My brother in-law Lonny invited us on a family vacation with his family and promised good fishing.  So we packed up our things and made the 5 hour trip.  The first place he suggested that we went to was Hot Creek. Hot Creek is one of those creeks that you see in fishing shows.  Flat land all around, with a view of Mammoth Mountain and tons of fish rising everywhere.  With the number of fish that we were seeing you can tell these fish get a lot of pressure.  There were few fish caught the first night and we tried everything in the box.  Somehow, they would avoid our flies to take another real fly right next to it.  It became very apparent that presentation and matching the hatch was going to be very important. 

The next day we went a little further up the river closer to the hot springs.  This part of the river looked promising.  Further up the river, my father in-law Rick, found a section that the fish were popping everywhere.  All three of us put on our best flies and started casting.  I put on a small PMD and I was getting takes on it all throughout the day.  I could see a big fish rising on the far side of the river.  There were multiple currents running through the river so I knew I was going to have to put in the perfect place and be ready.  I laid the line out, just above the fish; I watched as the fly came a across the fish, BOOM!  A take on the fly! I pulled up quick to set the hook… I missed him.

Determined to catch this fish I gave it another go.  BOOM! Another take… still again I could not set the hook!   I gave it a little time before trying that spot again. When I saw the fish start rising again, I gave it another shot… BOOM! Another take on the fly.  I pulled up and set the hook this time.  It was a bit of a battle getting the fish in fighting through a few currents and trying to keep him on top of the vegetation, but I was able to land the fish.

This fish is one I will remember.  There is something about the hunt that bakes in these memories and makes them last.  Seeking out the fish.  Studying the water for the best approach.  Then, once the strategy is in place, giving the perfect presentation that makes a bunch of hair and feathers irresistible to the fish.
 

My wife and I went out to Utah for my cousins wedding, so I figured while I am in Utah I might as well go fishing. I have had some good success on the Provo River in the past. It is mostly 10-12 inch Browns, but I have caught a healthy15 inch Brown on previous trip.  The great part about fishing in Utah is I get to fish with my buddy Will.  Will has taught me most of what I know about fly fishing and all through college we fished together 3-4 times a week (maybe more).  It brings up a lot of great memories when we get to meet up and go fishing again.
We started on the middle section of the Provo and woke up early in the morning, so we could be the first on the river. My dad was set up with a squirmy wormy. Will and I started out with some nymphs. We got to the river and my dad started in the first run.  About 10 to 15 minutes into fishing my dad had caught the first fish on that squirmy wormy.  It was a decent sized fish, about 12 inches and healthy.  We started moving up the river and there didn’t seem to be much else going on.  As we moved up the river there was really no action.  No takes on anything.  I feel like I threw just about everything in my box at the fish.  After a few hours of nothing happening we called it for the morning.
We made plans to meet back up for the evening hatch.  This time we went to the lower section of the Provo.  Now what is strange is that I usually don’t do as well on the lower section of the Provo, but today was much different.  We went down to the river and there was activity on the water.  The best part was, there were a lot of fish rising to the surface, so it was time to put on the dry flies.
Will figured out that the fish were going after PMDs on the surface.  We both tied them on and the fishing was great.  We started catching fish after fish.  Now this is what I was hoping for.  Nothing too big, but it was nice to be catching.  Storm clouds start pushing in over the mountain and we started to hear thunder, so we decided to call it quits before we were turned into human lightning rods.
After fishing Will and I always like to get some food (who doesn’t).  It’s a great time to relax, have some good food and catch up on lost time.  We went to a place in Orem called Chubby’s.  I got a milkshake and Pastrami burger, both were very good.  There was a lot on the burger with great flavor and the bun was nice and fluffy.  In fact, I liked it so much that I went again later in the week.
The next day I went back to the middle section of the Provo River. The same place that had been so disappointing a day earlier.  I wanted to give it another shot because there were a lot of good runs.  At first it seemed like it was just going to be more of the same.  There wasn’t much happening on top, and no takes on nymphs. I moved to a section of the river that Will had pointed out to me the day before (there was someone in the spot the day before) and it looked very promising.  I carefully waded into the water and started casting my nymph along the bank.  All of the sudden, I started hearing fish behind me rising to the surface.  Then they started rising all over the place. I saw a huge fish come flying out of the water.  I was not in a good position to go after that fish but was able to get myself into a position were fish were coming to the surface repeatedly.  Similar to yesterday on the lower section, the fish were going after PMDs. I did not have one so I tied a fly on the looked the most like it in my box; a BWO.  I patiently waited for another raise near me.  The fish made a raise and I made my cast. I put the fly a little bit ahead of the ripple. Once the fly crossed back over the fish, he turned around to go to the fly.  My eyes got wide.  The fish slurped up the fly.  I waited for the fish to just turn back around and then set the hook. FISH ON! It was a decent size brown that put up a bit of a fight. I really wanted to land this fish.  I felt that this stretch of river got the best of me to this point.  I made sure the keep my rod tip up and the line tight.  I got the fish into the net and breathed a sigh of relief.  With how the previous day went, this fish felt particularly good to land.  I felt like I had conquered the river!

