Certain parts of the river never see the sun all day. Each night, the freeze returns, frosting over everything again. Those dark pieces of river never quite thaw during the day, and after a week of this, the river bar looks like a page out of christmas – frosted thick white, waiting for santa’s sleigh to zip across at any minute. Then there are the more open bits of river, where the river heads in a more southerly direction. Here the sun makes it above the ridge for a good six hours. On a sunny day, this could be October. Bugs come alive, birds dance in the trees, and sometimes the tiniest breeze announces afternoon before quickly passing. Otherwise, this place is like perpetual morning. The sun seems like it struggles to rise all day, just burning off the valley fog, before giving up and falling back behind the ridge. One long morning, dark at 5:00pm. How was it that I fished this place in a sweat bath barely three months ago?But this year is turning out to be an anomaly – the driest December on record marches on, leaving a river low and clear – barely higher than early fall flows, though much clearer and certainly one hell of alot colder.

With all the worry over a critically dry year looming, this does give the opportunity to maybe see winter fish working there way up this river when, otherwise, it would be too high to fish. However, in hand, they seem like fall fish – bronze backs and compact size. Not the sleek and shiny winter fish seen on the coast. They are classic inland river fish and I think if you showed me a photo of just the fish, many of us diehards could name the river and time of year within three months with only a  snapshot. They take a swung purple leech – a nice, long slow swing – the grabs are firm and whole-hearted, but not freight train swipes.

Although we are desperate for rain, this does provide the opportunity to explore a completely new river. Curious if those silvery sleek winter fish that are just a rumor will show?

Objectives of the day were to find some of the uppermost waters listed by Van Fleet, namely Wallace and Stanishaw. According to him, these were fairly popular places to visit during the 1930s and 40s. Today, all this seems to be a ghost of its former self – with both the fish and early autumn angling pilgrims in greatly reduced numbers. There are stories to be told here of festive mornings and evenings, but they seem to have been washed downstream, or are buried deep in the riverbed. Part of this is just to catch a little of the spirit that might still linger along this lonely stretch of river.

I think we struck out on getting down to Wallace – unless the road down is the gated road (open, by the way) that seems to have a private-property look to it. A steep, downhill walk/slide landed on some tough-to-fish water – and a huff-and-puff climb out. Until I can get some maps with older names on them, Wallace will remain accessible only by boat. Van Fleet describes this water as a holdover spot for early run adults – and it fits perfectly. It is neat water, classic long steelhead run, except the bottom is all one meter and larger diameter boulders – with a ledge that drops a careless wader right into the good water and over the waders. Morphologically, the run is interesting and it looks fishy as could be…. further exploration warranted…

Next up is Stanishaw and the access was easy after a false start down a rough slope (will see how bad the poison oak sets in!). Again, long, classic broad run that is perfect swinging water. I’m glad the access turned out to be relatively easy – this is a good one to put into the standard itinerary for this stretch of river.

We also found our way down to lower Rock Creek (after another poison-oak, sliding false start) – again, a relatively easy, though steep descent to classic broad fast water over coarse substrate. The half pounders were really on the grab here and more than once I was able to quickly follow-up on an initial strike with a come-back cast and get the fish. This may be Eyese to some, not to be confused with the Ice Cream riffle above the second bridge (unless I got Ice Cream’s location all mixed up twenty some odd years back).

Amazed that we did not get an adult to hand all day, though AJ thought he had one on in the Hotel run and I had a meaty tug in the tailout at the top of Green and coulda been. And some grabs at lower Rock (Eyese) that I will never know.

Towards the end of the day I handed over my two-handed Skagit set-up to AJ and rigged up another 2-hander with a more classic long belly floating line – WOW! I had to relearn my casting. The Skagit line makes it easy, though requires lots of stripping. The full belly line doesn’t need stripping, but needs timing and authority for proper casting, especially when lifting a weighted wet fly out of the water. Might have to get back to my long lines and put away the skagit crutch until winter sets in and they’re needed to lift small, wet birds out of the water.

