Tanner and I hit the Truckee again!

Tanner and I fished the Truckee river once again. Being that this is so late in the summer, I was afraid that the water level would be really low but it was actually perfect. We fished from about 9:00 AM until about 1:00 PM and we had a great time. The fishing was good. We did'nt get huge numbers of fish, but we did get quality fish ranging from 16 to 20 inches. Most of the fish were caught on WD-40 midges and Pheasant Tail nymphs.

Jamie's first fish while flyfishing!

Three weeks ago, I probably made my last trip to the Walker of the summer fishing season. It was a great weekend of fishing. My Mom, Mike, Jamie, Shannon, and Aidan made the the trip with us. On the last day, Jamie decided that he wanted to leave the bait in the car and try fly fishing. It was another proud moment for me as Jamie's brother!
I took Jamie to a shallow run of riffles to target the Walker trout. At first Jamie had trouble casting, but within a few minutes, he was able to make a decent upstream cast. Now Jamie has a really logical mind where he tends to see things in a mathematical way. What I mean by that is, he looks at a problem, analyzes it, then does the correct thing and expects success. It is that part of his personality along with his incredible work ethic that has made him such a success in the business world. However, when it comes to fishing, it's not always perfectly logical. In fishing there is as much art as there is logic. In this sense, this is where Jamie struggled for a time. In fly fishing, it is so complex that you not only have to think your way through it by using correct technique, you have to feel your way through it. It's very hard to explain, but it is a huge part of fly fishing. Jamie was frustrated because even though we were fishing the same fly in the same area, I was catching many fish while he was not catching any.
I explained to Jamie that you can not simply rely on technique, you need to use all of your senses and "feel" the fish. It's kind of like the "force" in Star Wars, your instincts need to be able to anticipate what the river and the fish are going to do. I think that Jamie started to understand. First he got a couple of hits, and then he hooked and landed his first Trout on a fly. On the way home, we stopped at the Carson where Jamie eagerly grabbed my fly rod and then proceeded to pull out at least three trout within fifteen minutes.

More photos of Oregon

Maya holding her first starfish



Maya did great hiking, she loved all of the flowers.



Maya on the beach with her best friend.



Maya excited about another hike.



Taking a rest with my two beautiful daughters.

Oregon August 2008

We did it again! It seems as though the Tucker family may have started an annual tradition, an August trip to Oregon. We have gone up there the last three out of four years. We started off by spending a day driving up to Lincoln city, half way up the Oregon coast. We discovered Lincoln city last year and let me tell you, it is one heck of a beautiful place. It's cool, everything is green, and there is so much hiking available. We spent three nights at the motel 6 in Lincoln city. It has to be the nicest motel 6 in the world, it must have been so other hotel before. We then spent the next few days exploring the area, going on hikes, and eating as much great seafood as possible.

Another great day on the Walker!

Tanner and I took off to the Walker again yesterday, and once again, we killed'em. The fishing was so good! I landed between 50 and 70 fish including two big ones. It was so great, I was able to anticipate hits before the fish even took the fly. Here are a few of the photos from our trip.

Tanner with a beautiful wild brown.

Bigfoot print?

Tanner and I fished Caples creek today and came across this very interesting footprint. At first I thought that it was from a large hiking boot but then I noticed faint toe prints. If you look closely to the left of the print, you may be able to see a couple of impressions that, to me, look like toes. The print was in an area where the ground was slightly softer than the surrounding soil. My guess is that the area had a lasting patch of snow that was slowly melting over the last couple of months which made the ground wet. The area of the print where it shows the sole of the foot was slightly lower than the area of the toes. The toe area was drier while it was obvious that muddy water had settled in the sole area and then dried. The print measured 15.5 in length and 5 inches wide. I know that it's really hard to make out the toe prints from the photo but up close in person, it was much more clear. I'm thinking of going back to make a plaster cast of the print. It's a remote place and very rugged though, i'm not looking forward to the hike back in. About an hour after seeing the print, Tanner heard some loud wood knocking near by which is is a way that some primates communicate with each other. Unfortunately, I did not hear what Tanner heard as I was a few dozen yards away playing with Foxy.
As for the fishing, it was tough. They are emptying Caples lake which meant that the creek was raging high and fast. I did manage to catch four wild Rainbow trout while Tanner landed a wild Brown trout.




One of the photos of the print.



Tanner on top of the mountain on the hike back to the car.
I found the print down in that first canyon right behind Tanner.



Me and Foxy.