Browns & Bows

This day starts of cold in the morning, but is warming up quickly, looks to be a beautiful day on the water. Far from my freeze tubing session on Crowley the previous day. After a nice big breakfast at Denny's I head up the highway toward the Fly Shop aka Sierra Trout Magnet I walk in and get all the low down on the hot flies. I pick-up the recommended flies and a much needed new 5X leader. I'm set to go and head towards that serpentine river to try my skills at fooling some brown trout.

At first sight it looks as though there are going to be plenty of people on the river, turns out I was wrong. I had plenty of room to work and actually had a really great day, seldom seeing anyone at all until I was back at the truck.

I started the day out stringing up my Hardy Marksmen 5wt, this rod is like new condition, 'cause I have not been out fly fishing as much as I would have liked. Sort of been chasing after the carp or hitting the surf close to home. Anyhow, I tie on the size 16 "The Ticket" and a gray poly wing emerger, flies recommended by the fly shop's Trace. I quickly get them caught up on some underwater structure most likely branches, well that was a quick four bucks. Okay, let's try this again, this time I tie on a bead-head pheasant tail of my own and a size 20 green caddis I received in a fly swap awhile back. These flies prove to work well, actually only the small caddis fly was working. I hooked and landed quite a few small spunky brown trout, all on the small caddis again.

I was tiring of hooking nothing but dinks, fun if you happen to be using a 2wt or smaller, but as stated above I was using a 5wt. I tried retying, again using the recommended flies by Trace. I kept looking for openings in the high brush and tulles. Getting a little tough to find access with all the vegetation growing wild. I manage to find some good deep areas that look fishy. I cast and on the first drift I hook and land a great looking brown trout. The river current is flowing at 193cfs and make the fish seem way bigger than what they really are.



This was my best brown trout of the day. Not the biggest of browns, but a very respectable brown for this section of the river. Most fish here tend to be on the smaller side with a few decent sized browns mixed in.

A closer look shows the small fly the shop recommended, size 16 "The Ticket"


I caught four rainbows which was cool, this river is known for all the browns so rainbows are a cool treat. This was my biggest rainbow caught in some really fast flowing water. At first I thought my hooks were stuck and then the fish swam straight down river, the current flowing so fast was not helping matters any. I walked my way down along the bank winding line in while walking, I was picking up line on the fish real quick, before I knew it I was reaching down with my net and trying to get him released. Took a quick photo and sent the rainbow on it's way.



I had and excellent morning on the Lower O, when you loose count of how many fish you catch & release you know the fishing is great.

While sitting at my truck for a noonday snack and drink, an old-timer pulled up, I waved hello and he did the same. As he started to string up an old Fenwick glass rod, he asked me if I would like to see something. I thinking to myself he's going to show me some cool flies he's using or something like that, nope. The old-timer puts the rod down and walks towards me and say come here let me show you. Okay, I'm thinking what is he going to show me. Look up at where that cave is. Do you see what's on the rock just the the right of it? Nope, we get closer and asked can you see now, nope you need to look really good to see them, aha! I see them, I see them! Oh so cool, petroglyph on the rocks. So cool, I had never seen any and so close to where I had just parked.





Some pretty cool stuff, perhaps left behind by the local Indians way back when. Thanks to this friendly fly fisher I was exposed to something new and pretty cool.

After a bit more fishing and having to battle the afternoon winds I called it a day and headed home. I shot off a few more photos on my way home and the fall colors are just about done. The leaves on the trees are just about gone and those that aren't are turning brown and black.



I had an excellent time of fly fishing, until the next time.
The SoCal Flyfisher