Trip of Epicness 2010

Welp, I think it's official... I don't have fun fishing the E. Walker anymore... It's been about a 12 year long run on that river with some big fish..... but it's just not worth it for me anymore. Just like some of my other past favorite rivers, the number of fisherman on that river at any given time has exceeded the number of fish in the river.

They can have it!

When every fishable piece of water has someone  on it, standing thigh-deep right in the holding water, lookin' like he just fell out of a simms catalog... I'm out... To me, no fish is worth doing battle with a hundred dudes acting like they own the river. They can have it...

Instead, we figured we'd have more fun rattling off some rounds hill billy style at the local shootin' range. What camping trip would be complete without dispatching a few rounds from the ol' assault riffle?

Just holding that AR makes you feel like a boss

The runoff is comin'...

Sleep tight tiny dancer.

Here's some fallout from camping at 8,000 feet in the middle of May.

Gritty coffee and eggs cooked in bacon grease... breakfast of champions.

Like the crowds weren't thick enough on the first day... where did we go on day two?

Hot Creek....

Imagine a quiet piece of water where you can fish peacefully and you'd be surprised to see another fisherman all day.... now image the complete polar opposite of that.... that's Hot Creek.

I had never fished south of mono, so I had no idea what to expect. We got to the creek and looked down the canyon and I almost lost it when I saw a dude (and ladies) on every inch of that creek as far as you can see up and downstream. You've never seen so many cars worth more than $70k parked in the middle of nowhere. People were packed in there so close, that you had to be careful casting your fly upstream 'cause you were likely to hit the guy downstream with your back cast...

It might be hard to see without zooming-in, but there are 5 other dudes in this picture, covering no more than 150 ft of water.

Water to fish was at such a premium, that some people, once they got a hold of some water, didn't move ALL DAY. Or, sometimes it just felt like you were swapping spots with someone. You'd look up and the guy above you would start walkin' away, so you'd haul ass up to where he was to fish some new water, and as soon as you got to your new spot, somebody had already filled your old spot.....

How was that better than the E. Walker?.... well..... the 30+ fish days made it bearable, and that's only fish to hand. We lost as many as we landed. In spite of the fly fisherman circus, we were blowing up that river like hiroshima. Other people were catching fish, but not nearly as many as we pricked. For some reason we had the Hot Creek juju, cause we were hookin' up on every cast. I had a guy tell me that Hot Creek is one of the most technical fisheries he'd ever fished..... It would've been harder to NOT catch a fish. There had to have been an average of 4 fish per foot of river, because we would sit on a hole and catch fish nearly every cast... for hours.....

The first day, Cole and I didn't move for at least two hours, catching fish after fish.

We had double hookups, big fish, little fish, rainbows, browns. I even caught some cutthroats.

On the second day Josh, Cole, and I all posted up on a great hole under this huge overhanging rock and banged fish out of there all day.

Josh had a banner day with fish on back to back casts three or four times.

Josh had the hot brown trout fly, pickin' up browns left and right.

On the way out, Cole slid over to this tiny hole where I picked up a good fish the day before, and stuck the best fish of the trip right before we mounted up.

None of the fish we touched were very big (18-20" tops), but the numbers of fish caught made up for it big time. Great fishing, but still way.....WAY.... too many people around that creek to make it worth a trip back.

Ruck-a-Chucky...

Having been raised right next door to the south fork of the American river, I can honestly say that I know that stretch of the river pretty well; however, until last Saturday I had zero experience with the middle fork. I've had several people tell me that the middle fork holds huge trout in its deep pools in the spring and summer, and if that's true I was going to find out for myself. "Ruck-a-Chucky," is what they were telling me. "If you want huge trout, go to Ruck-a-Chucky." No problem.


Isn't the middle fork just a river for rafters and weekend warriors? Isn't there a nude beach up there somewhere? Neither of these bode well for fishing, but whatever, it was getting late on Saturday and I was dying to fish. I just hoped that I might miss the nude beach (if it is in fact up there somewhere). In my experience, nude beaches are never what you expect, and not in a good way.

The road down to the river wasn't too bad. Fairly well-maintained with some washouts here and there. 2 wheel drive the whole way down and back out. Great views almost the entire way down.


After dropping down about 800 ft and dodging two huge trucks stacked with rafts and tourists, I came up to the fee area and campground. Not an open site left with some kids out on the water in an inflatable canoe. The canoe looked like fun, but the water the canoe was on looked even better.


I kept driving through. The road got a little more squirrelly once I passed the campground, but again, not too bad. I pulled up to a locked gate and parked it. As I rigged-up my 5 wt I was having some internal debate as to which flies I should try first. Should I use a nymph rig? That water looked pretty deep, a lot deeper than I enjoy fishing with nymphs, so I decided on a big flesh-colored zuddler on the end of a type 6 versileader.


Not a whole lot of action at first except for a toad of a trout following the zuddler a couple of times as it came up and across the 1st deep pool. That fish was pushing 5+ lbs. It made the huge carp look small. I kept trying, but that monster trout wasn't interested anymore. Story of my life.

The water was pretty clear with a slight emerald green tint and I could see fish eating something suspended in the water column so I switched to a nymph rig.


I could see some huge stoneflies flying around above the banks so tied on a beadhead golden stone pattern with a hare's ear dropper... After about 45 minutes I hadn't turned a single fish so I just sat down on the rocks and figured I'd wait for the evening hatch (If there was one).


