Okay, so here’s your chance to play armchair newspaper editor and make up a caption for this photo of me posing with a beautiful Sacramento River rock that I took on hook and line last week.
Use the comments section below…
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Features
What say we go have a couple pints now, ol' boy?
“This was a post Christmas trip with my bud, Mark Atherton,” says Masters. “Prompted by the wives telling us to ‘get out from under their feet’ so they could visit the shops for the sales….” [click to continue…]
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Yep, that qualifies!
Bitter Milt Face (By “no snagn here “)
I overheard a guy say he caught a big Salmon and took it home and ate it from head to tail! Then he proceeded to say how good it was and how he even ate the lungs. His buddy said “you ate the lungs???” And he said: “Yea, those two big white things in the salmon’s stomach…I fried them up in the morning and ate them with eggs!” Then, with a huge grin on his face he said “Those aren’t lungs those are Salmon SPERM sac’s..!!” Just before he gave about 10 other fishermen a good half hour worth of giggles..he made the funniest face ever.. A combination of I think I just crapped myself + Bitter Beer Face = Bitter Milt Face.
What friends are for (By Kevin P.)
I was 16 years old and had just outfitted a 14-foot aluminum flat-bottom for the river. I spent every last penny I had made on it. First trip out to the Feather River…everything was going great. The boat was dialed in and I was pumped up! We were trolling with the bow-mount electric and I hooked into a king. I asked my buddy to fire up the big motor and get us away from the bank and the snags. So he starts the motor up puts it into gear (not reverse) turns right instead of left, gave it more gas when I said to stop. Hit a log with the prop and bent it to hell, broke the brand new trolling motor when we hit the bank & I lost the fish in the snag. While we were floating back to the boat ramp, I noticed he broke the rod I let him use while everything else was going on. He never offered to help me fix anything or help me pay for or replace anything. I never took him fishing again and we are still good buddies…just not fishing buddies.
Is it still “whitewater” if you can’t see it?(By Ray Fairfax)
A friend and I decided to float “the canyon” section Trinity river between
Douglas City and Junction City. The steelies were biting. A bit too well it seems, as nightfall hit while we were still 2 or so miles upstream from the Sky Ranch takeout. I can say with certainty that drifting a couple of miles down the Trinity by moonlight in a fiberglass driftboat is not something anyone should try. After negotiating the difficult canyon without contacting even one rock, those last couple of easy (in daylight) miles had me busy doing chine repairs for a few days. I know we don’t get extra points for spinelessness, but it was spine jarring!
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Prospecting for Salmo Salar
Here’s a quick photo essay of their mission compliments of Richard… [click to continue…]
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The Wunder Boner works great!
So, here we go with a new one-time mini contest…the…uh…well…”‘Wunder Boner of the Year” award in which we celebrate the largest bone-headed move, goofy plan or wussy maneuver in fishing. Feel free to nominate yourself or a buddy who’s ever committed a “wunder boner” on a fishing mission…
You know, like the time our pal Rancid had to bail on a fishing trip when he bent over and put a rod ferrel through his face. Or the time that buddy slammed your favorite GLoomis in the trunk…or that time you were on a drift boat trip and you got to the takeout and your pal says he left the keys to the shuttle vehicle back with the truck, which is now 8 miles upriver. Bonus points for a spinless wunder boner, like the time your pal bailed on the weekend fishing trip at the last second because his girlfriend called…you get the idea.
Send us a little note describing the gaffe and, if you have photographic evidence, so much the better! Best stories get the best little fish cleaning device ever invented: The Spinless Wunder Boner fish bone removal tool!
For details on just how handy the Wunder Boner is, check out the greatest TV Commercial of all time. “The Wunder Boner, my wife would like that…”
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The river now, looking downstream from Buellton towards the sea.
Santa Barbara, California (about an hour and a half north of LA) doesn’t exactly inspire images of deep canyons and emerald green water full of steelhead…but it would have back in the 1940′s, when the Santa Ynez River was home to annual runs of 25,000 anadramous rainbows!
But only a token handful of the great fish make it back each year now. The usual band of culprits did the river in: Water diversions, dams and development. etc. The biggest blow came in the early 1950′s when massive Cachuma Dam was completed, effectively blocking off the bulk of steelhead spawning habitat.
There are efforts in motion these days, however, to help the river claw its way back. You can read more about it HERE
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Jay Kennedy and 60 pounds of pure bad-assedness!
Fishing with our guide Gordon McKean of West Coast Fishing Adventures, Kennedy hooked the fish of a lifetime, this 60-pound Chinook salmon.
But rather than relate all the details, we’ll let Kennedy tell ya the story in his own words… [click to continue…]
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And this, folks, is why you play the game...
Here’s yet another prime example why fishing is so damn awesome: Our good friend from across “The Pond,” Richard Masters, fished the River Ribble near Lancashire in Northwest England last week. Unfortunately, the river was still high and pretty much blown out following a recent flood — and the fishing was lousy.
Masters says he threw hardware in the muddy water all day without success and then, on his way home the next morning, he made a quick stop along the river to get a feel for the new 5-weight trout fly rod he had just purchased…and then a funny thing happened: [click to continue…]
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