Flats Carp

There are good shots at Carp right now for those with patience. The last couple of weeks has been kinda slow around here for them.

Here is one from today. Actually the only one I stuck. I only had 3 shots on fish. Another fish busted me when I picked up to recast and I goofed up and blew it on my last fish. The clear water fish are a super challenge. Clouds and wind came in and ruined a promising afternoon.

The first photo is a zoomed in pic of the fish I caught from about 45 feet away and above. I didnt have a good angle so I didnt cast and let her go by...she turned around about 50' up the flat and made another pass for me and it worked out. She was in 10 inches of water.









See ya


Awesome clear water bug

Summer Smallies

The one thing I can not go with out is several trips to the upper reaches of the Calfornia Delta for Smallmouth. It makes for a long day but its always worth it regardless of how the fishing is. I've done lots of guiding up there for Smallies and know some areas well but today I went to an area that I havn't ever fished. I love the anticipation of fishing new water and since the Delta has some where around 1200 miles of Canals, sloughs,lakes and several major tributary rivers that drain off the west slope of the Sierras, there will always be new water fish. Well, we hope...

I saw only a handfull of boaters today. Its a complete 360 of what you find in the more populated warmer water middle,southern and west Delta, where a Saturday in August, it is packed full of pleasure boaters, jet skis and every other wake making mavhine you can think of. This area is relaxed with a glimpse of what the Delta must have once been.

The fishing was great for numbers all day and we manaded a couple of good ones early and late. Typical for August. We ended up with 40 to 50 Smallmouth for the two of us. Sometimes its numbers and other times quality. They havn't schooled up on bait fish yet and are primarily chewing on crawfish, so they are spread out through out the water column. that makes targeting quality fish an early and late deal for me. We had a mix of Smallies with a couple of largemouth and Spots mixed in..We saw two or three Salmon roll as well which was nice to see this early in the year. A few Stripers are around up there but nothing to get to excited about. Weather was a perfect 77-79. Fall is coming, like it or not.

Battle ground

What a morning Pauletta and I had...We got out of the house took a drive to the coast, for what was initially going to be a hunt for shallow water sharks on the fly rod. No Dice. One area I wa wanted to fish is closed to fishing and all the other flats/bays I checked just didn't have any. I'll be back though.

Since the area is damn beautiful we decided to hit one trail head that leads to a rreally nice secluded beach. It looked like a 4-5 mile loop on the map. About 30 minutes in we could here Elk and at one pint I could see a pretty good herd about 500yards away. I figured with the wind in my favore we could get pretty close and maybe get some decent shots.

Long story short. I was able to get about 100-125 yards from them. It looked like one mature Bull and half a dozen cows.He was working hard to keep them in check too. All at once, here come two more bulls over a ridge pushing 4 or 5 more cows and a couple of Calfs. The first Bull wasn't having it and they charged one another and hooked up. This went on and off for a while and I tried to creep in closer for some tight imnages and was busted by the old gaurd bull. Luckily he wasnt in the mood to take me out.

good and the ugly

It's pretty damn remarkable how a sucker can pick up on, and eat a fly in fast water with the set up they have on the business end..Went through several of them tonight before I hit pay dirt. Sorry for the poor images. I had knocked my camera out of setting and for some reason, didn't notice.

Golden Gate

Spent a considerable amount of time fishing below the GG Bridge Saterday. Nothing going on for me. I think the best part of San Francisco is the old architecture. I shot a few frames from stop lights etc..BW seemed to fit.





Ft. Point cannon ports. Built in 1853



St. Brigid was cunstructed in 1864 and survived the 1906 earth quake with little to no damage.





First Old Church. Built in 1849. An amazing piece of masonry work. Not visible in the image, the stain glass work is equally amazing.





Ornate top of the city hall dome..early 1900s

Sierra back country

Out of the house at 5:30 Saterday morning and a buddy and I were at the trail head by 10:30..we 4wd drive in as far as possible and hike and fish and hike from camp. My plan was to to settle into the high altitude and hike into Golden Trout on Sunday. After we set camp we hit the closest available water for Small Rainbows and Brookies.

Feeling pretty good with no sign of altitude sickness we decided on an afternoon hike to see if the Goldens would cooperate. They did and I was happy. We both caught Goldens and it was Miltons first ever so we were pretty stoked. A storm passed through while we were up there with sleat, wind and cold but we were able to take cover in a small group of bristle cone pines near the lake. There isn't much to hide behind over 10k. Even in the middle of August the weather can be brutal up there so I was pleased we were prepared for weather. It quickly passed and it was back to fishing until late afternoon and came back down to camp.

Next coouple of days were pretty much the same. Hiking, fishing and just having a hell of a time in beautiful scenery. Sunday, I watched a front for about an hour head in our direction. I had a feeling we better head down becouse we didn't gear up as well as the day before. I'm glad we did becouse it came in just as we were settling in at camp. It was packing a pretty good punch. Winds to atleast 50+ mph, heavy rain, sleet and hail. It stuck around for more than two hours and dropped temps into the high 30s at 4pm. I contemplated breaking camp and getting the hell out of there but decided staying put was best with all the rain. We would have to make a couple of creek crossing to get out and I didn't want to take a chance. We hunkered down in our tents and rode it out. At one point I peeked out and I swear Miltons tent was going to lift under the strain. This storm also passed and it was back to Late afternoon fishing for Brookies at camp. Sunday afternoon/night was bitter cold! All and all a great quick Sierra trip!