It’s Day 77 of the Underground’s Home Hostage Crisis, and no, it hasn’t escaped the Underground’s notice that if he can hit a tiny, fast-moving clay disk with a shotgun, a fleeing contractor wouldn’t offer much challenge.

Just saying is all.

Fortunately, the L&T and I managed to liberate small parts of our home from the grasp of the slow-moving insurgents, and the end may yet be in sight, though with even the absolutely, positively, drop-dead deadlines slipping away, it doesn’t always feel like it.

Of course, this blog isn’t about home-based acts of remodeling terrorism.

It’s about fly fishing, and with California’s general trout season closing soon, I’m abandoning my newly expanded (and largely sleep-deprived) family for a few hours in favor of a trout stream.

Where Do You Go When You Can Only Go One Place?

As closing day looms, fly fishermen tend to panic, though with many of California’s rivers now open to C&R fly fishing year-round, closing season no longer means putting people like Wayne Eng on suicide watch.

Before Chris Raine almost single-handedly got the Upper Sac’s season extended, you could actually watch Wayne grow more disconsolate as the closer neared.

One year I even brought a battery powered fishing game to Wayne & Myrna’s end-of-the-season party – a desperate attempt to stem the black tide that engulfed Wayne after the close, where he could only look at the river running by his front door.

It was useless of course – like handing a pack of cigarettes to a heroin addict – but it was either that or encourage Wayne to engage in highly illegal acts of fly fishing.

Fortunately, local fly fishing life has improved the last five years, though realizing that most the other local rivers (and all the small streams) are closing soon is still a bit of a rabbit punch to the groin.

It’s as if fly fishermen are faced with their own version of that old question: “If your home was on fire, which thing would you save first?”

Only for us, it’s “If the season’s closing soon, which body of water do you fish last?”

For me – and for reasons I can’t even begin to explain – it’s going to be a small stream.

Stream Y, in fact.

The Forecast: Trout, Followed by Rain

The weather forecast allows as to how I’ll probably see a little rain, and given the altitude and proximity to the mountain, it’s likely temperatures won’t even reach the 40-degree mark.

That, Undergrounders, sounds like perfect soft shell weather, and after this trip, I may be forced to write an addendum to my previous soft shell equipment reviews, where I largely gushed about this embraced-by-mountaineers-and-outdoor-geeks technology.

Since I published that review, I’ve tested the Patagonia “Insulator” soft shell in a steady (and very cold) rain, and discovered it’s not waterproof – but it is waterproof enough to hold up for three hours or so before I noticed any dampness.

And yes, even when it got damp, it stayed fairly warm.

Would I wear it all day in a driving rainstorm? Not on a cold day, I wouldn’t.

But more after the trip, which because it’s a special occasion, will probably see me wielding a bamboo fly rod.

• For those trying to sneak one more trip into the McCloud before Sunday's closer… http://ow.ly/B98I #

Powered by Twitter Tools

With California’s general trout season almost over (15th), fly fishermen all over the state are no doubt considering one last run at the McCloud River – or some other favorite water.

Frankly, it’s a great idea – but bring foul weather gear, because the Mount Shasta forecast suggests wet and cold.

Sure, the optimists among you are already thinking “that’s BWO weather” and you’d be right, but don’t forget the big October Caddis dries.

In fact, it’s possible I’ll make one last pass at a certain mountain stream (heavily edited pictures if I do).

Any Undergrounders making last-ditch plans for the season closer?

• Another reason fly fishing is better than veterinary school – the Virtual Cow Butt http://bit.ly/2XyyWB #
• Poachers bragging about exploits online fast becoming targets of savvy wardens (and they deserve it) http://tinyurl.com/yep6lb6 #
• October Caddis bite going bigtime on Upper Sacramento, McCloud Rivers – but air temps falling. Great last week of season on McCloud. #

Powered by Twitter Tools

Sadly, you’re not looking at any photographs from the Underground’s sporting clays experience (at Clear Creek in Corning, a course I liked).

