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By Sean Fenner, July 28, 2010

The last couple of weeks have been go, go, and go some more. Between Work, Personal Obligations, and my Wife’s sister being out from Las Vegas. I have had absolutely NO TIME TO FISH!!!

Saturday marked a break in the chaos. We traded in our working gloves for a nice relaxing weekend up in Big Bear, and to me that meant Saturday morning fishing on the Santa Ana River.

I arrived at my starting point at about 6:00 am, and the birds were just starting to sing their melodies as the sun rose to the east. I grabbed my gear, hit the first hole, and from the first cast I just felt all the stress and tension melt away.

I’m sure it helped that I pulled about 5 nice little Brown Trout and Rainbow Trout out of the first hole, and the fish just continued to show. I was enjoying the beauty around me so much. I almost forgot that I run a fishing blog and my camera was begging to get in on the action.

The day was more than I could ask for. I got hung up a few times and even lost a couple of flies. But, when you’re catching that many fish it doesn’t seem to matter.

The only thing I need to get through my thick head, is to bring insect repellent. After my arrival back at the cabin I was covered from head to toe in bug bites, though my bliss seemed to help me ignore them (at least until the next morning)

By 11:30 the Bait fishermen were out in full force, and I decided to say adeu. I did however stop to greet each one I passed checking for a fishing license, and to make sure they were not out laying a slaughter fest on the stream. A couple of guys even asked me if they had stocked recently (I guess I just look official), to which I replied they never stock this stream and you should probably head over to the Lake. What can I say, they just seem to rub me the wrong way. Plus, I really can’t stand the smell of Powerbait!

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By Sean Fenner, May 28, 2010

Last Saturday morning my younger brother Steven and I had a couple of hours to go and get a quick scouting report on the main So Cal River Beds. We started the morning with Starbucks and a little bit of music to get us in the spirit.

First stop was to the LA River at Glendale Narrows. The water was clear and promising, the trees were green and lush, but the Carp were no where to be found. We walked about a mile stretch of the river with a Mallards, Geese, and Cormorants. A Chow Chow dog stopped us in the middle of our trek back to the car, as the about 14 year kid holding him back looked more scared than we did. So, off the the next Brownline on the map we went.

Next up was the San Gabriel River at Whittier Narrows which I was hoping to see stuffed with Tilapia and again not a single fish spotted. I stopped a few older Hispanic men fishing the river and after a short great of  “Contraron Pescados” and after three simultaneous No’s,  to the other side of the river we went. We stepped around the bushes and into the “Homeless City” we found ourselves. I quickly apologized and we said our goodbyes to our newly found friends. At this point I was starting to get a little worried, as in my mind I was thinking that this time last year there were fish all over these two stretches of River.

Our third and final destination was the Santa Ana River Bed at the intersection of the 91 & 57 freeways and by this time I wasn’t in the best of mood. We had about 30 minutes left before we had to shoot home to meet my wife and get to the Aquarium Of The Pacific to meet our friends. We walked a short stretch and one guy told us he’d seen a pod of Carp earlier that morning, but no fish again (not one). On the way back to the car I viewed an Osprey carrying a Trout from Santa Ana River Lakes in it’s claws racing to get the fish to it’s hatchlings.

In short the lack of fish concerns me, especially since I have been hearing stories of guys down at all three river beds with bait nets pulling out 100′s of fish. If you decide to fish down here, please practice “Catch and Release”. The fish aren’t good eating and it’s not like the California Department of Fish & Game stocks these waters. I will be really hard for people to petition the state to get these made into recognized fisheries, if there aren’t any fish left!

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By Dan Zambrano, February 7, 2010

So, my wife and I were barreling down the westbound 91 freeway today in our 27-foot long mobile animal hospital, gulping down foil wrapped food-like substances as we used our theoretical lunch hour to make up time between appointments when I saw the zig-zag dance of flashing blue and red lights about ¾ of a mile ahead of us.

In SoCal that usually means that the Highway Patrol is running a traffic break.

In case you are unfamiliar with such things, a traffic break is a technique that allows the CHP to create a temporary safe space in the endless flow of traffic so that the dauntless CalTrans workers can retrieve some object or cover some substance that presents a hazard to the motoring public.

The CHP car roars onto the freeway and then with full lights and sirens, begins to sashay back and forth across all eight lanes of traffic, daring anyone to pass them. Eventually everyone falls into place and then it is simply a matter of waiting to see if we will all come to a complete stop or just creep along at five miles per hour until whatever needs to be removed is removed.

Typically, the offending object is a wayward extension ladder from a work truck, or a mattress that someone was certain would stay on the roof of their car with a tie-down made from a pair of granny-knotted boot laces and a hank of the protective plastic overwrap held firmly in the driver’s left hand. Occasionally, the objects are much more unusual and offer some relief – in a perverse sort of way — to the frustration of coming to a complete stand still on a major highway. I have personally seen a 26-foot Boston Whaler complete with dual outboards, a stack of wooden pallets, numerous orange Big Wheel tricycles, the blade for a bulldozer and a kitchen table sitting where they ought not be.

