So you may have noticed but I am counting the days I fish in each post title, from the Spring season opener and on...last year I logged 52 days total all without a 4wheel drive of my own and dedicated fishing only from June through November. Hoping to do more this year without losing my day job :)
This was Jo's maiden voyage and not sure if it was the fish or my ride that made this the best trip ever. Jo found a good buddy at the local Redding Wal-mart which square footage wise was about the size of Port Arthur and still they were out of the ammo we needed. That's alot of ammo sold to Deryl's but I digress.
Back to the fishing- this was my best fishing weekend. Ever. Epic. This property on Hat Creek is a peppermint farm and private water nirvana. Except for the fact that the fly shop didn't get our materials to us and we were supposed to bring our own towels and sheets- this would be my favorite place next to the McCloud conservancy. They have three large ponds or really two medium ponds and a large reservoir. No Deryl's in sight (remember Deryl's short for derelicts) and no Gore-tex hatch on any of the water- my only competition for the water was Denny and some very large beavers? wolverines? hard to say they were so large.
Anyway, we got in Friday night for the evening hatch with some really nice boiling water (meaning bugs hatching and fish coming up to the surface, it looks like boiling water but is actually a fish frenzied dinner time) on the first pond but I had one miss and nothing else. Denny was pounding some little guys on the creek but the wind picked up and we headed into town for some food. Unfortunately there was a power outage in Burney but we were lucky enough to find some pizza. Got up the next morning and hit the creek behind the house. Of course we were off like turtles (one of our favorite expressions because fly fishing is not a fast action kind of sport unless you count the hook set or how rapidly a tree eats a fly) and so after some time we spotted some pods of fish.
Denny was the first hook-up on his new bamboo rod- I was unable to cast that noodle effectively but I followed up a bit later with a really nice 20"+ rainbow. This is not large body of water- Hat Creek, so we were suprised at the size of these fish.
We were able to catch quite a few more before we spooked them for the afternoon and headed out to the reservoir. The afternoon was followed by Denny landing some very large pond monsters on some streamers from the reservoirs- I landed a few smaller guys on some dry flies (smaller meaning about 16") .
Overall these were some picky fish, I threw about every dry fly I had in my box only to watch them come up to the fly and turn right back around- there are so many fish in this reservoir I can't even tell you...We eventually resorted to a canoe but that was a lost cause with the wind, currents, two people fly casting- I had a monster for a few seconds but couldn't jerk the hook set without tumping us over, so I lost another shark...but it was fun regardless.
We then headed off to the other pond where I managed to kill it with rubber legs, just good ole rubber legs- brown. Fish after fish after fish, I stopped counting- good fights- good size. what I live for really. The next day it was more of the same although the fish were not biting at Denny's reservoir but we did manage to catch a few more at my sweet pond.
We headed out towards Mount Lassen to fish the Hat on the way back but it was really blown out and Deryl population was high- we managed to hike in and find some good spots but not much catching. We paid homage to the Chevy's in Redding and learned a very valuable lesson about radar detectors- if your music is up really loud and you don't notice the christmas tree lights on the radar- you will see CHIPS in your rear view mirror- luckily we weren't pulled over and made it home safe and sound.
EPIC fishing, quiet, nice beds, all that water just for us.
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