Chasing BWOs: A Drizzly Couple Hours Fly Fishing the Upper Sacramento

 
Most of the color has already fallen, leaving big mats of leaves in shallow eddies

With so much of the last couple weeks consumed by our ongoing battle to protect our legal fishing access rights in Siskiyou County (if you haven’t yet sent your 90-second email, there’s still time), fishing time has been scarce.

Saturday dawned damp and drizzly — perfect BWO weather — so I thought I’d finally throw off the weight of adult responsibilities and run downriver.

Unfortunately, I ran downriver a little late (reminder to self; early in the year, only drizzly days, the hatch comes off earlier), so when I hit the water at 1:00, things were already underway.

They weren’t wildly underway — most of the fish I saw would nose up 3-4 times, then disappear for a few minutes. The hatch — composed mostly of those damned #22 BWOs — was sporadic, and like most BWO hatches, the bugs came off in waves.

The smart fly fisher fishes hard while the bugs are on the water, then repositions himself during the slow moments.

 
Grey, wet clouds on the ridges mean BWOs.

Of course, the “smart” fly fisher might also cast and fish intelligently, and I’d have to say there were some serious lapses in that particular department.

Sadly, they were all mine.

The Upper Sacramento is very low and clear this time of year — we’re facing the most “technical” fishing we typically see.

The bugs are also small, which makes for some touchy fishing, especially since I was skulking around a hard-fished stretch of water.

Every year it takes me a trip or two to transition from “slapping big dries in pocket water” to “finessing tiny dries to spooky fish.” I’m hoping this was that trip.

I finally hooked two smallish trout on a soft-hackle emerger, but for a while, I wasn’t so much a refined predator looking for prey as a dolt with a fly rod looking for new fish to spook.

Still, standing knee-deep in the river helped wash away the accumulated cynicism that tends to crust over my sense of wonder during prolonged political fights.

At the very least, it was a reminder about what the hell it is we’re fighting for.

The Gear Gore

I fished an 8.5′ 4wt Diamondglass rod, but would have been better served by something with a bit more reach — perhaps a 5wt.

The delicacy of the Diamondglass is tough to beat, but on those long, flat, shallow runs, a fly fisherman is well and truly exposed, and longer casts are the norm.

I’ll get it right next time.

And even if I don’t, it’ll still be out there instead of in here, which amounts to a victory no matter how you look at it.

See you on the river, Tom Chandler.

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