean, hungry, and fit – now well fed, botoxed and ill at ease wearing a girdle.

Thoughts of that spectacle came unbidden while tromping through the Little Stinking’s lower marshes … where past pools and deep runs had widened or filled with sand, now a caricature of their former selves.

Everything winds up in the creek

I found myself naming them with the actor or actress they resembled. The “Meryl Streep Pool”, wide and holding few fish, but doing so with dignity …

… or the “Jack Nicholsen”, stuffed with silt and lifeless, faint resemblance to any past greatness …

I’m sure sometime tonight I’ll see the rows of directors, producers, and the up and coming starlets. Young and vibrant, bodices layered in jewels and sequins sitting next to a director or their parents –  hoping their aging and 50-something airbrushed leading man doesn’t embarrass them further by asking them out.

Too many Saturday cartoons for me to trust Wile E. Coyote and his contribution to water quality

Burning_Sands_ODeath On my way back from Fresno I was surprised to see California poppies spreading their bright orange petals amid the litter and grit of the center divider.

Poppies being an April phenomenon and suggests this is likely to be a season full of the unexpected.

Not that any season is ever predictable, but this one appears uncharacteristically so.

Should the bugs take their cue from the wildflowers, then our much beloved Stonefly Grab will be finished long before the Opener, and we’ll be vying over the Doldrums of August, versus the traditional cornucopia that is Opening Day.

What little rain we’ve had coupled with morning’s chill has the local fish on the run, so I’m stumping through newer and drier sections of the creek while the weather remains unseasonably warm. I’m unwilling to venture into the “Burning Sands of Death” areas, between Capay Valley and Hwy 505, during the Summer as the reflected heat off the sand and cobble makes trespass a real agony, regardless of how much water is carried.

As I feared, all the springtime fare are out, along with the few “Early Black” stoneflies only seen during Spring. Many are the larger bugs, #14’s and 16’s, that only come out of the underbrush when early morning gives way to midday warmth.

There are 55 miles of the Little Stinking between Clear Lake and the Sacramento marshes, and with my latest trek I’ve covered almost 20 miles via public access, landowner invitation, or outright sneak-age.

While heat keeps me out of this area most of the year, the water is simply too shallow to support anything but frogs. I did find the occasional scour pool, but most of the drainage is host to a wide and shallow trickle, making the creek 4 inches deep and a hundred yards wide.

Frog water

One such pool was nearly nine feet deep, crystal clear, and had a welcome chill, and given that I was already beginning to perspire profusely I contemplated stopping and shucking off them duds to make like a beached whale …

… it was one small moment of weakness, it would have been miles from any known human habitation, out of sight of any sputtering land owner, or open-mouthed old biddy blinded by my vast expanse of alabaster  …

I figured my pear shaped frame could do with a little sunshine and my exposure to agricultural toxins would be short-lived and assist me in building a robust immune system.

Wile E. Coyote Everyone knows it’s those big fish that live in the ocean for years that have all the Mercury, and like the Corvair, are unsafe regardless of helping size. Tasty little sardines that only live long enough to get their fins damp, and then seek the safety of tins, being safe as all hell …

I set the rod down and glanced downstream … then upstream, and blinked in disbelief at some ill mannered dog in the middle of the river grunting in the Pose Unmistakable.

A well placed rock revealed the interloper to be a coyote, who took flight in a panic …

Yet it cooled my ardor enough. All those manmade toxins just made the story worth the retelling, simply keep your mouth closed and splash about in the coolness of the deep water.

Yet as I splashed a little cool water on my brow, I reflected that if Wile E. Coyote equipped with a nose thousands of times more sensitive than mine own – paused in mid crossing to unleash last night’s dinner, I’d be well advised to remain chaste in my waders.

A couple of snorts might make the price of a Sage One more palatable

That left boot full of icy water suggested that my, “It’s fixed!” was a bit premature – and my great idea on how to wake enormous and lethargic fish before Winter’s chill struck appeared to be just as porous …

snakelike_object

Coming from the far side of the siphon pool last week, I’d seen an enormous Pikeminnow and a few large smallmouth at the deep end. Knowing that the biggest Pikeminnow always respond to big bait, I figured to wiggle some ersatz wormlike object through that pool slowly – hoping the bass might inhale the bait as it went by …

… mostly because as the water grows colder most bass stop chasing food, preferring to husband the calories and let the bait come to them. Pikeminnow don’t seem to care about water temperature, which ensures their continued dominance of the food chain, and like them whichever proved hungry would be fine by me.

But I’d missed my chance, and releases from the dam combined with morning’s chill makes the water colder and put a cork in the bass fishing. Even Little Meat opted to wait on the bank instead of treading water nearby.

foodClub1

I caught quite a few smaller fish on a variety of small nymphs, but after sloshing around the creek for a couple hours, the sun’s warmth proved a bigger draw and I opted for the high ground …

“High” being entirely prophetic given the sudden resurgence of “huffing” and the constant reminder that kids and their brain cells are on divergent paths.

Love that Easy Off!

It was no different for our generations other than we had a bit more self respect, opting for aged model glue or teasing nitrous from the whipped cream cans instead of huffing a 12-pack of oven cleaner.

Most of the time it ended badly, with some dimwit flooding both sinuses with pressurized dairy products, but we had respect for the woods and policed our empties, versus leaving them scattered as evidence of our misdeeds.

If memory serves I dropped model making and the dairy industry for fly tying, suggesting it may have been drug use that made brightly colored bits of feather and standing in the rain so appealing …

What’s your excuse?

