My Oregon buddy, Al Neves, was scheduled to be in the Bay Area for a few days on business and after hearing last weekend’s fishing report he decided to pack a few fly rods and extend his trip through the weekend to join me on the Delta. The early morning’s drive over is still a [...]
Delta with Dave
Once again some last minute changes in plans paid off with another memorable day on the water. The weather was forecast for a cold morning followed by afternoon temperatures in the high 70’s. Most importantly was the wind prediction, at a steady < 5 mph all day. When I told Dave the conditions were ideal [...]
Read full story • Comments are closed
Steelhead, October 2007
After too long of a break the opportunity finally presented itself to take my smallest spey rod out to search for some early return California summer/fall run steelhead on my ‘Tamanawis’. I had one day and 2 halves to revisit some runs from the past, search out a few new ones, and with some luck, [...]
Read full story • Comments are closed
San Luis Reservoir, Sep 2nd 2007
The alarm clock read 1:25 AM. It wasn’t set to go off for another 3 hours but I was wide awake and there was no chance of falling back asleep. I’d spent the previous week literally on the other side of the world and apparently hadn’t fully recovered from the +15 hour time change. As [...]
Read full story • Comments are closed
California Kings, 2007
Two weeks ago Dave and I made a run up the Central Valley to check in on the King Salmon run. They were there, but showed absolutely no interest in anything in our fly boxes… …My next trip (last night) started out the same. There were a few fish rolling here and there but they [...]
Read full story • Comments are closed
San Luis Reservoir, Aug 12th, 2007
Saturday afternoon I was at the airport in Phoenix surfing fishporn on the laptop while waiting for a flight home when I got a text message canceling the plans I had for Sunday… Hmmm… I thought for a moment – then quickly pulled up the weather forecast, checked the hourly wind prediction, and fired off [...]
Read full story • Comments are closed
Oar Fish
Our Baja hosts shared these pictures with us of an Oar Fish that had washed ashore in front of the house a few weeks prior to our arrival this year. Apparently they’re plankton eaters… hmm… shad flies maybe?
Read full story • Comments are closed
Baja 2007
Baja 2007, our 6th trip south of the border, and despite the fact that the days of having a reasonable stretch of beach to ourselves to stalk big unmolested roosters is most likely a thing of the past (RDTM no doubt)… …and the increase in barb wire and “propiedad privada” signs that keep popping up [...]
Read full story • Comments are closed
Steelhead, July 2007
Dave made a long weekend out of the 4th of July holiday and took a sight seeing trip up to my home state to see some country he’d never been to. Though fishing was not the purpose of the trip, he did manage to get in a day and a half with a guide to [...]
Read full story • Comments are closed
Shad Run with Jose, Jeff, and Dave
I needed some fly tying material for an upcoming Baja trip that I couldn’t find locally so after confirming that one of the Sacramento fly shops had what I needed in stock I called Dave, Jeff, and Jose to see if they wanted to head up and fish the American River for the evening.
Read full story • Comments are closed
Putah / American Combo, June 10, 2007
While telling Jeff that there was no reason to kill ourselves getting to the American River early because the shad bite doesn’t usually get going till the late afternoon, he suggested stopping by Putah Creek on the way.
Read full story • Comments are closed
Goldens, update, June 1, 2007
I did a little more carp pond exploring with Jeff and found a slough with a few nice fish that would consistently swim past and completely ignore any and every fly we’d put in front of them. After Jeff had successfully remained unsuccessful on a few of his own after-work trips I joined him for [...]
Read full story • Comments are closed
San Luis Reservoir May 28th, 2007 *SKUNKED*
I hadn’t yet tested out the latest fishing accessory’s towing capabilities (2007 Toyota Tacoma 4×4) and Angel was in town so we decided to drag the boat up to San Luis for the day and see if we couldn’t find a few stripers. The last time we’d fished the lakes together was a few years [...]
Read full story • Comments are closed
Goldens, May 19th, 2007
The SF Bay Goldens have been ON over the last few weeks! May is really appearing to be the hot month for these sludge-pond, bottom-sucking hoovers. From the generic trout flies to the more unique, specialty fly-of-the-hour patterns, they’ve kept us entertained, intrigued, perplexed, and flat-out frustrated over the last two weeks… …It’s been GREAT!
Read full story • Comments are closed
Goldens, May 6th, 2007
I headed back down to the sludge ponds Saturday afternoon. The day was beautiful and sunny, but the wind was howling… …I didn’t expect to find any fish and almost left the rod at home. I say almost – but I’d made that mistake enough times in the past. I’m glad I didn’t make it [...]
Read full story • Comments are closed
San Luis Reservoir, April 29th, 2007
I made another run to San Luis Reservoir this weekend, this time with Jeff. After a bit of a late start and an enjoyable hour and a half drive of fish-yak, we were relieved as we crested the 152 summit to find a windless, glassy surface across the Big Lake… …just as the weather man [...]
Read full story • Comments are closed
San Luis Reservoir, April 22nd, 2007
Spring is definitely here which means beautiful 70 degree weather for a few days during the week (witnessed from my desk at work), immediately followed by cold, windy, and rainy conditions over the weekends (witnessed from my desk at home)… …That’s been the recent trend anyway. This weekend’s forecast called for the same but Accuweather [...]
Read full story • Comments are closed
Goldens, April 1st, 2007
I slapped on the SPF 15, pulled the mountain bike out of the closet, inflated the tires, lubed the chain, grabbed the camera, and headed for the carp ponds. It had been a few months since I’d checked them out and those last few times were rather depressing considering the waterless wasteland the city had [...]
Read full story • Comments are closed
Delta with Jose March 2007
Earlier in the week Jose and I’d decided to fish the surf together this weekend. Making an early morning run to the beach Saturday morning would leave plenty of time to hit a beach or two, hopefully get into a few fish, and get home at a decent hour, leaving all day Sunday to take [...]
Read full story • Comments are closed
-
Dave’s 3rd Cast in the Surf
-
Crushing the 20 Pound Striper Barrier
-
California Surf Stripers – Persistance
-
Shad Run 2009 – Trip 2
-
Shad Run 2009 – Trip 1
-
Dad: Great read and great fish. OK, you now have me co...
-
GabrielR: Doug...thanks for the pics. As usual, Jose gets th...
-
HotRod: Nice fish Doug... WOW! Can you believe that? What ...
-
LeeH: Hi Doug, Awesome trip pictures. I actually got...
-
Jeff French: Excellent post Doug. Beautiful fish! So did yo...