Monterey Bay trip, surf fishing, first striper.

My wife was invited to go diving with a friend in Monterey, sounds like a perfect chance for a little camping/surf fishing. We had a little trouble with snow over Donner, and a lot of trouble with a reckless driver in the rain on the 17.  About  45 minutes from our campground someone tried to squeeze around us, spun out, and smashed sideways into our new trailer. After about a 2 hour delay we made it to camp. Although completely totaled we were still able to sleep in the trailer so game on. 

I've tried fly fishing in the surf a couple of times before with no luck. Trying to find bars, ditches, troughs, tides, and currents are not easy. The waves all look the same. This time I was able to find two currents that ran into each other parallel to the beach. When they collided they basically made a perpendicular wake. This is where I concentrated my casting, and was rewarded with my first fly caught saltwater fish. It was just a little striper, but I couldn't of been happier. 

Smashed

See any structure? Me neither.

Sand Crab

Surf selfie.

Fish on!

First Striper, first saltwater on the fly!

Complex Twist Bugger, gotta have some orange.

Lake Britton Smallmouth.

Headed out early Friday morning for a weekend of camping, hiking, and fishing.  This is the second year in a row that myself, and a couple of Cub Scout Dads have gone camping at Lake Britton.  This trip is a tent camping trip, with no trailers allowed.

I was able to fit everything in the back of the Sammy, with some room to spare. As we left it was raining with some snow on Peavine, not a good start. 

We arrived at Hat Creek at around 9:30. I decided to fish a little with the boy. It was tough going with him wrapping his line around his rod three times in an hour. I did manage to land one small wild Rainbow though.

With all the training I could handle we set off for the lake. We got to the campsite, set up camp, and I started casting a"complex twist bugger" from Fly Fish Food. My second cast landed me my biggest Smallie ever. Awesome! I worked my way around the cove, and caught several more. This fly is great, all of the hook ups were strong and deep. No hesitation.

The next morning I caught a couple more bass, and made pancakes for the boys. After breakfast we headed to Burney Falls, made the hike, and even followed the Pacific Crest Trail for awhile. Good times.

Sunday morning found a couple more bass. One that I sight fished to, in shallow water, with a slow sinking "Blue Collar Leech". After some breakfast burritos, and the Subway Caves, we headed home.

We had no rain at all while camping, and it rained the whole way home. Perfect timing.

Packed and ready to go.  Just the basics

An ominous looking start.

A big 'ol blowdown.

Wild Hat Creek Rainbow on a Utah Killer Bug.

My biggest Smallmouth ever.

"Complex Twist Bugger" inhaled.

Again.

White got it done.

Cribbage with the boy.

Campsite.

Another nice Smallie

Burney Falls

Scout packs.

Cheers

Sleepy ride home.

Welcome home weather.

Lassen Park brook trout

I try to take a vacation every year in August for my birthday. This year we went to Lassen Park. I have driven through the park but never fished it. We camped at Manzanita Lake. The campground was great, plenty of shade, water, and toilets. This was primarily a family camping trip, so I didn't bring my pontoon boat, and I didn't fish the lake.

Pyroclastic

I did get a chance to fish Hat Lake which wasn't a lake at all, but a creek. It was a beautiful creek. Crystal clear and slow with a few pieces of pocket water. It looked very fishy. I started at the highway, and quickly missed a strike on a mini hopper. I moved upstream until I could see a pod of fish. I made a cast, got a refusal from a bigger fish, and then hooked a little wild brookie.

I went back down to the first hole, and was able to land this guy.

Beautiful, this was actually the best fish of the trip.

We headed back to camp for some naps, and relaxation.

The best two handed card game ever invented.

The best two handed cocktail ever invented.

Wet shoes.

The next morning we headed for the King's Creek Falls hike. It was about a mile down to the falls, and a mile back up. It was a bit more strenuous than I expected, but if a 3,5,and 8 year old could make it I could too.

King's Creek Falls

I brought my fly rod on the hike, and fished a few fishy pools with no luck.  I talked to a fly fisherman on the way out, and he said that there are brook trout in there, but with no cover they are very skittish. He said on a good day he was likely to catch 3 or 4 trout in four hours.

We made it back to camp, and I decided to try my luck at Hat Lake again. I headed further upstream, but wasn't able to hook any in the long, slow, clear pools.

Hat Lake ducks.

I decided to nymph the deep pool below some falls on the opposite side of the highway.  I was rewarded with a few small brookies.

We had a lot of fun on this trip including some late night board games.

The view of Manzanita Lake on our last night.