Back up Plans

me and scott met at 5:20 this morning and made our way to our destination 3 hrs or so down the road. we arrived extra early so we could hopefully beat anyone else there. that definitely worked out in our favor. what didn't work out in our favor was all the shelf ice ad frozen river. even though the temp's were supposed to be in the mid 30's there was just to much frozen river for us to do much with. when we could fish we didn't even see a single one. as it turned out we drove 3 hrs, to fish 2 hrs, to drive 3 hrs back and fish something that i know is on the up and up. got back to our neck of the woods and started our journey up river. after i landed one smaller fish i pounded my next hole with about a dozen casts, which is a lot in one hole with streamers, but after i had busted one off on an opposite bank bush, scott jumped in and after a few casts was anniolated by a big aggresive buck that measured 22". after some pics we continued up stream hitting fish after fish. we went thru a variety of colors but it seemed like once we went to yellow the fishing really picked up. we ended up with 3 fish over 20" and a handful of smaller fish. other then the first part of the day, the day was pretty good to us.

Scuba Steve'd

Went out for a couple of hours after work since the weather was so pleasant. i had heard some good reports locally pertaining to nymphing so i figured if they are active on nymphs then they will be active on streamers. my assumption was correct, i got into a gang of fiesty trout but only managed to land a few. i stuck with a white scuba steve the entire time and it didn't disappoint.

The W.F of the S.F. of Noneya Creek

I was able to convince the bearded wonder to brave the cold with me today. i met collin at the usual car pool spot we headed SW by NW to a spot i had recently been thinking about. collin of course was game to give it a whirl especially since he hadn't fished it since high school. we made it about 3/4 of the way down the snow covered road until collin's truck with 1/2 ass tires made for the highway started having troubles in the snow. after a brief discussion it was time to back our way back out. in the middle of this backing out process collin really put his driving skillz on display by backing us off the road into a small ditch and getting us stuck. collin was wearing some ice cube type house shoes so i hopped out and starting digging around the tires trying to make the truck a path for the tires to follow back onto the road. it wasn't too long before we were out of the ditch and heading back to the highway to plan B. once we arrived we rigged up with some streamers and the beating commenced. we laid the smack down for the better part of the day with collin railing a couple of real nice fish. my best of the day ended up in my freezer cause it was bleeding pretty profusely and figured it was not going to make it any way. that was certainly not in my plans. you know you've had a pretty solid day when you don't have to change flies, not even once. the day was beautiful and the fish were extremely active.

The Sickness

To me, I think this is the best looking thing i've tied in quite sometime

Bauer Customer Service

Last friday after fishing i had left my bauer reel on the roof of my jeep. it fell off at 70mph and after a little dremel work i was able to remove the high metal from the spool and body but could not salvage the foot. i contacted bauer and they charged me $16 and 3 days later i got my foot and that reel is ready to roll again. for the price and how expediently i got the foot, bauers customer service is pretty damn good.

Long Time no Fish

Scott was good enough to join me to check out some water that hasn't been fisheable since run-off earlier this year. it's finally close to normal flows and is in excellent shape. i had really high hopes for today since the water had to uv been virtually un-touched all year. the river fished the same as it has during past winters, iffy. we started nymphing but with the weather warming up nicely, and me not being able to touch a fish i switched to a small streamer. i have never thrown a streamer in there in the almost 7 years i have fished it and on my first cast with the streamer i nailed a fiesty little brown. a few cast later i was stripping my streamer next to a big rock hoping too pull something out of it's dark lies but instead i saw this fish come barreling from the middle of the creek and put the how you doin on my fly. after that scott switch to a streamer as well but wasn't getting much attention. scott flip flopped back and forth between nymphing and streamers and after switching to a white streamer he had some success with both techniques. i moved about 10-12 fish with the streamer but only landed a small few. the weather was about as good as we could've asked for for a january day. on the way out we followed some cougar tracks down the road.

Olive Berserker