The picture sucks, but the moment didn't...

(It didn’t hurt that I was the dope holding the camera and the bamboo fly rod.)

After a December only barely populated with outdoor pursuits, I found myself at the shooting range on Saturday and fly fishing the Upper Sacramento on Sunday.

God, I hate it up here.

I wondered if the dying October Caddis bite was still on, and I discovered it was.

More when I can find a minute to write about it.

See you outdoors (finally), Tom Chandler.

Frankly, it’s a great idea – but bring foul weather gear, because the Mount Shasta forecast suggests wet and cold.

Sure, the optimists among you are already thinking “that’s BWO weather” and you’d be right, but don’t forget the big October Caddis dries.

In fact, it’s possible I’ll make one last pass at a certain mountain stream (heavily edited pictures if I do).

Any Undergrounders making last-ditch plans for the season closer?

That’s because I was absorbed enough by the shoot that I forgot fire off a few frames on the camera.

With fewer of these flying about, the world is a safer place

In one sense, it’s an example why sporting clays is a lot like fly fishing a technical hatch over educated fish; to succeed, you pretty much have to exclude the real world and embrace a sort of sporting tunnel vision.

When either event is over, you look up, blink a few times, and find yourself amazed by the fact the sun has moved, the clouds have rolled in, and the birds are no longer singing.

Time, it seems, only stopped for you.

The Bare Facts

First, the chest beating: Our team of three shooters ended up right behind the third-place team (their team average was 67.8 birds per shooter from a possible 100, ours was 66).

That’s a astonishing result given my utter lack of experience, and the fact the Older Bro had fired a shotgun exactly once prior to the tournament.

Despite losing a few birds to misfires on my lower barrel (limited to one type of cheap Remington ammo), I shot a 61, and Older Bro posted a 51.

Propping up the excellent-but-still-newbie-ish scores of the Chandler clan was bamboo rod geek Chris Raine, who has annihilated plenty of clay birds in the past.

Despite a rustiness born of a few years away from the sport, Raine posted an 86, and more importantly, he looked good doing it.

He’d shoot, pop the action open, the spent shells would eject over his shoulder, and he’d have the two new shells in the gun before the empties hit the ground (I’m pretty sure chicks dig that sort of thing).

Lacking those kinds of groupie-attracting reflexes, I was content to muddle along without shooting anyone in the leg.

We all have our goals, it seems.

The Inevitable Comparison…

Being a fly fisherman, it’s hard not to compare fly fishing to sporting clays (after all, to fly fishermen, everything is “just like fly fishing, only different”).

Both are far harder than they look, and the people that make them look easy only do so after many (many) hours of experience.

I’m tempted to crack off a smartass line (“sporting clays is just like fly fishing, only louder”), but if the two really were just like each other, I’d already be good at sporting clays.

And given my tendency to make the hard shots while missing the easy ones, I’m clearly not (though I am fully capable of whining about my hard/easy tendencies in both sports).

Later, Chris patiently explained that the modified chokes on my Browning Superposed 20 gauge probably cost me on the near, fast-moving shots, but helped on the farther efforts.

“Oh,” I said. (That experience thing.)

It’s like explaining to a disbelieving new fly fishermen that their #14 Prince nymph – which successfully worked for them on every stocked trout stream they’ve ever fished – probably won’t cut it during a hatch of #20 BWOs on a catch & release tailwater, and that yes – those tiny bits of fluff actually can hook and land big trout.

“Oh,” they say.

We Return to Our Regularly Scheduled Fly Fishing

Sporting clays was fun, and yes, it’s something I’ll do again.

Older Bro is already threatening to sign us up for next year’s tournament, and with a working shotgun, a little prior warning (and a few days more practice), I plan to send a good 3/4 of those Fido-killing orange saucers to their deaths.

