The Rube: Chicken Soup for the Soul

So far this week has been a total drag for me. I had a crappy game on Sunday for my new Soccer team. It was my first game as goalkeeper and I totally didn’t play to my best level. Then the next day, I lost my job. I won’t go into any specifics on that, because I am trying to stay positive about that situation. So on Tuesday I needed an uplift. I had this list of places that I wanted to fish before the year’s end and I always wanted to fish the Rubicon. I hear all of these fantastic stories of the Rube (as it is called here by us Fly guys in Sacramento). Ok, there are some horror stories too, because the area is rugged. People get hurt all of the time trying to access this major tributary of the Middle Fork of the American River.

So I leave the house around 1 and get to the spot at around 3:30pm. I had to wait around for a minute or two for the people working on the road. When I get there though, I am the only soul around. One bad thing though, I thought I brought my wading shoes. I didn’t think I could go with the Tevas. Since the weather is in the triple digits, I figure I could go wet wading. Like a knucklehead, I left the wading shoes at the house and I had to traverse the canyon with my river shoes. I made it to the Rube in one piece, but I had to be very careful.




The main purpose for me fishing this time of year was to find some Brown Trout. I thought they might be running from Ralston Lake. I was not able to find any browns, but I saw plenty of fish. Most of them were in deep pools. I wasn’t able to get my fly down to them. The ones that came up from below just hit my flies. I saw there were a lot of caddis shucks all over the place. The flies didn’t really come out, until the sun went further below the horizon. I did manage to catch one lil’ bow (Yes Mr. Backman, off a dry fly), but that was it. I needed to head back & find a better trail, because I figured that I would be moving in the dark. Of course there was only one trail back out. It was the trail that I came in with. The only problem was the fact that it was about a 20 foot climb to get back to the trail. Then I was in the dark. Luckily, I did bring my headlamp, which the button doesn’t work correctly. I was able to crawl and squirm up the face of that cliff, but there were times that I was chanting some prayers, cause I did slip and slide down the face of the rock cliff. I made it out in one piece of course, but was it worth for one ‘bow? Well I thought so and I plan on going back to get some more. Tight Lines my friends & hopefully you will be hooking it up in the end!!!