Fishing for Desert Natives – Preface

Fishing for Desert Natives – Day 1

I’m usually an early waker, with or without an alarm. So camping for me is tough, especially when sharing space with someone else.

Dan and I decided to use the bed of the truck as our bed. He has a Ranger, which is a little narrow for two and it’s only six feet long (I’m 6′-1″). So using some built-in slots in the bedliner, we made a little platform to sleep on that got above the wheelwells, making it wide enough for two, with about 30″ of space between the platform and shell ceiling. We also made the platform fold out, making it longer than the bed, so the shell door and the tailgate had to remain open. To keep the platform from flexing Dan put a toolbox between the platform and tailgate.

To get in and out of the bed, Dan put a cooler at the edge of the tailgate. I had to step on the cooler, hoist the top half of my body lying on the platform, legs dangling, then scoot the rest of the way up.

To provide some protection against mosquitoes and potential rain, Dan bungeed a plastic tarp over the rear of the truck. The entry and exit point to the bed was on his half. I slept with my head toward the cab and Dan slept with his head toward the tailgate.

To get out of the truck, I had to inch my way, on my belly, feet first, toward Dan’s head. Move the tarp out of the way, project my legs over the edge of the platform, then reach my toes toward the cooler. I’m sure this beached whale routine looked hilarious to anyone who was unfortunate enough to view this. Of course, there is no way I can do this without disrupting Dan’s sleep.

So, back to the waking-up-early dilemma. Since I didn’t want to wake Dan when I awoke with the sun, I lay in my sleeping bag staring into space for an hour or so. I’m not a lounge around in bed guy—when I wake up, I get up. It’s very disconcerting for me to do nothing. So on that morning I waited until my bladder finally got the best of me, then I woke Dan and did my best inch-worm maneuver out of the truck.

And there stood Gary, fully geared, ready to fish! Here’s a guy after my own heart—if it’s a fishing trip, there’s no farting around with externals: sleep, breakfast, etc.—it’s just fish, fish, fish. Even the night before when we met, we talked fish nonstop the entire time. This guy has a passion about not just fishing, but the fish too.

I relieved the bladder, roused Dan (not that he wasn’t fully awake after my grand exit from bed) and got the rod rigged—we were off to fish Rock Creek for some redband trout.

Rock Creek is small enough that we really don’t have to worry about wading it, so we planned on shore fishing. For some reason, I’m currently hiking bootless (I don’t know how that’s happened, but I haven’t had a pair of hiking boots for about a year). So I pulled on my “hiking” boots for the day—a pair of cowboy boots.

Video of Rock Creek:http://scarles.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/rock_creek.flv

We walked downriver about 3/4 of a mile and fished back toward camp. The little redbands were frequent and fierce little fighters. I caught well over a dozen with the average size about 6″ and the largest about 9″. They’re beautifully colored with many of them bearing heavy par marks and vivid red bands.

Gary and Dan catching redbands at Rock Creek (hey guys, wet those hands first!):http://scarles.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/rock_creek_gary_dan.flv

They seemed eager to take just about any kind of dry #10-#16 and Gary was picking them up on a nymph dropping from a dry.

We fished for a good hour and a half before making it back to the truck for breakfast. With fishing being the main priority of the trip, food wasn’t—no big breakfasts or fancy foods. Like I said, priorities: fish, fish, fish. So it was cold cereal for Dan and oatmeal for me.

Gary’s dad and sister accompanied Gary but were just camping, not fishing. So when it was time to head to Guano Creek, the three of us piled into Dan’s truck. Gary’s a tall guy (I’m guessing about 6′-4″) and so he couldn’t squeeze into Dan’s micro-extended cab (you know, the type with the mini fold down seat). So being the thoughtful person I am I hopped in back and mentioned (not “whined” or “complained” as my detractors might allege) that my knees were touching Dan’s gear on the other half of the back of the cab. I asked if he could shift some of it. Instead, he told me to get out and drive and he would sit in the back. (Stalker’s tip: It’s better to be thought a whiner than be squished in tight quarters for a five mile drive over bumpy dirt roads. Not that that was what I was doing. I’m just sayin.)

We were headed to Guano Creek looking to catch some Alvord cutthroat trout, the main reason for our trip. Dan and I were both pretty stoked: when do you have the opportunity to catch what might be the remaining handful of fish bearing the look of the extinct Alvord cutthroat? We weren’t fooling ourselves, we understood that genetically they are far from pure. But what little living genetic material remaining of the Alvord cutthroat on the entire planet, it seems to remain in only this one creek.

And yet with the excitement was an even stronger sense of dread, maybe even a little confusion over their peril—how could this happen? What were people thinking by introducing non-native species into the Alvord’s home waters of Trout Creek and Virgin Creek? (I know, I know, they didn’t understand what the consequences of their action would be—the science and understanding just weren’t there.) So why hadn’t more of an effort been made when they were “rediscovered” in Guano Creek in 1986? (There were efforts made, but it was probably too late by then anyhow.) Can anything be done now, or is it beyond human’s capabilities to right the wrong?