That’s because I was absorbed enough by the shoot that I forgot fire off a few frames on the camera.

With fewer of these flying about, the world is a safer place

In one sense, it’s an example why sporting clays is a lot like fly fishing a technical hatch over educated fish; to succeed, you pretty much have to exclude the real world and embrace a sort of sporting tunnel vision.

When either event is over, you look up, blink a few times, and find yourself amazed by the fact the sun has moved, the clouds have rolled in, and the birds are no longer singing.

Time, it seems, only stopped for you.

The Bare Facts

First, the chest beating: Our team of three shooters ended up right behind the third-place team (their team average was 67.8 birds per shooter from a possible 100, ours was 66).

That’s a astonishing result given my utter lack of experience, and the fact the Older Bro had fired a shotgun exactly once prior to the tournament.

Despite losing a few birds to misfires on my lower barrel (limited to one type of cheap Remington ammo), I shot a 61, and Older Bro posted a 51.

Propping up the excellent-but-still-newbie-ish scores of the Chandler clan was bamboo rod geek Chris Raine, who has annihilated plenty of clay birds in the past.

Despite a rustiness born of a few years away from the sport, Raine posted an 86, and more importantly, he looked good doing it.

He’d shoot, pop the action open, the spent shells would eject over his shoulder, and he’d have the two new shells in the gun before the empties hit the ground (I’m pretty sure chicks dig that sort of thing).

Lacking those kinds of groupie-attracting reflexes, I was content to muddle along without shooting anyone in the leg.

We all have our goals, it seems.

The Inevitable Comparison…

Being a fly fisherman, it’s hard not to compare fly fishing to sporting clays (after all, to fly fishermen, everything is “just like fly fishing, only different”).

Both are far harder than they look, and the people that make them look easy only do so after many (many) hours of experience.

I’m tempted to crack off a smartass line (”sporting clays is just like fly fishing, only louder”), but if the two really were just like each other, I’d already be good at sporting clays.

And given my tendency to make the hard shots while missing the easy ones, I’m clearly not (though I am fully capable of whining about my hard/easy tendencies in both sports).

Later, Chris patiently explained that the modified chokes on my Browning Superposed 20 gauge probably cost me on the near, fast-moving shots, but helped on the farther efforts.

“Oh,” I said. (That experience thing.)

It’s like explaining to a disbelieving new fly fishermen that their #14 Prince nymph – which successfully worked for them on every stocked trout stream they’ve ever fished – probably won’t cut it during a hatch of #20 BWOs on a catch & release tailwater, and that yes – those tiny bits of fluff actually can hook and land big trout.

“Oh,” they say.

We Return to Our Regularly Scheduled Fly Fishing

Sporting clays was fun, and yes, it’s something I’ll do again.

Older Bro is already threatening to sign us up for next year’s tournament, and with a working shotgun, a little prior warning (and a few days more practice), I plan to send a good 3/4 of those Fido-killing orange saucers to their deaths.

I might even plump for “Team Underground,” though that’s contingent on Orvis or LLBean recognizing the extreme PR potential of the event, flying me to their wingshooting schools in the corporate jet, and returning me just in time to clean the course.

Frankly, I can’t think of a single reason why they shouldn’t do it, which is why I run a smalltime fly fishing blog and they run huge, successful businesses.

But for now, we’re returning our focus to another big, orange, flying object – the October Caddis.

Which, it seems, the trout are really, really on top of.

We’ve had a couple frosty nights up here in Mt. Shasta, and the bugs are dying. Rumor has it the Upper Sac and McCloud are both going big guns on the big dry – provided you’re fishing the right kind of water.

Of course, with the McCloud closing in less than a week, those hoping to put the steel to perhaps their biggest trout of the year (yes, it can happen) had better hurry.

Oddly – and assuming I can escape the constraints of father hood for a whole afternoon – find myself drawn not to the glamorous waters, but a small stream, hoping to get one more shot at the little trout before the season closes, and the area quietly fills up with snow.

