The Lahontan Cutthroat of Pyramid Lake
March 3, 2008
On Friday, the Vin-Man and I made our first-ever trip to Pyramid Lake. It’s funny that we’ve lived within 3 hours of the place forever, but neither of us had ever made the trip over the hill. Friday’s mission almost didn’t happen — I had a last-minute guide trip cancellation and I made the call to the Vinster at about 9 p.m. Thursday night.
So, a few hours later, off we went — woefully unprepared in terms of tackle and knowledge.
The 1-Day Roadie: Salvation for the Soul!
February 6, 2008
Sometimes, the real world gets just hectic enough that you just have to say F-it all and check out for a day. Go back to the basics like eating junk food, talking about spots and celebrity hotties… and, oh yea, maybe mix in a little fishing, too.
To that end, nothing beats a road trip. Of course, with jobs, family and all the other stuff that keeps us so busy these days, extended roadies are tough to come by. One-dayers, however, are easier to pull off. That’s exactly what trusty side-kick Reilly and I embarked on yesterday.
With most Coastal rivers blown out from the big storms and the majority of stuff close to home either muddy or snowed in, we opted for a little wild trout fishing in the “upper” Lower Sacramento River near Redding. After stocking up on high calorie, low nutritional value snacks, we dumped the Red Rocket in at the Posse Grounds and started hunting trout…
It sure seemed like a good idea…
November 13, 2007
On a warm night recently, the boys and me decided that it might be cool to give topwater striper fishing on the Delta a go. After all, I’d been getting 12-20 topwater blowups per morning on my guide trips. On a nice calm evening, I reasoned, we could put the serious hurtin’ on the fish…
One strange day…
October 6, 2007
Okay, so what’s wrong with this picture??
Give up? The problem here is….this is the Yuba City (CA) Boat Ramp along the Feather River on Oct. 5. In what should be prime chinook salmon fishing time, there was only one boat trailer in the lot. Just a few years back, this place would have been wall-to-wall rigs, but with absolutely no salmon showing up this season, nobody’s fishing.
Of course, we did anyway. It was one strange trip…
So long, Cordova!
September 13, 2007
Sadly, we had to say farewell to Cordova, Alaska today. Reilly & I had a great ride fishing the road system from a rental car for the past 8 days. Considering we’d never been there before, we figured things out pretty quickly — a conservative estimate is we hooked 250 to 300 silvers during our trip and, in reality, probably more. The trick was to adapt quickly to the ever-changing water levels. We went from low and clear to 7 inches of rain in two days and then back to low, back to high, etc. You get the picture.
Our final two days were incredible…
More carnage from Alaska
September 12, 2007
Since I last checked in from Alaska, we’ve had 7 inches of rain (and small craft advisories) in just over 2 days here in Cordova…we’ve fished through it all, though. When all the rivers were flooding, we found coho in back sloughs that looked like bass ponds and we absolutely killed them on a bassy-like technique that will remain a secret…
Postcard from Cordova, Alaska
September 7, 2007
After our quick fishing tour of Anchorage yesterday, we hopped on a plane to Cordova this morning and fished our asses off in a variety of spots. At Hippie Cove, there were thousands of chrome (and big) silvers laying in the salt water off a spawning stream mouth. They were rolling all over the place — you can see fish jumping behind Tim here…
Running amok in Alaska
September 7, 2007
Reilly and I hit the ground running in Alaska today. We had a 1-night layover in Anchorage before we head to chase the giant silvers of Cordova, so we rented a car and burned up the highway to Willow Creek. All the local reports said that the fishing sucked, but it turned out nicely for us as there was nobody on the water. Plus, we caught some nice fish, like this beautiful rainbow…
On vacation in the Crustacean Nation
July 21, 2007
Sometimes, you’ve just gotta get away from it all for awhile. Ideally, you head somewhere where there’s a beach, nice weather, good scenery…and Dungeness crabs. Lot’s of em!
Luckily, I’ve got friends with a beach house on Puget Sound’s Hood Canal and, even better, is the fact that we’ve yet to do anything to tick them off enough to not get invited out once in a while. My good Alaskan guiding pal Matt and his wife Heidi had us out to the “Canal” in early July and we had a blast. While Hood Canal’s once world-class fishing has been nearly wiped out, the crabbing’s still worthwhile. Being, to put it mildly, crab enthusiasts, we were fired up when Matt suggested we do a seafood dinner!
We loaded up the pots with raw chicken and headed out to a dropoff near the house…
We dumped the pots in 80 feet of water and then it was back to tierra fima for the painstakingly long wait of 3 hours. Patience isn’t a string suit of mine when I’ve got crab on the brain…
Always, always check the forecast before you go…
July 19, 2007
If it sounds like I’m speaking from experience, here, you’re right. Not taking my own advice yesterday, I headed for Lake Oroville without checking what the weather was supposed to do. Why check the forecast? It’s always sunny and hot in July in the Valley, right? Well….
I show up at dawn in my typical summer gear…only to find it sprinkling. A little rain never hurt anybody, plus I had a sweatshirt in the boat. I quickly launched and headed out under a beautiful sunrise…
