I recently had my 44th birthday.  It’s not exactly a memorable number.  For some unknown reason, Mrs. Angler Wannabe and I ended up planning a trip out to California to visit the Napa Valley vineyards and do a little couple’s fly fishing.  We were originally going to fly in to Sacramento and stay up in the Truckee area for some unstructured fly fishing on the Truckee River.  My birthday doesn’t coincide with favorable weather in the area so I attempted to find good fishing in the Napa or Sonoma area.  No luck there.  So I had the bright idea to book a trip through the famous drool-inducing catalog producer, The Fly Shop.  I’ve always wanted to visit the shop since I took up fly fishing over 10 years ago.

The trout season in California doesn’t start until the end of April but the Lower Sacramento that runs right through Redding California, home of The Fly Shop, is year round.  It’s a big river that’s only accessible via drift boat at this time of the year due to the high flows coming out of Shasta Dam.  If I’m going to fish one of the best fisheries in the state, I have to book a drift boat and a guide with it.

That’s where Chris Parsons comes in.  He was the The Fly Shop’s recommended guide for the full day trip that I booked with Mrs. Anglerwannabe.  Since my wife isn’t a fly fisher lady (yet), he’s the best for getting beginners in to a respectable number of the Shasta Rainbow Trout that the Lower Sacramento River is famous for.  Trip booked.

After a couple of days in the Russian River Valley at a charming inn called the Raford Inn (highly recommended btw), drinking more wine than any two people getting up before 5:00a to drive for 3.5 hours should, we made the treck to Redding, home of the Sundial Bridge.

To save time and avoid backtracking, I chose to drive over the mountain range separating the wine country from the agricultural country.  This really tested the cornering on the rental car as we spent about an hour and a half winding over the mountains.  I’m sure it was beautiful but we were experiencing it in early morning darkness.  We’ll have to go that way some other time when it’s light out.

We arrived at The Fly Shop at about 9:30a.  I met with Chris to go over any other needs we might have and then took care of the remaining paperwork.  Note to the state licensing divisions – you might get more woman out fishing if you don’t ask them for their weight.

We hopped back in our rental and followed Chris and the drift boat to the launch site.  After unloading the boat, we then followed him to the takeout, about 12 miles down the river.  We drove back to the launch site and Chris and I chit chatted a bit about travel and books (he’s also reading An Entirely Synthetic Fish by Anders Halverson).  It was then time to get on the water.

Chris gave us about a 15 minute lesson on how to fish the river.  It involved a 3 rig fly outfit on a 6wt rod called a midget rig.  The flies were very close together, much closer than what I’m used to.

The lead fly was an egg pattern and the two others were small nymphs.  We had an indicator and a really large weight.  The basic gist to the casting was you don’t really.  Flop the line to the opposite side of the boat and then flop it back.  Pay more attention to stripping out some line and mending it in order to get a good drift.  Then watch the bobber, I mean indicator, for any dip and set the hook with a lot of force.

We were then ready to give it a shot.  Chris rowed us a few yards and told me to give it a try.  Immediately, the indicator went under and fish on.  And then off.  The hook set was probably the hardest part for me.  I can’t even count how many fish I (and Mrs. Angler Wannabe) lost.

Chris knew exactly where all the fish were.  So, we would make a drift through a run, catch some fish (or sometimes not), and he would paddle back to do it again.  Not much fun for him I guess, but I enjoyed the hell out of catching fish after fish.  My wife picked it up quickly and started catching fish, one after the other.  I always stopped to either take a picture or just enjoy her fighting these healthy fish and therefore didn’t get much opportunity to do my own catching at that point because every time she cast, she would hook something.  I think she sensed me getting a little antsy so she took a rest, plus her arm was hurting from all the action (a little guide joke).

After a couple of hours of pretty solid catching, we pulled over and ate lunch.  We brought along a bottle of Thomas George Estates Pinot Noir that we poured into water bottles that Chris cut in half.  It was awesome.  There’s something really cool about drinking $60 wine on the side of a trout river in recyclable plastic.

