It's amazing how quickly a knee will heal when a guy knows there's fresh fish in a river and he's just taken out an anti-skunk insurance policy...
I declined fishing on the Yuba with Carlo thinking I would still be hobbling today but then I woke up this morning and was feeling pretty damn good.
My buddy Ray had told me he'd be fishing the upper river with some other friends and so I figured, what the heck...
Not long after my arrival, Ray hooked into a 7# buck and lost it at his feet. There were a few fish moving around but the majority, from a day ago, had since disappeared.
Everyone was stymied and popping the question, "Where in the h$%# did all those fish GO!@?"
The usual liners/beaders showed up with Kmart beefsticks, coffe grinders and 3/0 Gamasnagandkatsu hooks. I almost got in some guy's face after watching him ripping his rig through the drift in search of that unsuspecting asshole or dorsal fin... but I remembered Alan Winegarten (DFG Warden) saying something about a Saturday morning visit so I ignored and walked down river.
10 minutes later, I was cinching fluoro' around a small wad of salmon roe when a short, stealthy guy in camo' came down the hill. He started telling me about the snagger he just handed a $250 barbed-hook ticket to... One less problem to deal with, Thanks Alan!
He got called off to look in on a poacher taking over-limits at Hagan Park's pay and put trout pond and we bid farewells.
The day started out pretty tough for me. I had 2 follows, 1 hit each on a copper/silver spoon and a few non-committal roe bites but nothing solid.
I had moved up river to snatch a bit of solitude and find some less-pressured fish. Twenty minutes into my solo side-trip , I hear commotion downriver and look through the trees to see Ray's rod bent over yet again. I continued fishing but later learned that he hooked a hot fish and as it charged downriver, he was slightly horrified to see 3-4 wraps of braid (float fishing) around the end of his ultra light GL3. In a matter of about 30 seconds, he freed the line from the rod tip only to then find wraps around the rotor and handle of his spinning reel. All the while, the 8+# buck was screamin' and smokin'. Ray overcame the second dilemma with a fast, slack-line pit-stop to clear the rope from his rotor... and shortly thereafter, he got the fish to hand.
The guy is amazing... He comes down for an hour or two before work and does what many of us take half a day or a full day to do... And did I mention...? it was Ray who convinced me 2 seasons ago that spoons actually DO WORK, Thanks Bro~
...I made my way back down river, still looking to connect with my first steelie of the day. Ray was gone but a few mutual friends were still working it. At some point, Greg was called off for some wife and kids time...
Enter Bruno...
Bruno is an American River legend. Extract the purest essence of love, kindness, compassion, and an infinite-ray of fishing bliss.... put it all in to one heart... that heart would be Bruno's. The man has been fishing the AR since the 1960's. He has caught more big, bright, and beautiful steelhead than a man could dream of. Humbly, he will quickly deny that he's a 'hot stick'... Even more quickly, he will offer you a fine Italian candy, some of his special-cure roe, or a bit of advice. And I can honestly say, I have never seen the man in anything but a warm, jovial state of positivity. It's no wonder he catches a lot of fish.
When I first met Ray, he told me that as a 10 year old in the late 1970‘s, he went down to Nimbus and the grown-ups would say, "Get out of here kid! This aint no place for you to be fishing..." Bruno wouldn’t have it and took the eager young man under his wing… Thirty years later, both guys fish side by side on that same river and both will say that it is what keeps them alive.
Bruno was zeroed-in on his favorite slot and I couldn't help but take visual inventory of the very thin diameter (1/16th") pencil lead he was using to over the craggy river bed ensnared with busted off lines and leaders. I asked where he got his lead and his answer was to reel up, reach in to his box and hand me 3 different lengths of the skinny lead. I thanked him and said something about moving along to find some unmolested fish...
"No Mark, fish here with me... I think we will catch right here", he exclaimed through his thick Italian accent. And as providence would have it... his next drift was abruptly slammed to a halt and the smile on his face grew exponentially as he hollered, "FISH ON!"
WORD~!$!
His St. Croix doubled over as a very thick, hot hen zipped the yardage from his old-school Daiwa, Mag-Force casting reel. I laid my rod down and went for the camera pocket immediately. It was an exhilarating battle that seemed to last an eternity but was in reality about 3.5 minutes. Bruno held his ground and eventually the fish got the better end but Bruno didn't flinch... He just smiled and said, "OHHHHHH it was beautiful a fish, oh, silvery... I will dream about that fish in my sleep tonight..."
Bruno left and I meandered back upriver. I found some cocktail shrimp left for dead by a guy who had come and gone before me. I used a few pieces long enough to stink my fingers and soon turned quickly back to the spoon rod. Half an hour later, I heard my name called out from up on the levee. It was Bruno. He had no fishing rods just a bag. He had walked all the way to his truck and back to bring me a stash of 1/16th. pencil lead, what a dude~
It seemed only fair and reasonable to reciprocate with a 24 KT gold BC Steel 1/4 oz spoon which of course he refused and I insisted that he accept. He said he would put it on his dashboard for good luck.
The afternoon was marching on and the rain came down in larger, faster drops. I made a move back down river to 'Bruno's spot' and soon after hooked and lost a fish on a silver spoon. A few casts later, I hooked another toad on a copper spoon but after a 1-minute exchange... dumped it as well.
With a small brigade of new characters in bright yellow rain coats encroaching upon a small lot of mostly-battered and weary fish... I decided it was time to make a longer move down current. I ended up about 1/2 way between the 'raincoat brigade' and the coup de flossers blockading the entrance to the spawning grounds above Lower Sailor Bar.
I was finally alone, really alone, with not a soul to be seen nor heard within two hundred yards of river in both directions. I tried the 2/5 oz. gold... too heavy, too flashy. I went back to the trusty 1/4 oz. copper. I flung it in front of me at mid-river and before the pressed chunk of metal could flutter it's way to 10 O' clock, it was rocket-railed by a hen with a disposition and a purpose...
She was all over the place, zippin' around making me think she was much bigger than she actually was. I was in fast water with lots of rocks and so I eased WAY off the drag and palmed my spool until I could get below her and make her head turn. I got her bank side twice and twice she flicked her tail at me and checked out 25 yards downstream.
She must have known I was in the market for a blue-back hen with shimmering scales, orange-red meat and tight little skeins… she never surrendered.
Even in her last moments, she wriggled and writhed and busted a chunk out of her gill plate trying to loosen the death grip of a size 2 Sickle Siwash embedded in her palate…
In the end, I did the deed… harvested my first AR hen of the year.
The small 2-year hatchery, ‘tin-foil’ steelie taped out at just 19.5” and weighed 2# 14oz. But her spirit and spunk was larger than life.
I wish I'd had my Nikon at the river so I could have captured all of the beautiful lavender, aquamarine, and violet colors on her scales... Here's some postpartum/post-refrigerator shots to at least show a little blue on her back...
I left the river contemplating the many good people on it and counting my blessings to have shared the walk with some of the them.
I was also glad to have finally broken away from the pack, to have gotten a nice hatchery hen and to be 'punching-out' just as the rain went from scattered drops to torrential downpour and the southeasterly winds increased to 25 mph...
Yet another memorable day in paradise~
Thanks,
Mark
