Attention anglers, conservationists and river goers! Trout Unlimited, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the Forest Service tagged 22 rainbow trout and 3 brown trout with radio tags in the Little Truckee River (LTR). This year long monitoring effort will help better manage and understand the LTR system, and help better implement fish habitat improvement projects. Not only this, the data gained through monitoring will be essential to understanding trout streams all over the United States. We need volunteers to help track trout! If you are interested in tracking these trout in the field please email Sam Sedillo:
You will be trained on how to operate the tracking equipment, data entry, and have an unparalleled look into how trout move through the Little Truckee River.
If you are lucky enough to catch or find a tagged trout (image above), please take a picture, measure (if possible) and email the info to:
Chris Wood, the President and CEO of Trout Unlimited, gives his annual State of Trout Unlimited speech at the Trout Unlimited annual meeting in Bozeman, MT.
I read recently that the Millennial generation cares more about experiences than possessions. This was gratifying to me, as I have hewn to that credo myself since I was old enough to understand the choice—and my two children are the tail end of the Millennials.
It got me thinking about the kinds of experience that deliver greater value than “stuff.” For me, it has everything to do with place. Some places whisper to us, shape and define us, their handiwork glacial or catalytic as lightning. Eventually our returns to them coalesce into habit, thence to tradition.
Without having to think hard about it, I can tell you the places which have exerted such influence on me that an annual visit became a “necessary embrace...beautiful as fire,” as put forth by Robinson Jeffers in the poem The Excesses of God.
Read More on the TU blog.
I realize that this is a Trout Unlimited newsletter, but I have confession to make to all of you: I love to fish for more than just trout. Now don't get me wrong. Trout are fabulous, but I'll fish for just about anything that has fins. For me the list includes trout, salmon, steelhead, black bass, smallmouth bass, bluegill, shad and striped bass. I really love to fish for striped bass. If you haven't tried fishing for stripers yet, make this the season you get out and give it a go.
We are lucky because Andy Guibord, a local striped bass guru and fly tyer, works at Kiene's Fly Shop and has agreed to teach a class at our April meeting on tying flies for striper fishing the American River. I have had the good fortune to tie flies and fish with Andy and can guarantee he knows what he is talking about. Don't miss this chance to learn from one of Sacramento's best striped bass fisherman.
I wanted nothing to do with fishing for many years when my son Isaac was small. Unfortunately I simply did not have the patience required to take a motor-driven, hyperactive, six year old fishing. The good news is that Cheryl, my wife, did, and she took Isaac and his brother Joshua fishing when they were young.
I started fly fishing by accident. When Isaac was about 8, he and I went camping together in Lassen National Park, just the two of us. To be honest I had struggled to connect with Isaac when he was young. Camping was something we both loved to do so I thought it would be a good way to spend some time with just him. Isaac badly wanted to fish on the trip so we took along his rod and his tackle box. By chance we met another father and son that were also on a trip together and were fishing. Greg was the father's name and he suggested we fish King's Creek for brookies. Isaac and I went there and he was able to catch several small fish on salmon eggs. To say that he was happy does not even begin to capture the smile and excitement of that moment. It was also one of the best moments of my life as a father.