Following lunch, there was more of the same.  We did run into a few slower times but they always heated back up, all the way to the take out.  Every fishing report needs a little fish porn, so here are a few scenery pics along with a couple grip and grin shots:

BTW, You shouldn’t see these awful sunglasses much longer.  Mrs. Angler Wannabe gave me the OK to replace them, they are really that ugly.

It was a great day.  Good discussions, great healthy fish on the fly, top notch vino and some time out on the water on an otherwise insignificant birthday year.  But, I’ll remember it for a long time.  Thanks Chris for being a great introducer to drift boating and fly fishing the wonderful Lower Sacramento River.  And thank you Mrs. Angler Wannabe for taking a day away from the vineyard visits just so I can enjoy being rowed around a river for the entire day.  You must love me.

On Thursday, I made the 10 hour drive out to Alamogordo NM with my brother. David was there on business so it worked out perfectly.

My plan was to fish on Mulcock Ranch on Friday and fish on some of the streams around Ruidoso on Saturday. The only flyshop in the area shutdown a while back so my Ruidoso trip was going to be based on a couple of books I got from Amazon.

• Fly-Fishing in Southern New Mexico (Coyote Books (Albuquerque, N.M.).)
• New Mexico (Flyfisher’s Guides)

Both books warned that rivers in Southern New Mexico aren’t like western ones. Many are seasonal and most can be stepped across without getting wet. For some reason, I still had high hopes for Ruidoso area flyfishing. More on that soon.

I arrived at the ranch on Friday around 8:15a.

It was a cool morning in the upper 40′s but it didn’t feel chilly. Must have been my adrenaline. I drove for over 10 hours for this opportunity so I was beyond excited when I got to Charlie’s house. We exchanged greetings and went in to his house to talk about flies and look over an aerial map of his property. I brought 3 hodgepodge boxes which he determined held flies which should be adequate for the day.

Charlie had about an hour of work he needed to accomplish with the cattle that morning so he showed me to the first spot at one end of the property.

I initially tried a wooly bugger and nymph dropper. The water was deep in spots and only about 3-5 feet across. There was lots of great vegetation and clear water. I was definitely sight fishing for a change.

Some really nice trout came out of hiding to chase after the combo but they would always refuse and return to their holding spot. I moved upstream and continued fishing. I ran across a monster fish under a high bank but couldn’t get him to even approach the flies. About this time, Charlie showed back up to show me the variety of water he had on the property.

Following the tour, Charlie dropped me off with his 4 wheel drive Land Rover and I was on my way. I started near the waterfall in the picture above and worked upstream. I never found an easy way to get into the canyon though with so much water, I decided to save it for another trip. I ended up landing four nice sized Rainbows and long distance landed 2 others. I also hooked up a hog that broke my dropper off. I would have loved to get a better look but in my mind he must have been approaching 20 inches.

Overall, the trip was very worth the long drive. Charlie was a wonderful host and I really wish I lived closer. I would join the club in a second if I didn’t have to take a 3 – 4 day weekend to utilize it. If anyone is looking for a very reasonably priced club to join, it’s worth the $100 to check it out. You’ll be very pleasantly surprised. Tell Charlie that you read about it on my blog.

Now on to my second day. Not much to write home about since I never found water or water worth fishing. Ruidoso (as I was warned by some friendly locals who were on the ranch), was a dud.

The Rio Riodoso was easy to get to but I could tell by a quick look down in a ravine, couldn’t sustain anything but trout from a truck. I’m guessing that they would have been fished out within a few minutes of being transplanted from the hatchery. Not my kind of fishing.

I ended up coming back on Saturday instead of waiting until Sunday. Although I got home around 4:15a Sunday morning, it was so nice waking up in my own bed instead of having to spend another whole day driving back

Had a great trip overall and will be back to get that fish that took my bh nymph.

I started out today with grand thoughts of an all day trip to some remote hill country stream but that soon disappeared with the last glimpse of civilized temperatures mid morning. Instead, I decided to trek up to Round Rock to see the Living Waters Fly Shop and see what waters they would suggest.