I might even plump for “Team Underground,” though that’s contingent on Orvis or LLBean recognizing the extreme PR potential of the event, flying me to their wingshooting schools in the corporate jet, and returning me just in time to clean the course.

Frankly, I can’t think of a single reason why they shouldn’t do it, which is why I run a smalltime fly fishing blog and they run huge, successful businesses.

But for now, we’re returning our focus to another big, orange, flying object – the October Caddis.

Which, it seems, the trout are really, really on top of.

We’ve had a couple frosty nights up here in Mt. Shasta, and the bugs are dying. Rumor has it the Upper Sac and McCloud are both going big guns on the big dry – provided you’re fishing the right kind of water.

Of course, with the McCloud closing in less than a week, those hoping to put the steel to perhaps their biggest trout of the year (yes, it can happen) had better hurry.

Oddly – and assuming I can escape the constraints of father hood for a whole afternoon – find myself drawn not to the glamorous waters, but a small stream, hoping to get one more shot at the little trout before the season closes, and the area quietly fills up with snow.

It’s been that kind of year for me, and I can see no reason to stop now.

See you on the river, Tom Chandler.

Even if the fly fishing goes to hell, there's always something to look at

Unfortunately, Older Bro and I ran into a bunch of cars in the parking lot, and plenty of fly fishermen on the river (and yes, one real asshole), and while we got plenty of eats in a few of my Secret Big Fish Spots, things slowed dramatically when we fished used water (which was most of the evening).

Still, the Upper Sacramento’s fishing very well – and rumour has it the McCloud’s going even better.

As proof, I offer this clearly sympathetic email from an Undergrounder, who was out fishing while I was wrestling soiled diapers off the Littlest Undergrounder:

BWAH, HAH, HAH!!!
fish, big fish. Lots of em…..
Big black noses, sucking up caddis dries….
Big, jumping hot fish…
Best night…ever. I was THERE!!!
and you…..BWAH, HAH, HAH!!!!!

As always, I’m warmed and comforted by the love and support of the Undergrounders, though as the above email writer will soon discover, I know people – people who carry power tools in the trunk of their car, yet don’t build things.

(Then again, in Day 71 of the Underground’s Home Contractor Hostage Crisis, that pretty accurately describes our contractor too)

Naturally, the usual caveats apply whenever I suggest the fishing’s good:

• The fishing could become un-good tomorrow
• I could be lying (changing diapers makes me cranky)
• You might not be a good fly fishermen
• I might not be a good fly fishermen

Helpful Hint: Everyone’s throwing stimulators, and while they work, they don’t offer the best hooking percentage. Consider a pattern that sits a little lower in the water, and bring a handful so you can replace the chewed, soggy mess on the end of your line.

Helpful Hint #2: leader selection is important when you’re throwing short casts with a wind-resistant fly. Micro-drag isn’t a big issue, and shorter leaders throw much better, so…

More to come (and soon) – including a short summary of our latest wading boot test. It went – sadly – about as expected.

See you at the keyboard, Tom Chandler.

You’re looking at a pair of Korkers Guide boots with a studded rubber sole on one foot, and the plain rubber on the other.

Studded rubber on one side, plain "sticky" rubber on the other (courtesy my cell phone camera)

This, I think, should prove interesting.

Next I plan to do the same with the Simms wading boots, and yes – the Korkers will eventually permit me to compare studded rubber to studded felt (these thing were made for testing).

With any luck, I’ll return (sans dunking) with pictures of big trout and a review of the real difference between studded and un-studded rubber – and some idea as to whether the Korkers studded rubber soles will cut it on the Upper Sacramento.

Naturally, all this is subjective (well, not the big trout part), but if it’s one thing fly fishermen manufacture in abundance, it’s opinions.

See you on the river (finally!!), Tom Chandler.

Still, it’s true the Undead stagger carefully around the Trout Underground/Man Cave/Soiled Diaper World Headquarters these days, what with the Still Uncompleted Construction Project turning every hallway into a deadly obstacle course (if it’s one thing zombies don’t do well, it’s hurdle).

