Musician, Freak, Dayjobber, Etc.

I had the distinct pleasure of hitting a popular local watershed yesterday with the one, the only, the inseparable Krudler (aka Danial Deloach), a fly fishing buddy of mine.

We met up at 7AM in the pull-out on that one particular road you all know so well. We then rode -- walked, actually -- our mountain bikes a blissfully short distance to an appropriate put in spot alongside this lovely mountain stream.

This particular canyon bears a lot of visible scars from its sordid past, from graffiti-sprayed boulders to broken glass and odd artifacts scattered just about everywhere; on this Easter Sunday, we had the place to ourselves, with the exception of one lone spin fisherman whom I briefly saw on a couple of different occasions (we never actually crossed paths). In fact, while we were biking our way into the watershed, we encountered a dog-walking spin fisherman leaving the canyon in disgust, proclaiming "This place sucks, its all fast running water, theres no still water anywhere. I cant fish this place AT ALL." Scowling, he and his dogs beat a hasty retreat down the road as Krudler and I glanced at one another, grinning.

I had heard great reports about this unlikely stream, but, having fished it twice before earlier this year -- both times smoking El Skunko brand cigars -- I had my doubts. Things started off slowly; I think cooler morning temps (plus mostly cloudy skies) had the fish sleeping in late while Krudler and I splashed around in the crystal-clear waters. This particular watershed has a lot of downed trees as well as lots of heavy brush lining the banks of the stream, so we took our time exploring various runs, riffles and pools, and eventually settled into a nice, relaxed routine. We leap-frogged each other every fifty yards or so, each allowing the other plenty of room for working over a few choice trout lies.

Eventually, the clouds began to dissipate, and the warming spring sun enveloped the canyon in a deep amber glow. The ice-blue waters of the small stream danced between boulders, over fallen trees, and through notches in small granite gorges, revealing numerous prime trout lies every dozen yards or so. It was a veritable miniature golf course of potential trout action and we each, in our own way, began our search for trout.

I was using a Diamondglass 6 3WT this fine day; the conditions were perfect for this excellent small-stream rod. To the generous person who let me use this rod (and accompanying Galvan 3WT reel), T-H-A-N-K Y-O-U! The rod worked like magic and, for the first time since I've had it in my possession, I was able to give it true, hard-core work out. Its a blast to cast this thing on these tiny waters, and, honestly, I fell in love with it.

I soon stumbled upon a small section of stream that was virtually enclosed in downed trees; there was a particular plunge pool visible from above that I simply had to fish -- it looked perfect, a bathtub-sized hole right smack in the middle of the log jam. I made my way over, under, and through the deadfall, and soon found myself drifting a #16 beadhead Prince nymph -- my 2006 Nymph of the Year award winner as of this writing -- through the pool. On my third drift, I was the lucky recipient of a vicious strike, and I found myself laughing out loud as I fought a typical Southern California dink in the tumbling waters:



Moments later, in another nice pool below the bathtub, the Prince yet again worked its regal magic:



A little while later, Krudler and I hooked up, took a little break, and compared notes. We'd each landed three wild trout, all in the 8" - 11" range, with Krudler having landed the largest one (I'm not sure if he took a picture of it or not). By this time, it was getting to be around 1:00PM, and Krudler had to head back to town for some Easter Sunday family obligations, so we parted ways, vowing to return soon.

I decided to spend a few more hours on the stream, such was the sense of peace and tranquility that this beautiful place had bestowed upon me. Not five minutes after Krudlers departure, I stumbled upon an absolutely spectacular pool, one located, oddly, at the very top of perhaps a fifteen-foot drop cascading rapid. The pool was giant considering the size of the stream, with room to comfortably fit at least four swimmers (should anyone have been foolish enough to swim these chilly snow-melt waters). There was a large granite-grey boulder at the base of the pool which provided perfect cover, so I hid behind it and began to work the Prince nymph along the left side of the churning main current, letting it drift around and around a large, somewhat shallow eddy. I instantly had a hit, but missed the set. I cast again and, this time, I had what I'd consider a healthy wild fish on the end of my line. She jumped -- once, twice! -- and my heartbeat quickened at the sight of her. Moments later, I broke in my new net with this fine wild bow:



A couple hundred yards upstream, I came upon a solid granite gorge with a nasty current splashing alongside one of the rock walls, featuring an absolutely delicious-looking eddy below a boulder at the top of the run. I cast my Prince near the eddy and was immediately hammered by a fish, which I had on my line for a brief moment until the trout decided to disconnect the call. "No big deal", I told myself, and proceeded to work the eddy again. This time, a nice-sized bow took the Prince, and she jumped, revealing a broad swath of red down her ample sides, with absolutely gorgeous, large speckles all over. She was shaped like the business end of an oar, a fat, long rectangle with fins. D-a-m-n, I wish I'd have landed that beauty! That image of her in mid-jump will haunt me until the next time I return and successfully nail her.

