ForbesOnTech

First '09 Trout Opener Reports-- Fuller Lake and East Fork San Gabriel Dam Confluence Both Recommended

I’m singin’ those “Sierra Trout Season Opening Day, Cause I’m stuck in San Diego Again” Blues this morning.

I hate when  my two best trout scouts call me long distance to tell me they caught quick limits by 10 AM, and are “going to nap.” It’s calls like this from members of the “Neener-Neener Brigade” that makes me want to take them  out albacore fishing and have a little game of “Pay Back” by innocently reaching over with my fishing pliers and accidentally cutting their line when they’re trying to land an albie in my boat.

I really wouldn’t do that, but I have thought about it.

But my buddies are pretty excited about the ‘09 trout season. The angler who turned me on to Fuller Lake, (which is about 10 miles east of Grass Valley, CA on Highway 20), reported he limited out in less than an hour, hooked a lot of trout but returned everything under 13-inches. John P. doesn’t lie about fish so I expect he has a stringer of big fat rainbows and one or two large spring brownies—which are most often caught at Fuller at the inflow of a small creek not far from the old Auburn Rod and Gun club building.

He told me that the best producing fly so far have been midges tied to #20 hooks and woolies on #14’s. I wish I were there right now, or,

Fishing the East Fork of the San Gabriel River at its sand and rock-rilled confluence with the San Gabriel Dam.

Occasional fly fishing partner Billy C (a highland Scot who lives in Arcadia CA) told me this morning that the rainbows are surging up from the San Gabriel Dam in what he assumes are “spring spawning runs.”

The East Fork is my natal fishing stream. I may pop up there next week for a couple of hours; since it’s unlikely I will be able to get up to the Sierra for at least two weeks.

You don’t need a lot of skill or expensive equipment to fish anywhere on the East Fork. My “outfit” consists of a pair of cut-offs, my good luck, but ripped savagely by my young cat, “Dan, “green, pink and yellow tie dye t-shirt and a pair or nasty old Converse athletic shoes. I fish the East Fork with a seven-foot limber rod, and a 6x tippet in front of a nymph tied to a #18 hook or midges on smaller hardware. I also carry a small selection of deerfly and other patterns, but most of my luck on the East Fork has always been with nymphs or midges.

Oh the horror: I’ve also been known to use bait at the confluence of the East Fork and the San Gabriel Dam. My best results have always been with Pautzkie’s premium salmon eggs on a laser sharpened egg hook attached to an unweighted line floated down stream. If the rainbows are there, they’re likely to hit a salmon egg when everything else fails and when they do, don’t be surprised when they go aerial or head down towards the dam.

And that’s this years first report on fishing at Fuller Lake and on the East Fork of the San Gabriel River at  it’s confluence with the San Gabriel Dam.  Happy Fishing!—Jim Forbes 04/25/2009.

My toothy Friend-- the Barracuda-- Arrives of the San Diego Coast

A text message buzzed me awake at 6:30 Sunday  morning.

The terse message read “ 3 cuda hook ups - OB.” It was from a fishing buddy already out in the kelp beds off Ocean Beach.The message got me racing to my boat to get it ready for the 21-mile drive down to the launch ramp at Dana Landing.

Stuck my keys in the 4Runners' ignition switch but nothing happened.  My battery was completely dead. A quick call to AAA saw my truck purring in the driveway in record time. The tow truck driver’s simple advice to “drive my 4Runner for 45 minutes to charge its battery” was all the excuse I needed to grab some CD;’s and head down to San Diego Bay.

I left my boat at home and headed for the San Diego commercial tuna boat harbor. Harbors bring out my inner wander lust and looking at 80 and 100-foot tuna trawlers always make me remember California is still a very good place for commercial and sport fishing.

The early morning text message was still fresh in my memory, so I punched in my buddy’s cell phone number and asked if anything was still biting?”.