In fact, I’m designating today Day 40 of the Trout Underground/Man Cave House Hostage Crisis – an acknowledgement that extremist contractor splinter groups have apparently seized control of our house, demanding bags of money or they’ll start killing rooms, and they’ve done just enough damage to convince us they’re very serious about it.

Still, these aren’t your average Working-Class Extremists – they apparently prefer to terrorize lazily from a distance. At least that’s the conclusion you’d have to draw since we haven’t actually seen a cell member all week long.

(Yes, the tears I’m wiping from my eyes are tears of mirth. Those zany extremist contractors really slay me.)

The L&T is reacting to all this with the kind of grace you’d expect from an Ivy League educated brainiac new mom type, which is to say she’s threatening to go all Chuck Norris on the contractors for not finishing the project when they first promised (weeks before we left for Ethiopia).

In fact, when talking to the lead contractor on the phone, she casually mentioned that “Nothing says ‘Welcome to your new home’ to a baby like the severed heads of several contractors mounted on stakes by the front door.”

(Moral of Story: Don’t Mess with a New Mommie)

So to summarize:

• Me = The Undead
• House = Hostage Site/Nuclear Blast Zone
• L&T = Chuck Norris Would Be Proud
• Little M = Burbling happily away in the corner
• Spare Time = Almost None

So what’s the good news for the Undergrounders?

You don’t live here right now.

Still, there are some bright spots on the horizon. With a Little M trip to the Pumpkin Patch on the schedule, I may actually find myself at loose ends for two hours, though given the unfortunate late-morning timing, it’s likely I’ll run to the shooting range for one last hurrah before a snowstorm closes the thing.

That’s because the fly fishing is only now picking up steam around here, though with a new kid and the clock running out on a big, big Web project, I’m reduced to peering ahead at the week through slitted eyes.

When can I try to stumble across the rumoured midday BWO hatch? When is an October Caddis hatch on the menu?

With things settling down around here (everything expect the drywall dust), I expect to catch a few glimpses of the river soon.

Assuming, of course, the Undead are allowed to drive without a special license. And I’m not disposing of headless contractors.

See you (other zombies) on the River, Tom Chandler.

.

Sometimes, an unfortunate group of pumpkin-colored caddis sometimes mistake the I5 freeway for a river, forming up over the asphalt ribbon in ill-fated mating flights, and while cruel ironies are always appreciated at the Underground, I truly have little interest in seeing what an October Caddis looks like from the inside.

Big trout on October Caddis dries? Yep, but not as often as you think...

Still, the caddis were flying, but after better than two weeks spent literally on the other side of the globe (completely without Internet access), the disconnection struck me, and I had to ask: “How did the caddis happen without me?”

The Caddis-Go-Round

The October Caddis have become a milestone event on the Upper Sacramento and McCloud Rivers; the October emergence of these amberish-colored, small-hummingbird-sized caddis often occurs in front of the year’s biggest crowds of fly fishermen (several fly fishing clubs plan outings), yet the weather – while often cold at night – is still pretty comfortable during the day.

The result are a lot of fly fishermen throwing big, big dry flies (#6-#10s) at trout, some of whom will actually eat the things in splashy, aggressive takes.

Of course, no fly fishing hatch comes without its “gotcha” moment, and what’s true is that often, the big October Caddis don’t generate much in the way of interest from the trout. In fact, it’s common to fish a #18 PED through an October Caddis hatch and catch more trout.

It’s also true – when I first wrote about the October Caddis in 2007 (“Fly Fishing the Upper Sacramento in the Fall: An October Caddis Primer“) – that the best October Caddis fishing might be found in early winter, when the bugs are dying and falling into the water.

Presumably, the trout “know” that dead bugs won’t make a last-minute getaway, and the party (as they say), begins.

