wow is the word. ive caught a bunch of eight or so pounders in florida out of the everglades but never one close to that. the thing is a fat hog.

Anyone here in the DC/NOVA area?

I'm interested in learning how to fly fish. A coworker made these recommendations:

Apparently for the next few weeks there's a shad run going on where it's incredibly easy to catch fish.

I'm wondering what the bare minimum gear I would need to get by would be. Also, if anyone is in this area and is knowledgeable I wouldn't mind meeting up.

the standard now is a nine foot rod for a five weight line. that will get you for almost all fly fishing. as you get better you can get more gear. practice on your lawn or in a park till you can cast where you aim. read a few books at the library and you will be set to begin the torture of learning. keep it simple as you dont have to have all the goodies. they dont add much to the fun just complexity. most times i just take a rod and a few flies and a clipper and a spool of tippet material

you can get good quality gear for inexpensive prices now (compared to years past). check out TFO rods for a great price to performance ratio.
if you're in the DC area, check around for smallmouth streams. I've never fished there, but Ive heard there's good smallmouth waters near the city. imo, smallmouth>>>trout for fun and fight. they're way less picky (- for experienced fishers who want a challenge, but +++for beginners who just want to get into some action).
ditto what ray said about practice off the water. once you get your rod, try taking just the tip and tying a short length of yard to the tiptop. you can practice throwing tight loops inside your house while watching tv.

After this last storm in the Bay Area, there are two shopping center parking lots with horrible drainage nearby that would make excellent casting ponds were it not for all the road gunk.

hit up SF beaches today before work with casting gear (12lb test baitcaster on a steelhead rod, throwing 3.5" swimbaits).

got two at 24" and 22". fished for half an hour (until about 630) until I was chased off by the herds of dogs (it's a no-leash beach).

kept the first (i always keep the first of the year for some reason).

down by crissy field i guess. but not having fished there it looked like being out on the docks would be better. but maybe the fish come in closer to shore than i imagine.
my plans would have been to fish off the docks near the greens restaurant and the docks down by the national park building

Ray,
both my fish today hit about twenty feet from shore. they were busting bait that they had chased up to the shoreline. the crissy field area is very fly-fishable. halibut and stripers hang out in the first trough there. I've gotten keeper (22") halibut that hit in the wash at my feet.

the docks are actually less productive. some halibut, some perch and some small rockfish along the rockwall (over by safeway).

I am just learning to fly fish after bass fishing in the NOVA area on and off for most of my life. Z28dreams, I live in the area, but I have no idea what I am doing, but if you ever want to go out I am happy to suck right along with you.

The wife and I just got back from a trip to Denver and fishing the South Platte. I have fished some of the high alpine lakes in the mountains a few years back and plan to get out to do some fishing in Arizona when work takes me out next year. Fishing was fantastic with both of us landing about a dozen fish each over four hours. We both caught four species, but my wife had the two prettiest.

fabulous rainbows you caught there. from the net it looks like maybe you were with a guide. were you on private waters?

this is what fishing is all about.

i'm going to the bahamas to go fishing for a week my dad starting sunday/monday. will mostly be using conventional trying to crush blue marlin but if i get some good pictures ill throw them up. gonna try and sneak off one morning to catch a bonefish or 2 on the fly and if i do anything noteworthy will try and get some good pics of that too.

Ray, m2d,

Have you ever fished the Truckee River below the restricted section in Tahoe City, or anywhere along Highway 89?

I was up at south shore a couple of days ago, and the rest of the rivers are still blown out from all the melting snow. I did pitch spoons at Cave Rock for a couple of hours on Monday morning, hooking and losing one fish before getting a look at it. I drove around the lake later in the day, and the Truckee looked fishable upstream from Squaw Valley because of the restricted flow at the Lake Tahoe outlet. I wasn't sure about access, though, because there is so much development around the river.

As an aside, when I got home, I unloaded my car, took all the stuff I had in (heh) got unpacked, and about 4 hours later, went to bed, and was doing an internal post-mortem of the trip, lamenting what a bad no-limit player I am, and I thought, "WTF, I don't remember bringing the rods in..."

I did just buy a new fly rod, but that can easily be replaced, however the spinning rod I generally use for trout is a bit of a family heirloom



and while I'm the only one that ever uses it, I was not looking forward to explaining to my folks (both now in their 70s) that I lost it because I'm an idiot.

I went out to the car (outside parking lot) and the case was still there on the roof of the car...maybe people don't suck after all.

fished the Truckee for many years all year long. one of my favorite rivers. mostly fished from downtown reno to the town of truckee that was where the best fishing was.
big browns under the bridges in reno as well as trout in all the runs and pools in nevada. after you go on route 80 west and hit california it gets better as it isnt fished as much. i like the area around farad and floriston long before you get to truckee. the area of the big rocks in teh river is real hard to fiush but hold big trout all year.
i dont believe it is very good up toward lake tahoe.