Whatever the object, it is usually retrieved, pushed, pulled, scooped, scraped or sanded down in mere moments and then traffic roars back to life the way stock cars do when the yellow flag gets lifted at a Nascar event.

In any event, as soon as I saw the flashing lights today, I knew we were gonna be late.

Not that I minded so much. The precious seconds at a standstill gave me enough time to finish my meal without accidentally ingesting bits of foil and to glance over to the right side of the road to study and daydream about the section of the Santa Ana River that runs parallel to the highway at that point.

You see, there is about a three-mile section of river there that has the potential to be a fly casters dream. Were it anywhere else, there would be a mom & pop fly shop somewhere on the bank with guys in waders lunching on the front porch, savoring coffee and homemade apple pie and swapping stories of the one that broke off just before it got to net. Were it anywhere else, local clubs would be diligently and lovingly tending the banks and removing invasives. Were it anywhere else, magazines would have ads recommending guide services to it. Were it anywhere else, I wouldn’t have been sitting in traffic, staring at it and wishing I were fishing…

But circumstances being what they were, I sat there and opted to practice a little river reading over pontificating to my long-suffering wife on the bumper sticker slogan plastered on the SMART car in front of us. So, in the few moments that we were stopped I noticed a fast main channel with an excellent drift past sand bars and over gravel beds. I noticed pockets of slower water and undercuts. I saw numerous boulders offering shelter and opportunity from within the main flow. I noted that the brush was beat down from recent storms and there were a couple of snags where fish might sit. I noticed the foam lines and how bits of debris moved as they rode the current and lastly, I noticed the posted sign warning that it is an area that is off limits to fishing.

That last thing, the no fishing sign bugged me. I don’t know why it is there. Believe me, there are far worse spots that ought to be off limits but where we regularly “fling some string”. This section of the Santa Ana appears to be a picture perfect place to practice a little urban fly fishing – not picture perfect as in those stunning shots you see in magazines — get real, this is SoCal: A major freeway runs parallel just yards from it and concrete and chain link line the banks. I mean picture perfect in the sense that it has many, if not most, of the elements that make it the kind of place where fish are found and where anglers want to fish but it is closed.

It seems like a waste of good water to not be able to fish that section of river.

…Predictably, the flashing lights edged over to the right shoulder and traffic began inching then lurching then speeding forward. The cause for the delay this time, turned out to be a solo spin-out who, despite the scattered bits of plastic fender still littering the roadway appeared to be shaken but healthy.

Through careful and judicious use of lane changes, speed limits and knowledge that the CHP officer on duty was parked a few miles back lecturing a twenty-something about driving and cell phone use, we were not late to our next appointment.

In fact, I arrived somewhat refreshed, having taken a little three-minute mental fly-fishing vacation on the way to our destination.

I am going to have to do a little investigative snooping though – I’ll keep you posted.

I love the addiction called urban fly-fishin’.

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By Dan Zambrano, December 2, 2009

There are several places around the world where it is often claimed that the weather is so variable that one need only wait twenty minutes or so for a change if the current situation isn’t to one’s liking.

SoCal would not be one of those places.

Instead, one of the claims to fame for SoCal is that the weather and geography is such that one can ski in the morning and turn around and surf in the afternoon.

As a native Angeleno I can vouch for the accuracy of the second statement and as a fly fisherman I would further refine that phrase to say that one can stream fish for trout in the morning and surf fish for perch in the afternoon.

It often happens that, depending upon the time of year, one can also be standing in the snow in the morning while roll casting a 3-wt. on said narrow mountain creek and then be wet wading in the surf with an 8-wt. come the afternoon.

It’s an awesome thing, even if it does make packing the car and loading the vest or pack a tad difficult.

Now as most of you probably already know, this past weekend we celebrated the Thanksgiving holiday and, as is the common custom here in SoCal, about a hundred thousand of us trekked up into the mountains to “get away from it all”. As much as I hate crowds, I must confess that I, along with my lovely wife and some of our dearest friends (yes that includes my fishin’ buddy Sean and his beloved bride) were among the mobile masses.

Nothing says “over the river and through the woods…” like struggling to maneuver around a thirty-five vehicle long line of SUV’s in the drive-thru for Starbucks and then crawling along in a twenty-five-mile long traffic jam while the vehicle next to you literally shudders from the bass beats of the Black-Eyed Peas.

However, once we eventually inched past the turn-off toward Las Vegas, where most of the vehicles seemed to be heading, traffic opened up and my mood lightened in proportion to the frequency that billboards gave way to oaks and then pines.