He said the bite had dropped off with the freshening incoming tide but was hopeful it might pick up again at slack water later in the day.

But back to my old friend, the toothy, tussling barracuda. ‘Cudas are an important part of what ties me to offshore fishing here on the Southern California coast. They appear as soon as the water warms up and I’ve come to think of them as voracious scoutin the advance guard of the yellowtail schools that appear yearly here off San Diego.

Cudas today aren’t nearly as large as the logs I caught in my youth off the eastern shore of Catalina Island. While today’s average cuda may be only 26- 28 inches long,  you know you’ve tied in to a real sport fish  when you’ve got a schoolie sized fish on the business end of a lightweight rod and reel.

They’re capable of sizzling runs that tear line off your reels and bend your rods, a trait that has always reminded me of their much larger and seriously toothier cousin, the Wahoo.

Very few people have the ability to consistently catch barracuda, but Im fortunate enough to have learned how to fish from one such person, Joe Cornejo of Azusa, California.

He was the one person who taught me the first rule of intentional cuda fishing-- always use a wire leader.

50 years and maybe 200 cleanly severed monofilament leaders later, I still make sure I use a wire leader if I think there’s even a slight chance of tying into a cuda.

I have a lot of respect for a barracuda’s teeth, even a little 26-incher can rip the hell out of your hand if you foolishly reach into its mouth to remove a jig or hook. Barracuda are the reason I carry fishing pliers on my belt when I fish off shore.

Cudas have a bad reputation when it comes to fish dinners. Most people complain the flesh is too oily, or disparage this species because it’s a mackerel with a bad attitude. The trick to fixing good barracuda is to remove the oily reddish lines of meat on both its flanks and BBQ the fish using your favorite BBQ sauce or just drizzle lime juice on it before serving.

There’s another cuda-based recipe that has a an almost mythical appeal when its made fresh in the galley on many of the sport fisherman here down here. The dish is barracuda burgers and it's the perfect lunch after a morning spent sport fishing.

Maybe this week, after the weekend traffic on the ramp at Mission bay, dims to a memory, I’ll launch my boat and spend a quiet morning running up and down the kelp forests, hoping I hook up with a feisty barracuda or another staple  of Spring time fishing here in San Diego; the incredibly tasty white sea bass.

Soon, the yellowtail will be back, and I’ll be out there, with fresh bait and fully charged batteries in my car and boat. And of course I’ll also have wire leaders stored in my tackle box, ready for slashing barracudas.—Jim Forbes, 04/19/2009

The San Gabriel River's West Fork-- Fun Bicycle Fishing for Young and Old.

  

A stretch of the Almost Wild West Fork, pools, rills and trout (photo Local Hikes Inc.)

While most of writing about Los Angeles Countytrout fishing is limited to posts about the San Gabriel River’s East Fork, there are other venues to catch rainbows.

            The much smaller West Fork here for example. Fed by a small handful of streamlets from drainages to the west of highway 39 in the Angeles National Forest, as well as a small discharge from Cogswell Dam, the West Fork of the San Gabriel River offers great access, clear cold water and stretches of barbless-hook-only catch and release fishing.

            While I’ve seldom caught West Fork trout longer than 12 inches, this stream is a fabulous place to introduce novices to fly fishing, or to merely strap a fly rod and fly wallet on the back of a mountain bike and explore a phenomenal primitive riparian habitat. One word of caution: be sure to pack in enough drinking water to remain well hydrated since there is no drinking water on the near nine mile well marked trail up to Cogswell dam.

            Mountain bikes are the best way to explore the West Fork. Park your car near the gate and begin pedaling up the trail. There are several great places to get your line wet, trying to tease native or other rainbows into taking a fly. Most of the West Fork’s best fishing spots begin about five miles up the trail in a series of small rills that flow into sandy bottoms or small rocky ponds. Overgrown streamside brush most often necessitates tight roll casts or side casting. My best results have always been with light five foot tippets and small midge or mosquito pattern flies tied on # 16, 18 or 20 barbless hooks. Because the West Fork is overgrown for much of it’s length, I use a custom six-foot, three-inch, fly rod with a soft tip.

