Sure, my last fishing report detailed my triumph over one of the Upper Sac’s heftier wild specimens, but if the ancient Greeks taught us anything, it’s that humanity largely sucks at the game of life, and big days are inevitably followed by small days.

edmondsontop At least that’s what I gleaned from a short bout with Greek literature (I’ll admit my interpretation isn’t wholly supported by literary experts, but damnit, it’s my blog).

So I guess this was inevitable; I went fishing with Dave Edmondson, made a huge mistake on the equipment front, and got skunked. As in nada. No fish (three takes, zero hookups). Zilch.

Instead of covering myself in glory, I covered myself with loose fly line — after setting on and missing fish. Just like the Ancient Greeks predicted.

The Gear Gaffe

Regular readers know I’ve been testing some gear as of late, and anytime you get away from the stuff that you know works, you’re looking for trouble.

In this case, I dragged along Rio’s new Gold Line (a WF5). A less radical departure from traditional fly lines than the Sharkskin line I tested Sunday (and generally liked), this one had a shorter body taper, and I couldn’t rollcast it all the way across the pool.

And of course, you pretty much need to rollcast all the way across this pool.

It’s not the line’s fault — the head just wasn’t quite long enough — but it illustrates what will likely be the topic of an upcoming rant about weight forward fly lines, which might be one of the greatest hoaxes ever foisted on the fly fishing universe.

OK, It Wasn’t Just The Fly Line

I fished an 8.5′ 5wt Steffen Brothers glass rod — a rod that’s happily conquered this highly technical stretch of the Upper Sacramento several times (provided I brought the right line) — and I’d love to say I didn’t catch fish because I was limited by the roll cast, but in truth, I never really got on top of the 20-minute-long hatch.

The hatch looked like an overlapping affair including a #20/#22 BWO, a similarly small PED, a handful of spinners, and a pretty decent emergence of October Caddis.

I didn’t see a single fish chasing an October Caddis — the rising fish were definitely eating the small flies — but the big bugs are coming out. Big fly junkies rejoice.

Edmondson ended up with two fish, and I missed a couple, but even the few fish I could reach weren’t exactly falling all over themselves to get at my flies — which included a Sully-tied “Sno-Fly” that looked pretty damned ideal to me.

Apparently, it didn’t look ideal to the trout.

The Rio line? It fished nicely, floated high, but seemed prone to the same problem I experienced with my older Rio lines; it felt a little stiff instead of being nice and supple. While stiff works OK on faster graphite fly rods, it’s not as much fun with a softer, low-modulus rod.

I’ll give it another test, but I’m unlikely to do so on this particular stretch of water. The moral? It’s inescapable: The Ancients Greeks fished double-taper fly lines. At least that’s how I interpret the literature.

treessunset

See you on the river, Tom Chandler.

[tags]fly fishing, upper sac, upper sacramento river, roll cast, rio fly line, bwo, rainbow trout, trout[/tags]

Posted in Fishing Report, Upper Sacramento.