Report for Thursday 7.14.11
Well, I returned to the same area that I visited last week. This time I had a wide brimmed hat, a magnifier, a tent, and a well stocked box of dry flies. The campground was nearly empty, just one week later. Perhaps it was because there had been rain in the past week as evidenced by many more puddles in the dirt road. One of them made me happy I had a Subaru with all-wheel-drive because I slid left and right all through the 30 foot puddle (wide, not deep lol). The bad news is that all the standing water created a mass of mosquitoes. They were everywhere and found any spot on your body that did not have DEET on it. I ended up with bites on my forehead, left arm, a finger on my right hand, and on my stomach, even after "soaking" my exposed areas and clothes with DEET. The good news is that these mosquitoes leave an annoying itch for a couple of hours and then it goes away. Not like some of the Sierra Nevada mosquitoes that leave bites that swell up to the size of quarters and hurt for days. Another reason why the campground was empty is that a logging crew started at 5:30 in the morning, approximately 1/4 mile from us. I easily saw the light of the tractor from my tent. Each time a tree fell it sounded like a cannon going off. Somehow, I slept 2 hours through the racket they were making.
The beautiful water from last week left me blank again. No risers showing and no fish rose to my feeble attempts at casting a dry fly for more than 5 inches of drag free float (after a splat). So, I moved to another section of the creek that had a 20 foot riffle section that was about a foot deep. I swung a size 12 black ant through the area and was rewarded with the beautiful McCloud Redband Trout shown above. I forgot to take my picture with the trout because I was surprised, didn't have my net with me, and wanted to get the fish back as soon as possible. I hope it will count for the HTC challenge even though I am not in it..
The beauty of the fish really amazed me, although I hardly got a chance to look at it (I get the fish back in the water as fast as possible). That we can catch a genetically pure species of trout, living in a very small habitat range makes me appreciate the opportunities we have in California to get into nature and to see wildlife, forests, and of course, streams. There is something cleansing about breathing fresh air and finding trout that are special, and beautiful. Makes the rest of the world seem a little more manageable.
No comments:
Post a Comment