The Ode To Summer

So far June has been an epic month for me. I have experienced some awesome panfish action and had the opportunity to fly fish with dries on a freestone stream. You can’t ask for anymore, except a chance to fish up in British Columbia.

If you have been following my blog, you might have noticed that I have been whining about the strong flows in the Cali streams. While waiting for those flows to go down, I have been kicking in my tube at some local ponds. Except for one trip to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta region, I have had major success with targeting greedy Bass & Blue Gills. At the Delta the fish are a lil’ bit bigger & I was promptly broken off. I made me consider my leaders that I was using. I am discovering all leaders are not the same. I need thicker stuff when dealing with Bass that size and with a lot of weed growth. At the local ponds in Sacramento, I generally don’t tangle with large Bass. However at my last visit to the Sacramento Bar Pond, I did notice a fat 3 foot Carp cruising around my tube. Hmm, I think I have to figure a way to catch that darn thing.

Everyone loves to talk about fishing the McCloud River. I haven’t had a chance to fish this water until the other day. I have only been there twice, but I fish the Lower McCloud. I decided to take Simone & my dogs up to the Upper McCloud for a couple of days of looking for fishies I realized that on the Lower McCloud there is a lot of pressure. One has to move to where the fish are. Apply stealth techniques. On the Upper McCloud the movement needs to be very careful. I fell on my ass a couple times on the Upper. Hell, I thought I was on the Lower McCloud, but you can tell in the fish you catch. The fish are smaller. In fact the fish that I was catching were the McCloud River Redband Trout. They are not as big as the trout on the Lower McCloud, but they readily take your flies & hit them hard. There were a couple of times where I received a hit and the fish snatched my flyline out of my hand. Sorry I don’t have any pictures to show of my catch, but I was happy for anything the McCloud provided me. I fished three times on the McCloud and every time, it involved about a 30 – 45 minute hike to the fish. On the last day, it was more like an hour and a half to get to the fish. If you don’t mind hiking to catch some fish, check out the Upper McCloud. It is a trip that should be well enjoyed.