First Time On The Fall River

Three days with Three Amigos on California's most famous spring creek

Del

It was early June of 2007 when I drove through the gate of the Circle 7 Ranch located on the banks of the Fall River in northeastern California. For perspective’s sake, should you not be familiar with the river, It’s about ten miles northeast of the legendary Hat Creek near the town of Burney. The Fall River is the headwater of the Pit River which is legendary in its own right. The Fall’s origin is in a huge mountain meadow of the southern Cascades and is born of a lava tube that is fed by the Mt Shasta/Mt Lassen watersheds. As it flows through the rich agricultural valley it is additionally fed by thousands of springs all providing temperate water that is perfect for trout. Prior to the midcentury when the Pit River flows were interrupted by a series of dams and PG&E power plants, Steelhead made an annual spawning run with their progeny providing a wonderful fishery. For the past seventy years those progenies have been land locked but have managed to thrive. It’s an amazing fishery that is unlike any other water in California.

I pulled onto the property past a series of houses all modern except for one which judging by its 19^th century architectural style, was probably the original farmhouse. That was where I was to meet my companions for the next few days. I knocked on the door and Art answered it and invited me in to meet the guys The group consisted of my old friend Art (who you know from earlier postings) Jack and Del, all sixty something retired high school teachers. They had been coming back to the Fall River annually for years and I was the first new guy to join them, in sometime.

My friend Art is kind of a laid-back rugged guy, who had a devotion to hunting and fishing. He had spent his career teaching history and economics in a Sacramento area high school. Jack and Del were best buds going back thirty years and both had been English teachers. You could see that by the way they talked, each seemed to have a thesaurus embedded in their brains. Jack was the most laid-back of the two, and one could tell there was a tinge of sarcasm (which is a characteristic dear to my heart) whenever he spoke. Del was very outgoing and had lots to say about whatever subject was on the table. I knew I was going to enjoy the next few days with these guys.

We began unpacking the boxes of food and alcohol and once that was done, of course the first thing to do was open bottles of beer and wine. We then explored the house. The house was like a museum as someone had put in a lot of effort to make sure that everything from the light fixtures to the crocheted tablecloth on the antique dining room table were of the late Victorian era. Finally, we continued our tour outside the back door and before us was a sprawling grassy area with a deck that overlooked the river with Soldier Mountain looming behind it. Truly an amazing view.

We sat around the table that was perched on the deck and continued to consume our favorite drinks which at some point the talk turned to politics which didn’t turn out well. Jack who is a died in the wool Democrat expressed his point of view from that perspective and I who sees himself as a moderate was playing the devil’s advocate card, which I enjoy doing. What I didn’t consider was that after two or three glasses of wine the whole devil’s advocate position doesn’t come across to others, who also have been drinking, the way it is intended. Combine that with both my and Jack’s undertones of snarkyness, things were getting a little tense, though I thought in a friendly way. I was having fun with the back-and-forth banter. Del, took me aside and suggested that I tone my sarcasm down a little, which kind of shocked me as that was the first time that I had ever been asked that. The first thing that went through my mind was, here I had a chance to make some new friends, and was blowing it. Fortunately, I took his advice, and they have remained friends for years.

We barbequed up some rib-eyes and began to clean things up. As I was the cook, the clean up chores were left to Art, Del and Jack. The rinsed the dishes, placed them in the dishwasher and turned the dial to “on”. We refreshed our drinks and stepped outside to watch the sunset from the deck. After a while I went back into the kitchen to poor another glass of wine and found the floor covered in soap suds. I thought “what the f..k! I immediately knew what had happened, but I couldn’t figure out why. It was obvious that they must have squirted liquid dish detergent into the dishwasher rather than the powdered version that the machine was designed for. I had made the same mistake in the past but in my case I was only twenty years old experiencing my first time living away from home. At least I had an excuse. These guys were in their sixties!

We set about cleaning up the mess and at this point I was unable to dial back my sarcasm and began to interrogate them as to why they had done . . . what they had done. As it turned out it was a “boomer” thing. In the case of Jack and Del, both had been married for over fifty years and the operation of the dishwasher was left up to their wives. In Art’s case, He had been a bachelor all his life living in an older house whose kitchen had never been updated and consequently had never given any thought to what soap wass used in a dish washer. Fortunately for me Del’s sarcasm warning had happened an hour earlier and though it was excruciatingly difficult, I zipped my lips.