The days are getting short! We were off the water in near darkness at 6:45 and the sun was off the water at Eyese around 3:30 or so. Yikes! All-in-all a satisfactory day for half pounders and a day of fishing textbook fly water. We joked that each run we visited was Figure 1, or Figure 3, etc… Couldn’t ask for better water to swing a fly in ….

addendum: I think Wallace could be accessed from the Stanishaw run by walking upstream – might be a bit steep and brushy, but could be very reachable after all.

Around this week 25 years ago I first started fishing this water regularly. Memories, stories, droughts, floods and through it all this place has changed remarkably little. No stories today, just a pleasant October day on the cusp of a storm. I knew the fishing would be tough today and I had to go to another river to find biting fish. Still, though, this is the place where fly fishing for steelhead really began for me.

Yesterday, on my way back from a field trip to the south, I was toying with the lines of a poem. It was solidly late afternoon, with a dipping sun coloring the dried, grassy hills a buttery hue. The temperature was about right, with the window down and it felt like this might be one of the last real summer days.

The light moves across a life gone easy.

That was yesterday. Since a Sunday river trip was in order, and since life seemed solidly in the good zone… a routine trip would yield a few routine steelhead, thus rounding out an exceptional weekend in this life gone easy. You can see where this is leading…

The salmon have arrived BIG TIME and in the water around Little Argentina they were showing two, three or more at a time. I knew they were in when I pulled up to the water, an otherwise calm early afternoon, with gentle waves rippling the surface from fish porpoising throughout the long, slow water. A black bear scampered away down the far bank. But the sun beat down hard and warm and despite two passes through I could only manage one decent fish that parted ways on a great tarpon-like leap. It looked to be 18 inches or so, putting it in the super-pounder zone. That was all I could muster save for a few juveniles that I was able to release by throwing a loop into the line and hopefully minimizing any trauma.

I packed it up and went up to lower-most Ice Cream where the same story (minus grabbing fish) played out as the first shadows crossed the far bank. The bottom of this run, if not the top, is usually dependable for a mystery tug or two (like last year’s freight train that snapped me off before I could even put a bend in the rod). Nothing doing.

Down to Stuarts to try the semi-fishy tail water and cross over to the bridge riffle. Maybe one decent tug – maybe.

I should have left later and focused on an evening outing, but it is what it is…. One of those fish-off-the-bite days, but more importantly, I was off the bite. I had too many things whirling around my head and just wasn’t as dialed in as I could have been. Often, it seems that when things are clicking, there is a synergy of angler and river – it all seems to come together just like it was supposed to be. It just wasn’t there today. In short, I was out of synch.

Maybe I was taking it all for granted, not really wanting it enough. After all, I did leave the house thinking I should stay put, do some chores, maybe get downtown and socialize a bit. The river felt like more of an obligation – I just might miss something if I don’t go. Having said that though, I was thinking today that I hadn’t fished enough so far this year and that it was passing me by. Nothing new for me. I always do well early on, have a lull day or two, think I’ve missed it all, only to arrive at some other end, in a paradise world of fall, first rain and an entirely new place. Today felt more like getting whisked up and swept along, so then, maybe the next stop is where I arrive.

Oh hell, the fish just weren’t biting today.

The couch potato fishing schedule. Usual Sunday morning Americano and paper at Brio to start the day, whip up a brunch at home, and leisurely contemplate a trip inland. Scattered thunderstorms in the forecast could make for an interesting afternoon. A routine drive contemplating which piece of water to work first. Rig up at house-sized boulder and fish it down to sea monster without even a grab. Started out with a large “special hackle” spey fly then switched over to a smaller more subdued coot spider. Nothing doing.

The big riffle was occupied so that made the decision easy. Although I like having the river to myself, and I often do, sometimes finding someone on a favorite run takes away some of the decision-paralysis. Head up to town and do a pass through the hotel run – a fellow across the river is blaring his radio and tending to his pot garden on the terrace above the river. It wafts down to the river, but the breeze soon kicks up to carry it all upstream, including much of the radio blare. I nab a small adult right in the dependable seam where they always are, but lose it after a bit. I see another, or possibly the same, adult splash in the same spot, but can’t dupe it on numerous casts and flies. Two missed grabs and the afternoon breeze turns full tilt.

