“I am tired of this crap on our rivers and I am offering 2 free guide days to whoever turns in the most poachers during the 2009 trout season. Police reports or newspaper arrest records will suffice for evidence. You have your choice of fishing venues Trinity, Fall River, Pit, Klamath, Lower Sacramento. I will supply flies and lunch.”

“This is a serious offer. Hopefully it will motivate anglers to act rather than ignore this growing problem.”

Any takers?

See you on the river (license in hand), Tom Chandler.

Still, that number may soon be a nostalgic memory; budget cuts could force a further reduction to only 100 wardens for the entire state.

With California’s financial crisis worsening, the news only gets worse. If employee furloughs to save budget dollars aren’t enough, as many as 45 percent of the state’s already-beleaguered “environmental cops” will be gone.

At that point, there would be only 100 game wardens to police the entire state.

Poachers and idiots already operate in California with a large degree of impunity, and imagine their newfound freedom to operate when the numbers of law enforcement officers falls below the triple-digit mark.

Wildlife is already suffering the impacts, though – sadly – I think we haven’t seen anything yet.

A video production company produced a documentary about the problem, which will hopefully open a few legislator’s eyes:

The Underground has chronicled its admiration for our local “Ghost Warden” Joe Powell and hope he – and his colleagues – aren’t hung out to dry.

game wardens, snow goose productions, poaching, poachers, califorrnia wildlife, ghost warden

Yes Undergrounders, the influences of the much better half are already being felt, though a fishing trip with cave men fly buddies Dave Roberts and Chris Raine doesn’t exactly reinforce most civilized behavior.

Sadly, our hardy little band of neanderthals picked the wrong day to get together; we stared straight down the throat of a post cold-front day — those cloudless, cold, windy days that mar the fishing after a front has moved through.

Past experience suggests the fishing would slow, and with rising fish already absent from the Upper Sacramento River, I didn’t exactly hold out hope for a banner day.

Once again, I was right.

I’ll spare you the grim details with this report: no trout, no risers, few bugs, no nymphed fish. There.

The bright spot was evidence of Skwalas and a water temperature that — 1/3 of the way down the river — was approaching 50 degrees.

That seems to be the temperature where bugs and fish become active, and we could be looking at an interesting pre-runoff fishing spurt. I’ll keep you posted.

Test-Flying a Prototype Bamboo Fly Rod

The bad weather was offset by the rod I was fishing; a prototype hollowbuilt bamboo quad rod by Raine.

It’s an 8.5′ 5/6wt that defies what everyone believes 8.5′ bamboo rods have to be; it’s surprisingly light in the hand, yet remains wholly capable of dealing with strong winds.

You’ll hear more about this interesting, two-tipped rod as I abuse test it (one tip is a 5wt, the other a 6wt).

The Ghost Warden

Those of you who reveled in our post about busted-trout-poacher Larry Baker already know of the Underground’s open admiration for "Ghost Warden" Joe Powell, who led the sting operation against Baker.

Powell’s the local warden who’s seemingly everywhere at once, drifting between anglers like a phantom.

We ran into him yesterday, and he’d captured four Skwalas in a glass jar — proof the stonefly shucks we’re seeing along the river aren’t fakes planted by trout to mislead fishermen (it wasn’t much of a theory, but…).

We got the scoop on the Baker bust, and frankly, if I was poacher, I’d find another region of the state to play in.

See you on the river, Tom Chandler.