Hey everyone, just thought I'd check in here and man does it sound like some tough fishing out your way. Lots of skunks, lots of flow problems with your tailwaters. Is spring/summer a tough time to fish for trout in California? Here in Minnesota things are finally starting to pick up. Did a fishing/canoeing weekend in the Root River Valley, and while it wasn't exactly spectacular fishing down here I did get 13 fish to hand in limited outings over three days. Biggest was 15 inches, but for clear spring creeks thats a decent sized brown trout. A few brookies thrown in to the mix. Here are some pictures, though my wife brought down the camera a couple hours after I released the 15 incher. My total would have been better but an obnoxious group of people with 5 dogs set up camp on my favorite little creek and had the fish put down all weekend. Finally coaxed one out of my favorite pool when all five dogs showed up and started swimming then came over and got tangled in my fishing line. Learned my leason though, and next year I'm going to get that campsite so no one else can take it.
Hey everyone, just thought I'd check in here and man does it sound like some tough fishing out your way. Lots of skunks, lots of flow problems with your tailwaters. Is spring/summer a tough time to fish for trout in California?
The fishing can be tough any time of the year. It's funny that we blame it on the flows. Putah is flowing HIGH this time of year. As far as the state is concerned, Putah is just a big irrigation canal. It makes it harder to find the fish when there's more water, but the fish are still there waiting to be caught. The American River, on the other hand, is super low this year. They're holding back water due to the lack of rain. People are blaming the poor fishing on the American on the LOW flows. Go figure. I guess nobody wants to admit that they suck at fishing.
By the way, nice report. As always, thanks for the pics.
-- Edited by JT at 14:06, 2008-05-28
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"Nothing makes a fish bigger than almost being caught."
BTW, there was a nice article in Trout Unlimited on the Driftless region of MN. Nice pics, that brookie reminds me of the ones I used to pick up back east. I don't think I ever got one bigger than about 10". Once I got a 14" brown out of that little creek and it was like catching a monster.
Nice pics. Can't wait to try my first whack at a spring creek in a few weeks.As for people not being able to catch fish and blaming flows, I like to think of it like this....there is no failure in fly fishing, Just varying degree's of success.
The turtle is indeed a common snapping turtle, he was about three feet head to tail, and I'd guess about 25 pounds. This creek was clear as tap water and about four feet wide most of it's length, and I think it would have freaked me out if I had been wading alongside this guy. Also saw a very large softshell turtle, about the same size as this guy but didn't have the camera along that time. I caught a 10 inch brookie out of the same spot that produced the one in the picture but he flopped out of the net while I was measuring him. They both came out of a darker larger creek called Wisel, part of a six fish session casting to rising trout with a #12 Adams Irresistable. That session was the only one all weekend that produced with dry flies, and I saw risers all up and down the bank. The rest of the action was off of a two fly nymph with midge dropper setup similar to what most of you guys use on Putah. In fact I caught the 15 inch brown on a Zebra Midge that I tied to fish Putah this winter. The view of the meadow is the spring creek I caught the bigger fish out of. Met a fisherman comming out as I was going in who claimed to have been charged by a Black Angus Heffer with her calf. What an inglorious way that would be to go. He said "I wasn't sure what she was going to do if she got to me, but I found the whole thing disconcerting."
