Some days just work. Yesterday was one of them. My kid was in camp so I had the day free. Started the morning at 6am at yoga (gotta try to keep my body healthy so I can keep doing this in another 30-40 years!). Got home, woke my kid up, made her breakfast and lunch and shuttled her off to her camp.
Got back into the car and drove 2 hours to the trailhead. A briskly paced 2.5 mile hike in 40 minutes put me at the start of the creek. The weather was warm (but not oppressive) and the creek was cold. Unlike 2 weeks prior, there was zero activity in the outlet (that had warmed a bit and there was no bug activity).
Unfortunately it didn't start great. I sat down to eat my burrito (lunch) but realized I left it in my car. I also proceeded to lose 3 flies in 3 casts. But that was just the beginning of some really, really good fishing
.
I love this creek so much. But I've never been there without my family, so I've never really got to sit with it and really fish it for hours on end. It's really fast and really brushy. Often only 15-20' across but un-wadeable because of the gradient. It also makes it really hard to cast as well as present a fly. But if you can find the fish, and get your fly under the branches, you then get to try to fight said fish in the current. My Chris Barclay 7' 9" 5piece 5 wt is perfect for this. It's short length helps me get under the bushes and it's beefy glass butt helps me turn fish quickly in fast current (3x also helps
).
After losing those first three flies. I pulled two out of my box, put them on my patch and didn't have to touch another fly all day. If I drifted a fly in a likely holding spot and didn't get a rise, I switched to the other and likely got the fish. I just kept swapping between the two as the day wore on. I have this weird habit of tying flies for a trip/river that I'm SUPER excited about even though I don't have that trip on the calendar or even a realistic timeline for getting there. This hopper is called a Blitzen Hopper and I tied a dozen for the Donner Und Blitzen river, but have never been, and don't have plans to get down there (even though I really want to!). Ask me about my pile of Sierra Red Dots that I have stashed away for the day I can get down to the Eastern Sierra's.
I landed another trifecta for this creek (bow, brookie and cutt--this cutt appears to have less bow than the last). Unfortunately no photos of the Brookie as it slithered through the hole in my net that I had to cut when a Bull's kype got stuck in it last summer (reminds me, I need to order a new net bag).
Below are some of the highlights with their holding water. Definitely not a river that you want to slip in!
I hiked out after fishing for about 4 hours. I promised my kid I'd bring home some fish, but I don't like keeping wild fish so I stopped at the local stocker stream and pulled out 2 dumb stockers in 15 minutes and jammed home before bedtime. It was a perfect day.
Got back into the car and drove 2 hours to the trailhead. A briskly paced 2.5 mile hike in 40 minutes put me at the start of the creek. The weather was warm (but not oppressive) and the creek was cold. Unlike 2 weeks prior, there was zero activity in the outlet (that had warmed a bit and there was no bug activity).
Unfortunately it didn't start great. I sat down to eat my burrito (lunch) but realized I left it in my car. I also proceeded to lose 3 flies in 3 casts. But that was just the beginning of some really, really good fishing
.I love this creek so much. But I've never been there without my family, so I've never really got to sit with it and really fish it for hours on end. It's really fast and really brushy. Often only 15-20' across but un-wadeable because of the gradient. It also makes it really hard to cast as well as present a fly. But if you can find the fish, and get your fly under the branches, you then get to try to fight said fish in the current. My Chris Barclay 7' 9" 5piece 5 wt is perfect for this. It's short length helps me get under the bushes and it's beefy glass butt helps me turn fish quickly in fast current (3x also helps
).After losing those first three flies. I pulled two out of my box, put them on my patch and didn't have to touch another fly all day. If I drifted a fly in a likely holding spot and didn't get a rise, I switched to the other and likely got the fish. I just kept swapping between the two as the day wore on. I have this weird habit of tying flies for a trip/river that I'm SUPER excited about even though I don't have that trip on the calendar or even a realistic timeline for getting there. This hopper is called a Blitzen Hopper and I tied a dozen for the Donner Und Blitzen river, but have never been, and don't have plans to get down there (even though I really want to!). Ask me about my pile of Sierra Red Dots that I have stashed away for the day I can get down to the Eastern Sierra's
.I landed another trifecta for this creek (bow, brookie and cutt--this cutt appears to have less bow than the last). Unfortunately no photos of the Brookie as it slithered through the hole in my net that I had to cut when a Bull's kype got stuck in it last summer (reminds me, I need to order a new net bag).
Below are some of the highlights with their holding water. Definitely not a river that you want to slip in!
I hiked out after fishing for about 4 hours. I promised my kid I'd bring home some fish, but I don't like keeping wild fish so I stopped at the local stocker stream and pulled out 2 dumb stockers in 15 minutes and jammed home before bedtime. It was a perfect day.