It’s like your Momma, only she hands out Adams’s if you’re good

Back when I was young and virile they invited me because of all the dope I smoked I was in tune with the fish, I knew what they ate and where they slept at night …

Now that I’m simply another aged burden on society, I’m thinking that with this new slimmer physique, how I’m liable to scamper over those steep railroad embankments like a damn Gazelle, and how them as is with me will be sweaty, panting, and begging me to hold up.

Polenta_Italian_Dinner Then I heard them self-same pals at work mention, “Him? Yea, I’m, going with Fatty, mostly because the SOB cooks better than my wife – and is the only source of Grizzly hackle between here’n Nevada.”

I think the term is “crestfallen” … but it might be “dashed” instead …

Now that I know my real value I’ll be serving Livermush and Collard Greens to the next group of rowdies, and you can kiss my %&# for a replacement Yellow Humpy – or anything else for that matter.

The real trick is simple and hearty food designed to warm a fellow from the sudden chill of elevation and the beginnings of Fall. Layers of Polenta and Pepper Jack, draped in a flavorful bath of spaghetti sauce infused with Basil and Bay leaves …

I’d describe the result as a “slashing rise” – there’s no timidity in the take.

East and West Forks of the Carson. Be there. Today.

A vest like that has to be named “Lucille”

I told him, “ …when I debuted the Sixth Finger I spared no expense … fly fishing being no different than most male dominated sports, with fellows claiming they’re reading when they’re hoping for a picture of sweat-soaked flesh with a come hither gleam. Sex sells, so I hired Gertrude “The Grip” Mapplethorpe, whose hands can raise a fellow’s blood pressure, who’s graced nearly every Cabela’s catalog ever printed, whose fingers launched scissor sales beyond my wildest expectations.”

My brother feigned interest.

“The problem you’re facing is fishing vests have always been marketed like dirty underwear; shelf folds visible and on some uncomfortably-stiff sales intern whose sweaty hands lack grime or callous. What’s really needed is some tanned and ripe number stretching seams into the realm of convex, like “Lucille” in Cool Hand Luke – so’s we don’t notice the guy wearing the damn thing mounted his reel backwards.”

 

I’m not getting the head shake that suggests agreement, so I continue,
“I mean we’re two old fat guys and the only way we’re going to get near some sub-30 buxom is if we pay them right?”

My brother is intent on watching his fly drift off the far bank, and appears moved yet unconvinced, mostly because my fit of marketing genius is on his dime …

“So, we can drape them ladies over most of the brownline with the emphasis on taut, sweaty, and extreme – and with all those features and new stuff no one’s seen, it’ll be provocative and doubly extreme.

Meanwhile we can take turns on the camera, making our lechery legitimate, and if anyone sees us we can say they’re our girlfriends – which will make them incredulous and keep prying eyes off your fantabulous vests and preserve their secret until you’re ready.”

Igneous Rock does voluptuous

(Naturally it would be twicet as awesome if we didn’t have to pay them to be our girlfriends, but we can convince them we’re famous, and most would think it a privilege.)

“ .. so whaddya think?”

My brother slowly reels in his line and affixes the fly in its dangling keeper and comments to no one in particular, “ … I passed a fourth kidney stone the other day … “

Which in my bloodline is a “No” – and I’m duty bound to make one last attempt…

The Brownline Diva

“You’re opting for the staid and jaded low-budget-fly-fishing-Diva option, where I’m supposed to wade circles around your corpulent frame snapping pictures, while you hope the convex of your waistline conveys the more traditional ‘I’m well fed, so this gear must be good’ image, which relies entirely on a sympathetic fifty-plus, aging-not-so-graceful, fly fishing audience to make your designs successful?”

“ … and may explain why the fish ain’t eating at all. That portrait is enough for an involuntary regurge, dooming ‘Cyber Monday’ and all its nouveau retail goldmine to Hell and Perdition …”

“I charge double if you want them in focus …”

Fresh out of X’s, so we’ll let the fly mark the spot

Last night’s thunderstorm had scrubbed the Little Stinking as clean as I’d ever seen it. I woke Sunday expecting to see more of the same, but all the weather was at a distance and I had a large chunk of blue sky to make a mad dash for the creek. Enough time to get muddy and perhaps lock horns with that big smallmouth.

Fishing on the heels of a weather system is never very productive, but since every living thing had been dodging lightning bolts last night, I was hoping I could get something hungry to stir.

Not a chance.

… even the small fish weren’t interested.

Little Stinking Fall color

… and with the people still abed, and all the candy wrappers, water bottles and toilet paper washed away, the cattails gave a glimpse of brown water majesty – the Valley version of Fall colors.

The RootBall

Hisself lives on the right side of that downstream root ball.  With the beaver dam raising this run about two feet in depth, it’s nearly eight feet deep. I managed to swim the fly through the area effectively, but nothing was eating.

Once the rain starts in earnest his protective cover will be a distant memory – and with it will go the beaver dam providing the safety of the extra depth. I’m sure he’ll stay within the area, but there’s no telling whether some big mass will wash down this winter and either change the character of the flow, or mash life out my quarry.

Little_Stinking_Christmas With a stiffening breeze and a mass of dark clouds bearing down on me I opted for the safety of the car.

I snuck over and dragged the fly through the deep end just to let the fish know I meant business, then forgot my surrounding during one overly ambitious cast and got a jump on the holidays and tree decoration.

Which gives me ten left, and moot testimony why some of my good ideas are tied in quantity, versus carrying one or two.