Another weekend, another fly fishing trip up to the Sacramento River shad grounds – this time with Dave.

We pretty much had the place to ourselves which was awesome, the weather stayed down in the high 80’s (an added little bonus, especially compared to last year’s triple-digit-temperature shad trip we did together) and the fishing was pretty dawgone good to boot! See the rest of this post >>

It had been about a month since I last wet a line and even longer than that since I’d busted out a spey rod and the itch was in need of a serious scratching. The time was finally here, it was the middle of May, the shad were in the rivers, and the weather couldn’t have been nicer.

I left the Bay Area at lunchtime on Friday and bee-lined it North. A few hours later I was up to my waist in the river and happily swinging my favorite little spey rod. See the rest of this post >>

While out pedaling around on the mountain bike Saturday, taking advantage of the unseasonably hot weather that hit the Bay Area this weekend (mid to high 90’s), I stumbled on another little urban carp spot.

I’d ridden past it before and not seen anything but when I passed it this time I caught a glimpse of a golden silhouette drifting out from under the shadow of the overpass. See the rest of this post >>

Jose Silva was in town for a very short visit. He wasn’t intending on fishing on this trip and therefore hadn’t brought any gear but Dave, Jeff, and I wouldn’t have any of it.

The weather and surf conditions weren’t expected to be very good but we didn’t have the luxury of rescheduling due to the limited schedule. The day before he left we dragged him out to the coast at o’dark-thirty and caught 200+ surf perch a piece! See the rest of this post >>

Just back from steelhead fishing up north, I had 1 day to check in on the sludge ponds to see if there were any carp stirring around before my dad came into town for the weekend for another business trip.

His last business trip out here a year ago paid off big-time with plenty of really nice fish and one particularly massive delta striper and I would have loved to attempt a sequel of that awesome day but the weather was forecast to be windy and stormy so we opted instead to stay flexible and possibly hit the surf or harass the local carp instead. See the rest of this post >>

Rain, snow, hail, rain, sleet, ice pellets, more rain, and more snow – and then repeat every 30 minutes. Toss in a 20 minute break every other hour or so and that was pretty much the weather pattern. The river held though, and with a warm jacket, dry socks, gloves, and steelhead green water the fishing was great! See the rest of this post >>

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I went back up to my hometown for the holiday weekend and squeezed a day and a half away to check in on one of my favorite rivers with Brandon. It is definitely considered the “off season” but neither one of us were concerned with that and were just anxious to have a look, poke around, and swing some flies. The possibility of a hatchery brat steelhead was there but that would have been icing on the cake. See the rest of this post >>

Pulled the boat back over the hill for another day out fly fishing for Delta Stripers. Jeff joined me for the day and as usual, we had a great time. I think those short-sleeve fall days are finally behind us now. It wasn’t too cold, but the beanie and gloves did make their way out of the boat bag between spots for the first time this season. See the rest of this post >>

Another quick striped bass fly fishing report – Got out again to take another whack at this year’s delta stripers. The tides were predicted to be really good (or far better than when I’d been out with Brandon the previous week) and the weather forecast was for a flat, windless day – perfect conditions for delta stripers! See the rest of this post >>

It was late morning as I hurriedly tossed the boat bag, fly rods, fly reels, and sleeping bags into the back of the truck. The clock was ticking and Brandon’s flight was due to arrive in San Jose any minute. I quickly backed the truck in, hooked up the boat trailer, and headed for the airport. 2 hours later we were digesting “Super” breakfast burritos as we zipped across Franks Tract. See the rest of this post >>

Another tricky case of jet lag had me wide awake and bug-eyed at 3AM this morning, despite going to bed at midnight. My flight had departed at 2pm and landed 11 hours later at 8am the same day; yeah, try and figure that one out.
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Finally got out on the the Delta for the first trip of the season. With all the steelhead fishing lately I’ve got to say that 9′ 9wt felt awfully short and took some getting used to. The first spot I hit was empty as well as the 2nd spot, but the 3rd stop paid off with a real bruiser that went a good 11 or 12 See the rest of this post >>

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The tide didn’t look any good but I was in a desperate need of soaking a fly, somewhere. When I got the word from Gabriel that he’d recently “gotten into them” off one of the Monterey beaches I had all I needed. The tide was basically flat until 11am so Jeff, Mrs. Jeff, and I took the opportunity for a lazy, late morning start and headed south midmorning, allowing just enough time for a Sunday morning breakfast stop at the Beach Street Cafe.

It was 11:30 by the time we made it to the beach. The sky was overcast and the wind was non existent; perfect! See the rest of this post >>

Jamie Howard (of Chasing Silver fame) has the trailer up of his latest project, “Bass: The Movie”. There’s some good topwater footage of The Delta being fished by John Sherman and the guru himself, Kevin Doran. You can check it out at http://howardfilms.com/trailerBass2.html

This Is Fly, an online fly fishing magazine, also has a good article on it with more information. You can check the article out here.

Day 2, and sure enough, nothing like yesterday. I can’t get over how drastically the water gets jacked around by the city out here from one day to the next. It was far from a complete bust though. The fish that were so actively waving their tails around yesterday had mostly all vanished but there were still a few cruisers in the shallow channel on the opposite shoreline. See the rest of this post >>

I didn’t expect this when I lazily showed up at the sludge this afternoon anticipating another routine skunking. Carp were everywhere, tailing, daisy-chaining, cruising, and rooting; big ones, little ones, gold ones, and for the first time, a BLAZE-ORANGE little guy! See the rest of this post >>

It is the middle of May in California’s Central Valley and the temperatures have been breaking into the triple digits for the last week. The crop dusters are busily buzzing I5 and the cotton has begun to fall from the trees as a little blue truck pulls up to a secluded gravel bar along side the lower reaches of the golden state’s largest river. See the rest of this post >>

This week’s tides were some of the biggest of the year, with flood highs and minus lows. Jeff & I headed over the hill at o-dark thirty to catch the last few hours of the early morning outgoing and see the beach at the lowest tide we’d witnessed yet. We weren’t sure what to expect from a surf-perch-catching perspective and this was the only way to find out.
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