This should have been written a while back, but back in September I went to Heenan Lake with my cousin Chase.  For those of you that don’t know, Heenan Lake is known for its large Lahontan Cutthroats.  Now when I say large I mean large.  Now something that is important to know about Heenan Lake is that it is only open 2 months out of the year and only Friday through Sunday; catch and release only with barbless flies or artificial lures.  Make sure to check the regulations before you plan a trip to the lake. We decided to give it a try at the end of September. 
I headed up on Friday and Chase was going to meet me up there later that night.  I got to the lake around 2 O’Clock and started out trying all kind of flies; Woolly Buggers, Pheasant Tails, Leech patterns, Prince Nymph.  I wasn’t getting anything, but was noticing that, for how many people were on the water, not many people were catching.  I saw in the distance someone in a drift boat caught a huge cutthroat.  I overheard him tell someone that he caught it with a Red Copper John. 
I just happened to have a Red Copper John in my box.  I put it on and within minutes got a massive strike.  I set the hook and it was on.  I could tell this was going to be a huge fish so I made sure to not over work it.  When I got the fish to the surface it looked like a shark swimming though the water.  I got the fish over to my float tube and the got the fish in my lap.  The fish measured out to 24”!  That fish alone made the trip worth it.
The next day Chase was there to fish with me.  I wound up catching another fish with a Red Copper John again.  It was not quite a big as the fish but still a really nice size.
By midday the wind picked up to the point that it was hard to control the float tube on the water, so we called it.  I walked away with two fish and am looking forward to planning another trip for next year.

My wife and I wanted to get outside and go for a hike.  The place we decided on was Island Lake.  It is about 2 hours outside of Sacramento and is a pretty quick and easy hike.  I had heard that there are Brooke Trout in Island Lake and this caught my attention.  I have never targeted Brooke Trout specifically, but was excited to give it a try.  I have heard from other anglers that Brookies are fairly easy to catch and I thought this was going to be great because I was going to have a little time to fish.  I took a multiple flies and planned on uses some different standard woolly buggers and some nymphs.
We got to the park around 10 am, I got my gear together and we started on the hike.  The hike was pretty easy.  I little bit of an uphill climb, but really not too bad.  The hike from the parking lot was probably 1.5 to 2 miles long.  When we got to the lake it was absolutely beautiful.  The water was a gorgeous blue color and the scenery was terrific.  Truly one of the most beautiful lakes I have been to.
Any who, on the hike to the lake I noticed that there were a lot of grasshoppers so I tried fishing with a Hopper pattern which was not my original plan.  There really weren’t any rises going on so I switched over to a wet fly, black bead head woolly bugger.  I didn’t have any success with it.  I switch to a white zonker.  Still no success.  I tries a few other things but only had about an hour and a half to fish and wasn’t able to come up with anything. 
Given the time that I got there and not seeing much activity on the water, the odds really were not in my favor.  However, now that I have been to Island Lake and had a chance to scope it out a bit, I would like to bring my float tube and give it another try in the future.  There is another lake that is somewhat near Island Lake, named Penner Lake.  I have heard many good things about Penner Lake from a few different anglers.  I think next time I am going to have to make the longer hike to Penner Lake and possibly make an overnight trip out of it.

Chase, Uncle Jason and I went to Fuller Lake a few weeks ago and as some of you may know from past posts I never do well at Fuller Lake, but I wanted to give it another shot. It’s too close not to try and figure this lake out. It’s only an hour and a half up the mountain towards Tahoe and I always hear of other people doing well there.  For some reason it seems like I am just cursed at this lake.  I get plenty of takes, most of the time but, just can’t hook the fish.

I started out the day with a fly that I have been tying which is a pheasant rump for their wrapped around a size 10 streamer hook. The movement on the fly is awesome and the fish in the High Sierras seem to love it. We got to the lake around 8 o’clock pumped up our float tubes and set out. First few casts I get a bite and pull up to set the heck. No fish. A little while later, again, I got another take. Go to set the hook, no fish. As I continued to cast I saw that Chase was landing fish and my Uncle Jason was landing fish as well and I thought to myself, “Maybe I really am cursed.” Again I get a bite! I pull up to set the hook. No fish!  At this point and I was getting pretty frustrated I couldn’t understand why I was unable to set the hook on these fish.
To try and increase my chances and to just try and change something, I pulled my fly out and bent the bite of the hook so that it was no longer parallel with the shank. This should help prevent me from pulling the fly out of the fish’s mouth.  I throw out a cast and started stripping the line back and again no fish!  At this point I was beyond frustrated. I had missed 8 fish!  I pulled the fly out again bent the hook a little bit more.

