The Bass'n Video!

For those who haven't seen it already! Featured on The Orvis blog and Fly Fishing for Bass! This video is a compilation of the GSF crew and our bassing adventures this past year. All of it was shot with GoPro video cameras and was only shot on small waters in the Central Valley in CA. No Delta. No Reservoirs. We basically took Google Maps and searched out small bodies of water within an hour of home and went at it and this is what we came up with. Enjoy and Stay Fly!

Vis-a-dun does WORK

I fished up on one of our valley rivers yesterday. Let's just say it was one of those days where everything didn't quite go as planned. I did not plan on fishing a river. I did not plan on there being a hole in my float tube. Lastly, I did not plan on catching 15+ healthy sized bows on dry flies!!! I got lucky and happened upon a hatch coming off at around 1:00 yesterday afternoon and actually had a fly that matched close enough. All day I had be stripping streamers/watching the bobicator and only had one fish to boot. Then, out of no where, a ton of rainbows started porpoising at the end of this tail out I was fishing. I quickly noticed some duns fluttering about (which I think were BWO's) and switched out my nymph rig to a 9' 6x leader with a #18 BWO Vis-a-dun and a BWO emerger dropper. I proceeded to make a nice first cast slightly upstream, got a good drift, and BAM! Fish on! For a solid 45 minutes the fish were keyed in and I was catching fish after fish. It was quite possibly some of the best dry fly action I've ever had on a valley river.

I've always been a believer in John Barr's flies. With a classic such as the Copper John, it's hard to not love his flies. I have now tied every fly in his book, but have yet to catch fish on every fly. The Vis-a-dun was one of those flies. I love throwing just a simple parachute Adams in most dry fly situations, but for whatever reason, yesterday I grabbed a vis-a-dun. Thankfully, to my surprise, the fish couldn't say no! I shot some video of the action yesterday and I'm thinking about maybe doing a quick time-lapse movie of tying the Vis-a-dun, so check back in a few days.

See ya on the water,
T

Old Man Winter

Winter is definitely upon us. Rain, fog, wind, and cold ass mornings. He tried to stay away as long as possible but it was inevitable. Old man winter is here. With the lower waterways closed til Jan 1st we must search out other places to sling some line. Trout are still biting and if you can get to one of the open rivers and withstand freezing your ass off, hit it up. Browns are on the move to spawn and the Rainbows are eager slam something. Throw big buggy buggers and baitfish patterns down deep or go with a super small baetis pattern and you will be in the fish.

Striper season is near but not quite on it yet. Yes there have been some decent bass caught recently, check out Pats and Patricks nice keepers above, but for the majority the bite hasn't been good. I was supposed to go on a trip with Dan Blanton tomorrow on the Delta in search of a lunker but he decided that it would be better to wait a couple of weeks for better weather and better fishing. He says its been down right horrible out there. Anyway when that happens I will post up some video and pics from the day and hopefully land me a fatty.

So brave the cold morning, navigate through the fog and get out there and find those fish. Most believe fishing stops in oct and picks back up in the spring but I feel thats when it gets good. This is the time for the bigg'ns to be caught so man up and get out there.