            The combination of small flies that match insect patterns, a light tippet and a rod with a soft tip has worked well for me on the West Fork. So have a bicycle, short pants, a mood expressing t-shirt my ancient JC Penney tennis shoes, as well as a packed lunch, two bottles of cold water and the unshakeable belief that you’re will catch a huge trout, this trip.

            Alas, while you’re almost certain to get a few hits on your fly, when you manfully rip lips, what you most often catch are little five or six inch dinks. But there are bigger fish here; you just need to keep your eyes open for pools near small water falls, confluences of small year-round inflows, and dark objects darting in and out of the dappled shadows.

            Do make sure to load your fly wallet with an assortment of insect patterns on small barbless hooks. The insect hatch on Midspring mornings has to be seen to be believed.  So do the trout, jumping for their food from a brain-freezingly cold wild stream.

            I’ve always fished the West Fork using barbless hooks and catch and release techniques. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. I always come back with more flies in my wallet than I started with.  You find those expensive flies in overhanging branches or deep inside stream side poison oak bushes.

            But at the end of any West Fork fishing trip with young novices, there’s always the near seven or eight-mile  high speed coast back down the trail, then highway 39 down to Azusa, for a late lunch at Carmens’, La Tolteca or In-N-out, all on Azusa Avenue.—Jim Forbes on 2/07/2007

In Praise of the Common Catfish-- My Winter Fishing Strategy

            It's the time of the year when all of the plants in my vegetable gardens are uprooted, cut into manageable chunks and tilled back into the soil and when I'm forced to admit that nearly all of my favorite salt water game fish species have packed their getaway bags and finned off into the sunset looking for warmer waters.

            But this doesn't mean that I’ve given up fishing and gardening for very long. Instead it means that I spend more time outdoors prepping my gardens for next year and searching for a couple of five-fish limits of catfish in any of the three local lakes.

            I'm not ashamed to admit this: I enjoy cat fishing, which means I load up my coffee thermos, pack a sandwich, throw a book into my back pack and trek off for a night's fishing and reading under the sputtering glare of my old gas-fed Coleman lantern.

            Cat fishing keeps me honest. There’s no voodoo required, and no "secret" flies or lures. Success most often goes to the fisherperson who takes the time to visualize the bottom of a body of water and who is willing to experiment with a variety of proven baits.

            I have two catfish rigs out in the garage: a 7-foot spinning rod and reel combo with a medium tip, and a longer 9'-foot rod and reel combo. I bought both rigs on sale at the local WalMart. Both reels are loaded with about 100 yards of low visibility 8- or 10-pound test monofilament. I buy new line every year.

            I clean and lube my reels yearly (but more often if I go out to the Colorado River

because of all the silt in the air) and I clean the line guides and tip to reduce friction, which helps me cast more accurately.

            I’m not ashamed to admit that I always stop at a local bait shop and ask what bait they suggest. The one universal bait for California catfish is cut mackerel, which,  given the amount of time I spend on saltwater, is always on hand. I've been known to indulge in chicken livers on treble hooks, hell divers (at the Colorado River) night crawlers and even stink bait. But my standards are cut mackerel and night crawlers.

            My preferred terminal rigs are laser sharpened single or treble hooks, and slider leaders attached to one half-ounce weights. I cast, let the line settle, tighten it, then five it six or seven inches of free line and start reading a book. I sometimes hang a bell on my rod or add a "tell" to the line between the reel and the first guide, to alert me of a bite. My personal strategy is to let the catfish take about one-foot of line before I rip its lips and set the hook. It seems to work well.

            Cat fishing is fun and can be productive. MaForbes rises to the occasional catfish fry with delicious home made slaw, and fresh cornbread slathered in wild honey.