Anywhere you go around Yellowstone the fly shops will offer guided fishing day trips...if you got the loot you should go this route.

It's really not that hard to learn to cast if you're coordinated, honestly. It's when you get into tight areas where anybody would have trouble casting, and you'd have to really work at it, buuuuut if you go the way of the day guide you should get to fish from a drift boat...this is sweeeeeet and way easier to access holding water. So if you're paying making sure he's just not walking you around an area, that'd be ghetto for your $'s worth.

Give it a try. Fly fishing is a rewarding experience.

Thought you all might like a (true) story I wrote last summer to my dad. (I edited for 2+2 readability)

My youngest son Eric had a baseball team picnic two weeks ago on the other side of Boise so I dropped him off and headed a little ways into town and rigged up my #2 for some 10” rainbow…mostly plants. I had forgotten that the Idaho Natural Resource had just released a bunch of salmon in the river. Essentially for old timers that remember when the Boise River was a part of the migration. Now the Snake River dams and the couple on the Boise have stopped all the salmon and steelhead so the INR does a few releases throughout the year of both. The INR stocks all the major runs of the Snake/Salmon/Clearwater and if they have leftovers…. that’s what gets dumped into the Boise.

So anyway, I walk down to the shore and grab my own little stretch of paradise. Trying to ignore Redneck Randy and his 600 friends who have come to the river to reap the salmon bounty……with spinners and worms. I’ve got twenty yards up and down stream that I call my own and make sure everyone knows that a fly thrower needs space (Mostly it’s fine and I have more than enough room. However, I am probably stuck in this spot for the entire baseball party time)

I wade out about 15’ from the bank and cast several times to loosen up. Meanwhile…..and probably only noticed by me, a HUGE caddis cloud has descended to drop eggs. The river is full of little tan fluttering food. And it’s not long before the rainbows get active feeding on the surface. I cutoff the beadhead Hare’s Ear and tie on a #18 Elk Hair caddis. I am OF COURSE upset that my caddis has a dark body whilst the natives are sporting white. (Rectifying now at the vise).

I turn around to face the bank and immediately spot my first victim that is methodically sipping off the surface no more than 3’ from the bank…..and corresponding shrubbery. Within four minutes, I have the attention of all the Redneck Randys around as I have bagged 4 bows. And much to their disgust, all are released. LOL For you see, Randy couldn’t catch a cold in a room full of snot-nosed rug-rats

I now return to the Hare’s Ear and start methodically working the nice run in the middle of the river. Didn’t get anything for at least a half hour. Well, maybe a little arm strain. So I change up to a #12 beadhead scud. The river is only about 5’ deep through this run, but running quickly. This beadhead was the only one big enough to have a chance to get to the bottom. After a few casts… luck would shine on me once more.

I had just made a retrieve and was about to double haul back to the top of the run. In mid first cast, the surface broke in the exact middle of the run. And Broke and broke again. A bow was chasing a caddis as it skipped across the surface. I probably made the best cast recovery of my life at this point as I yank back on the line with my left hand, while throwing the rod tip well to the back/right. The scud hit PERFECTLY and was immediately hit. But it wasn’t a rainbow. It was a 22” coho that seemed a tad irate that I was connected to him.

At this point I need to remind my faithful readers that my preferred rod of choice for the Boise, a Sage #4, was back at home collecting dust. The rod in my hand was another Sage….but only a #2 weight. Ya know, lightweight.

Mr. Coho heads upstream. Mr. Coho heads downstream. I am now into my backing! And crashing up and down the run, much to the disgust of the metal slingers. I have their complete attention though. After a coupla good runs with spirited jumps, Mr. Coho heads for the bottom to sulk giving me time to reel in most of my line. But I can’t move him. He’s resting and knows it. And he knows that I know it. And he knows that I know that he knows that I know it. I am being leveled. So he’s staying put as long as he can. AND THERE’S NOT MUCH I CAN DO ABOUT IT!

At this point I realize that I am the center of attention for a WHOLE bunch of humans….. and only one fish. As I am scanning the crowd (and smirking), the light bulb went off. I know! I can do a Redneck move….bound to work! I reach done by my boots and pick up a two pound stone and hurl it a bit downstream from Mr. Sulk..... who immediately is now on the move again! But he’s about done in and it takes less than a minute to get him next to me.

