It’s over now, another Singlebarbed reader has got the “pooty” on him, and while the Brownline stain may come off his waders with a little soap, his soul is another story.

This is Kelvin, Singlebarbed reader, former Blueliner and aficionado of the pristine reaches of Lassen National Forest, now eschewing his old haunts in favor of a little Pikeminnow love.

I’m feeling a little bit like the Pied Piper and a lot like Jim Jones, somewhere in all of this is a good fringe religion, a Rolls Royce, and a tureen of Grape Koolaid.

Kelvin thinks I’ve been stretching the truth a bit on the crap water angle, as he saw the Little Stinking as something far prettier and cleaner than I had described.

The horse stables hadn’t pumped muck into the creek for a couple of weeks now, and the water was in good shape. The wind was a bit blustery, the dry fly fishing suffered accordingly, and after the rain clouds blew through the fishing started to perk up.

The Carp are still missing in action, and the smallmouth were largely absent, plenty of large Pikeminnow prowling about – they were fixated on the spinners in the water, almost to the exclusion of all else.

Pikeminnow exhibit a strange behavior that I haven’t quite figured out; a half roll while swimming that seems completely out of place. I figured it was the steady diet of toxic waste – kind of like a nervous tic, only the aquatic kind. You’ll see the silvery flash of the flank of the fish as they rotate 90 degrees while swimming.

Initially I thought it was a feeding pattern, but after watching this all morning, I’m not so sure. If I start doing the same maneuver while walking then I’ll know it’s the water…

We covered a couple miles of creek and managed to seduce the occasional fish. The fishing was not spectacular, my guess is the storm that had hit the area the evening before was the culprit.

 

Nothing beats a visible quarry, this is a pod of good sized Pikeminnow that we teased for a bit. The occasional bass added to the parade of fish, most were in the 16-18″ range. These fish are in 4 foot of water and would flee as soon as the fly impacted the surface. Kelvin and I wore them out as they ran from my fly – straight into his – and vice versa. If you can’t catch them, might as well drive them nuts…

Every pilot has to earn his wings, for being a good sport Kelvin was awarded the SingleBarbed “Finger” hat, for some it may be a transition into manhood, mostly it’s for entertainment purposes. Any guy wearing this chapeau, you can point at – then flip off, he got the Brownline on him.