            But I live in Southern California, so when the yellowtail and tuna take off, I become a well read cat fisherman. And in Southern California , snow is something you see on the news. -- Jim Forbes off to nearby Lake Hodges on 10/26/2008.

Breakin up the Logjam of Writers' Block--Catching Tomorrrow Night's Dinner and Talking to Great Friends

            Writers’ block is a very real curse for me right now. For the last five weeks, it has pulled my productivity into the cellar.  I’ve tried every trick I know to dislodge this block. I’ve gone fishing twice in new spots I’ve heard about here in San Diego, but until recently never tried.

So far, I’ve made more tie-dyed t-shirts than I have friends. I’ve straightened my garage and when that didn’t work I tackled my sock drawer. But still, I’m blocked and I hate it.

I have some long-standing cures for writers’ block. The most important is to begin reporting on projects that I’ve thought about for a long time. I did that yesterday but that tried and true process didn’t work either. So then I called a former colleague who is the best editor I ever worked with and asked her to “glance around her office and see if there was an unused article lead laying there somewhere.”

I think the box of fresh giant green Reed avocados I shipped to her as a surprise gift might have done the trick because she and I walked through the basic idea I had for a blog post and came up with a strong approach.

That piece is on another screen and I’ll go back to it later this evening.

There are two colleagues I’ve worked with over the years who always manage to get me out of a funky major writers’ block. Chris Shipley is one and Dave Churbuck is another. They share a quality I admire; they know how to inspire others and they’re selfless givers. An, no matter how bummed I am, when I hang up the phone with either of these two gifted writers/editors, I’m smiling.

But the best cure for writers’ block is the simplest: apply the seat of your pants to the seat of a chair and start cranking. If --after one hour or so-- nothing jumps onto a page, grab your fishing rod and head up to the local lake and commune with catfish. Hey it worked for me and there’s two cleaned catfish I’ll make for Ma Forbes' dinner tomorrow night. Hell, I may even make some corn fritters to go with the  catfish.

Let’s see: a couple of proven cures for writers’ block and a fun dinner idea for an early fall supper. Life is pretty good for me, here on the wild side of the intersection of a national forest and a small rural city. I guess I’m back, or 430 words so.—Jim Forbes on 10/01/2008.

there's more to Fishing than Dorado, yellowtail and Tuna-- There's Also lots of Catfish Nearby

Living in nSan Diego, it’s easy to focus on feisty saltwater game fish. Hang around  here for very long and soon you’re jaded enough to reply “just a couple of schoolie 15- pound yellowtails” when someone asks you how “what did you catch” as you pull your boat out at the ramp.

            Other than a handful of trips to the East Fork of the

San Gabriel

River

, most of my fishing this year has been in the

Pacific Ocean

. But as the year draws to a close, I want to get up to Lake Fuller before the first snowfall and devote at least two weekends to catching one of my favorite species—the humble catfish.

            Cat fish love warm fresh water and I live next to or within a 30 minute drive hree major

catfish

Lakes

(Hodges, Skinner and

Diamond

Valley

).  I’ve been put off by fishermen who disdain fishing for catfish. They’re fun to catch, easy to clean and good simple food. They’re also easy to catch.

            Like many people, I grew up thinking that you only went after catfish in the evening or at night. Boy was I ever wrong. Few things are more exciting than fishing from the shore, dozing against a tree and hearing your rod top snap down and your line pop tight.

            And being lucky enough to experience a catfish “bite” is something you’ll never forget.

            I have some favorite catfish lakes. Most of them are a long drive away from me today, but the memories of those lakes makes me glad I discovered the joys of fishing for cat fish in my early 20’s,. The highest ranking lake on my list of cat fishing venues is Lake Havasu on the Colorado River. I once caught 10 catfish there one night while listening to distant radio stations as I rested in my car with my pole sticking out of the passenger side front window.