Randy is on the shore 5’ feet from me and says “That’s a beaut”. A few other “Whoa”s and “WoW”s can be heard. So I reach up and grab my forceps and bend over. At this point I look up at Randy, give a short little smile, look back down and release the fish. Have you ever heard people, as a crowd, suck in air and gasp in unison? To me, I expect that this is better than a stadium standing ovation.

Immediately I turn around and head back to my run. And it’s like time stood still for ….oh, I don’t know, but it seemed like forever, but more likely just 2 seconds. Then the crowd noise went back to normal and everyone shuffled back to their stations,,, I assume muttering and shaking their heads.

It was a good day to be on the water.

king , is that the south fork of the boise? do the silvers go up there. i know about the trout fishing and look to get there sometime. its a spectacularly beautiful river. plus the middle fork of the salmon.

Ray,

This was inside Boise city limits (all the forks are combined into the Main by this point).... about a mile east of Boise State U. Really nice fishing through town and maybe another 10 miles. Below that, the last 20-30 miles before it runs into the Snake, the water gets a bit warm as there are a bunch of spillways that create long, slow, shallow runs. I have heard there are some decent sized browns in that section...but I have never been. But as far as I know, there have been no natural "runs" of any species of salmon on the Boise in decades.... all plants.

About ten miles outside the city to the east is a huge empoundment called the Lucky Peak Reservour and immediately above that is the Arrowrock Reservoir (containment for drinking and irrigation for all of us that live in the natural desert.) The South fork dumps into the Arrowrock and the North and Middle combine north of Arrowrock and come in from a different angle. But what you have heard about the South Fork is true. From Anderson Reservoir down to Arrowrock.... awesome scenery with (at times) spectacular fishing. Mostly, I've been skunked on the SF tho

We just moved here a coupla years ago so I have TONS of exploring still to do..... come for a visit!

thanks i look forward to getting to that area. it is a long drive so it will be when i can combine it with another trip for something.

not fly fishing, but this thread has been pretty dormant so figured i'd throw some fishing pictures up anyhow. i went to tofino on vancouver island and went salmon fishing a couple days ago. i've never fished salmon before so it was pretty interesting all around. 'mooching' was def a new experience and certainly makes fighting the fish a little more fun--basically getting to play them on a fly rod w/o having to cast! i asked about fly fishing in the area but i guess it's pretty difficult to like traditionally fly fish for them since they are kind of dispersed and in deep water. anyway, we caught 10 salmon i believe and had prob twice that many strikes in a full day of fishing (tho we wasted prob 1.5 hours trying to catch halibut). we fishing ~12 miles off the coast on the edge of the continental shelf i believe mostly from about 160-175 feet the whole day.

onto the pictures

very nice. and tofino is beautiful. i am trying to make it there this year in the fall maybe.
it looks like you didnt land that big gray looking fish

It just looks like a fish, Ray.... lol.

Nice pics and very jealous, jsnipes

Back to the small fish division

I went to the West Carson River and fished in the evening yesterday and the day before...what I've noticed is that my casting is a lot like my golf swing - smooth action, good tempo, it's all good (except when I'm admiring my cast and trying to mentally capture what I did - that's usually when a strike happens and I miss it).

"Swing" too fast or too hard and I get tangled leaders and wind knots instead of hooks and pulls. One gust of wind is all it takes

Anyway, the water is low and clear right now, and I'd read a few reports that anything besides the morning and the evening is a waste of time. The river looks like an aquarium under each bridge, so I walked upstream of the Hope Valley area, trying my best to be stealthy because of the conditions - I hooked and released a tiny rainbow and a slightly larger brown before settling down (literally, I was sitting on the ground) at a small pool. As soon as I hooked this guy, he blasts through the whole pool, so presumably spooked the rest of the fish that had been rising.

many years ago i used to fish that river alot. there are some big fish in it, you have to find the deepest holes and spots behind rocks. put a large bushy fly like a wooly worm there and hang on if you can get the fly down on the bottom.

There were still some large fish hanging out under the 88/89 bridge for sure. There was a guy there with a two-rod stamp dunking nightcrawlers and tossing some kind of fly, but this was still in the afternoon, and I can't imagine they would buy what he was selling when they could just see him there.

Alpine County also plants some large fish every year, although I think that happens mostly by the resorts. I do wonder how much those fish end up moving from the planting site.

Drove from the Bay Area out to the Merced River a couple of days ago, just for a few hours. I fished the C&R section above the Foresta Bridge, but still outside the park. I managed one small rainbow on a PMD...anyone in the area, I highly recommend going up there as the crowds have thinned out and it's really beautiful this time of year as the fall colors are starting. I guess the October caddis should kick in in a couple of weeks, as well.