It's raining, so this must be Monday. Cooler temperatures actually dropped Upper Sac flows a little over the weekend, but you knew the runoff would hit the river as soon as the ground was saturated, and with the river now spiking towards 9,000 cfs, I'm guessing it's happened.

That's OK – we're not the only fly fishing destination trying to keep our heads above a tidal wave of largely trout-free water. A quick check on the very useful Fly Fishing Yellowstone blog (now a link in the sidebar) shows that even the rivers whose names drop very, very loudly are seeing unruly flows to the point that you're better off fishing the grassy banks than the river itself. (What flies do you use to catch grass trout? The night crawler version of the San Juan worm??)

Still, all is not lost in the Golden State as illustrated by Alert Underground Reader Jim Troyer, who has been fly fishing the SoCal surf before going to work. We quote:

"As for fishing, I've been pounding the water before work (grey light sessions). When the tide is right, I've been finding some good long troughs and holes where our finned friends hang out. I had three Corbina on the other day but lost two because of knot failure, and the third took a run and popped off. This is the fly I've been using, it's called a "Razzler" and I tie a version similar but much thinner (the Nicole Richie version)." [Jim Troyer photo]

We applaud Jim's fishing ethic, and as a reward for making the Underground's Monday wrapup, we're sending him two pieces of monofilament line so he can practice his knots, and a slaw dog because he missed the big Slawdog Cookout here on the Upper Sac (and Jim, we're sending them media mail, so we can safely say the Slaw Dog will be reaching "maturity" when it arrives).

Ian Rutter – another Underground Regular – has been guiding his fingers to the bone, working pretty much every day since I left the Slaw dog-rich environs of Tennessee in early May. The fishing's been pretty good which certainly lightens the load on any guide, but guiding that much would drive me to a slaw dog addiction, if not worse. In an obvious attempt to minimize the importance of our recent Slaw Dog cookout, Ian jealously mentioned that no Slaw Dog-oriented revelry would be complete without a Moon Pie for dessert. Damn. We're going to have to do it all again.

For now, it's back to work for me, though in an act of pure optimism, I bought a new pair of light hiking boots in preparation for fishing the area's more remote alpine lakes and streams this summer. Hopeful or foolishly optimistic? We'll know by this fall...

Coming soon to a Trout Underground near you, we're going to liberate a few more stories from Montana Correspondent Sully's past, and hopefully get a few of the better local fly patterns tied and photographed. See you underwater, TC.