Feather River yesterday

[Adam Grace]

Yesterday I got the chance to fish, hang out with and catch up with my old friend Ryan Miller.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/flyguyag/fishing/IMGP5213.jpg

We used to work together at Fish First here in Chico while he guided for the shop. Now he's out guiding on his own. Ryan's been finding a bunch of fish on the Feather River. Ryan put us onto over 12 steelhead yesterday. We caught some smaller adults and some half pounders. Ryan is shocked by how many HP's his clients have been catching along with all the adult fish. Normally the Feather doesn't have HP's during this season. We were agreeing that they are fun, spunky little fish that fill in the gaps between adult steelhead. We both caught a few yesterday that were very hot and spunky, putting nice bends in our 7wts believe it or not!

here's some pictures:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/flyguyag/fishing/IMGP5200.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/flyguyag/fishing/IMGP5205.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/flyguyag/fishing/IMGP5208.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/flyguyag/fishing/IMGP5203.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/flyguyag/fishing/IMGP5198.jpg

We had a great time, my wrist is sore from all the fish.

[matt johnson]

Nice report Adam! Hopefully all those halfpounders are a sign of better adult returns in the Valley next year. Matt.

[Finsane]

Sweet job guys

[jhaquett]

Nice work man. The camera is working out great so far here in Fort Bragg. 8)

[Adam Grace]

Great Josh, Enjoy!

We even tried our spey rods on the Feather, but no grabs. They were keying in on eggs and alevins.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

First class report guys.........

I think there are tons of fish in all the Valley rivers now.

There are resident Rainbow trout, Halfpounder Steelhead and some adult Steelhead too.

Your fly has to be in the water to catch them though.

[wjorg]

Not to poo on your parade, nice job of fishing, BUT...that second photo from the bottom seems to show the typical Wound inflicted by the bead rig.

The onlu thing good about beads is they stand up to abuse. If you go to the Kulik River in Alaska, where bead fishing was started by Craig Zeigler, the fish are missing their lips and faces.

[Trout Nut]

Not to make a huge point of it, but a safer way to fish beads than sliding them on the leader is to melt them onto the shank of the hook.

Just use your needle-nose pliers, etc, to hold the hook, flick on a bic lighter to heat the shank a few secs, and press the bead on from the top. Works great, and no fouled fish!!!

To make 100% sure the bead is on well, when you are done melting your selection of beads, whip up some epoxy and put a tiny bit in each groove that forms underneath the shank where you melted the bead.

Robert Johnson, Jr.
Alamo, CA

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

If you will look closely at photos from any popular trout fishery you will see the mandibles missing on many fish, especially the old/big ones. This happens in most any fishery where fish are hooked and released a lot. Most popular trout fisheries are fished with the dead drift double nymph systems. Fish must be getting hooked on the mandibles with nymphs too.

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I do see the "flossing" effect of pegged beads though. I guess the fish eats the pegged bead then gets hooked on the outside of the mouth.

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I would appreciate it if we all would realize that no one has the answers to this or many of life's questions so let not be so opinionated or one sided.

Let try to be open minded and have effective discussions. I can see how this one could get out of hand.

[Adam Grace]

Here's the head shot, incredibly blown up, to show you that the hook entered from the inside of the mouth, trust me, none of our fish were hooked on the outside of the mouth.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/flyguyag/fishing/hookdemo.jpg

Ryan and I talked quite a bit that day about pegging beads. We talked about the percentages of foul hooked or outside hooked fish compared to regular (inside) mouth hooked fish. Since Ryan guides both the Feather and the Lower Sacramento he has quite a bit of experience with pegging beads. He rarely sees a foul hooked fish, he even commented that he has seen more "butt hooked" fish more than outside mouth hooked fish, and anyone can "butt hook" a fish with any type of fly.

We talked about how high you need to place the bead, he rigs them a little over an inch above the hook. We both agreed that guys that peg the bead much higher have a much higher chance to improperly hook the fish, and that it was those guys who gave pegging a bead the bad reputation that it has.

Based on Ryan's studies (watching real eggs floating under water) he told me that real eggs flutter and bounce around under water and that hooks with melted beads, hooks with dumbell eyes or eggs with beads don't flutter like pegged beads. Ryan even noticed that a toothpick pegged bead is more neutrally buoyant making it act more like a real egg than those that are looped or tied onto the tippet, yet the toothpick can damage the tippet faster.

This day he looped the tippet around the bead 3 times to hold it in place instead of using a toothpick. It worked very well. Ryan is a great guide and I totally trust his experiences with this technique.

Once again, we never improperly hooked any of our fish that day, IMHO if you peg the bead close to the hook you will rarely improperly hook the fish. AND pegging beads is a very effective way to imitate eggs.

Like Bill said, to each their own.

[wjorg]

Adam,
As I have PM'd you the same, I mean no personal attack in any way. I do appreciate the immense amount of passion filled photos you bless this board, and all of us with. I said nothing about you foul hooking any fish, I couldn't see that good anyway.

As an Animal Rights Advocate(on the nutty side) and good friend nonetheless, regularly points out to me, we all harass the fish(spin guys, bait guys, fly guys, bead guys)....I only wanted to use the image to highlight the separation of the Upper Lip of the fish. Many folks point out that this can happen from many types of fishing, and I have even done with MicroMayflys to be quite honest.

My only point is to point out that I have used hundreds of beads and hundreds of Unreal Eggs(a bead fly), call me partial or biased, but I have rarely ripped lips with yarn dressed hooks as opposed to a free floating stinger/trailer hook after a bead.

When I see your truly wonderful photos, I don't want Johnny Weekend Flyfisherman out there snagging and gill raking fish on Putah and the American because he does not know any better. Most people I find frankly don't care!

When I was taught how to fish beads, I was handed down a tradition and a responsibility. Thats what I was told. If I was to show anyone, I had to make them aware of the proper and improper technique. Beads are like fish crack....you gotta deal responsibly yo.

I found,in my 300 to 500 Hours of Day after Day of fishing beads and Unreal Eggs side to side to several thousand willing and almost unspookable trout, you have to maintain about 1.5 Inches from that hook with your bead or if you do not, you will face(2" plus distance), gill, or stomach hook them(less than 1.5 Inch distance). Those Beads do take a beating like champs.....and who ties egg patterns in brown, blue, and purple to imitate decaying eggs....I do....after fishing with beads that color.

Thank you for posting your images, and you have my apologies for potentially placing your images at the center of controversy. I didn't realize that aspect when I posted earlier.

A disfigured or dead fish is no big deal, there are bigger things to worry about....but the impact we have as a group is magnified. I just think if we have photos of beads in fishes mouths encouraging people then I have a responsibility to speak up about their proper use. Just like you would tell someone walking on Redds to be careful. Its a fine line between education and preaching.

When I saw the obvious effects of overfishing even Alaskan Fly Fishing Only Waters it strengthened the position I have that we must cherish and protect the waters and fish we have left in California.


Respectfully,
Walter

[Adam Grace]

Walter, I simply wanted to inform you and others reading this post that those fish were caught fair. I took no disrespect. I like the tone of your last post very admirable.

Happy fishing!