I hit up the hatchery yesterday and pounded the same water I've re-learned to hate... traffic in the background, snaggers in the foreground, dead line on the riverbed and only isolated pockets of water not already picked and picked and picked...
Trying to fool the same small batch of weary, suspicious, downtrodden , barraged fish in an increasingly finite stretch of man-made, man-mangled river...
I lost so much gear trying to bottom bounce roe that I abandoned the idea in favor of the trusted spoon. I was 'pitching a no-hitter'... but still, I kept going through the motions, figuring I could make some fish out there so tired of seeing my lure that it would hit just to make me stop throwing it. I saw the cruisers along the rocks under my nose but resisted the temptation and worked the far away water. A dog walker's shadow hovered into place on the levee above me and asked if I'd had any bites... As I was answering, he excitedly tells me, "YOU got a follower! OH, OH, OH he just took a swipe at it! Here he comes AGAIN!"
How lovely that I now have a spotter to give me the play by play on what he can see and what I can only feel when the follow develops in to a strike. It never does... No hitter. Pitcher decides to retire, go down river where the fish are fewer but the quality of life is a thousand-fold...
Driving along, I'm undecided... Lower Sailor Bar? The Greens? Rossmoor? Goethe? El Manto? Ancil Hoffman? I get a call from a fellow steelheader whose talking about the Smith this weekend and I drive up to Upper Sunrise for a glance at some turkeys and a fast turn around.
It's decided... Lower Sunrise Access. I work the close stretch and aside from one fly fisherman, I am alone. No (fish-induced) love here so I move downriver.
On my way, I'm distracted by the mighty and magnificent transition that life on the American River Parkway is embracing. DAMN! wasn't it just a few days ago? I was wearing polar fleece and Long Johns and raincoats? Today, I'm in breathable waders with shorts and a tee shirt and I'm working up a sweat!
Trees are naked but soon won't be.
Others are fully regaled.
Gall wasps are starting to chew their way through and out of the foam-like cores of woody, spherical blisters, made by the enzymatic spit and eggs their mama injected in to oak trees in the fall.
I looked in on a hole I hadn't ever fished in steelhead season from the north side and only occasionally had from the south bank in higher water years...
The sun was sinking as were my hopes of catching a steelhead but the untrammeled waters I now found myself in made me care less and less about catching fish.
The sun painted the skies
and the waters
The birds were flying in from their daily sojourns to take refuge for the night.
I noticed a bird box across the river...
...and wondered if it sanctioned a wood duck, a kestrel, a brown bat or some other cavity dweller...
At some point, I took the camera off my neck but in transition, as I was snapping a last shot, I had the Nikon in my right hand and my spoon-dangling rod in the other and wouldn't ya' know... I got doinked. I made a few more redemption casts but didn't redeem. I put the camera down and went to the roe rod.
I saw fish rolling and sipping caddis and other emergers on the surface. These were mostly hp's with a few adults in the mix and I started to think I might have a shot with something besides the camera... after all.
I baited up with a small cluster of steelhead roe and a slinky. First drift my bait got hammered. Second drift, the eggs are drilled again. Third time was a charm. I hooked a scrappy 18"er that leaped and spat. I quickly re-baited and ran the same drill.... lost a rig, retied, and tossed what would be my last bait of the evening...
I got railed and missed. The next hit was a complete grab rather than the usual, machine-gun tap... and that fish wasn't checking out without a kamera-kiss goodbye.
17 inches of shimmering blue-back.
Before hitting the trail, I tossed once more for good measure. With only a ratty strip of egg-skein left to my hook, I had doubts. The next fish had no problem accepting the egg-less offering and fought like a champ... well at least fought like a top contender... it was a (Shhhhhhh) SUCKER@!
On that note, I snapped a parting shot and headed for home.
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