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By Sean Fenner, November 25, 2009 9:54 pm

The California Department of Fish and Game has posted the list of the fishing spots that they will be stocking this week for Region 5-South Coast Region. Remember to practice catch and release as much as possible, pick up trash when you see it, and respect this resource so that everyone can enjoy it!!!

(Rainbow Trout)

(Channel Catfish)

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By Dan Zambrano, November 22, 2009 7:00 am

One thing about being an avid angler AND owning and operating a veterinary housecall practice is that every day has the potential to bring surprises and smiles that simply don’t exist in a traditional brick and mortar hospital

Imagine, for example, my surprise when I spied the phrase, “Go Fishing — $2.00” added to the bottom of the sign for the Montebello Barnyard Zoo where we were scheduled to conduct annual exams and administer vaccines to the livestock there.

Now, if your mind works anything like mine, just seeing the word “fishing” triggers something akin to what must go on in the brain of a hound dog when he finally picks up the sought after scent.

However, focus is required when one is working on full-grown llamas and such lest one catch a kick in an unexpected place or a face full of alpaca spit. And it takes concentration and a steady hand to rope a goat or catch a running chicken. (Remember the training scenes in “Rocky”?) So even though I had noticed that darn “fishing” thing on the sign as soon as we walked through the gates, I had to intentionally shove that thought deep into the recesses of my head until we were finished checking everyone out and the sharps had all been safely stored away and the vaccines were back in the fridge along with any blood and/or fecal samples.

But you can bet, once everyone was inspected, injected and given a clean bill of health and all that was left to do was to settle up the accounting, I inquired about the fishing phrase posted on the sign.

“Oh, you wan’ to see my newest proyect?” The owner replied in his heavily accented English. “Is jus’ a little thing I thought los ninos would like.”

So like an obedient puppy, I followed the proprietor to the back of the property while visions of a private lake stocked with Alpers Trout danced in my head.

We worked our way around the rental picnic areas and the gold-panning sluice and in between the merry-go-rounds and past the mini train station and out toward the far end of the property to… a small pond approximately ten feet wide and twenty feet long and about a foot deep.

Reality hurts sometimes.

Still, it was a charming little pond. The rockwork and landscaping were well done and it all fit in nicely with the overall theme and scale of the zoo. It just wasn’t the private estate lake I had built it up to be in my mind during the brief walk to see it.

Nor did it hold any prized Trout. In fact, the “fishing” turned out to be snagging plastic, floating decoy ducks by a cleverly designed hook and ring system as they drifted by a split-rail fence.

Somewhat disappointed, but not wanting to appear rude or discourage the inventiveness of our host, we each took a fishing pole in hand while one of the farm hands fired up the high volume pump that caused a whole flock of plastic ducks with metal rings protruding from their backs to go zipping past us in an endless swim to nowhere.

The rods had a fixed length of heavy monofilament attached to the end and a rather unique hook. I took consolation in the fact that they were vaguely similar to the Tenkara rods that are carried by TenkaraUSA. After a few half-hearted attempts to land one of the ducks, I realized that this fishing game was actually rather challenging. After ten minutes, I realized it was bloody addictive and down right ingenious.

We might have spent the better part of the afternoon there twitching and jerking the rods with the oversized hooks on the ends in an a near futile attempt to snag one of the bobbing birds but we had other patients to see and other stops on the schedule so I somewhat reluctantly relinquished my pole and congratulated the proprietor on his newest venture, wishing him much success and many two-dollar ticket sales.

As we pulled away from the farm, I smiled to myself, partly because of the surprising way the day had turned out but also because I know SoCal is a big, eclectic and eccentric place and there are a whole lot of pets out there. One day we will stumble across the right property and the right pet owner and I will have a standing invitation to practice my roll casts on a private pond stocked with fat, sassy Rainbows.

I love this addiction called Urban Fly Fishin’.

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By Sean Fenner, November 21, 2009 8:15 pm

As a Fly Fisherman I have grown to have a Love/Hate relationship with Winter. On one hand I love the fact that many people stop going up into the Moutains, and living in the year round fishery that is Southern California that means Trout Fishing actually becomes bareable. But on the other hand the Urban fisheries slow down the Trout get stocked in the Park Lakes and people are out fishing for them elbow to elbow, and the Warm Water fish stop biting. I chose this photo of a Largemouth Bass that I recently caught, because it will probably be the last one until spring arives!!!