            I cherish the memory of that night; mid seventies air temp, the sound of water flowing nearby,  the gentle hiss of my  aerator in a bucket of water holding 15 live “helldivers” (salamanders), and coming instantly alert as my rod flexed and jerked in my car’s open window.  I started fishing at about 8 that night and by 2:30 AM I had hit my limit including a three- ish bite that happened over a 25 minute period at about 1:45 in the morning.

            By 3 AM I had cleaned the fish and put them on ice in my cooler and was asleep under my sunshade at a campground.

I started fishing the following night at about the same time but by 1 in the morning I had limited out, again. I came home from that trip with a cooler chock  full of catfish and a belief that I couldn’t go very wrong on the Colorado River in the fall.

My second favorite cat fish hole in California is Lake Mendocino, On highway 20 near Ukiah. I’ve had as much success there as I have had at Lake Havasu, but I had  to learn to use different baits and a different fishing style.

            By learning a different style of fishing, I’m taking catfish during the day. Having fallen hook line and sinker for fishing tales spun when I was a child by grandfather. As an adult, I’ve adopted a “prove it/show me” attitude. One of the tales I was told is: Catfish like the dark—so the best place to take during daylight hours is in parts of a lake or stream that are shaded. Having accepted this as fact, I ended up snagging a lot of terminal gear in overhanging trees or in bushes next top the water.

But after reading something in the San Francisco Chronicle one weekend I changed how and where I fish for catfish during the day. In one of his weekend columns, Tom Steinstra, an award winning Bay Area outdoors writer, suggested that he had seen absolute proof of where catfish hang out during the day and how they behaved. Steinstra says that catfish can just about always be found hanging around rills caused by currents on the side of the hillocks that are facing away from the sun.

The statement seemed particularly bold, so I pulled a mask, snorkel and find from my Uncle’s garage in Ukiah, pulled on my short pants and jumped into a feeder arm of Lake Mendocino. Snorkeling along, I looked down and sure enough there were catfish, sitting on the down-sun side of the  hillocks on the base of the channel. How you take advantage of this knowledge is to cast your bait (I use chicken liver or mackerel pieces)into the water with the sun at your back and gently retrieve line t until you feel your terminal gear slow down as it goes up one of the hillocks. As you retrieve it a little more, you can sense when it goes down the other side.  Then I prop my rod and reel in a holder, open the bail, sit back and enjoy the day.

My standard rig for catching cat fish is a medium-tipped rod, an ambitious load of 10-pound test low visibility monofilament on my reel, and a sliding sinker rigged on the line between about three to five feet between two swivels. The terminal part of my standard rig is two feet of 110-15 pound leader, and laser sharpened hooks.

Lake Mendocino has been as good to me as the Colorado River. I gave up fishing Clear Lake in the mid-70’s after accidentally catching too many carp.

Cat fishing, it’s relaxing, a good way to spend time outdoors and you’re probably only separated by one degree in your family who can give you a great catfish recipe.

But no matter,  cat fishing isn’t just a night time activity anymore. And, now that the water temp is dropping off San Diego, it’s time I became reacquainted with catfishing. Hey, it’s a rough life and someone has to live it-- Jim Forbes (09/14/2008).

Another Oddity about Fishing LA County's San Gabriel River-- When Creatures Pop 40-pound test and Straighten Big Hooks

For the last five years.  A handful of ,my fishing buddies up in Eastern Los Angeles County have been telling me about their “secret halibut grounds”—where my pristine San Gabriel River, born of virgin snow in the Angeles National Forest north of Azusa, empties into the Pacific as a brown fetid flow. The confluence of the San Gabriel River

and the Pacific Ocean is a filthy piece of mud with occasional 20-foot flat deep water in (depending on how bad your land navigation skills are) Long Beach or Seal Beach.