The sun started to get low and I began to see some caddis flies swarming above the frog water. Couldn't tell what kind of caddis they were, but they had a darker brown tint with very thick antenna.


I was busy snapping photos when the first several fish began to rise. One here, then another on the other side of the pool, and then a third right in front of me. Suddenly the entire pool was alive with slashing rises as these fish were consuming the caddis flies as they hit the water. I re-rigged quickly and started firing. No takers at first, but then I added about 4 feet of 6x tippet to my leader and that did the trick. I quickly brought two fish to hand on a brown e/c caddis pattern and missed several others. Nothing to brag about size wise, but these fish did enjoy the acrobatics as each one hooked shot out of the water at least 3 times. Reminded me of steelhead season.

I just started to get into the groove when a gusty wind coming up the canyon hit me right in the face. In the wind every cast was a total train wreck. I could get about 2 good cast every 5 minutes in between gusts, and the sun was going down fast. Pretty soon the rises shut-off as fast as they began. Silent... dead silent. So I decided it was time to go.

All in all it was a good (quick) trip with a couple of good fish caught (not the monsters I had hoped for). I would recommend this spot for just about any angler: easy access, lots of water, and a good evening hatch. It might be more fun to camp next time though.

Good thing I wasn't on the Truckee today, it looked like there was some good thunderstorm action going down up there.

SMB... What does SMB stand for?

My right foot hasn't been the same since that hard tackle in my last soccer game. Who would've guessed that a guy weighing no more than about a buck-10, maybe a buck-20 soaking wet, could smash my ankle so hard. Didn't think much of it after the game, except that it hurt a little when I ran, but with work the next day, who's gonna need to run, right?

Needless to say, I could barely walk the next morning. That was Friday; it was two Thursdays after and I finally went to get some X-rays taken. It was funny to hear the X-ray tech laugh when she read my chart, "You did this two weeks ago?!" She said.
I corrected, "Actually, it was 15 days ago to be exact."
That's when the laughter ensued, but not because it was funny.
"You're such a guy," she said shortly.

I took it as a compliment, but regardless, it still doesn't help my foot feel any better.
"How am I going to fish with a busted foot?"
She laughed again, opened the door and left.

I'm guessing nothing was broken (although it sure feels like it) because I haven't heard from my doctor's office since the X-rays were taken last week... or should I be expecting a call from the other office where I was referred to have the x-rays taken?... Who cares, it's all just a bunch of copays anyway.

As I limped back to my truck from the exam room I made a quick call to the old man who was already lined-up to go wine tasting with mom and some of her friends and their husbands on Sunday... It didn't take much persuasion to get him in on a lake trip that Sunday instead. If the doctor says not to walk on it, fine. I'll keep my feet totally stationary... on a boat.

It was about 2:00 pm when we launched the boat, a little chilly with broken clouds overhead, and hardly any people on the water (which is not normal on this lake for a Sunday in June). As long as you were in the sun it was warm, but when the sun left it sure didn't seem like summer was less than two weeks away.

I won't claim that this lake has excellent bass fishing, but I will claim that you won't find small-mouthed bass... exscuse me... "SMB"... this big in any lakes this high in elevation. After fishing this lake with conventional gear for nearly 25 years I began this year to fish for SMB with my fly rod. The last few trips have been very productive so I had high hopes for this trip.

Fishing for SMB with a fly rod is just fine on small ponds, because there simply isn't a whole lot of room for the fish to hole-up. On a 1 to 2 acre pond, everywhere you cast your fly is right above a fish. On this lake, we're fishing (on average) in about 15 plus feet of water. The lake holds over 40,000 acre-feet of "high quality" water, so I didn't know what to expect using little poppers and wooley buggers. But, that's all I had, so too bad if none of it worked. I can always just reach down into the rod locker and pull out one of my dad's spinning rods with a "fugley" fat gets-it jig tied on the end of 10,000 yards of mono. The fugley never fails.

After about 30 minutes on the water we had our first fish to the boat, and much to my surprise it was hooked to the popper on the end of my tapered leader. First fish belonged to me and my dad wasn't surprised.

The buzz didn't last long though. We went about three hours without a fish before dad hauled in a nice red-eyed SMB on the good ol' fugley. This second fish was probably a good 2 maybe three times bigger than mine, but I still had first fish and I was hoping that it wasn't my last for the day.

It was probably about 6:00 when my dad pulled in his 4th fish, and there I was trying to fly cast in gale force winds with 300 grain shooting head and a clouser minnow that weighed about 5 lbs. I was quickly reminded why it's so important to wear sunglasses while fly fishing as that 5 lb fly bounced off my hat at around 40 mph. I took it as a sign and sat down to regroup with the dog who had been patiently sitting at my dad's feet for the last 4 hours. After consulting with the dog for 10 minutes, I decided it was more important to me to catch a fish right now than to try and perfect my cast in a simulated catagory 3 hurricane, so I picked up the spinning rod and had at it.

The fugley I was casting turned-out four fish in about an hour with the biggest at about 18 lbs. or was that 18 inches?... Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference. It was a big fish and a lot of fun to catch. We usually don't take any pictures of the bass on this lake, primarily becasue hardly any of them are picture worthy, but this one would've made the front page of the local paper, along with the meth lab fire and upcoming antique sale. Man I love fishing!