First Fun-fishing Day

The Week Flew By!

The first week of real work went great. We had an awesome group of clients from all over, and we all enjoyed our time on the water. This week we were blessed with dang near perfect conditions all week, with low temps and rain only intermittently. Everyone caught some fish, some bigger then others, on of our clients first fish of the first day, was a 29" arctic char that was between 8 and 10 pounds, a true trophy fish. The char around here don't get much bigger then that. No matter how much fun we have all week with the clients, theres always one day we look forward to, and thats saturday. We get to fish for ourselves. After change-out chores are done and the crew is all done with packing groceries and other stuff like that up the hill we get to go out.

This was my best fish of the day, and honestly its below average on the size side of things, but man do these char pull hard. This was also my buddy Coby's first time ever fishing with a fly rod, and he landed a bunch of bruisers. We weren't planning on fishing the char spot for long, but after a few drifts of the river and realizing it was pretty dead, we decided to focus on the char spot. Once we got down there we realized we only had one rod and reel set up with a heavy enough sink tip to get the job done, but a light went off in my head and i took out my MOW tips, and attached the 12ft section of t-11 to my loop on the fly line, and the 10ft section of t-11 to the 12ft piece. We were in business.

These guys are deceptively powerful for their size, i would say that they are probably pound for pound one of the harder fighting fish out here. They grab with authority and take your line like you owe them money. Just a great fish to target with a fly rod.

It was nice to get back out fun fishing, its definitely refreshing to get to fish for myself after a week of doing the dirty work. We stayed out until around 9:00 and then made the journey across the lake back to the lodge. Its pretty rare to enjoy the trip across the lake in one of the sleds, as its normally pretty rough, but we were greeted by glass calm water and a smooth cruise back to the lodge. One interesting thing we saw was what looked a big V moving over the surface, and i had a suspicion of what it was. Mike had a trip down to the Muklung river that some day and saw them too. Sockeye. They are here.

Well week 2's clients get here in a few hours, so its going to be back to work for another 6 days until its fun-fishing time again. Its a tough job, but i guess someone has to do it.

--T

First Real Week

THEY'RE HEREEEE

I LOVE BASS BUGGIN

The past two weeks here in the sac valley have been nothing short of depressing to be completely honest. It rained pretty much every day non stop, and probably at times the hardest i have ever seen a couple of times. Tahoe got a ridiculous amount of snow, but as i can go anymore i really couldn't care less. Since tuesday this week it seems as if California is back and the rain has gone up to oregon, it has been absolutely beautiful. After a busy week at school i just wanted to go fishing, and alllll of my favorite rivers and cricks are either frozen solid, or blown to excess. The fact that monstrous amounts of water had fallen from the sky started to register in my mind and i remembered this little pond that everyone sees but no one knows about. When the water levels in lake X get high enough, the excess water spills over into pond Y via a pipe, and the bass follow.

When i call this a TINY pond, i really mean it. you could swim some laps around this thing and not get winded, and the deepest part is probably something around 4 feet, just enough to hold bass. In the past i have only really fished here in the late evening, or what many people refer to as the "Golden Hour" where for lack of a better word bass just get frisky. I went early and did a lap of the normal spots, to see if there were any signs of life, maybe even my pet bass that i meet more then a couple times every year. They were there. Exactly where they should have been, in the reeds, on the flat and in the lagoon. It was still pre-game so i went back to the co-rolla to eat a few trunk muffins and any thing else i could find under my seats. Called a few buddies that were stranded elsewhere and did the "guesssss what im doing!!" which always gets an interesting response.

This pond is usually EXTREMELY clear, and true to form it was this time, and therefore the fish were spooky. I fished over one fish for about an hour, making a few casts then letting him rest, alas no dice. There were a few fish i spooked out in open water earlier, so i switched gears and tied on a fly i've had for probably 5 years, a walmart special balsa body mini popper. I laid out a nice 60' range cast to the reeds and let the ripples dissipate and then gave it a slight pull to bring the line tight, then started poppin it across the surface. about 2o feet out from the reeds there was a swirl where my fly was and it was on. It always surprises me how lightly these guys can sip something as large as a popper, i guess it probably has something to do with a mouth that a softball could fit in.

He fought rather valiantly against my fast action 697 Z-Axis, which in my opinion is the perfect pond rod. After a few jumps, a run and some bulldoggin i got his head above the surface, and slid him up to my hand and i got him thumbed.

The last thing the fly sees before pure mayhem .This was a classic specimen of a healthy large mouth, beautiful money green markings and a white belly. In an environment like this, perfect camo. I love me a nice largemouth

After a few pictures that didnt come close to doin this guy justice, he was probably a solid 3 pounds, i set him back in my favorite pond.

"Ill be back"