I chalk up their stories of halibut “so big that they break 40-pound test like a kite string” to foul hooking debris moving in the current along the floor of the waterway. The only problem with my theory is that two of my buddies are serious as a heart attack guys who spend as much money for the line and terminal gear as I spend on lures. These are YBA (Young Buddhist Association) fishing-trip indoctrinated Japanese American men of my age who know as much about catching finned animals as anyone featured on Discovery Channel fishing shows. 

These guys don’tembellish fishing exploits and they most often can tell the difference between a halibut bite and a fun loving seal.

So, I grudgingly admit that big halibut are a “definite possible maybe “ down at the confluence of the San Gabriel River and the Pacific Ocean and ask my buddies “how’s the fishing?” when I see them on the weekends.

And for the last year my buds keep telling me “there are enormous things down there stealing bait and straightening hooks.”

Turns out they were dead on (read this).

Oh My, a forgotten colony of Giant green sea turtles?

If I see even one of these suckers clambering up the faces of Morris or San Gabriel Dam  to go gnaw some trout, I’m hanging up my fly outfit for good and talking up golf.

A river might run through it amid boulders as old as time, but 200- or 300-pound giant green sea turtles perched on top of those ageless boulders makes me laugh. Hai!—Jim Forbes 08/30/2008

Yum Yum Yellowtail-- They're Off San Diego in Quantity

Yellowtail on plastic waiting to be cleaned

 

Growing up in Southern California, I’d wait patiently for the Thursday edition of the Los Angeles Times and it’s Sports Section.  In addition to a regular column by the late sports columnist, Jim Murray, it also had sport fishing catch reports from ports up and down the California coast.

            My belief that San Diego was the place I wanted to drown anchovies from is rooted in those long ago catch reports. And right now—in Mid June, 2008—is all the proof I’ve ever wanted.

            I tentatively launched my boat yesterday mid morning from the ramp at Dana Landing in Mission Bay and motored out to the Everingham Brothers Bait Barge to pick up a half scoop of active big sardines. Given a choice between a $20 half scoop of sardines or the anchovies, I’ll go with sardines every time.

            I left the harbor and steamed for the seaward side of the help beds that line the coastline from Torrey Pines to Imperial Beach on the Mexican border. I plopped an active sardine into the water, cut back the throttle to maintain steerage and watched my unweighted line unwind as my bait made for free water about 50 feet off the port side of my bow.

            I wasn’t exactly ready for the first strike. My line took off and I barely prevented creating a rats nest on the spool of my reel by clamping down with my thumb. I thumbed the reel in gear, reared back on the rod and the fish took off for the kelp. The run for the kelp, and the strength of the fish immediately made me confident I had hooked a yellowtail.  This gutsy, but oh so tasty Thunnoid family member is a school fish, so when you catch one yellowtail, you can be very sure there are others nearby.

            Very soon I had the fish next to my boat, which is when it decided it wanted me to do laps around the deck.  But very soon, after not letting the fish wrap the line around my outboard, I slashed down with the boat hook and brought my yellowtail on board.

            Slowly making my way north on the outside in a flat calm sea, I lost five more sardines to slashing attacks from fast hitting fish. But by noon I had two nice “big schoolies”—15 to 20 pound yellowtail-- on board, and was listening to fishing boat skippers trade reports of limits of barracuda and big legal white sea bass (which are making a strong comeback here on the San Diego coast) as well as fishermen catching limits of calico bass and the infrequent sheepsheads.

            By noon I was beginning to feel the effects of sun burn on the tops of my unshod feet, so I headed back to the ramp, loaded my boat on its trailer and headed home to Escondido to clean the one fish I kept for my household.

            I don’t remember a better yellowtail season in a non El Nino year and as long as the air temps hover around 90, I think the run is going to last through the summer. So, if your travels take you to San Diego, do take the time to go out on an all-day boat. Be prepared for fun but you may also want to pack some soy saice and wasabi in your tackle box. Yum,yum fresh yellowtail sushi for a boat lunch.  It doesn’t get any better for a summer Southern California fishing treat. – Jim Forbes 06/19/2008.