I pack it up and wander down to the super secret tailout water. After this afternoon, I think I am officially dubbing it Little Argentina… wide open, expansive water and a relentless breeze that kicks whitecaps up the river and through the heart of the best water. It requires a long, deep wade over numerous sneaker boulders, then hunkering down, facing the wind head on, and pumping water loaded overhead casts right into the teeth of it. Sometimes the casts fail miserably, but it’s just part of this place. You either resolve to go at it head on, or get your ass kicked and whimper off to some sheltered leisure water. You won’t know until you try and today was one of those near ass kicking days, where you just have to suck it up, snarl right back at it and put forth your best into the maelstrom.

I cock my index finger on the line to feel any grabs in the chop and try to keep the tip up a bit to avoid the wind waves slapping at the tip. In any conditions, this is subtle water, but is ALWAYS good for at least grabbing fish, if not fish to hand. And the fish here are always showy, so there is usually something to keep me dialed into the water. One of my biggest adults came out of this water – water that many boats will pass by because it just doesn’t have that textbook setup to it. But look closer and all the ingredients are there: chest deep water moving at a fast walking pace over a coarse bottom. But put a little wind on top of it and it goes largely unnoticed by most. True to form, it lives up to its dependability and a half dozen fish are either landed or LDR’d.

No adults to hand today, but that’s what next time is for. Today was definitely work to get fish: maybe it’s the full moon? Two weeks ago, fish were on the grab, not so much today. I call it an early day as the sun sinks into a hazy sky and the farthest edges of thunderheads borne out over the Trinities reach out west and north in tendrils to dampen to light. A special evening on tap, no doubt, but I got what I came for, avoided a butt kicking, and there is always the promise of next time.

On the walk out of Little Argentina I scavenged the river margins and found a couple of “special hackles” that will make fine new spey flies for the next outing… And in town two elderly ladies set up a table selling the ripest, sweetest figs off their trees – weighed on a rusty old Montgomery Wards scale that really doesn’t do much weighing anymore and a price is agreed to more by sight than anything the scale might tell.

The best time of year is RIGHT NOW.

The afternoon wind never quite makes it today. And it’s warm … really warm for this coast-bound wader. It never really dawned on me to make the dash over the hill any earlier. I got off work, the idea of being on the water for nightfall stuck in my head and a mad dash to the sweet water on the middle river. Fishing before 6:00pm. One cast to get the line out, and the next three casts with two fish to hand – big, sassy half pounders  pushing past the 18″ mark – I think Dr. Welch called them “super pounders” when he first told me in 1986. Ten more casts and eight missed grabs or fish to hand … all the while a bright, hot sun glaring down. Throw in a few long, slow mystery grabs along the way. The fish-per-cast statistic, while sounding impressive, only really reflects my cheating by dropping right down into the bucket first thing. I’ll save the rest for dusk.

It’ll really be a swell evening, I think. I swing a long, wispy spider though the surface and watch a fish boil on it.

Then the transition happens, the sun dipping over the ridge, and somewhere after that, over the great horizon far off at sea. The crickets, frogs, caddis and bats all ramp up in song and flight. Curiously, the fish taper off to near nothing as darkness falls. This is not the first time this has happened here .. actually it seems to happen all the time here. Why is it that this place fishes so well from about mid-afternoon until evening then dies off? Surely, it’s not me taking another pass through? Regardless, the river at the witching hour is an ultra-sensory experience – bats swoop for a slow-cast fly, crickets and frogs rise and fall in mysterious unison and caddis zig-zag inches above the water. Nothing sums it all up better, except for the arc of an adult steelhead just as darkness descends and the woods behind me crackle with bears coming out for fresh black berries along the river bar. Not tonite….