Hobby Sports

By local standards this Brown is a trophy.

Its been years since Ive fished this much.  Part of the reason for my lack of fishing was I lost most of my past fishing buddies to domestication and part of it was my other hobbies started to take up more of my time.  but now things have changed.  Chul and I hit the local mountains this afternoon and fished a tributary that he had fished not too long ago.  I wanted to the check it out since last year Chul was able to land a 14 incher out of this trickle of water.  As its one of my favorites, I chose to fish my much too neglected Sage SLT 1 weight.  This rod was, up until I bought my NAC 49" 2/3 weight, my go-to local mountain rod.  The last time I fished it was on carp when I was trying to catch a  carp on every rod from 7 weight down to a 1 weight but its been years since its been on trout.

Rattlesnake crossing the trail.

While walking on the trail, Chul was pointing out an area that he had slayed several fish before when I yelled out WHOA!  Halting immediately, Chul saw me pointing ahead on the trail where I saw a huge rattlesnake.  This guy was old and fat, he slithered into the ivy and was gone.  I was shocked to see a rattler here as it is rather shaded from the canopy from the Alders and I would have thought the snakes would prefer the rockier and sunnier areas.  When we arrived at the tributary Chul noticed how low its gotten from the last time earlier this month.  After reaching the end of this small stretch of water and only catching a few dinks we hiked out of this part and moved on to the main body and started making our way to the bigger pools up ahead until we saw some knucklehead throwing rocks in it.  Leap frogging ahead of him, we saw a fly fisher already working the next stretch of water. So we moved further up.  We fished the next section and I managed a 6-7incher in very small pocket water while Chul worked a small pool and managed a 10 incher.

We made it to a one of the huge pools and I managed a 12 inch brown trout that looked as if it came from the Owens River.  If I showed this photo to anyone, they would be shocked to know that this fish came out of this dinky water.  Its shocking.  We moved to the next pool and it seemed the fishing halted quite a bit.  Even getting dinks was proving difficult.  On this pool I managed another brown that while not as big as the last was a nice specimen.  It was probably 9-10 inches.  I missed a few more and lost a few good ones when my tippet failed.  Continuing to move upstream, Chul fished a pool where he missed a nice 10 incher the last time he was here.  This time he managed to coax him to hit the fly and took him out of his slot that it called home.  We arrived at the waterfall and at my second cast I managed a nice rainbow.  Chul had a nice fish on until he bumped his rod on an overhead branch and lost the fish.  Several casts later the hole shut down.

Nice Rainbow

We started to make our way out fishing a hole here and a hole there.  Chul managed a few dinks but the fishing had shut down on the river for whatever reason.  Perhaps its the changing barometric pressure or something but we were convinced its the wacky weather that is coming in.  We hiked out of there and got in the car and headed down the mountain.  By this time it was past eight and when we reached the bottom we found our selves on the wrong side of a locked gate.  Oh crap!  It was past 8PM now and pitch black.  I saw a silhouette of a man on the other side of the gate and when he came into the light of the car I noticed it was a cop.  I got out of the car and he let us know that the gate closes at 8 and you can be cited it you dont make the closing time.  I apologized and he opened the gate and let us go without incident.  I thanked them and wished them a good night.

With one day away, September 1st marks the dove opener for most of the States.  Most hunters are foaming at the mouth by now.  Not me.  Ill bypass the opener like I have done so for a few years now.  Its simply too hot and there are too many knuckleheads that ruin your day.  On top of that, who knows what yesterdays dessert rains had done to those birds.  They are probably all gone.  I do look forward to September 8th, though as it marks the opening of the early mountain quail season for the northern half of the state.  In anticipation to that I joined Lou for his weekly dog training at Prado.

Lous Darne R10 (take off that damn slip on pad!)

Lou had excess birds and as this was his last time out for training until the season opens he gave me call to see if Kaiser needed some bird work.  He invited me last week as well but unfortunately I was too busy t come out.  With two of his females in heat, Lou brought his three other dogs.  We had 20 birds for four dogs, so each dog was going to get a good workout.  I brought my Merkel 147SL in 12 gauge and Lou brought his Darne R10 in 20.  After telling Lou about Darnes and having bought his first, he is now a convert.  His Darne is lovely but unfortunately its LOP is much to short.  Lou added a slip on pad, which I hate and can not stand, to help increase the LOP to 14.5 inches.  I told him to get rid of that slip on and put on a proper rubber pad but its his gun.

My Merkel 147SL

It looks like my time at the clay range was a big help as no birds escaped my 12 gauge.  If only that will be the case in the field this year.  I even tried the R10 for the last bird.  His Darne seems so much whippier than mine.  As with any lightweight and short gun it is very whippy and as such you tend to stop your swing.  I missed the first shot and just barely made the second after realizing I was stopping my swing.  Kaiser needs work.  He bumped the first bird tripping the launcher right after he pointed.  After a correction he stopped that nonsense.  Since Ive done little bird work in the past off seasons, he is no longer is he steady at wing and shot which is a shame.  Lous dogs did well as they should have as theyve been training all damn summer.  For whatever reason all the birds seemed to launch my way.   Also my damn launcher failed to trip the latch, Im hoping its just the batteries.  If not Ill be pissed.

I videoed the training with my Contour Roam and if I have the time and patience to upload it on youtube Ill post it here.  They came out quite nicely.

For those who have had their dogs rattlesnake trained here in Southern California, it was most likely done by Patrick Callaghan of Gameland Kennels. Unfortunately, Patrick has past and has many of us looking for a replacement. While doing some Internet searches I did find one, Natural Solutions. http://socalrattlesnakeavoidancetraining.com/

I had my dog do a refresher with them. Patrick had once told me that it usually takes about 5 years for it to really set into the dogs mind. This is Kaisers third year.

Although I am no snake avoidance expert, I know Patrick may not have approved of all of their training methods. They definitely conducted there session a little differently than Patrick but that being said I am not knocking NS but rather I am saying they are different than what I have done in the past. Everyone has different training methods and philosophies. I can say NS was professional and knowledgeable. One thing they did that Patrick never did was they used baby rattlers. I may be mistaken but the reason Patrick never used them was because the babys do not put out scent. NS disagrees. In any case I think its prudent to use them whether or not they put out scent. Its better safe than sorry. One of the best features is that they do house calls. I recommend anyone with a dog to do such a training especially any gundog or outdoor dog in California. Even though this does not guarantee your dog from ever having an encounter with a rattler, its cheap insurance and should be done.