The next morning, we hopped into our boats which we rented from the ranch, and headed up the river. Art was at the helm of the outboard and occasionally I would stand up and watch the crystal clear water as we passed over thousands of skittering fish. What a way to start the day and I knew this surely would be one of my most successful days fishing ever. As we motored up the river the view along the shoreline was a panorama of post cards images. Behind us we could see snow covered Mt Lassen that last erupted in 1950 and before us the much closer snow covered Mt Shasta which is still considered active though it hasn’t erupted for around 500 years. Right at the shoreline were old, weathered corals and barns. Occasionally we would pass by a rustic mini-mansion that reminded us that literally all the shoreline along the Fall is private property and the only boat launching at the time was either the Cal-Trout access at the Island Rd bridge (no ramp, personal watercraft only) and at the PG&E Dredge Access off of McArthur Rd. As we motored up we encountered several bridges that sat so low we had to crunch down in the boat to avoid pancaking our heads. Thankfully we were going slow enough to react in time. We finally reached what the map showed as Zug Bug alley and apparently every fisherman in the area had the same map as they all seemed to be there. There were boats holding three fishermen which I assumed were being helmed by guides. There were also plenty of tiny prams with 2 horse outboards holding only one fishermen. Judging by the similarity in their attire it looked like they all had the same tailor too as they were mostly wearing fishing shirts, shorts, sandals and those double billed hats that were so common in the old days. We didn’t quite fit in as we were wearing baseball caps and T-Shirts. What would you expect from three guys from Sacramento. I had a fleeting thought that should we anchor up among them, if we might be asked to leave.

Art

We slowly motored around the other fishermen and just watched for rises. We had already seen quite a few fish as we arrived but nor rises yet, though we observed all of the other guys were fishing dries, so we thought there was a lull in the hatch. It didn’t take very long until the hatch started again, and they were obviously PMDs (Pale Morning Dunns). We also observed that the fishermen were using a downstream presentation technique which required wiggling the tip of the rod while feeding line so that the fly floated towards the rises exactly the speed of the current. I immediately realized why the fishermen were using this technique as first of all it placed the fly in front of the fish before the leader which these pressured fish had learned meant a hook in the jaw. It appeared that most of the fishermen were fishing parachute style PMD patterns which represents the adult life stage of the bug. I knew that generally in spring creek settings crippled patterns seemed to do better that those that represented the adult stages but they were catching fish. Then I noticed that at the end of the drift they would lift the rod slightly which would cause the dry parachute fly to sink slightly and (I guessed) look like a cripple. A little light went on in my head that this must be what I had heard was the Fall River twitch.

We saw fish rising just upstream from where most of the fishermen were anchored so we slowly motored up to about twenty yards upstream from the rises. I grabbed the anchor that was at my feet but noticed that there were two and there were also two sets of cleats on the gunnels with one being near the bow and the other near the stern. It didn’t take long to figure out why as it was an ingenious way to anchor a boat perpendicular to the current when you have two individuals who are fishing. I stripped a pile of line off my reel and then cast about twenty feet to the right and began feeding line. The post of the size #18 PMD parachute pattern was easy to see as it floated in the current. When it reached the rising fish, I gave it a little twitch and I saw a swirl and had a fish on. The technique worked! We continued to fish and as I concentrated on watching my fly floating in the current I sensed movement from the bow of the boat and looked over to see Art with his rod bent to almost ninety degrees. As the fish we were catching were all around ten to twelve inches, this one was going to be the trophy of the day. Art didn’t waste any time playing the fish and just horsed it in. I had the net ready and as I got ready to scoop it up. We didn’t see what was bending Art’s rod until it surfaced right next to the boat and we were shocked to see that rather than a trophy Rainbow, it was a cute little juvenile Muskrat. We really felt bad for the poor thing, but thank God, it was still alive. Fortunately, it was foul hooked with the hook penetrating its thigh, so we were able to remove it quickly and let it go.

This was one of several trips to fish and photograph the Fall and each time I experienced something that made it memorable. Fortunately if you are an outdoor photographer as myself, you never come away from the Fall disappointed as no matter how successful you are catching fish, you always come away with wonderful images.

My first trip to the Fall River was a special experience for me on different levels. For openers, I was able to experience three days on one of the most scenic rivers I had ever seen. Second, I learned some new techniques and caught fish. Third, I accumulated hundreds of photographic images that have been published many times over the years and best of all, I made some great new friends.

Jack & Del

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