The Latin Fishing Report: Quod Erod Demonstratum (I Gloat, I Preen, I Strut About Obnoxiously)

I won’t lie. It’s been more than a week since my last fishing trip, and frankly, people could tell. I won’t say how.

So on Sunday — even though I had a pile of work waiting and an Internet broadcast to create at 4:45 (featuring moi as one of the Internet’s Top Copywriters; excuse me while I preen) — we loomed up the truck and headed for the river.

First, it’s been a tough winter.

The dry fly bonanza of two years ago hasn’t been repeated, and though the river’s been far more fishable than last year’s wader-topping flows, it’s fished poorly on top.

The redbuds are going to town, and the dogwoods are popping. It’s spring.

Today — with grey clouds threatening rain on the horizon and the river running at a safe level — I wasn’t expecting much.

So much for my psychic talents.

Shhh. <looks both ways> March Browns.

I’d love to suggest the river was carpeted with #12 March Browns, and that readers should immediately abandon their families, buy flies and hit the river.

It’s not that simple.

In fact, our friend Victor was along, and though he fished only 100 yards above me, didn’t see a single working fish — or even a bug.

It’s the Upper Sacramento River’s maddening “hyper-local hatch” effect. Sometimes one run is carpeted with bugs, while the next run remains as empty as a Porta-Potti on a 105 degree day.

I don’t wholly understand it, but with trout eating bugs just beneath the surface, I left the thinking until later.

ON A DRY FLY, I got three in the 10″-12″ range, missed a couple more, and after pricking the last fish, I gathered up Victor and hiked/ran downriver to an excellent dry fly flat.

Where we saw… BWOs?

Huh?

Once again, the Upper Sac pitches a curve.

Instead of March Browns, there were BWOs. Instead of rising fish, there were not-rising fish.

Despite the lack of working fish, two still ate my March Brown dry. One was a healthy 16 inches while the other was nicely muscled 15 incher.

Both jumped. Both caused heart failure. And both had to be steered into Raine’s net because I broke mine two weeks back.

Hallelujah. Chandler’s back.

Those are Chandler’s hands. That is Raine’s net. And that is Chandler’s fish.

Soon after I landed those two fish, Chris Raine made a hero wade (he’s tall enough that his hero wade is my snorkeling practice), topped it with a hero cast, and briefly hooked a big fish that was eating bugs on the far bank.

It escaped, but not before it caught some serious air.

Fishing a nymph, Victor had several nice hookups but couldn’t get any of them to stay on the hook.

Naturally, as high rod in the group, I was entirely obnoxious during the long shuffle back to the truck.

Clearly, catching the group’s most, biggest fish on a dry fly reveals an angler of superior moral character and physical prowess — a man to be both worshipped and feared.

When your angling buddies aren’t aware of it, it’s incumbent on you to remind them — at least several times on the way back to the truck.

I’m sure they’ll thank me sometime soon.

See you on the river, Tom Chandler.

IMPORTANT DETAILED FLY FISHING UPDATE: It’s morning now, and my brain is functioning again at its normal scary efficiency (it’s an exercise for the reader to decide what that means).

For who wrote wanting details, well…

I fished an AJ Thramer 8.5′ Hollowbuilt 5wt cane rod. It’s a strong rod (AJ called it an excellent “spring rod”) and was perfect for tossing around big dries in high (if not flooding) waters. A killer from a drift boat too.

The rising fish weren’t delicately eating anything — the riseforms were splashy (if all you did was fly fish between the pages of a book, you’d “know” those were caddis rises) and it looked like the trout were eating the emergers, leaving the duns largely in peace.

A Catskill style dry did no business, and I couldn’t find an appropriately sized Quigley Cripple, so I went with a parachute and so did the fish, though it took some doing. (These March Browns are a skinny size 12.)

And for the young man with the excitable e-mail style who asked “exactly where were those fish rising” we have the following information: in the river.

Technorati Tags: fly fishing, upper sac, upper sacramento river, march browns