"What are you looking at? Think emerging's easy, what with all the fish trying to eat you? Go away."

Wayne’s a guide, so part of his spring drill is to look for fishable water, which at this time of the year is a crap shoot.

I’m not going to spill the beans on the fishable water we found (do that after a scouting trip and you’ll never go fishing with a guide again), but I will say the Upper Sacramento and Upper McCloud rivers weren’t great options, and that we visited a couple other places that also didn’t look promising.

Most rivers were running high (Upper Sac’s yo-yoing between 3000 and 7000 cfs), so when we ended up on what amounted to a freestone-style spring creek – one where salmonflies were just starting to make an appearance – you could say we savored the experience just a little.

Hey look - some dolt left a fly rod on a bridge.

The fly fishing was steady, though catching only stocked trout was a teensy bit less than inspiring.

I under five minutes, I “limited out” on rubber trout from a single medium-sized bucket (hint: you can’t quite see it in the picture above). Later, we hiked up the stream a bit hoping that between the salmonflies, olives, and what appeared to be Pink Alberts coming off, we’d find rising fish (we didn’t).

And yes, there were rumors of Brook trout in this stretch, and the Underground’s poor, overworked heart would have soared if I’d manage to land one, but alas – like Romeo & Juliet – it was never meant to be.

Some of the stocked trout were still damned pretty (despite not having fins)

I briefly considered altering a rainbow trout photograph into a Brookie photograph using image software – a Pyrrhic Photoshop victory at best – but realized the beauty of things left undone is the excuse they provide to go back and fish a creek, stream or river.

We catch trout  and let them go, so there’s really no sane reason we have to fly fish anywhere (though I’m clearly willing to invent one).

We saw what looked like two different-sized bugs

The good news is the stoneflies are starting to get active, though the trout weren’t on them in any concerted way. All my fish came on the small nymph I cleverly dropped off the back of my dry fly, though Wayne was later able to scare up a few grabs on the big dry.

The Gear Stuff

Wayne & I continued the Underground’s extensive Rubber-Soled Wading Boot Testing Program, switching boots midday to see how they compared on the same stream.

Frankly, on the uneven volcanic rock, both boots performed admirably, and in fact, this might be one of those applications where rubber outperforms felt.

I left the Simms boots with Wayne, who will be giving them further testing over the next couple days, once again illustrating the lengths to which we’re willing to go make your life better.

I fished a Diamondglass 8.5′ 4wt fiberglass fly rod that was frankly perfect for light nymphing, though I had an 8′ 5wt Raine Upper Sac Special bamboo fly rod in the truck in case we got on the stonefly bite in a big way.

Wayne fished another Underground Fave rod – an old Sage 389LL that probably should end up in the Smithsonian in the “Things Are Perfect As-Is And Should Have Been Left Alone But Weren’t” exhibit.

I also wore my Patagonia Insulator soft shell jacket, and found it (once again) perfect for the job on a drizzly, upper 40-degree day. And yes, I will try to get that final review written soon.

The River Stuff

The rivers aren’t looking all that grand right now; water levels are fluctuating rapidly (links to local river flow gauges can be found here), and yes, it’s raining as I write this. Our finally green lawn loves it, but it appears fly fishermen have different needs. Who’d have guessed?

See you on the river, Tom Chandler

Once more, with feeling.

For example, we present a list of “spring-is-here” bloggers singled out for special attention because in the paranoid, multiple-personality, spring-fevered world of the Trout Underground, they’re taunting me.

Yes, me. Directly.

They’re here. Behind that cloud, the Mother Ship is docking.

It all seems so clear to me here in the Trout Underground/Man Cave Padded Cell, and all the spring-fishing-is-a-long-ways-away medication in the universe simply can’t change that fact (though if taken properly, it does reduce the number of voices).

Because it’s hard to type with this straightjacket on, I’ll get right to it.

Smokies Fever

First up is ex-friend Ian Rutter, who scores heavy on dries in the Smokies several days straight and writes about it in a series of posts — the very same Smokies I won’t be visiting this year:

We don’t mean to taunt, but I hope you’re getting something valuable accomplished if you haven’t been fishing in the past 3 days. I said it in the last report, but let me reiterate: Spring fly fishing in the Smokies is here!

Quill Gordons were on the water as well as Blue Quills. Doug made good use of a quill bodied parachute dry fly that I think was #14, perhaps #12. I used a #12 Haystack that came from a pile I tied back in the foul weather we had about a month ago.

Ian intelligently closed the comments on that particular article so I couldn’t post some anonymous, lithium-fueled screed about the very clear fact he and his alien friends are obviously taunting me personally, but then, the restraining order doesn’t permit it. Damn.

Still, if you had the kind of clarity of vision I do, you’d add an extra layer of aluminum foil to your helmet and screen out the spring barrage of mind control rays.

Fail to do so — and after they’ve seized control of your brain — don’t come whining to me. You were warned.

I’ve Seen the Mother Ship. It’s Green and Warm.

Fly Fishing in Yellowstone not only fires up a “spring is coming post”, but also throws in a bikini picture and plenty of interesting local fly patterns too.

The trail through the snow to the Madison River has reached bare ground in the vicinity of Campfire Lodge: brave soles have connected the post-holes at the Hebgen Tailwater, the anchor ice is rapidly disappearing along the Gallatin River in it’s lower canyon reaches, and, (parenthetically,) fish have already arrived at the Henry’s Lake Hatchery on the Snake River.

Then Fly Fishing in South Wales — clearly a member of the Global Spring Fly Fishing Conspiracy — posts about fly fishing on his first warm sunny day:

It was nice to be out fishing on a lovely sunny day. I could have closed my eyes and thought it was summer at one point. Birds flitting up and down the river all afternoon, picking a few tiny duns out of the air as they blew about in the strong wind.

If you read Gareth’s post carefully (assuming that is his real name), you can see the alien influences in the sentence structure. In fact, his post was probably actually written at Area 51 (where it’s already spring).

Hear me Undergrounders; it ain’t summer here, and hell — with waist deep snow still piled up at Trout Underground/Man Cave World Headquarters — even spring feels like it’s farther away than it actually is.

Traditionally, early spring hasn’t been the best time to fish the Upper Sacramento; flows are often high and the river often gets hard to fish about the same time the better dry fly hatches start coming off.

Of course, those manning the mind control rays don’t want you to know that. They want to slowly drive you crazy, eventually seizing control of your mind (what’s left of it), your bank account, and your extensive baseball hat collection (their robots need fuel).

It’s enough to make a fly fisher crazy. In fact, I believe it already has.

So Undergrounders, slip on your aluminum underwear, down those fancy pills, bury that canned food in the back yard and — for God’s sake — keep your eyes peeled for the Mother Ship.

Trust no one. No one.

(UPDATE: Proof that snow-worshipping aliens are among us) 

Technorati Tags: fly fishing,fishing,spring fever,alien abduction