We finally arrived at our mountain retreat by late afternoon under clear sunny skies and mild temperatures.

My parents had made the drive up the hill (as we call it– even if it is a 6500 foot high “hill”) earlier in the week and good ‘ol Mom had immersed herself in a cooking frenzy such that we were greeted by the mouth-watering aromas of turkey in the oven and sweet potato pie cooling on the counter.

Needless to say, in addition to our feast, we had much to be thankful for and the rest of the day, including the moonlit walk along the boardwalk over the southeast shore of Big Bear Lake, more than made up for the mildly rocky start.

Before retiring for the night, Sean and I confirmed and reconfirmed with our spouses and the rest of our party that they had absolutely no intention of arising early (as in before 11 a.m.) and thus assured, he and I made plans to hit the upper portion of the Santa Ana River while everyone else recovered from a turkey and stuffing induced coma.

Friday dawned clear and cold. We fortified ourselves with hot coffee (I also managed to break into the fruitcake — yes the fruitcake — without making too much noise) and we headed off.

If this “Black Friday” was chaos at the malls, it was bliss in the local mountains. We saw only two other vehicles during the entire drive to the river and encountered no other anglers the entire morning. Tens of thousands of people in the mountains and we saw no one – such is the paradox of SoCal.

But then again, perhaps the rest of the angling world had heard that conditions were less than suitable and we were the ones on a fool’s errand.

In any event, we found the correct turn-off and drove about a mile back on the dirt road paralleling the river, stopping frequently at various wide spots and near bridges that criss-crossed the water. Sean used a dry/nymph rig and I fished a size 18 nymph in the deeper pools and wider riffles–which is to say the sections that were wider than what we could jump. We hop scotched along the different sections of the river working our way downstream. The sun had not yet reached into the bottom of the canyon and it was cold. In fact, ice lined the bank of the stream, especially in the deeper shadows.

As the morning wore on, the sun eventually peeked over the ridge and the overall scene immediately took on a magical quality. Sunlight washed over the tops of the trees and highlighted the light glazing of frost in the almost bare upper branches. A few moments later, shafts of light poured down through the trees and illuminated the ice, transforming the river into a something like a Thomas Kincaide painting.

As beautiful and as peaceful as it was, the fishing was poor. Sean managed to pull in only one small but vibrant Brown Trout the entire time and I only managed to illicit one feeble, half-hearted rise toward my fly. We changed flies frequently but just couldn’t find the winning pattern.

We moved further downstream. Sean found a smooth, clear pool with what looked like the dark outlines of several decent Trout holding by the near side bank. I held tight where I had a panoramic view of the unfolding mini-drama as he crept slowly forward in a low, crouching position using the spindly brush along the bank for cover so as not to spook the fish. He made his cast. It was textbook perfect with a fine, tight loop that slipped between the overhanging, barren branches and past the leaning trunk of an old Jeffery Pine.

His dry/dropper combo landed neatly at the edge of the pool but did not move in the normal fashion. After a few seconds, he picked up and cast again. It was another well-formed loop landing precisely where targeted and still it did not drift as it ought.

Puzzled, he cast yet again to the same pool only to get the same result.

Now, it is often said that the definition of insanity is attempting to do the same thing over and over while expecting to get different results.

To the best of my knowledge, Sean is not insane.

Thus, after the third cast with the same results, he pulled in his line and approached the pool that had looked so promising but now simply seemed perplexing.

I too could stand it no longer, so I also approached this little pocket of water. We both stood there for a moment until the cause of the mystery revealed itself. A crystal clear and amazingly thin sheet of ice had formed on the surface of the water where Sean was casting. It extended out from the bank to about mid way across the pool.

He was effectively casting onto a glass tabletop though neither one of us could see it from our original positions along the bank.

There were indeed Trout beneath the ice. They sat tight to the bottom watching us, confident that we could not reach them. They were like the boorish uncle who teases the lion from the outside of the enclosure, smug in the knowledge that the thick plexiglass will allow him to escape the fate everyone else secretly wishes upon him.

We continued to stand there and laughed about this neat little trick of nature. We joked about being true SoCal boys and thus being naïve to the subtleties of frozen water.

It seemed like a good time to wrap things up so we decided to call it a morning and head back to our wives and breakfast.

The trip home was quiet and reflective. We didn’t speak much but when we did, it was to comment on the quiet beauty of the river and the unexpected but very welcome lack of anglers on what should have been a very busy holiday weekend.

We both agreed that a huge part of the appeal of fly-fishing is the discovery of the unexpected – sometimes it’s unexpected but obvious once you stumble upon it and other times it’s as fleeting and as elusive as crystal clear ice on a lonely, narrow mountain stream deep in the heart of a forest surrounded by millions of people.

I love this addiction called urban fly fishin’.