It’s been that kind of year for me, and I can see no reason to stop now.

See you on the river, Tom Chandler.

• Good Xmas gifts? Montana Panoramic 50% off sale on some framed panoramic prints (cool stuff): http://www.montanapanoramic.com/ #
• Back from the Sporting Clays charity tournament; shot a 61 (of 100) with my 20 gauge, sporting a nice bruise on my cheekbone. #

Powered by Twitter Tools

• Fishy Kid site holds Adult Coloring Contest (can the Undergrounders stay within the lines??) http://bit.ly/16BhPv #
• Compare two sites in same drainage – one grazed, one not: http://tinyurl.com/yj4j5w4 #
• Ever fire a pumpkin out an air cannon? http://www.punkinchunkin.com/main.htm #
• Moldy Chum hosting wild steelhead survey hoping to "inform" Washington Fish & Wildlife about angler preferences http://tinyurl.com/yz6tg95 #
• Blog Post: The Day *Before* the Great Clay Target Massacre: http://bit.ly/2dRosR #

Powered by Twitter Tools

Writers are told to “write what you know about” – a concept that would leave this post largely blank.

After all, what I know about Sporting Clays you could fit on a page the size of the Nestle Ethics Manual, though after blasting a few targets out of the air today – and receiving several detailed emails jammed with technical hints (keep both eyes open, mark your break points, point your toes toward the second target, etc) – I think the real secret has been revealed to me:

As a sportsman, you must develop an intense hatred of orange clay saucers – as if they murdered Fido (your beloved family dog) in a previous life.

And we thought catch & release fly fishing was weird.

Murderer. Tomorrow, you die.

The Lone Gunman

In the interest of not getting it completely wrong at tomorrow’s sporting clays for charity shoot, I hit the shooting range today (abandoning the BWO hatch), and pretty much annihilated everything that was thrown in the air. Everything.

Naturally, I’m tempted to call Vegas and make book on my odds of my getting 50% of tomorrow’s sporting clays targets, yet my greed joy is tempered by the simple knowledge that all of today’s targets were headed pretty much directly away from me, and died around the 40 yard mark.

In other words, easy pickins’.

Still, there’s now hope I won’t be forced to slink from tomorrow’s contest like Ike Turner at a NOW convention. Instead, I can hold my head aloft and score one for the “I’m-in-way-over-their-head” Undergrounders everywhere.

We’ll see. For now, there are a pair of barrels that need cleaning, and lots of gear to forget to pack for tomorrow’s shoot.

Expect a report, and don’t be surprised if I beat the Vegas spread.

After all, I hate orange saucers. And this one’s for Fido.

If I'm going down, I'm going down shooting...

• Win a trip to Bristol Bay, find out more about the dangers of Pebble Mine: http://tinyurl.com/ykza88j #
• Frasier River Sockeye get a break – judicial inquiry ordered into Fisheries dept. mismanagement: http://tinyurl.com/ydb66no #

Powered by Twitter Tools

It’s tempting to suggest that the new “sticky” rubber wading boot soles are revolutionizing the industry, but that’s only really true in a marketing sense.

While the new rubber soles seemingly offer evolutionary potential – studded rubber soles could ultimately replace felt/studded felt, largely for economic reasons – the standard sticky rubber probably won’t replace anything anytime soon.

My recent October Caddis trip found me wearing Simms’ new StreamTread (Vibram rubber soled) Headwater boots, while Older Bro wore one Korkers Guide Boot with a plain “Kling-On” sticky rubber sole, and one with a studded rubber “Kling-On” sole.

Korkers were made for testing

I quickly discovered the plain, un-studded Simms soles worked… OK.

Well, not really.

I didn’t fall.

But I did skid. And slide. And skate.

The same soles that performed surprisingly well on the fairly flat-bottomed-but-snotty Rogue River failed miserably on the Upper Sac’s angular streambed.

