McCloud Redband

After failing miserably in our first attempt at a McCloud Redband we thought it would be too tough to find and we put it on the back burner. A good friend of mine came into the store and told us of a good spot he felt even we could catch them. This brought our spirits up and we were ready to try again.

   We headed out on a Monday morning bright and early. Rental car loaded with gas, we were determined not to fail this time. We arrived at our destination at around 11:00 in the morning. We were not sure where to go so we pulled into a campsite and asked the camp hosts if they had any idea where our honey hole might be. They knew exactly what we were talking about and made a comment that DFG had been there recently looking for the Redband also. We were jazzed to hear that. When we pulled up to the water It was actually a little bigger than I expected. I had float tubed smaller bodies of water for bass so I was excited.

We decided to walk around the pond first to see if there were any fish present. As we got towards the inlet I noticed a fish swimming out from under a rock. It was a Redband. We grabbed our float tubes and started fishing. We did not catch anything for awhile except for one small brookie that Andy caught. We remembered that Mike had caught his fish as the sun went down so we were not too worried. After awhile a few cars showed up loaded with teenagers and dogs. They walked over to the sand bar at the end of the pond and sat there patiently waiting for us to get off of the water so they could swim. I told Andy that this was a swimming hole first and a fishing hole second. We left and let them swim. We figured they would be gone by the evening and we would have it to ourselves.

      We left there and ran over to the dammed up mill pond that we did not fish last time. I put in and paddled towards the dam and Andy went towards the inlet. When I got near the dam the pond had opened up and was very deep. I made a cast and instantly caught one. It was a little brown trout. Andy showed up shortly after. We hung out at the mill pond catching brown trout and brook trout one after the other. We were having fun but we needed a redband

 

We headed back over to our original spot hoping the swimmers had left.

They were gone and fish were rising. I caught a small redband on a dry fly and was pretty excited. I decided to get off the water and take some pictures and let Andy have it to himself. After losing one and feeling the pressure Andy calmed down a little and caught about a half dozen or so. We both had our redbands and we were amazingly excited for catching such small fish.

 

That night over dinner we decided we would drive across the state over to the coast for a cutthroat. We left at 9:30 at night and arrived at the ocean at around 1:30 am. We slept in the car that night, got up early scarffed down some breakfast and put in. We fished our butts off till about 2:00 in the afternoon without a bite. We were a little down but we knew we were a little early to catch the Coastal Cutthroat. We headed out discussing the plans for the next trip all the way home.