Yuba-Ku 7-24-2016 Yuba on fire!

Sparrow, swung pulses.
Big flash, rainbow kype-jawed.
Oh, what a monster!

Yesterday I fished the Yuba River with no expectations, just really going to field test this new ‪‎bamboo‬ quad ‪‎spey rod that I've been making over the past few months‬, to this date I revised the mid and tip section three times. Each time making the rod faster and faster. It really likes a 435 scandi head with a floating poly leader, effortless casts to about 90 feet. Well I guess with the results I think I'll go ahead and take off the masking tape wraps and put some silk on her! I just can't settle in on the color.... I sort of like the idea of Black against the auburn cane,sort of how my buddy Dave does of his switch rods, but then again I like the dark olive translucent wraps I've been doing on the single handed 6wt Quadrates. What do you think?

A new small brewery opened down the street from my workshop here in Oakland so my buddy Jacob who is a rod maker had a few of their IPA's while talking tapers.... a very good time!

Yuba-Ku 3-8,9-2013

As the Osprey kites.
Brodiaeas and Ceanothus along the way.
Teal and rabbit fur glide and rise.

My cast web, connected.
Maybe it's me who's really netted?
Moon in Pisces,
go figure.



meat and potaoes:

Yuba River, friday below Hwy 20 bridge, saturday UC property.
weather, friday sunny warm, saturday am partly cloudy pm sunny
Water temp 48 degrees, air temp 70 degrees
Flow 1300cfs
water visability, gin clear
Hours fished, 9:30am til 4:30pm
bug activity; friday sporadic Skawalas. saturday March brownand PMD hatch 10:30am-1pm Skawalas about pm
5wt single handed bamboo rod, 4/5wt bamboo spey rod, now broken from a big fish not landed.
245 scandi line 12 foot furled leader. dry fly furled leader 16 feet long 4lb tippet.
3 fish landed swinging March Brown wet fly, Teal and rabbit
4 fish landed on March Brown Para/dry fly/emerger size 12
3 fish landed on Skawala dry size 12

Yuba-Ku, Fall Caddis

Shits and giggles,
even the Osprey's paying dues.
Swing-en and drifting.

Twilights fading day.
Under the scorpius marker,
its Rainbows rise.

Soon,
Fish and I,
like Perigee.


The Steak and Eggs;

Yuba River, below island to Hammond Grove. lots of walking.
Hours fished: noon to 7pm
2 fish total: 1@18" 1@14"
Water temp 54 degrees, flow 1000cfs, air temp 80ish degrees.
Method: Dry fly, Spey cast swung wet flies.
Gear: 6wt 11 foot Bamboo spey rod 350 grain scandi line, 10 floating polyleader.
Sage 5wt 9 foot XP
Flies: Fall caddis emerger dry size 4 "Dr. Octo" and "Poison Spider", wet fly size 14
Observed insects, Caddis, Caddis and more Caddis. lots of Caddis.

Dr. Octo,    fall caddis emerger

Poison Spider,   caddis emerger wet fly

I'm Planning a trip to the McCloud River in a few weeks, and for "Shits and Giggles" I wanted to try some of my new Fall Caddis patterns. I had a good number of fish rise and hit the Dry but only hung onto one, and my wet fly only got one fish. A slow day until the very last two hours of the day. The four runs below the island, down river towards Hammond Grove was really pop'en with big fish until dark, especially by Rattlesnake Hill.

Yuba-Ku 3-30-2012

Sap moon spoolers,
willows wane.
Mourning cloaks dance.

Follow the swallows.
Hidden spreckeld fish become,
Rhithrogena morrisoni.










Steak and Eggs:
Water clarity was about 24 inchs in slack as well as fast water, however water was about 47 degrees. Phil and I fished below the Parks Bar bridge. I landed two fish, one a salmon smolt about 10 inches and one trout 20 inches both on a march brown soft hackle fly. The exciting part was trying out the prototype bamboo spey rod i just finished. The rod tracked very true and straight and the taper equation for the Grantham ETspey is a very nice 6 weight. I was using a beulah 350 elixir line with a 6lb 10 foot furled leader that turned over smooth. The large fish took the soft hackle right under the surface film with a dynamic splash and then ripped up the run with little time for me to think just strip line. There was a good hatch of March Browns along the seem between fast and slow water, I basically fished the run where swallows were feeding. The hatch started about 11:30am and died out about 2:30pm.

First Prototype Reel Seat

This week i got to play around with the design of the reel seats for the bamboo spey rods as well as experimenting with ferrules.
using gun blue is really fun also but its a real chore to get them super clean so they wont resist the blueing agent.
I started off with just some scrap maple to turn into some prototypes. My target diameter for the finished insert needs to be 31/32 of and inch and then the mortise can be made.












The carriage for the insert took about ten minutes to make and then the setup with the shaper was pretty easy. In all it took about 1 hour to make the prototype including the Brass Hood, lock ring and base ring for the bottom handle.
all in all an easy and very user friendly design thanks to having a good working metal lathe.

Prototype Swing Boo

With the advent of rain and lots of money work in my workshop theres been no reason to go fishing since i went to the Merced a few weeks ago.
So i work and dream of swinging for hot fish on the river in weeks to come. During the time when I'm waiting for all that glue to dry i've been sneaking time in on a new prototype bamboo rod i'm working on.
I took a quick drive to my mentors workshop before he moves to his new shop.
Long story short, he offered a few great suggestions, like where to get the best flor grade cork and thought overall it was coming along well but it also needed more finish.
The cork i got from mudwole was spec'd as select A grade but when i began to turn the grip down to my design it was basically shit.
Well its just a prototype rod i keep reminding myself.
Its very humbling to have such an experienced rod builder give me his attention.
So off i go back to my work shop to spin more Spar and then into the drying cabinet it goes this afternoon for another few days.
Once its in the drying cabinet, i can start working on the prototype reel seat for the next evolution of the short 11 foot spey rod.
below are some catch up photos of part of the grip and the gun blueing of the ferrules.