Afternoon of 3/10/08

JL · Senior Member

Afternoon of 3/10/08

WT · Senior Member

JL that does seem a bit odd, I wonder if his client was having a good time and did not want to move? I know when I first started fly fishing if I knew I could catch a fish in a certain hole I would spend hours there.

Swinger · Veteran Member

The Hole Hoggin question rears it's ugly head again. I was reading the new issue of Flyfisherman last night and in of the letters to the editor section one letter in particular touches on this sensitive issue. In fact I think this letter is a response to letter submitted on the prior issue about and anglers experience on the Putah and how he was mad about another angler crowding him on a run. The letter writer finishes with I am glad this is in California and how he hopes we all stay here. Take a look at the new issue. This is how alot of out of state anglers feel about us Californians.

Some on this message board will find no problem with this guides behavior or at least they shouldn't because they are practicing this same behavior.

I tend to cut the guides a little slack because they are out trying to make a living but it sounds like this guy was hole hoggin a little too much.

I do realize that different streams require different tactics, (American). I fished the Provo in Utah with a guide a few years back and we sat on the same hole all day because the river was so crowded. He apologized for keeping us in one spot all day but he was afraid we would not be able to get back�on the river�at another productive spot. We did catcha bout 30 fish between me and my buddy in that same hole.

I think the guide should have moved on sooner. If his client objected, the guide could have taught him a thing or two about stream etiquette.

-- Edited by Swinger at 09:20, 2008-03-11

mx19 · Senior Member

� I think you ran into a normal everyday experience..I get a jealous feeling when someone beats me to a spot..I cant get mad at that person.I just wish I was there first.
� JL.... you could catch fish in a sewer pond..move to another spot and do your magic..you have more than enough skill to wack fish up and down the whole creek..
� guides are on the water for most of the day..they dont want to waste a bunch of time moving from one spot to another.they will pick 3 to 4 spots they know hold fish and do there thing...Greg is a great guy and one of the best anglers I know..He is very nice and harmless..Iam sure if he wanst guiding he would of let you slide in and have a go at it...

��some people like to move around a lot and others dont..If I only have an hour to fish I pick one spot and make the most of my time.If Im going to be on the water all day I will hit a few spots ...everyday is different�...
� treat other anglers they way you want others to treat you..

�

JL · Senior Member

Like I said, I didnt have a problem with it - I was just curious what other people thought.� I did move, and actually forgot to report that the only whacking that got done was of me by the fish who were clearly not in a mood to eat what i was serving.

Oh well.� Next time I'll kill em!

shon42073 · Senior Member

I have a few holes on putah that I will spend several hours fishing simply because I know there are fish there. I usually get ot there pretty early so getting a good spot is not an issue. I actually find it very annoying and not very sportmanlike when someone pulls up and just sits there and watches you becuase they want your spot, Go somewhere else theres fish all over putah. This has happened a number of times at the "guide hole". But i must say that if i see someone that i know from this board i'll gladly share my spot with any of ya guys.

Greg Schuerger · Newbie

JL,
No offense taken but heres my take.� We got there probably about an hour before and walked up to guide hole.� We had been there probably about a half an hour and I saw a guy down on the island below guide hole try to fish from the island...Im guessing not very sucessfully since its a difficult spot unless you know to get in the water where you eventually saw us.� I didnt get a good look at him but after about a half hour I noticed he was gone.� Since we had been at guide hole about an hour and�I had tried two or three setups through there, which is�I would say my standard effort and time in a hole I figured now would be a good time to go down to what I call guide pool.� So we headed down there.� Once on the island I saw you up by your car but couldnt tell what you were doing since you were through the brush.� I actually assumed you were the other fellow unrigging and leaving since he had only been off the little island maybe ten minutes.� So we got into position and started fishing guide pool.� We had been there about 5 minutes when you came down the hill which was a bit surprising to me since #1 I though you were the guy that was unrigging/leaving and #2 we were clearly in the run but we spoke and you headed upstream to guide hole.� After about 15-20 minutes I would guess you were back from guide hole though and asked if you�could step into�the top of our run which didnt bother me since�I dont fish that part of the run anyway cause theres lots of snags there which I said "go ahead".� I also told you we would likely be in the hole about another 15 to 20 minutes.� Probably a total of an hour.� After which we drove up to the bridge and there were no cars anywhere to my surprise where we whacked our fourth wild fish between 16 and 20 inches!
I usually do fish most spots for an hour sometimes more since there are not that many prime runs.� And many a time I have had people in the runs I wanted to fish and I just had to fish my second choice and check back later to see if they had left.
Hope that clarifies my view of us meeting and hope to see you in the shop or on the stream again.