This was, apparently, one of those locations that gives hapless fly fishermen chance after chance after chance. I hooked into fish over the next dozen or so casts, losing them each and every time, much to my dismay. However, this generous pool provided me with the rare opportunity to fine-tune my approach and, eventually, I managed to bring home my fish of the day, a healthy 13-range beauty:



With the hour approaching 5PM, I decided I'd had my fill of this wonderful place, and headed back to my car, happy with having finally met with success on Car In The Middle Of The Road Creek.

As for the origin of my fake name for this place....

When I reached the pullout where I had parked, some solipsistic genius had the incredible vision of parking directly behind me, leaving me effectively trapped. What a drag. What to do? I checked the idiot's doors and was amazed that, somehow, the genius had remembered to lock their car. Dang! There was no way I could get my car out, so I could either pop open a beer and wait, or I could hike the 150' back down to the stream and ask some of the good people partying down there -- with their diapers and babies befouling the waters -- if the car belonged to them. Predictably, not one person appeared to understand the mechanics of the English language so, having made a good-faith effort to find the parking genius, I returned -- huff, puff -- back up the considerable hill to the car, with a sinister plan in mind.

I loaded in my bike and gear, fired up the engine, and gently backed my car against the offending vehicle; with a little pressure on the gas pedal, I was able to slowly push the thing about ten feet -- right out onto the main highway, in fact. I had just enough room to get my vehicle out, so I beat a hasty retreat back to civilization. I had a good laugh thinking about the idiot and his/her family returning to the pull-out, only to find their car pushed onto the highway, effectively blocking one lane: "Hey, I dont remember parking here!"

Adding insult to injury, I also received a $5 ticket for having an expired Adventure Pass. Five dollars!

Thanks, Krudler, for sharing the better part of the day on the water with me!!! Looking forward to hitting that other place on a backpack this weekend (assuming the weather holds).

Growing up in the Northeast – Vermont, actually -- where beautifully mixed forests and rushing year-round streams are considered the gold standard, our Southwestern creeks take some getting used to, I’ll give you that much. Frustratingly intermittent, rarely spring-fed, often polluted, abused by mankind, and generally surrounded by what can only be classified as “scrub”, the Southwestern stream can be, in the eyes of certain unenlightened beholders, ugly, unattractive, and unbecoming.

“Unlikely” is more like it. When you consider the population explosion that has transformed the Southwest over the past several decades, it’s a minor miracle that any of these historically productive waters have survived. Dams, drilling, industry, agriculture, and an unquenchable metropolis have taken their toll on these once-thriving watersheds, leaving behind a scrapbook of black-and-white memories and faded sepia tone photographs: trout stacked by the hundreds in East Fork pools, runs of Ventura River steelhead numbering in the tens of thousands, smiling Southlanders holding stringers loaded with obscene eighteen-inch wild trout taken from the “big bend” on lower Lytle Creek.

Ah, the good old days, when the bounty of our Southwestern streams appeared inexhaustible, and progress was the watchword; looking back through the rainbow trout-colored glasses of hindsight, it is painfully clear that we had it so good back then. So good.

Our Southwestern streams have seen – and continue to experience – extreme adversity in the face of “progress”, although this is really nothing new. These streams have always been vulnerable to drought, diversion and over-harvesting, but, in recent memory, these threats have exploded a hundred-fold. How much longer will they hold on? How many more snows will pass before these streams are completely diverted, defiled and polluted, their legacy reduced to blowing sand and salty ash, their wild inhabitants all but vanishing except as spirits in the dry Mojave air?

The fact that these streams have been under the gun for centuries, and still somehow survive – sometimes spectacularly – deeply moves me in a way that defies explanation, makes a mockery of mere words, and touches a place that can only be referred to as “soul”.

My fly fishing friend Eveningrise and I recently fished one of these classic Southwestern streams, one that has seen its fair share of “progress” over the decades, yet continues to produce wonderful fishing in spite of unrelenting adversity. There are literally dozens of small Southwestern streams that see much less human presence; I recall one small drainage on the eastern slope of the magnificent Dick Smith Wilderness which was loaded with fine, fat, wild trout, a stream that, for the record, I have never seen mentioned here (or anywhere else for that matter). The stream ER and I fished is most definitely not one of those remote Black Diamond ice-age relics; you all know it by name, and a good number of you have most likely fished it at one time or another.

Through an incredible turn of good fortune – as if in the opening chapter of a John Gierach book – I met an old-time fly fisherman with incredible first-hand knowledge about the history of this particular stream. This distinguished gentleman is involved in many local preservation efforts and is a long-standing member of a regional fly fishing chapter; his love of the local trout is undiminished even after – or because of -- a lifetime of plying these sparkling waters.

We met – randomly? or was it fate? -- on-stream a few weeks ago; he “checked me out” while I was drifting a #20 midge imitation – fruitlessly, I might add – through the sweet seam of a sprightly riffle. “Oh, that’s a pretty small midge” he said in a gruff, yet not-unfriendly voice; “I’d go bigger if I were you, perhaps a #14 Prince or, even better, a #12 woolly bugger. You DO have some buggers on you, right?”

