Recent fishing..

Smaller Carp are active but I'm concentrating on Stripers the last week or two. With that, the Striper fishing isn't all that good on the Delta, for me anyway. Warm water and lots of small fish with a few in the 4-6lb class. Good strong sea run fish but playing the " here one day gone the next" game consumes a lot of fuel. I may switch over to lake fishing for them before to long. The weather has been beautiful up until the last couple of days with lows in the 60s and highs in the low to mid 80s. Really can't ask for better fishing conditions.

small fish like these are whats on tap right now

a good one from a week ago..they have left the shallows for now

sunrise out the kitchen window 

I hit a the beach and harbor jetty a few days ago for Surf Perch and blanked. I do pretty well this tiome of year and the bait guys were catching a few but I couldn't get bit on a fly to save my life. Stunning beach weather and all the tourists are gone so it was worth it. Just didn't happen fish wise. I did spot a small Leapord Shark cruising the inside flats but he wasn't anywhere near in range to cast too. Guys get them to eat flies often enough to give it shot with a low tide like I had so I stuck around but didn't see anyhting else after that one.

Elkhorn Slough, Moss Landing  Cal

Surf Perch grounds

Moss Landing Jetty

cheap and effective stripping basket. a must for the beach and rocks

Shark flats

First light on the California Delta

Sherman Lake, Cal Delta
 

As a life long Giants fan this has been one of the best Octobers for me in a while.. That was sick!!

Carpin

Our fall fishing hasn't quit taken off just yet. Nights are in the high 50s - low 60s and were coming off of some 90 degree weather this week so things are still a little warm. A touch of color some places but for the most part it feels like summer and it was hot out there today. Lakes are dropping fast and the river fish have been tough as nails and very frustrating. I started the morning hitting a stream that can hold very nice steelhead this time of year. The stream closes Nov 15th so I wanted to put some time on it while the coastal fog was overhead in the AM and then go hunt a carp or two after the sun got overhead. Three hours gave up 5 small Bows. Flows were good and the conditions were perfect but I just couldn't connect with anything but dinks.  I'll give it another shot before closes.

First Lake I stopped at has been holding great numbers of smaller fish but has been stingy as hell with any quality this year. I walked the flats for over an hour and only spotted one fish about 70ft from me. I had no shot but thought maybe they would move up so I kept after it. Mut told me to move on since there just wasn't the life on the flats that there has been so I bailed and went on to Lake #2.  This place is more of a one or two fish type lake and it held true to that this time. The road in sits about 50ft above the lake leval and you can actually see almost the whole dam flat from the truck. I saw two very nice fish working a bank so I geared up and got down to lake level to find they split. Walked some good looking shallows and came up on a tailer that was digging big time about 25ft from me. First cast was long but the second shot was perfect and she turned and jumped it instantly. After a terrific battle  I was able to slip a beautiful teener in the net. One of my more rewarding Carp of the year so far and I enjoyed every second of it. Took a quick Photo and she bolted off strong! Almost as soon as I retied I had another shot on a fast moving 8-9lb fish and that one ate too. Took a break to let things settle down a bit and I only had two more shots the next two hours. All in all a good day! I'll be fishing less and less for Carp and start merging into Striper fishing this next week or two. I'll still hit themas long as they stay up shallow but i'm ready for some Stripers and Steelhead.

This fish ate simple brown bugger

One fly..

I worked the morning and didn't get my first look at a fish till almost 1:30.  Since I went strait from work I some how just assumed I had all my stuff. I was able to park close and could see a school working toward the back of a shallow creek channel so I grabed my shit and was ready for them as they moved toward me at a good clip. I had a heavy crawfish fly tied on from other water and made a good cast..plop and fish gone! Ok, so they're a little touchy. Reached in for my fly box for something lighter and I had a box of dries in there! WTF Not good..Ran up to the truck and I knew I had left the box I needed on my boat. Tore the truck apart and went through half a dozen fly boxes full of Marine/Striper flies for nada.  JUst about to call it and I score a crusty black bugger in the ash tray!. A little trim here and there and I was in business. That one fly saved the day and I ended up catching a good number of fish on it. Wouldn't have been my first choice but what ya gonna do.

Carpin

Spent the day flogging the local Carp grounds. Kind of a so so day with some fish lost, some fish caught and some scouting of new water with added bonus of running into random luggage and Cactus jungles to navigate..All in all a pretty good day to be out with an easy to deal with 80 degrees. See what happens manana!

Oh, I ran into Wilson. Wilson was randomly sitting in the weeds not near any trail. Just sitting there in the middle of nowhere. Wilson might have had 50K or maybe someones dope stash or perhaps body parts but we'll never know becouse it freaked me out to find a new,clean duffle bag filled with "something" (i poked it with my rod butt) just sitting in the bush like that. The shit you run into while Carp fishing eh?!.No other Specie provides as much fun and mystery!

Things are just starting to feel and look "Fallish"

Access is tough with gin clear water here but a good population resides!

This creek is LOADED with these. Also saw two Salmon

Clear water!! Caouldn't get a clean shot so I took a photo

 

Plumas County, California

What an interesting week! I returned home this evening from a week long snipe hunt on Browns. Lake Almanor to be exact. The lake is in the North Eastern part of California for anyone who's wondering. I usually head up for a week around the first of October and concentrate on Browns but the Smallmouth and big Bows can not be over looked. There is also tons of stream fishing to break it up if the lake fishing gets tough. I really like the area for the diversity it offers and the consistantly good year over fishing. This year was a little off. I can blame it on the moon but there were many factors including un seasonable warm weather and the list goes on and on. The bottom line is that I didn't get em and someone always does. So it is what it is and I cant wait to get back up there. Maybe in November for a short trip.

fixer upper

Lassen Nat Park

I was here when not on the lake

Every hole was stacked with these little scrubs!

mean bastards!!!

 

Long story short, I never stuck a trout in the lake the whole damn week. I tried everything I could think of. I did have three browns follow streamers, clousers to be exact, to the surface, but they just weren't excited at all. Normally they are chasing Pond Smelt and I can expect two or three quality bites from BRowns over a course of the week and lots of nice Rainbows and Smallies to fill in the blanks and keep it interesting. Bait was from the surface to 40 and  I was marking fish deep so I finally settled into to casting type 6 sinking and even T14 heads and dredging  bait fish patterns in 25-30'. What I was marking and ended up getting bit from were really nice Smallmouth. They would follow and wack it about 10ft below the surface. Water was 10-15ft vis so getting all the way down to the fish wasn't really all that important. Fish in 35 could pick up a fly in 20'!. The average was around 3lbs and over the course of the day I would catch 8-10 smallies.  Really HARD fighting healthy fish. No dinks but no giants either. Thats great smallie fishing for quality fish, lots of fun and certainly nothing to be ashamed of but I really wanted those friggin Browns that usually show.  The up side was the the small stream fishing was fantastic for small Bows and October caddis were coming off every afternoon causing them to go ape shit. It was perfect 3wt type fishing,  rock hopping through the woods with no humans to be seen once I bush wacked in. Just crazy ass logging truck drivers to watch out for going in and out. All in all a great week and it was good to get away with my wife for some chill time.

Morning Smallie

Beautiful evenings! looking south down the shoreline

And looking north from the same spot

Pond Smelt

Burned about 35 gallons @ 4.55 per gallon. F*&^!

A little Feather River smallie caught just below the falls

Power Plant going strong!

taken on top with a floating Pond Smelt fly below the power  plant