Now For a Real Expert

Everything I’ve told you about the October Caddis I’ve said before (but oy, nobody listens, nobody writes, nobody calls, especially you kids with your iPods and fancy-pants phones, and hey get off my lawn).

Still, I’ve always stopped far short of claiming expert status around the October Caddis, mostly because I may have caught a fair number of big trout during October Caddis season, but never with the kind manly, chiseled-jaw confidence I have when hitting the Green Drakes of spring.

And while it seems that becoming an online commando is all the rage these days, I’m going to defer to someone who hasn’t spent the last month on kid-related stuff: Craig Nielsen of ShastaTrout.com, who does the responsible adult thing and posts real fly fishing reports while I’m over here changing diapers and ruminating on the power of bikini photographs to change our lives for the better.

Right now, it’s raining hard at Trout Underground/Man Cave/Soiled Diaper World Headquarters, and the river’s starting to come up, though the line between an unfishable river and a refreshing plug of water that turns on the trout is finer than you’d believe; at some point, both conditions may be true. (What, you wanted easy? Take up checkers…)

Simply put, I’m back, and there’s more to come, though what “more” looks like is yet to be determined.

See you fishing the October Caddis, Tom Chandler.

After all, I’m hardly a fan of 4:30 sunsets, and the day the sun starts hanging on the horizon just a few seconds longer is a very good day – longer days and shorter nights mean spring’s on the way.

And yes, spring’s many months away, but fly fishermen pretty much live in a state of foolish hope, and the dead of winter’s no time to abandon that practice.

If anything, wild rivers are prettier in winter than summer.

If asked, I’d have told you I was looking for a midday Blue-winged olive (BWO) hatch, though if I really needed an olive fix, I’d have run to one of my better olive stretches.

Instead, the Wonderdog and I fished a stretch of river near home – one still barely reachable given the recent snow (getting in was easy; getting out was not, even for the snow-monsterish Bronco).

Think it’s been cold? Cold enough…

The bottom line? In the three hours out, I saw exactly two BWOs float by and saw exactly zero trout slap at my October Caddis dry (fair enough; that bite ended some time ago, but there’s that foolish hope thing again).

Later, I tied a small copper-wire bodied PT nymph to my tippet and added a bobbicator – more a nod to the reality of the situation than a “put my head down and catch trout” moment – and promptly hooked a trout.

The Wonderdog – who’d been staring at me wondering why I didn’t just go ahead and catch a trout for him to retrieve – was delighted. And in an act of bravado, I thought I’d take a tricky underwater picture of the trout to impress my readers.

Given cold fingers and blurred eyeglasses, what followed was more Keystone Cops than James Bond (and predictable): I dropped the Pentax Optio into the water, lost the fish when he bolted away from the Wonderdog’s looming form, and started mentally counting the months until the Green Drake hatch. (Official Trout Underground Motto of the Day: “Clumsy, But Worth Every Penny”)

No wonder chicks dig me.

Why don’t I have my own TV show? (I’m stunning after all)

The Gear Guy

Conditions were a little mean; temperatures were right at freezing, a wet snow was falling, and the wind was gusting (hard) from a different direction every few minutes. Casting was problematic – when the wind was blowing down the narrow canyon, I often couldn’t get the fly upwind of the fly line.

A couple minutes later, the wind would gust from the opposite direction, and the problem became getting the October Caddis dry anywhere but upstream.

In short, icing wasn’t a problem, but seeing and casting were. Still, my ongoing test of the Patagonia soft shell was a success; an extra base layer kept me comfy on a day when the usual outfit would have been far bulkier.

Yay soft shell! Yay fingerless fleece gloves! (Warm is good).

Unfortunately, the trip revealed what I can’t deny; my feet are growing longer. (More on this stunning news development later.)

See you on the river, Tom (my toes hurt) Chandler.