That simple exchange grew into a friendship which, eventually, led to my being granted the means to much easier access into the drainage, courtesy of this gracious old fly fisherman with the heart of gold. It is for this reason alone that I am compelled to keep this place a secret, for, in exchange for this newfound access, I promised my new friend that I would never tell more than a couple of like-minded souls about the place, that I would never post revealing information on the internet – in private or in a public forum – and that I (or my fly fishing buddies) would never, ever used barbed hooks or keep one single fish (his “jewels” as he called them) for the frying pan. I have chosen to honor my word in exchange for this incredible opportunity. In fact, I am at this very moment questioning even posting this report, considering my reluctance to violate his trust. Such is the small price we pay for our fly fishing pursuits.

“That’s a great little run right there!”

So were the first words spoken by ER upon our arrival on this classic creek one recent Sunday morning. The sun was shining, the temperature mild, the sky as blue as an adult film; ceanothus draped the gentle hills in seasonal shades of lavender and purple. This is what passes for winter in Southern California; heaven is more like it, as far as this fly fisherman is concerned.

Slipping into our waders and boots, rigging up our rods, ER commented on the extraordinary clarity of the water – this, a scant two weeks after a major storm had blown the place sky-high. Conditions appeared to be perfect, with the water flowing at an estimated 60CFS (I’ve yet to find an online gage for this place), and, after closer examination, insect life aplenty in and near the creek. I had high hopes for the day, having recently been graced with an absolutely unbelievable day of alligator hunting along these crystalline waters with my good friend and fellow musician LARiver. Conditions this fine morning were about the same – a little better, even – than a few days before; why should today be any different?

Famous last words.

Call me jaded, but I was astounded when, after stripping a woolly bugger through a proven pool – one that had been stacked with trout a few days prior -- I came up with zero, zilch. I glanced at ER – busy tying on one of his two-nymph set-ups – and shrugged my shoulders in a “what the heck?” fashion. I pulled the bugger through these once-fertile waters another dozen times, with nary a nibble. I thought, perhaps, that ER would have better luck with his nymphs, but, alas, it was not to be. He, too, came up empty-handed at Pool No. One (if you can imagine that).

Feeling slightly bewildered, we moved on, upstream, past glorious Pool No. One, and up into the run just above. Here is where our luck changed. It wasn’t too long before I glanced upstream and caught sight of ER wrestling with something suspiciously trout-like on the end of his line; his rod – a Cabela’s 3WT Stowaway, if memory serves – was bent double, and I raced to his side to witness this blessed event. Sure enough, he soon brought a nice 16”-range, obviously wild rainbow trout into his net:



Soon thereafter, I found myself in similar circumstances, having connected with a nice, silvery fish from the head of this particular run (the fish slammed a black woolly bugger). This feisty sea-run cutthroat – okay, spawning rainbow trout – took me for a fool and played me like a hockey game (I was the puck), leading me in several different directions at once. ER snapped a couple of shots, one of yours drooly in action, the other with the prize in my fat little hands:





The day progressed in a blur of caught and released trout, serious fish talk, a little SW Board trash talk, and lots of laughter. It was a laid back, leisurely day; we were in no hurry: we apparently had the place to ourselves (although we both felt we were fishing just behind another group for some reason), the sun was shining, the fish were biting, and all was well with the world. What more could you ask?

Eventually, we reached a spot that had been Trout Dynamite(tm) the week before. I was especially anxious to see ER fish this spot, a lone boulder which split the stream in two, creating a nice, deep crease on the backside. Unbelievably, the spot was as barren as one of Saturn’s dusty moons. I was aghast. The week prior, LARiver had pulled countless fish from this location; after he had had his fill, I had stepped in and pulled out a monster trout, my biggest ever on a fly. On this fine afternoon, the seam was inexplicably, heartbreakingly empty.

So goes the life of the fly fisherman, who, in his quest for consistency, is quite often met with confusing variables instead.

However, all was not lost, as we soon stumbled upon an absolutely giant pool, one which visibly held several large fish in its watery depths. We must’ve spent a good hour trying various approaches to get these monsters to rise from their lair, to no avail. I tried a silly saltwater minnow imitation in desperation; moments later, ER managed to get a strike on a nymph and we both watched – smiles plastered on our faces – as his fish dashed every which way, even slamming into another holding fish at one point! After a monumental fight, ER brought this fine specimen to net:



And so went our day on this fine cottonwood-lined Southwestern stream, a stream that has seen so much abuse and negligence, it’s a wonder there are ANY trout here at all. It was one of those “I lost count” days, one filled with warm memories of companionship, camaraderie, and feisty wild trout. We both caught fish on nymphs and streamers; dry flies were floated on a few occasions, but these fish weren’t in the mood for rising this day, which suited us just fine; after all, the sun was shining.