I got there around 1:00p. It was already about 102 outside. Chris, the owner, said that I should just run behind the shop and try out Brushy Creek. I had never been there so I gave it a shot. I picked up a few flies including my first ever moth fly. It was a little white fuzzy fly with black eyes. Chris told me to start with a little hopper first to see if they were coming to the surface.

I left the shop, took a right and followed the road about .75 miles to the first crossing. There was a convenient pull off past the bridge that I carefully guided my wife’s Mini into and parked. The creek was behind a neighborhood. It reminded me of the creeks that I used to play on when I was a kid. Probably only 2 feet high at the deepest but absolutely filled with fish. I had hoped to pick up some wading sandals at the fly shop, but Chris convinced me that I should just use my standard wading boots. Therefore, I only had some flip flops on. These were far from ideal for slopping around in a sliming creek. Lack of appropriate footwear kept me confined to about a 15 foot area. I spent about an hour in those 15 feet having a blast sight casting to little fish with my Sage 5 wt. I only landed one as the majority of the takers weren’t much bigger than my hopper. The one unlucky fish was a large panfish that had a perch body and a bass mouth. I’ll have to look up what it was.

After the strong urge to move upstream but equally strong counter urge to not walk around on the slippery rocks in my flip flops won out, I decided to head home. Probably not going to be high on my return visit list but it was nice and convenient so a possibility if I’m in the North part of Austin.

On another note, I used my Water Walker Lanyard that Rick made for me. I haven’t posted a review yet and I apologize sincerely for that. The lanyard is based on the Southwestern model. You can look at the pictures on his site but they don’t do it justice. The workmanship is top notch and they are honestly really good looking. I’ve seen lanyards in stores and picked them up and thought that they were overpriced for a piece of string that runs around your neck, but Rick’s look like they cost an awful lot more than the prices on his site. The connectors are all top notch and it’s so comfortable that you forget it’s on. I’ll take some pictures of it close up tomorrow but in the meantime, here’s one of the lanyard on me at Brushy Creek.

I wanted to better my chances of catching trout so I hired a guide from Four Seasons Fly Fishers. His name is Craig Costa.

I met him at the store around 9:15am. The sky was clear and the ground was covered in snow. The temperature was in the teens but it didn’t feel that bad. I think the adrenalin warmed me up.

We went to an area outside of Midway to start. We trudged through the snow with pretty high hopes of catching some fish on a 2 fly rig with midge nymph dropper.

We tried a few locations before I finally caught a trout. It wasn’t a big fish, but it was still a cold water trout. Something I miss in Texas quite a bit.

I ended up catching 5 fish including one on accident when I wasn’t looking and a white fish which I had never caught one before. It had one hell of a set of kissers on it. It fought very differently from a trout but it was still fun.

I think I did about as good as anybody could on that could day. We saw a very small midge hatch and no BWO’s which were supposed to have started already.

Regardless, I thoroughly enjoyed the trip and Craig, my guide, was outstanding. He taught me a lot about rigging up the optimal set up for nymphing on the Provo and also on finding where the fish are. He was very easy to talk to. I had a great conversation with him. We even had some stuff in common.

After the fishing subsided, I was off to the AEG Media Fly Fishing Film tour in Salt Lake City. It was great to see the turnout (about 300 people) who were all there with the same interest. Much was said about the Pebble Mine issue in Alaska. I’m absolutely appalled by it and am telling everyone I know to get involved. It’s something that we do have a say in and should do the right thing and not be silent.

Back to the working world and warm water fishing.

After hitting the river, I have to rush back down the mountain to get back in time for the AEG Fly Fishing Film Tour in SLC. You can’t beat that with a bamboo stick.

The guide, Ken Moreau of Single Spey Fly-Fishing Adventures – http://www.bcflyguide.com/index.html, sent me some recommendations for flies to tie. I was kind of hoping they would be some exotic beautiful salmon flies that I only get to see in books, but instead the guidance was to tie wooly buggers!! So, nothing too fun.

More info and definitely lots of pictures to come….