2008 California Salmon Season Cancelled--Major Bummer

In addition to $3.50 per gallon gas, and the fact that when I tow my boat behind my massively manly Toyota V6 4Runner I get about 9 miles to the gallon, here’s another damn reason why I won’t be going up north to fish for salmon later this Spring: fishing for salmon in California’s coastal waters has been cancelled this year see here.

            This is the first time in my memory when an entire salmon season in all of California’s coastal waters has been cancelled. The decision to close California’s coastal salmon fishery was made early this week and follows a federal closure of the salmon fishery that extends 200 miles from the coast, the edge of our international maritime boundary.

            A decision to close the inland Central and Northern California 2008 salmon season will not be made until early May. However the inland waters season is likely to be cancelled as well, according to reports in today’s Sacramento Bee.

            The reason for the closure is to protect remaining stocks of wild salmon that migrate up stream to their natal inland waterways to spawn and then die.

            Commercial and sport salmon fishing is a multimillion-dollar industry in California and over the last several years the number and size of salmon caught by commercial and sport fishermen alike has declined. Likewise, the number of wild Chinook (aka King) salmon counted by Fish and Game biologists, passing through fish ladders on the Sacramento River and its tributaries, has also fallen.

            As a sport fisherman who really enjoys chasing salmon off the Golden Gate, or further North off the Humboldt Coast, I have very mixed feelings about the salmon fishing closure.  On one hand, I will really miss tussling a slab sided King to the side of my boat, however, taking the pressure off the remaining salmon stocks for one or two seasons may result in my being able to catch free running wild salmon at a later date.

            I do feel sorry for members of the commercial salmon fishing fleet on the San Francisco coast. Until the albacore appear late this summer, there’s just no way they can make any money.—Jim Forbes 04/15/2008/

Perfect River Conditions and Willing Trout--Best East Fork Trip Ever

The combination of warm early spring sun on top of some recent rain (which translated to snow on the slopes of Mount Baldy and Iron Mountain on the San Gabriel River’s East Fork made for one of the best fishing hikes I’ve ever made on the East Fork.

            Parking at the trailhead just up from the East Fork Ranger Station on Friday, I thought I might ry to make it up to the Bridge to No Where and Fish my way back down the canyon. Alas, walking up the East Fork, my plans were derailed after I noticed that pools up and down the watershed were filled with trout. I made my first cast into a pool about two-miles up from the ranger station. I zipped my barb less #16 wooly into the cold waters of the east fork and got a hit by a 16-inch rainbow that wanted to run, jink and jive among the not yet worn smooth of this classic East Fork trout pool.  My 4x lightweight tippet lasted a whole 10 minutes before it gave out as I tried to horse the fish to within range of my net. I tied on another fly and 4X tippet,  roll-casting the rig at the top end of a small rill where I thought there might be a few ‘bows waiting for tasty bugs to come wafting down on the icy clear current.  I guessed wisely and my fly hadn’t floated more than five feet down stream before a fat rainbow grabbed it, I set the line and stepped into the water, determined I would land the bow that began jumping within one minute of my hooking it.

            I lwt the fish perform his trout acrobatics for a couple of minutes, mindful not to put too much pressure on the line, but hopeful I could maneuver it close enough to my spot on the rocks that I’d be able to net it. There was enough fight in the fish to light up my hopes that it was a native wild East Fork rainbow. Bent over with my net in my right hand and my rid and reel tucked under my left arm, the fish made one last run just as I got it near to my net. Three minutes more and Mr. Rainbow was in my net. I looked at the fish closely and noted it blunt nose and dullish pink side. Oh well, “a feisty big stocker that’s porked out over the winter is more than “OK” I thought.