Step on a rock that angled downward, and my boots were sure to follow.

If the Vibram-soled Simms wading boots are destined for wide market acceptance, then they’ll do so on the back of one of two things:

• Massive growth of fly fishermen accessing easy-wading rivers (like the Rogue or Bitterroot)
• The liberal application of Simms Wading boot studs

The Korkers Story

The Korkers Guide Boots were seemingly tailor-made for this kind of testing; the soles are interchangeable, so it was easy to stick a studded rubber sole in the left boot, leaving the plain “sticky” rubber sole in the right.

The results were (by now) predictable.

The lack of grip offered by the plain rubber sole made the right boot immensely unpopular with novice wader Older Bro, and in truth, you could actually see the difference when he waded.

His right boot didn’t stick, and his left boot did.

OK.

This was sorta expected.

Wading Boots, So Far

I’m slowly but surely working my way towards one conclusion: For general, all-around use on freestone rivers, most anglers will want to add studs to their “sticky” rubber soled boots.

Straight sticky rubber might work fine on easier rivers, and if I fished the Bitterroot exclusively, plain rubber would be enough.

And yes, for small stream work, you’ll have to pry my Patagonia Riverwalkers – the only truly “sticky” rubber soles of the lot – from my cold, dead feet.

I’ve gotten along OK on the Upper Sacramento with my plain rubber Patagonia boots, but on steeper freestone rivers like the McCloud (hard wading), and the Pit River (got insurance?), plain rubber could earn you an eventual trip to the ER.

What’s Next?

The Underground’s fulltime Wading Boot Engineer stayed up all night and added studs to the Simms boots, and the Korkers will soon be sporting one felt sole alongside the studded rubber.

As I said before, studded rubber might prove a worthwhile replacement for studded felt purely on longevity and economic grounds, but first it has to deliver near-studded felt grip.

That may not be all that difficult; my old Weinbrenner studded rubber boots worked well enough to become my everyday boots, and the new rubber soles should (hopefully) deliver better grip than those.

In other words, more to come. Stay tuned.

Wayne Eng and Myrna Rae have housed, fed, or (in Wayne’s case) guided probably half the fly fishermen who regularly frequent the Upper Sacramento, and with sadness, the Underground notes the passing of Myrna Rae’s father.

Best wishes to them both, and we hope Myrna returns home soon.

The fly fishing? About as good it usually is later in the October Caddis hatch – when the fish are used to seeing them and enough of the hummingbird-sized bugs are dying to make it interesting.

Even if the fly fishing goes to hell, there's always something to look at

Unfortunately, Older Bro and I ran into a bunch of cars in the parking lot, and plenty of fly fishermen on the river (and yes, one real asshole), and while we got plenty of eats in a few of my Secret Big Fish Spots, things slowed dramatically when we fished used water (which was most of the evening).

Still, the Upper Sacramento’s fishing very well – and rumour has it the McCloud’s going even better.

As proof, I offer this clearly sympathetic email from an Undergrounder, who was out fishing while I was wrestling soiled diapers off the Littlest Undergrounder:

BWAH, HAH, HAH!!!
fish, big fish. Lots of em…..
Big black noses, sucking up caddis dries….
Big, jumping hot fish…
Best night…ever. I was THERE!!!
and you…..BWAH, HAH, HAH!!!!!

As always, I’m warmed and comforted by the love and support of the Undergrounders, though as the above email writer will soon discover, I know people – people who carry power tools in the trunk of their car, yet don’t build things.

(Then again, in Day 71 of the Underground’s Home Contractor Hostage Crisis, that pretty accurately describes our contractor too)

Naturally, the usual caveats apply whenever I suggest the fishing’s good:

• The fishing could become un-good tomorrow
• I could be lying (changing diapers makes me cranky)
• You might not be a good fly fishermen
• I might not be a good fly fishermen

Helpful Hint: Everyone’s throwing stimulators, and while they work, they don’t offer the best hooking percentage. Consider a pattern that sits a little lower in the water, and bring a handful so you can replace the chewed, soggy mess on the end of your line.