Sincerely,
GS

flygirl1 · Veteran Member

Right now with the flow as low as it is there are fewer good places to fish. I was fishing one of the better runs below the bridge a couple of weeks ago when a guy came in from the other side of the creek. I got the feeling by the way he looked at me he was a little annoyed I was fishing that spot and he set up to fish a little downstream from me. Slowly he inched his way upstream until my drift was literally going right in front of him. I know he wanted me to move on so he could fish the spot, but it was a crowded day with guys all over the place and I didn't like being pressured like that. So I stayed put. In addition, if I am catching fish in one spot....why would I want to move. Someone very wise once told me "you don't leave fish to find fish".

I have no problem with a guide staying in one spot with a client, especially if his client is catching fish. Means he is doing a good job. Remember also that often a guide is also teaching the client proper fishing technique, stream entomology, knot tying and how to rig the rod. Teaching takes a little more time than just tying on another fly and throwing it back in the water. Greg is one of the most stand up guys you will ever meet on the creek. He is a very good friend, a fine guide and a wealth of knowledge for anyone lucky enough to fish with him.

shon42073 · Senior Member

I figured it was the guide hole.� Its a good spot but isn't worth fussin over.

SCM · Senior Member

I have a feeling the Putah herd will thin out a bit with gas prices going up. I burned half a tank ($30) for a round trip from Petaluma. Unfortunately, I know I won't be able to make a once weekly pilgrimage to the Creek this summer. I am sure the same will be true for quite a few other folks.

LilWhippersnapper · Senior Member

SCM wrote:

I have a feeling the Putah herd will thin out a bit with gas prices going up. I burned half a tank ($30) for a round trip from Petaluma. Unfortunately, I know I won't be able to make a once weekly pilgrimage to the Creek this summer. I am sure the same will be true for quite a few other folks.

30 bucks, that's it!!! I spend�25 bucks one way from San Jose. I still be there every�week or two�this summer.

-- Edited by LilWhippersnapper at 20:43, 2008-03-11

JL · Senior Member

Ok - clearly hit a sensitive nerve here.

Greg's conduct was perfectly acceptable to me.� I was happy to move on, but like MX19 - a little jealous.� I just missed getting in there first - and like it or not - that's where I've been slayin�the pigs.� So - I guess when I think about it, I would want to stay put there, and if I was guiding someone, I'd want them to get a shot at a pig.� For me though, I get bored staying in the same spot for hours (not that Greg stayed there for hours).� My philosophy is generally to make all the likely drifts a few times, switch bugs or weight if I haven't got anything, then move on for a few reasons:� 1.)� I think the fish are looking at my flies like - 'yo dude, we've seen that one floating by about 20 times now - try again'.� 2.)� Maybe the fish are bitin elsewhere 3.) maybe someone else can do better than me.

Having said that, I made a post about 5 months ago where I sat in the guide hole for hours and absolutely could not keep the fish off.� So long as I broke off once every 20 - 30 minutes, I could retie, rest the spot and whack some more fish.

Greg - honestly - I wasn't upset.� I wanted to get some other folks' take on it.� You were courteous, professional, and polite.� We shared some stories, traded thoughts on what was working, and it was all good.� I fished up above you, only because I know there are fish in the head of that run - but I haven't gotten one yet.� Snags galore - but I keep tryin.� Had I landed something, I would have stayed where I was and if I couldn't have hauled it in from there I would have broke it off.� Definitely didn't want to disturb you.

I'll certainly see you out there again.

JL

yukon mike · Senior Member

y'all,

Gas will reach five bucks a gallon this summer!!! Heh, heh, Davis is only 20 minutes away
and its all mine. . .