            I unhooked him, stepped into a deeper part of the river and let him swim away, to tease a fisherman another day. Although I could see more rainbows as dark torpedo shapes flashing their red or green sides in the reflected morning sunlight in the deepest sections of the pool I wanted to test my luck in waters further up the canyon where a lifetime of experience and countless stories over holiday dinners has led me to believe there is a much higher concentration of wild native fish. Beside, another guy my age and his seven-year-old fishing buddy were rigging up and wading out down stream from me.

            “Any luck?” they asked.

“Yup a couple of nice feisty rainbows and the pool looks really loaded,” I said as I took my disgustingly dirty t shirt off and used it as a screen to see what kind of bugs were hiding under boulders.”

The young fisherman earned a lot of points in my book by wandering over to see what insects were trapped in my shirt “Hellgrammites and nymphs” he said correctly. I slipped my short sleeve shirt back on, said “have fun” and hit the trail up the stream.

From down river, I heard words that made me smile “Hey gramps, looks like we should be casting nymphs, woolies and hellgrammite flies.”  The kid had it exactly right. It always warms my heart and makes me smile to see another generation of kids refine their knowledge of this world-class trout stream, only 42 miles from down town Los Angeles. Even if it means that I face more competition for trout, more informed fishermen is a very good thing for this stream and it’s future as a spot where avid fishermen using inexpensive gear trick a few trout up using basic flies.

After another hour of hiking I came to what is my second favorite spot on the East Fork, a large pond formed by an old hand made stone dam near an abandoned powder house made of cemented river stone. I took a minute to climb to a place on the trail where I could see down into the pond.  After seeing six or seven trout rise to snag bugs on a late morning hatch, I walked quietly down to the eastern edge of this majestic pond and cast an old dry Coachman pattern fly on a small barb less hook about 20- feet down stream.  I was intently staring at the fly as I worked it back upstream.  I saw two fish dart from the edges of the pool towards my fly but both fish interrupted their runs and seemed to loose interest as the fly neared my rod tip on the retrieve. Four casts later and I had a hook up. The trout pressured my line and bent my rod tip. I let him take a couple of pulls from my reel, hoping that the resistance of my floating line would tire him enough for me to see the fish before I could get it into position for my net. Only 30 seconds after I fed this fish some line, I was treated to a nice native 14-incher with crimson red sides imitating a Polaris sub-launched rocket twisting over the water in a fantastic jump.  Looking at the fish in mid-ai, I saw that my fly had fallen to the water. The trout turned and for a half second before he landed, I swear that old homegrown rainbow smiled at me. And, that’s hard for a trout to do. They have very stiff lips.

My problem was two-fold with that trout. I don’t think the hook on that fly has been sharpened in ages and I should have paid more attention to the retrieve.  Never mind: I had more flies and I knew there were definitely more fish where that one came from.

  I merely tied on a new barb less hook I knew was laser sharp and made two more casts under a midday sun so bright you could see all the way to the bottom of the pool where experience has taught me that really big natives hang out, waiting to teach me new tricks.

I fished for another 90 minutes, catching and releasing three more 11- to 13-inch trout with well-defined snouts and bright colored sides.

            In a life time of fishing the East Fork, broken only by serving overseas in Viet Nam and a two-year period living in Washington, this could well have been my best trip ever up the San Gabriel River’s East Fork. The river is clear, cold and swift. The trout are rested, hungry and eager to rise to a fly.

            So,if you’re a Southern California fisherman looking for a top-flight fishing experience, load up your gear, make sure you have a valid fishing license and Forest Service Outdoor Pass, and head up the East Fork.

            It’s spiritual fishing at its best and it doesn’t require an airplane reservation, or a $500 shopping trip to an Orvis outlet.

            Besides, any place where a trout throwing a fly as it jumps and smiling at me as it does so is my kind of fishing paradise.—Jim Forbes, an old Azusa boy on 03/08/2008.