It's a week before the general trout season closer here in California, but I'd guess my backcountry streams (note the "my") are already out of reach until next year.



I was planning to stage a last-minute alpine commando raid sometime this week, but with a new garage door to install and a couple of teaching gigs on the calendar, a last trip to the high country was probably an illusion anyway.

One stream will remain accessible and I probably will hit that before closing day, though without a lot of hope; this stream originates in some mountains, where all this snowfall is accumulating.

With a couple warmer days ahead, a lot of that snow will melt and dump into the stream, and it's not the higher flows that necessarily get you, it's the sudden drop in water temperature (to just above freezing).

In fact, I might have just talked myself out of it.

Especially with the BWOs apparently underway on the bigger rivers.

See how confusing fall is for us outdoorsman types?

On Saturday we held Little M's third birthday party at the house, and rather than watch Wally the Wonderdog steal a metric ton of birthday cake off the kid's plates on the low tables (I've seen it before, and it's not pretty), I took him for a walk in the snowstorm.

There might be only one or two things better than hiking through the woods during a snowstorm, and it occurred to me that this is probably why I've developed an itch to go squirrel hunting in the fall.

Not for the squirrels (which I hear are pretty tasty), but as an excuse to throw a .22 over my shoulder and wander around in the woods for a couple hours with the Wonderdog.

It's similar to my reasons for fly fishing for smallish trout in remote places; it's gorgeous, it's contemplative, and for all you know you're the last person on the planet.

Fish and game might even be optional.

See you on the river, Tom Chandler.