Bobby Albright and I took a few days off and went fishing. First we went to Willow Creek Pass. There was a place there on FR756 that was off the beaten track that my brother & I found 25 years ago. It was a beautiful mile of beaver ponds that few people knew about. Bobby & I found that our fishing hole had been discovered. The east end of the road was blocked, there was brass and shotgun shell litter, broken beer bottles, trash everywhere – even in and around the beaver ponds. Even if you made the effort to slog to the ponds on the other side of the valley, you would find places where someone had left cigarette butts and beer bottles while fishing. It was disgusting. Where you used to be able to catch enough brookies for breakfast in 20 minutes now yields one little fish in 4 hours.
So Bobby and I headed west toward the flat tops on back roads. We stopped at a lot of places and caught a few until we went over Dunkley Pass above Chapman and Sheriff. We got in a place that hadn’t been used in a long time. There had been a road once because the trees had been cut out in a line, but the grass there was taller than the hood of the Tahoe. The pond wasn’t big and had been a stock pond for some ranch somewhere because it had a head gate on the earthen dam, although no ranch or pasture was discernable. It didn’t look promising, but I caught an 18 inch rainbow on 2 lb test. We caught our limit in short order. A lot of fun.
Bobby Albright and I took a few days off and went fishing. First we went to Willow Creek Pass. There was a place there on FR756 that was off the beaten track that my brother & I found 25 years ago. It was a beautiful mile of beaver ponds that few people knew about. Bobby & I found that our fishing hole had been discovered. The east end of the road was blocked, there was brass and shotgun shell litter, broken beer bottles, trash everywhere – even in and around the beaver ponds. Even if you made the effort to slog to the ponds on the other side of the valley, you would find places where someone had left cigarette butts and beer bottles while fishing. It was disgusting. Where you used to be able to catch enough brookies for breakfast in 20 minutes now yields one little fish in 4 hours.
So Bobby and I headed west toward the flat tops on back roads. We stopped at a lot of places and caught a few until we went over Dunkley Pass above Chapman and Sheriff. We got in a place that hadn’t been used in a long time. There had been a road once because the trees had been cut out in a line, but the grass there was taller than the hood of the Tahoe. The pond wasn’t big and had been a stock pond for some ranch somewhere because it had a head gate on the earthen dam, although no ranch or pasture was discernable. It didn’t look promising, but I caught an 18 inch rainbow on 2 lb test. We caught our limit in short order. A lot of fun.