Wally the Wonderdog on the trip home; why does he always look so concerned when I’m driving?

fly fishing, fishing, october caddis, upper sac, upper sacramento river

Hell, I even threw you a bone about a couple good places to eat.

Well, Undergrounders, your time is waning; Wayne Eng and I found the October Caddis bite (the big, big dry) still working on the Upper Sacramento, though it’s clearly winding down.

One of only a few pictures worth showing; Wayne high-sticks a big dry.

Is there still time to abandon your family and catch trout on big dries in the afternoon? Probably. Will it last forever? Certainly not.

By this time last year, we were past our first big snow storm of the year, and I was well into my wrestling match with Satan’s Snowblower.

This year, it’s been cold at night, but the days are clear and sunny, temporarily prolonging the October Caddis dry fly bite.

In truth, it’s something to marvel at; you’re wearing layers of warm clothing, the water’s cold enough to sting your fingers, there’s ice on the rocks, yet good-sized trout are eating #8 dry flies off the surface.

Fly Fishing By the Numbers

Wayne and I descended into a canyon section of the river, looking not so much for numbers of trout as a couple better specimens. It didn’t work out that way – I landed four in the footlong range and lost more than that to slow/poor/limp-wristed hook sets (it’s a big fly), and Wayne did about the same.

Closeup, flash-lit photo of today’s star attraction; these trout are gorgeous.

Leaves carpet the banks of the river, and trees are completely bare. In short, it’s what winter looks like on the Upper Sacramento (sans snow, and we’re going to talk about that in a bit).

The canyon stretch was dark enough that 80% of the pictures were unusable due to camera shake (the result of too little light and too-slow shutter speeds).

I fished an 8.5′ 5wt Steffen Brothers fiberglass fly rod, which Wayne tried and promptly wanted to steal. One thing’s true of good glass rods – everybody who tries one is well and truly surprised by the experience, and about half want to buy one immediately.

Our intrepid blogger trying to be sneaky (I missed this fish). [Wayne Eng photo]

I’ve said it before (and because I post often I’m doomed to repeat myself), given the dueling aspects of cost, durability and the demands of under-60′ casts and playing fish on fine tippets, there probably isn’t a better material for trout fly rods than fiberglass.

And speaking of gear, I test flew a new Patagonia soft shell jacket – something worth a post in the near future.

Soft shell technology is firmly rooted in other outdoor sports (mountaineering, skiing, etc), and we’re seeing it trickle into fly fishing clothing, and I’ll give you the reasons why you might (and might not) want to look at it.

See you on the (still largely empty) river, Tom Chandler.

Wayne tentatively identified this as a Chevy Superglide Powerglide transmission. It’s been there forever.

fly fishing, fishing, upper sac, upper sacramento river, rainbow trout, october caddis, dry fly fishing, fiberglass fly rod

Powered by ScribeFire.

By this point in the year, we’ve usually seen at least one big snowstorm fly through, giving all the skiers false hope that the ski park would open by Thanksgiving.

Not only have we avoided any real snowfall, but we’ve also been enjoying pleasantly warm days (at least by November standards).

As I write this on December 1 (10 AM), it’s already 51 degrees in the shade. That’s astonishing weather.

The October Caddis: Not Dead Yet

Every October, fly fishermen flock to the Upper Sacramento for the fall fishing, with the October Caddis hatch serving as the biggest draw.

And every year, I write about the late-season October Caddis dry fly fishing, which often outperforms the earlier, heavy-hatch fishing by a healthy margin.

Some days, I think nobody listens.

That’s because it’s true again this year, and two individuals have already called since my return from Idaho to rub my nose in it let me know the bite’s still on (and about the same as last week).

There are even rumors of a decent BWO hatch on the now-open-all-year-for-fly-fishing Pit River (which sees few enough people when the “regular” trout season is upon us).

I’m playing a painfully slow game of “catch-up” today, but expect a fishing report soon.

See you on my own river, Tom Chandler.