September 2004 Short Reports
by
August has quickly dissolved into September and my guess is that everyone was either on the road or taking kids to college because I haven't heard from many of you regarding your fishing adventures. Don't forget that it is simple to submit a report – just email a couple of paragraphs to the and let us know all about the action.
Lyell Fork of the Tuolumne
Tuolumne River in
Yosemite Park, August 15: On the way back from the Fish Creek hike,
John Files and I stopped to eat lunch (and fish, of course) near Tuolumne Meadows.
We hiked about a mile away from the road and had a very enjoyable lunch break
throwing dry flies. We caught mainly brown trout, although there were also
a lot of spooky brookies in the river. The biggest was about 12 inches. A
threatening storm added to the spectacular natural beauty of this area. I have to
admit, I've always been afraid of the crowds at Yosemite but there were only
one or two other fly fishers around that day.
– Rodney Chun
Oregon
Deschutes River, August 23: J.C. sends this report by phone (well answering machine, actually).
Fished the Deschutes
from 8:30 to 5:00 pm on Monday. There are salmon and steelhead in the river, but we did
not catch any. However, we used standard nymphing techniques with pheasant tails and emerging
caddis nymphs and did very well catching rainbows. We had about 12 fish-to-hand in the
12 to 19 inch range and many more LDR's (Long Distance Releases). Since then it has
been raining so the fishing has been slower.
– J.C. Poulton
Mystery Location
Sierra Foothills near Fresno, Mid July: [Paraphrased from a much longer report - ed.] Tony sent out one of his entertaining email trip reports which I am summarizing here. Of course, he never reveals his spots, so you'll have to use your imagination.
Headed up to a series of three lakes with my son, Mark. These lakes are accessible only by a difficult hike – 2,500 feet over a three mile trail . On the way up, we followed our intuition – and not the GPS – and ended up climbing through the wrong canyon! Finally, after altering our course and following the GPS we arrived at the first lake. What should have been a 3 hour hike turned into a 6 hour marathon.
All the lakes were full of golden trout, and the largest fish was 15 inches! The
most interesting part of this area is that, according to the GPS, it is
only 1.85 miles away from the trailhead. Of course, trying to hike the
shortest distance is not necessarily the fastest (or smartest) way to travel.
– Tony Plutnyski
Keep those reports and photos coming!
Rodney