I couldn’t help these thoughts from banging around in my head as we bumped down the road while Gary told about his trip in last year. Then there it was, an open meadow and Guano Creek running through it. Where we came upon the creek it was closed in by willows, but further downstream we saw that it thinned out. The valley narrows in on each side from small mesas, coming closest together where Guano Creek runs through it at some rock outcroppings. We made our way toward this section and stopped just a little upriver from the outcroppings at an approximation of where Gary figures is the lowest point he fished last year. Our plan was to walk further downstream and then work our way upstream to about where some corrals are.

Dan was already in the creek fishing while Gary and I were still getting ready. A couple of minutes later Dan hollered that he had a fish. I ran over with the camera. It was our goal to photograph all the fish, especially the ones with the Alvord phenotype, and record the length of each and location where it was caught.

The first fish Dan caught had Lahontan characteristics. Even though it wasn’t an Alvord, it was Dan’s first Lahontan, so it was an exciting catch. It’s not exactly clear which strain of Lahontans swim in Guano Creek—historically there were no fish in Guano, so any fish there were stocked at some point in time. It is known that redbands, Lahontans and Alvords have all been stocked there.

I reminded Dan of the plan to walk downstream then fish back up. As we made our way past the rock outcropping, we really started to notice the mosquitoes. They were hovering and clustering as they mobbed us. Dan got his head net out and I grabbed the 100% DEET which we all slathered on. Skin cancer runs in my family so I usually try to wear long sleeved shirts fishing. My shirt, boots and long pants kept most of them at bay.

I also wear a wide-brimmed hat to keep the sun off. I have a nice crushable fedora I usually wear fishing, but anticipating hot weather in the desert I picked up a new hat. Dan was with me and since he needed one too we both got the same hat. It’s great for warm weather because it has a mesh band around it, but not so great for mosquitoes because the top is light fabric and rests right against my head. The skeeters got right through. I ended up putting DEET on my hat, face, neck and hands, but they have that habit of hovering—especially in the face. Before we’re finished with the day, I’ll have snorted four mosquitoes up my left nostril (I have no idea why the right was spared) and one mosquito entered my ear. The mosquito fishing slap dance is interesting, but I dance it will catch on soon.

We got to a spot where the road crossed the creek and started fishing there. Gary moved down a bit lower and I was a bit higher up the creek (“up Guano Creek” doesn’t have quite the ring as the more famous creek you don’t want to be up).

A good 15 minutes into the fishing and I saw Gary hustling upstream without his gear. He said that he had a fish on, but he lost his camera! I hurried downcreek so I could get a shot, trying to run over the bumpy ground with my cowboy boots on. Gary was on the far bank looking for his camera in the spot he last remembered using it. Luckily the vegetation wasn’t too thick and he found his camera. He continued back to the fish on his own and relayed the information to the data man (Dan took my little field notebook and a pen to keep the data in).

We mostly caught Lahontans and what looked to be Lahontan/Alvord hybrids before Gary caught the first fish with distinct Alvord markings. By the time we made our way back up to the outcroppings I had finally picked up my first Alvord-looking fish. It was really quite something to think of its dwindling gene pool as I gently cradled it in my hand for a quick shot.

The Alvord types seemed to start coming to hand a little more frequently as we got back toward the truck. We were all fishing with an attractor dry and a nymph dropper. The fish tend to take the dropper most frequently, but occasionally we were surprised with a fish on the dry.

By then my feet were getting a little sore in the boots and I could feel a couple of hotspots coming on. I stopped at the truck and changed into some of those inexpensive wading shoes you wear at the beach. I drank as much water as I could then hustled to catch up with Dan and Gary.

We continued to pick up fish, with Gary substantially out-catching us. He had a lot more patience than Dan or me, spending three times as long at a hole casting to fish he couldn’t see. But it was paying off. In fact, if Dan couldn’t land a fish, but saw one, or had one on briefly, he called Gary over to cleanup behind him. Gary would invariably catch the fish.

Our evening plans were to head over to the Donner und Blitzen River (usually referred to as just the Blitzen River). We planned on fishing upstream of the Blitzen and then head over to the Little Blitzen in a small glacial valley and fish it. We weren’t sure how much driving we would do, so we figured we would need to gas up at Frenchglen before heading to the Blitzen. The gas pump closed at 5:00 so we needed to be of Guano Creek by 3:00. While Gary and Dan quickly fished up to the corrals, I picked up the truck and drove to pick them up.

As it happened, I record keeper ended up losing two pencils in the field, so we didn’t record nearly the data we planned on. Since we weren’t recording the data, and since I got tired of snapping photos, I stopped taking pictures (which was silly since I didn’t photograph my best looking Alvord). I’m guessing that by the end we caught 30-40 fish with about 15 of them having the strong Alvord phenotype.

Our trip to the Blitzen River after Guano Creek will actually be covered on the “Day 3” coverage.

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