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By Sean Fenner,

The inchworm is a fly pattern that I have just recently discovered, and I am liking what I have seen. I have tied it on twice up in Gabriels and both times the trout really seemed to key in on it. This fly is supposed to be imitating a moth larva, though I personally have never seen them on any water I fish in the Gabriels or the Berdinos. But, the Trout hit it and that’s all that matters.  I like one with a nice indicator tuft for easy visibility, it helps if your fly drifts into a shadow cast on the water. I am finding that the more  I am willing to adapt and try new patterns and techniques I am coming away skunked less and less, but don’t get me wrong I still have my days!

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By Sean Fenner, November 17, 2009 10:39 pm

The California Department of Fish and Game has posted the list of the fishing spots that they will be stocking this week for Region 5-South Coast Region. Remember to practice catch and release as much as possible, pick up trash when you see it, and respect this resource so that everyone can enjoy it!!!

(Rainbow Trout)

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By Dan Zambrano, November 16, 2009 9:30 pm

It’s cross over time in urban SoCal.

The local weather conditions and temperatures are such that Fish & Game is stocking both catfish and trout at many of the local urban lakes. This influx of fish is stirring up all kinds of fishing activity. For most of us brownliners that’s about as close to winning the lottery as it gets.

A quick stop at or even a drive-by past many of the local waters will easily confirm this and will attest to the fact that while we may not be a lot of things, we urban anglers are apparently quite literate, at least as far as fishing news is concerned and we apparently follow the stocking schedules the way blue-haired heiresses consult astrological charts — that is, frequently and faithfully.

This past week, for example, Sean and I managed to connect for about an hour and a half between appointments to squeeze in some fly-fishin’. We expected to find a couple of guys soaking bait but instead the lake we choose to hit was packed with a horde of fellow anglers catching everything from Bass to Trout to Catfish to Crappie on just about every kind of rig imaginable.

It was, as is often said in fishing circles, “wide open” and the local angling community responded accordingly and enthusiastically.

We found some decent and promising looking shoreline and I began tossing Sean’s variation of a bead head wooly bugger that I call “Fenner’s Phat Fly”. It’s olive green and black, has a little bit of flash in it (appropriately “ghetto” enough for the urban fly fishing environment) and it has been catching me a whole boatload of fish for the last three weeks. Sure, it is getting a little ratty looking and I’ve had to re-bend and re-sharpen the hook after snagging it in a bush and what not but, I gotta say, I’m lovin’ this fly.

Anyway, it worked it’s magic again and I landed a couple of Bass in short order. While I was playing one Bass, Sean hooked up to a Trout and a bait fisherman a few yards away landed a catfish – all within the space of about five minutes. Like I said, wide open.

Perhaps because of the frequency and relative ease of actually catching fish or maybe due to the density of fisherfolk or possibly even because of the crisp freshness of the air but whatever the reason, there seemed to be an overall congeniality at this lake that went beyond the norm. Don’t get me wrong, SoCal anglers are almost always cordial even if we don’t speak the same native tongue, which is highly likely since, according to linguistics experts, there are something like 224 different languages spoken in SoCal, not counting variations in dialect. This just seemed to go beyond mere courtesy and I ended up in several conversations including one that led to an invite down to the casting pond at Recreation Park in Long Beach from a member of the Long Beach Casting Club.

The LB Casting Club has night sessions and informal casting clinics every Tuesday and Thursday in addition to a whole bunch of other activities throughout the year ranging from rod-building clinics to multi-day excursions. I’ll have to check my calendar and go check it out. We will be sure to post the outcome when we do.

Anyway, as I made my way around the lake, I got pointers on the best fly lines, the best flies, the best fly rods to use on urban lakes and so on and so on which was rather amusing since Sean and I were the only ones actually fly fishing. Still it was all good-natured and sincere and considering that I was consistently bringing in a few decent fish under an amazing sunset, it was a pretty good day.

With darkness settling in and a whole bunch more catfish anglers arriving on the scene, Sean and I decided to pack it in and head off to our next appointment. As long as we kept the duck muck off our shoes, no one at our next meeting would even have to know that we had been happily fly fishing just minutes earlier.

I love this addiction called urban fly fishin’