Helpful Hint #2: leader selection is important when you’re throwing short casts with a wind-resistant fly. Micro-drag isn’t a big issue, and shorter leaders throw much better, so…

More to come (and soon) – including a short summary of our latest wading boot test. It went – sadly – about as expected.

See you at the keyboard, Tom Chandler.

• Technically speaking, this post proves Singlebarbed's a stark raving loon: http://tinyurl.com/ylfdyu3 #
• Pat Dorsey talks tailwasters on Ask About Fly Fishing (inet radio) tonight: http://www.askaboutflyfishing.com/speakers/pat/pat.cfm #

Powered by Twitter Tools

With only minutes to spare before older (less-better-looking) bro arrives and we head out to see what damage we can do to the trout population (hopefully in the grip of October Caddis fever), I thought I’d resurrect our wading boot test.

You’re looking at a pair of Korkers Guide boots with a studded rubber sole on one foot, and the plain rubber on the other.

Studded rubber on one side, plain "sticky" rubber on the other (courtesy my cell phone camera)

This, I think, should prove interesting.

Next I plan to do the same with the Simms wading boots, and yes – the Korkers will eventually permit me to compare studded rubber to studded felt (these thing were made for testing).

With any luck, I’ll return (sans dunking) with pictures of big trout and a review of the real difference between studded and un-studded rubber – and some idea as to whether the Korkers studded rubber soles will cut it on the Upper Sacramento.

Naturally, all this is subjective (well, not the big trout part), but if it’s one thing fly fishermen manufacture in abundance, it’s opinions.

See you on the river (finally!!), Tom Chandler.

For some reason, people often ask me to do things I’m not good at instead of the things I’m really good at, which is why I should have expected THE CALL – the one where I was invited to participate in a charity event involving sporting clays (a form of shotgun competition meant to replicate real field conditions).

All the caller knew is that someone had recently given me a heavily used, slightly rusted 20 gauge over/under shotgun and that I wrote some kind of outdoor blog, which in their mind qualified me to compete, despite the fact I’ve actually fired the shotgun the following number of times:

Four.

Naturally – because I am suffering from sleep-deprivation-driven hallucinations – I accepted.

And you thought fly fishing was humbling?

Sure, it’s a good cause and all, and – as my readers know well – I sometimes simply do dumb things.

Let’s be clear; me shooting a sporting clays competition is a lot like me taking on Steve Rajeff with a 7′ 3wt (and a flimsy one), but now that I think about it, it’s actually much worse.

After all, my capacity for committing mayhem with a fly rod is several orders of magnitude less than my capacity for mayhem when holding a shotgun (even a dignified Browning 20 gauge over & under).

In fact, I can already envision several scenarios involving my shotgun and somebody’s else’s brand new, gloss-black SUV, and for my own sake, I’m going to stop writing for just a minute, close my eyes, and go to my Happy Place (where there are no gloss black SUVs).

…

There. I’m better. Sorta.

Though I still wonder why nobody ever calls to offer a competition in something I do well (which could include the following Brilliant Contest Ideas):

• Falling In The River In Full View of Hot Angling Babes
• Wrapping My last Beetle Bug Around The Tail of a Now Pissed-Off Bull
• Saying Precisely The Wrong Thing At The Wrong Time To My Wife

More To Come…

But because this complex story clearly demands one (and they’re all the rage these days), I’ve compiled the Underground’s First “By The Numbers” Infographic, which you lucky bastards can now use to Quickly and Easily Digest Important Facts About This Post:

Naturally, you’ll hear and see nothing about this Saturday’s Pending Shotgun-Related Disaster unless I get on a hot streak, or can actually round up a few hundred target loads (it’s not easy when you live in the boonies) and sneak in a little practice.

See you on range, Tom Chandler.