Russian R. Report 12/15/05

[Anne Vitale]

Hi All...Got to fish for a couple of hours up in Guerneville this afternoon. It was pretty busy, there were about 11 of us in that short run. I had my spey rod with me so I had to dance around five single handed rod throwers and five gear guys.

For the first hour I was fishing up stream of the temporary dam pilings, trying to keep my long line out of the way, when three gear guys showed up. Without even considering that there were people fishing up stream of them, they immediately waded out and spaced themselves evenly across the river between the pilings and started casting directly down stream effectively keeping the fish from coming up river past them. I couldn't believe it. What made it worse, almost immediately, one of them caught a nice (looked to be about 30") chrome bright steelhead and kept it. Grrrrrrrrr.

Eventually I moved to below their blockade and had what amounted to an afternoon of spey casting practice. I did, however, see a beautiful fish roll about 30 feet in front of me. Makes me wonder what could have been. ...Anne

[Jasonh]

Great report Anne. Sounds like there is a nice push of fish in the Russian. Too bad some of those knuckleheads ruined the day. At least you got some good spey casting practice in. You can never practice spey casting enough, at least for me!

Jason Hartwick

[Darian]

Sorry to hear about the knuckleheads.... At least you got some casting practice in. Just out of curiosity, did you try Brown's Pool Seems like there'd be more water for you to cast in down below Austin Creek Riffle....

Many years ago, I used to see Bill Schaad catch some Steelhead in the pool out of a pram.... Good memories.

[Anne Vitale]

No Darian...I didn't but that is a great idea . I think I'll go back up again today and fish it :P :P . I love using my spey rod-- a beautiful 12' 6'' ACR 5wt-- but I do realize it takes up a whole lot of river and can get in the way of others if I am not careful.
BTW...LVC, if you are reading this, I was the woman you were talking to about the absurdity of using a spey rod on the Russian at the time you discovered that you had lost your rod and reel. I looked around for it after you left but didn't see anything. Sorry.

[OregonSalmon]

Anne,
Just shove them guys out of the way Annie. Even on the river you can't hit a woman. Use that gender to your advantage. Or you could go the old Bill Schadt method: casting wildly and hooking your nieghbor in the head until they throw in the towel. When fish are involved, sometimes our manners go to hell.

[Anne Vitale]

Good advice OS...I must admit I have yet to use my now fading womanly charms to secure my place on the river but who knows...If that sort of thing keeps up, it is certainly worth a try.

I wasn't going to say this because I thought it was a bit trite of me but your suggestion to throw at their head was almost what I was doing. Since I was up river of them and they were smack dab in the middle of the stream with their backs turned to me, I did make several cast behind them quartering down and long enough for the hook to find a wader or two on the swing I apparently hit one guy in the leg twice with the line because I saw him look down to see what was going on but alas I never did get an "accidental" hook set.