I through a cast out and let the fly get deep before stripping it in. A couple strips in and I got another take. I pulled the rod tip up... Fish on! 

The fish fought hard so I thought it might be a better sized planter. When the fish surfaced it was a beautiful gold color. I was surprised. It was a Brown. When I got it in, it was around 14 inches.  Pretty good for Fuller Lake.  After catching that fish I decided to call it a day ending it on a high note. Funny thing was that as I was kicking in, I caught another fish right as I hit the shore. Just a little Rainbow, but it felt as though the curse had been lifted.

We all did well. Chase caught quite a few Rainbows with a black wholly bugger and Uncle Jason caught a lot from shore. Next time fuller is planted with new fish, I’m heading up again.

This past Friday, because it was Memorial Day weekend, I got a short day at work. What a great opportunity to get some fishing in. Lonny, Nick and I went to the Bass pond around the corner from work. Lonny and I started out with some poppers and Lonny started catching blue gill left and right. I wasn’t catching anything, but I kept going with my popper.
I started kicking a little closer into shore and got what looked like a small take.  I pull up to set the hook and the fight was on. The fish pulled the line straight down and then went shooting straight out of the water. The belly of the beast was like Santa after a long night of whole milk and chocolate cookies. The pond had a lot of weeds so I wanted to make sure the beast didn’t get wrapped around anything. I put two hands on the rod and just hooped that the line or rod would not break. The fight when on for what felt like a 5 minutes.  Once I got it in it was hands down, it was the biggest bass I have caught (picture above). I was able to get a few more bass throughout the day. One on a Clouser and one on a flashy zonker.  Nick caught one bass and Lonny caught one bass and enough Blue Gill to feed a small family. All in all the pond has been good to us this year and we can mark this one down as another successful outing.

This past Friday I was able to take work off and go fishing with my dad at Rollins Lake in California. We started out around 9 o’clock. The water clarity was really bad though.  Probably about 6 inches. So it gave me little motivation to do any fly fishing.  I decided it was going to be a lazy day of fishing, meaning trolling. We started out with some spinners and didn’t have any luck. We then looked to try and find some areas that had some shallow areas.  I had never fished at Rollins Lake before, but there are some point on the lake that are very deep, like 140 feet deep. So we moved into a cove and started fishing some meal worms. We had a couple small takes, but nothing in the boat.  We decided to give trolling another try. This time we went by the dam and threw on some Rapala lures.  In a couple minutes, I had a fish on and it was a decent size rainbow. That pretty much kicked it off.  My dad and I start catching fish left and right for a good hour.  By the end of the day we probably had 10 to 15 fish between the 2 of us.

While fishing with my dad, he is half the entertainment. He saw the rod bend down and got excited; he jumped to grab the pole and set the hook and the rod fell right out of his hands landing on the back of the boat.  He bent over fast and did his darnedest to grab the rod, he missed and the rod began to fall into the water.  Of course, at this point I’m sure he is thinking that he is going to lose out on the biggest fish of the day.  He laid out like Michael Crabtree for a touchdown pass and grabbed the rod, pulling it up setting the fish and getting the fish in the boat.  It was the smallest fish of the day…  Gotta love it!

Overall I was very surprised at how many fish we caught given the clarity of the water.  Even with our success I would probably still go somewhere else before I would go back to Rollins Lake.  Once the water clears up I want to give it another try and do some fly fishing. It was a great time with my dad and hopefully next time we go will be just as successful.