We'll probably start seeing a whole bunch of mopeds at #5 and the bridge.

Mike

-- Edited by yukon mike at 21:54, 2008-03-11

LilWhippersnapper · Senior Member

I'm driving my big wheel to the creek.

bono · Master Fly Fishing Guide

I know that I'm flogging a dead horse here,but it's my site and by golly I just have to get my 2 cents in.I too spend extra time at certain holes that I know hold alot of fish (hole hogging as some of you put it).And doing so sometimes really pays off,it gives me a chance to use numerous patterns and rigs and ups the chances of my clients getting into some fish.As Greg stated there are only a good handful of prime lies in the short stretch of the Putah we all fish and when somebody is paying me to take them fishing I really do not want to spend half of our day driving and or walking around when we should be maximizing our time with our fly in the water.And any of you out there that I have guided in the past I'm sure can attest to that.Greg (I really like that name,I believe it is the native american term for Fish Whisperer!) is a superb guide and a class act person and is pretty apparent by all of the nice comments about him in the other posts.Please cut us (hole hogs) a little slack! Cheers "the other" Greg

flyfishingjunkie · Veteran Member

Well I think JL raises a good point, when is enough enough. My last trip to the Trinity we ran into some guides that where "hole hogging", they would get there drift boats over a good run and just beat the life out of it all day long. Some would rotate through, so 4-6 clients were hammering these poor fish for hours. I must say that to me is not fishing. Yeah I know they are making a living, but they also have a responsibility to the fishery that provides them with a living and should educate their clients on etiquette.

Don't get me wrong when I find a good hole I will fish it too, but how many fish do you need to catch? I think people get way to competitive (I have seen it happen to me to often) and it ruins the sport and frankly the fishery. I am not sure what to do about it but I think guides and everyone else for that matter need to set themselves some limits.

I try to get into the habit of moving after I caught a few fish, this is at times hard to do, especially if you have two guys breathing down you neck and you know that they will hammer that spot all day once you move. Before catch and release when people kept fish, once they had their limit they would leave, since catch and release everybody wants to have a 30 fish day . . . what's the point?

Side note - fished the russian all day yesterday - covered a lot of water on foot - my bones hurt - didn't catch any fish - still had a good time

JT · Senior Member

When I fish a hole, I fish it fairly extensively.� I drift through all likely lies.� I change the depth of my flies, add weight, take off weight.� If I'm not catching fish, I don't necessarily assume there aren't any fish or that I'm not using the right flies.� I don't move on until I've covered the water thoroughly.��It can take a while to cover all of the lies in a hole.� If�someone wants to fish the hole that I'm fishing, fine.� Drop in above, below, or across from�me.� Just ask first.�

I wish I could be out there "hole hogging."� The only "hole hogging" I've been doing is�at school (studying and working on my senior project)�and at home spending time with my three-month-old daughter.� I haven't fished in two-and-a-half weeks.� Those of you who know me know that I'm going through some serious withdrawals.� You'd swear I was a crack fiend. Maybe I'll get my fix�after finals (next week).

LilWhippersnapper · Senior Member

flyfishingjunkie wrote:

I try to get into the habit of moving after I caught a few fish, this is at times hard to do, especially if you have two guys breathing down you neck and you know that they will hammer that spot all day once you move. Before catch and release when people kept fish, once they had their limit they would leave, since catch and release everybody wants to have a 30 fish day . . . what's the point?

Who said Greg had a 30 fish day.... It sounded to me like he was trying to get his client on some fish.

flyfishingjunkie · Veteran Member

I wasn't really referring to Greg at all and don't have a problem with people hitting a hole hard to catch some fish. Hey if I know that there are fish and I am not hooking up, I will work that hole till my arm falls off. But I was referring more to hole hogging idea and wanted to get people thinking of setting limits. Some holes just get hit way to hard.

LilWhippersnapper · Senior Member

ok, just clarifying on what you meant.

flyfishingjunkie · Veteran Member

no problem - I know my posts can be confusing at times, especially when I type faster then I can think - which is open to interpretation