Posts tagged: wally the wonderdog

Alpine Brookies: The Psychology of Small Trout vs Big Trout

June 9, 2008, by 12 comments

With big bugs (and bigger trout) elevating blood pressures all over the Upper Sacramento, McCloud and Upper Rogue, walking seven miles to catch nine-inch brookies isn’t necessarily an act of sanity.

Then again, most fly fishermen fail The Sanity Test at some point ("you mean you let them go?!"), and there’s no denying the beauty of alpine brook trout — or the places you find them.

An alpine brook trout
An alpine brook trout. Bad picture, gorgeous fish.

Mount Shasta
The view from the trail. (Don’t walk and look at the same time.)

Scott Chandler in the mounains
My brother Scott hiking in. Note the similar but less handsome features.

sevenlakeperson
The landscape dwarfs us (which is part of the attraction)

Alpine wildflower 
Today on Oprah: Wildflowers and the bees who love them.

With my older brother in town, we headed up into the mountains to find what a travel agent might call a Quality Solitary Fly Fishing Experience.

A backpacker (they’re almost as weird as fly fishermen), he’s recently taken up high country fishing and wanted a few hints.

Typically, I caught fish, but had little idea why, and explaining to a novice why brook trout would eat an Adams dry when there weren’t any bugs on the surface isn’t easy (you try it).

Scott Chandler and Wally the Wonderdog
The WonderTroutDog.

The biggest brookie was probably 10 inches in length, but clearly, the true length of any fish involves a complex equation, the variables of which include the setting, your mood, the weather, and the amount of effort you put into catching it.

By that measure, our biggest brookie was probably closer to 15 inches, but of course they weren’t — which is why this week will find me fishing the rivers mentioned above for bigger trout.

No trip is complete with the antics of Wally the Wonderdog, who ranged all over the landscape, and once we were on the road home, conked.

Wally the Wonderdog
Wally the Wonderdog crashes.

Then again, I conked too – a reminder I’ve got more hikes ahead of me before I’m in any kind of backcountry shape.

Just before we left, our somewhat pristine environment was fouled by the arrival of a couple ATVs, one of the drivers of which really, really liked the word "f*ck," being as he used it as a noun, verb, adjective, and yes — a comma.

It was a jarring reminder that civilization still existed outside of our little alpine bubble, for better or worse.

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

I’m not going to pass along every rumor and story as if they were the truth, but it’s possible Chris Raine was fishing the Upper Sac and saw his backing while Dave Roberts was fishing the Upper Rogue and apparently saw god.

Others report mixed results; big bugs and fish one night, and nothing the next.

Naturally — with the fly fishing picking up all around me — it’s my cue to come down with a cold, which seems to be making the rounds up here.

Still, I’ll be out there, and I expect more than a few of you will too.

See you on the river, Tom Chandler.

A Reconnaissance in Fur: The Wonderdog and I Eyeball the Upper Sacramento River

March 13, 2008, by 5 comments

I need one more big project to clear the boards before firing up some fly fishing time, but instead of a Wonderdog-driven afternoon walk, I heaved the sausage-shaped mammal into the truck and reconnoitered a couple of spots on the upper river.

Wally the Wonderdog on the Upper Sacramento River
The gods Wonderdog is pleased, my friends. That means good fishing this year.

The first spot wasn’t on the river at all; it was the jumping-off point for a proposed (and certifiably crazy) 10-mile (one-way, all uphill) winter ski to a frozen lake for… ice fishing.

If any of my fishing friends suggested it, I’d recommend a 72-hour stint in a padded cell (sans shoelaces and belt), but at the end of winter — and in a twisted, bizarre way — it sounds almost reasonable to me.

That, my friends, is a subconscious cry for help.

The Upper Sacramento

With the start of the ski route sussed out, Wally and I turned our attention to a couple spots on the upstream end of the Upper Sac.

The snow on the roads is gone and access is not an issue, but sadly, nothing was happening on the water. I didn’t arrive until 3:00, but I never saw a bug, a rise, or even a suspicious wrinkle.

Thinking I missed a hatch, I went through the eddies and backwaters looking for shucks, drowned mayflies, etc — and found nothing. Upriver access point #2 yielded exactly the same results, so it’s likely I’m not missing much.

Wayne Eng’s been out on the river and it’s a largely deep nymphing game for him, and neither of us knows much about what’s happening way, way downriver, where it’s warmer (and the less-hardy people live).

The river itself is in good shape; flows are reasonable for this time of year and while the water clarity doesn’t approach fall levels, it’s pretty good.

I believe I saw the beginnings of a couple redds, though inexplicably, the trout don’t place little red flags next to the things (I’m not a biologist, though I play one on the Internet).

‘Tisn’t the Season

I’ll be blunt; this isn’t my favorite part of the fly fishing year on the Upper Sacramento. A sense of ennui surrounds the river (or at least my perception of it), and activities like the Ice Fishing Ski Trip of Doom and the Annual Reorganization of my Leaky Wader Collection start to seem more reasonable.

At some point, I start to see real hope of the spring hatches and I’ll snap out of it, but until that happens, brace yourselves for more really, really bad ideas.

See you where the deer and the Wonderdog roam, Tom Chandler.

This Picture of Wally the Wonderdog Offered Without Comment

February 5, 2008, by 6 comments

wallydiggingsnow

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A Quiet Ski In The Woods: We Kick Cabin Fever’s Butt

January 29, 2008, by 7 comments

When cabin fever takes hold in a big way and the sun starts shining for the first time in days, you’ve got two choices: you can fight it (and end up wearing an oval track in the carpet from pacing), or you can chuck a couple hours worth of work, saddle up the truck, throw in Wally the Wonderdog, and do something outside.

Anywhere outside.

 wallywoodscolor
Wally the Wonderdog waits while I take pictures.

I opted to strap on the touring skis and poke around the forest service property just a half mile up the road.

The main trails have all been compacted by snowmobiles, which flock up here by the dozens, but unlike the "I don’t know where I’m going but I’m getting there at 40 mph" snowmobiles, I can head off into the trees any time I want.

With several feet of snow bogging the Wonderdog, the trick was finding snow crusty enough to support his weight, which meant keeping to the denser tree stands where the snow had melted, fallen off the branches, and re-frozen.

At one point, I skied from a "plantation" (a tree farm where the trees are planted in nice, neat rows) into wild forest, and the difference in the number of animal tracks was stunning.

It was a graphic lesson in the biodiversity of "real" woodlands versus the neatly managed kind, and there’s little more interesting than snooping around the animal tracks you see in the snow.

After I positively identified some tracks in our own backyard as coming from an animal which doesn’t even live on this continent (rugged mountain guy that I am), the L&T and I dug out one of our guidebooks, so I feel safe in saying I saw squirrel, deer, rabbit and coyote tracks, and I’m pretty sure there were some foxes too, though those were faint.

The Wonderdog goes wild over animal tracks, sniffing each and every trail as if cataloging the scents for later use. He’s not hip, or smart (in fact, he’s pretty goofy), but the Wonderdog is filled with the joy of life, and seeing him in this setting is as reviving as the ski trip itself.

blackbuttesnow
Black Butte pokes its head above the trees.

It’s snowing as I write this, and with a good six inches forecast, I’ll be busy fighting the snow wars again today.

Wednesday, however, is a different story; the snow shouldn’t fall and clouds are forecast, so if the river doesn’t rise too much, that could mean a trip to BWO Land — either by road or skis.

I’ll keep you posted. See you on the river, Tom Chandler.