This past Saturday I got the opportunity to go fishing with my Uncle Jason and brother-in-law Lonny. We decided to go to Fuller Lake.  A little back story about Fuller Lake, I have gone to Fuller Lake multiple times, but never do well there.  The thing is, I hear of people doing well there often, especially for fly fishing.  I really want this Lake to work out because it is fairly close to my house and great for float tube fishing.  The last time that I went was last year with my cousin Chase and neither of us got a single bite.  Lonny had told me that he did well at Fuller on Tuesday, so I thought it might be a good opportunity to give it another try. 
Lonny and I were fly fishing and my uncle was fishing from the bank. I started out with a sparrow fly and Lonny start with a similar leech pattern fly that I had tied. Within a couple minutes Lonny had a fish on.  The fish put up a nice fight and was a decent size.  I was thinking that we were going to a pretty good day. I fished with my sparrow fly for a good 20 minutes, but I wasn’t getting and bites. I then switched to a black woolly bugger, no luck. I then tried an olive woolly bugger pattern, no luck.  Then I tried a Clouser minnow, still no luck. I then switched to the same fly that Lonny was fishing. I don’t know why I did do that a long time ago because it didn’t take long for me to get a bite. I was kicking around and stripped back a couple times, and while my hand was open and I had no tension on the line I got a nice bite. The line went flying through my hands and it was too late by the time I grabbed the line and pulled up to set the hook.  I gave it a few more minutes, but the water was too cold and it was in the upper 30’s outside so I decided to throw in the towel and start fishing from shore with my uncle.
Uncle Jason did great.  I think he wound up catch 8 fish by the end of the day.  It does make me think that the fish were sitting at the bottom of lake because it didn’t take long for him to get bites and he was only using a 1 foot leader fishing off the bottom.  If you go out to Fuller Lake, I would suggest using some heavy sink line and try to stay near the bottom.  Good luck and happy fishing!

This trip started with a look and the fishing planting schedule for California and I noticed that Sugar Pine Reservoir was scheduled to be planted on Sunday, so I thought it would be good to give it a try the following Saturday.  That Friday before the trip I felt like I should check the planting schedule again and I noticed that Sugar Pine was nowhere to be found on the recent planting schedule.  I guess they decided they didn’t want to plant the fish anymore.  Good enough for government work.  I was going with Nick and Lonny and we talked it over, about trying somewhere else, but ultimately decided to still try Sugar Pine.  I had some success there in the past and it doesn’t get too crowded this time of year.
Saturday morning we headed up, blew up our float tubes and cast-off.  Something I was really excited for was a fish finder that I had hooked up to my float tube.  As I was kicking out into the water I saw a couple of fish on the finder. I was thinking that we were going to have a good chance at catching something that day.  However, as I continued it was a long while until I saw another fish.  When I did see fish I noticed they were between 10 and 20 feet down, but like I said, they were pretty sparse. I saw the most fish on the east bank by a downed tree.  Someone else told us they picked up a lot of fish on North East bank.  The only people that I saw with fish were bank fishermen and even then it was only a couple people.  Makes me think that the fish were all just sitting on the bottom of the lake.
We all fished streamers and woolly buggers for a few hours with no success and inevitably threw in the towel.  We got some information from the people at the boat ramp that said the fish were really active at dawn but then everything died down.  It was just a really slow day.  Saw very few people catching fish and heard many people complaining about not catching anything in the parking lot.
Overall it was a good time with friends, but the fishing was poor.  My curiosity got the best of me and I checked the planting schedule again on Monday.  Sure enough they planted Sugar Pine the day after we went.  Would have been nice if they would have posted that on the schedule but, oh well, it means that we can give it another try soon!

Last Friday afternoon, I went fishing at a pond near Folsom High School.  My buddy Nick and I got off of work early for Good Friday, and Nick just bought a new float tube, so we saw this as an opportunity to do a little bass fishing.  Nick tells me all of the time that there are bass in the pond but every time he takes me to this pond we never catch any bass.  I was optimistic and really wanted to start catching fish at this pond because it is only 5 minutes from the office.
I started out using a woolly bugger and didn’t have any luck. Nick started out with some small poppers and he had a little bit of activity but nothing took well enough to get them on the hook. I switched over to a small white Clouser Minnow. I started fishing against the reeds, I was able to catch a Green Sunfish.  It was a pretty decent size, about the size of my hand. I hooked up on another fish but was not able to get it in.  It wrapped itself around the weeds and I was not able to get it out.  In the wrestle of trying to get it out of the weeds it got off the hook.  I wasn’t too disappointed, it was pretty small.  Now that I had a few fish, it was time to go for the big stuff.  I wanted a bass!
I tied on a big popper and kicked my way over to the other side of the lake.  I fished a batch of reeds with the popper for about 30 to 45 minutes with no activity. I talked to Nick and started thinking about throwing in the towel, but I decided to give it a few more minutes. I continued to fish the reeds but noticed a stop that looked promising. I finally got what was a small take on top of the water. I set the hook and the fish started fighter hard and I knew that the fish was much bigger than its bite.  Keeping my rod up high and line tight, to prevent it from going under the weeds, I fought the fish for a good minute or so. The bass was not massive, but it had a nice bell on it and put up a good fight.  So I guess it is true, there are fish in this pond.  I want to give it a try again here, in another few weeks and see how we do.
Note: Below are some links to the equipment and flies that I used.  Happy fishing!