Fly Pimp Gangsta Tricks

It's fall. Big things tend to go down in fall. Needless to say, despite my lack of posting, I've been on the hunt for big wild fish. Over this past year, one fishing lesson I've learned is in order to find a high frequency of large fish, one must go fish where few are willing to go. Yes, there are exceptions to this rule, but I've realized that here in Cali there are very few. High traffic areas complete with poachers, polluters, and punk asses have led me to take my quest for big fish elsewhere. Luckily, the Sierra Nevadas have a way of still protecting areas despite all of the aforementioned problems. The only key that unlocks these mystical spots is effort. One has to earn these large protected fish. I was fortunate enough to do some backpacking this summer and I'm quickly learning that a backpack and hiking boots are becoming a staple of my normal fishing gear. I relish in the fact that some of the spots I've come across I would not be able to tell someone how to get there even if I tried. I would personally have to show them. Recently my efforts have been pushed toward an area guarded by monster canyon walls. There is no road. There is only what is left of a forgotten trail. Steep elevation changes, copious amounts of poison oak, and fluctuating water flows are what guard this area. But.......when we do catch it on a magical day, when everything is just right, everything falls into place. Only problem is the big fish still don't come easy. These powerful fish will do just about anything to come off of the fly. Monster head shakes, 4 foot high out of water jumps, and drag screaming runs are all tools of these mysterious fish. Last weekend, I was even taken to my backing by just an 18" fish. I also hooked a monster that did one jump, screamed downstream, and with a couple of head shakes came off. I hooked another here almost two years ago now that decided to run directly upstream at mach speeds, which was ultimately faster than I could reel in line. Powerful. I dream about these experiences. I live for these experiences. Get out and explore! Quit complaining about CA and saying you "need" to move to Idaho/Montana. California still has places that can make one think they were dreaming and second guess if it actually happened or not. Get out there and the mountains will reveal their secrets.

Stay fly till ya die,
T

Back Logging

Ok so the posting thing needs to get back up to date so in my attempt I will jump on that tonight. This house work thing has really kept me super busy and have kinda pushed the blogging/editing and in some right the fishing by the wayside. So her we go, lets catch up.

Lets go back to the Kirman Lake trip for starters. If you've never had the pleasure of hauling your float tube for three miles on a warm summer morning at 7000 feet you should really try it. Kirman lake is located on the eastside of the Sierra Mountain range off of hwy 108. The trailhead is directly on the hwy and the trail is primarily flat except for a 100yd uphill push right before the lake. When we arrived at the lake, it looks more like a bass lake than a trout fishery but no bass here. I think its all the tules in there that give that impression.

Anyway no bass in this lake and for the first half of the day we thought no fish were in there at all. After kicking all around this 40+ acre for a few hours we finally found some fish. We had heard that this lake had some big Brookies and Cutthroats but we had no idea. It was all about the fly selection on this one and the little scud pattern it was. Drift that baby under an indicator and pow it was on. They weren't caught in mass quantity up there but the ones caught were quality. I have read that these fish basically gorge themselves on bugs and insects until they get heart failure and die. This is why they get so big. Thomas was first onto the gold and then I got my hands wet.

We had brought my cousin Sean up with us on this one and he never wielding a fly rod before, was itching to get some action. Oh and did he ever. He pulled the last Brookie of the day at probably around 23" and close to 4/5lbs. Not bad for your first day with a fly stick I'd say. Its hard to tell him that he'll probably be let down from here on out with all the other fish to come because he got a fish of a lifetime right off the bat. He was stoked.

So Kirman lake was a success and probably got the biggest Brooks we'll ever catch. If you're into it, take a trip over there some day and you too may just find the big boys and hook into some of the fun action. Check out the Kirman Lake video here or on the previous post. So stay fly and Ill try to hit up another trip report in the next couple of days. D

Kirman Video and New YouTube Channel

Hey I know its been a bit and some since our last post here but I plan to work on that soon. I do have plenty of trips and video/ pics to post and will hit that when time lets me. As for now we have created a YouTube channel that you can find HERE, <<<<< CLICK HERE.... and I will go ahead and post up a video from Kirman Lake and some fat Brookies we caught there. Enjoy and Stay Fly!

D.

High Sierra Opener

Little quickie post today. I fished the upper Tuolumne for the high sierra season opener last week. Luckily the flows weren't too high and the little trout were pretty hungry.


I did however manage to hook up with a nice 14" brown! I definitely wasn't ready for him after hooking up a handful of small rainbows.

This area of the Tuolumne up to Preston Falls is beautiful country. Anyone who's interested in an easy backpack/day hike trip should check it out!

Stay fly....
Thomas