First Striper! (photos)

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For what seems like a while now, Jeff has expressed his passion about fishing for stripers when we talk about fly fishing. Being from the midwest, he has been wanting to get me hooked into my first striper on the American and show me the type of big fish fly fishing that can be found right close to Sacramento.

After a first trip last week, seeing a fish follow the fly in and another dart out from cover and bite my fly but not get hooked I understood where he was getting his excitement from.

Yesterday morning we met at the river with a full moon still up and put in at Roosmoor. It was a shockingly empty river for a Saturday and only saw a few kayaks and one boat anchored in a back channel drifting some live bait. We got lucky and had the hole river quietly to ourselves to work. We drifted some good water without even seeing a fish let alone getting any follows. We all started saying things like, hmmm maybe things haven't settled down since the flow changes mid-week. And that moon has been pretty full for 2 nights in a row now, hasn't it?

But the Goding brothers were encouraging and we just moved to another place and kept casting. And then out of no where, on a cast and strip like so many others I feel this heavy pull and tug on the line. The fish hit and ran, immediately setting the hook. The fish was down too deep to see and as he ran I carefully fed him a few inches of line at a time until I got him on the reel. It felt like a solid fish, but being my first striper I was unsure how big it could be. After turning him from a few deep runs toward the current, I was able to keep him in the slower water and get him up to the surface where Kevin lipped him in some slower current.

Mission accomplished! First striper and it was a blast! Now I know what all the fuss is about. Those fish are some strong tanks.





Kevin saw plenty of fish and nearly got into some big ones that were chasing and slashing at his fly. He landed a nice schoolie.



Jeff saw fish too and had a good one that he set the hook on a little early. So almost all three of us landed a fish yesterday during a float that started off slow.