Bernie Weston

Well, another good day for the Beulah CZ 5 wt.

 

Same fish. #16 Gold Ribbed Hare’s Ear. Water too fast to fish any other way. It was windy, pissing rain and cold. We had a blast.

 

The rabbit gets out of the hole, goes around the tree and leaves. No. The rabbit avoids the hole and goes around the tree three times and …….

 

Hey Jared, the fish are over here…..

Seriously, they’re over here. Long-leader-it, I have a spool in the car.

This is prototype number 2 for the Beulah 5 wt. CZ rod. It’s my build and it was a great performer today.

 

Wind knot? Well…the rain is blowing sideways instead of down. Getting tired, cold and ready for a barley soda.  Let’s pack it in. Nobody else is out, wonder why?

 

Warm and dry awaits.

I stopped carrying a net today. I think the fish do better in shallow water with less handling. It was a lot easier to get a picture and release them so I’m going to try net-less fishing.

The CZ rod was a champ. I’m really glad I took the risk of building it.

 

And we all know how rivers like to be blown…plus I have a new camera. I have a Nikon 1 AW1. A waterproof, interchangeable lens high tech battle proven beast.

Stayed in the same house in McCloud again, but this time we fished below the lower falls and into the Nature Conservancy property. We were the only people on the McCloud and nobody had been to the Nature Conservancy property in over 3 weeks. The Fly Shop – “The McCloud is Blown”, Ted Fay –  “The McCloud is blown”. Well the McCloud was definitely blown because it was pretty relaxed and congenial when we got there.

On the drive up we stopped and fished the Upper Sacramento. It was around Lunchtime so we scarfed down some chicken legs I grilled the night before and raced each other down to the river. We were armed with our Beualah 5 wt. CZ homebuilts and our 11’7″ “mystery rods”, modified Burk leaders, my sculpin jigs and Bird’s nests, Hare’s Ears and P.T.’s .

Just look at the pics:

Jared, there aren’t any fish there.

 

They’re over here.

Stop fooling around and get over here. We’ll alternate casts, just get over here! Now! Hurry, get the camera, another one!

More of the same….

 

Went back to the stretch above the lower falls of the McCloud where we did really well last trip. The water was skinny and clear. Nothing going on here.

 

Just for the hell of it we scrambled down and forged the river just below the falls. It was sickening. We caught a lot of fish stripping muddler minnows and sculpins jigs.

 

We weren’t alone….

 

It’s hard to see but a bunch of otters were devouring fish under the overhang opposite us. The white specks are fish.

Anyway, the McCloud is “blown” somewhere below here. I thought it would be a great experience for Jared to take him to the Nature Conservancy property on his first trip to the lower McCloud the next morning. Here we are. Nobody is there, because of the blown-ness of the river and the log shows that we are the first anglers there in more than three weeks. That’s crazy. Everybody from everywhere has fished, will fish or has dreamed of fishing this water. I don’t care for it personally. Upstream suits me better. But Jared had a great time, as the pictures will tell. The Beulah 5’s, that’s all I’m saying.

 

 

This is what “blown” looks like. It’s not crystal clear.

 

I got bored with the Nature Conservancy water. No more dinks. On to Rattlesnake Hole, let’s get something going to wake me up.  #14 tan Bird’s Nest on upper dropper. Notice the fish’s girth with respect to my forearm. It’s around 23″ or greater. I carry a tape with me.

So, the Beulah 5 wt. CZ rod emits the proper frequencies under load to attract decent fish.

 

I’m tired of talking, here’s an album:

 

I thought I’d clarify the “mystery rod”. It is a 5 wt. Beulah Spey rod that I built as a single hander. I doubt we’ll put it into production. I wanted you to get a sense of what product development and research for Beulah is like. Think about what would work better than what’s already available, build it, fish it, refine it. Repeat.

 

Yuba, UC Davis property above the Hwy 20 bridge, one of my personal favorites when I can gain access (and a convenient drive from home, hence my bias), May 2014. Beulah 5 wt. CZ rod, modified Andy Burk leader, sculpin jig anchor fly, anything #16 or #18 on dropper.

Here you go:

This gallery includes Sam Yee landing a dink with a salmon net. What a character.

“Deer Creek is flowing above 60 CFS depositing mud into the Yuba River, the river is blown…” say all the area fly shops on their fishing reports.

“Jared, can you fish the Yuba this weekend? It’s BLOWN.” “Yep, I think I can do that.”

Beulah 5 wt. CZ (or European, I can’t remember what they’re going to be called) and an 11′ 7″ “mystery rod” tackle a river that’s “blown”. Rivers like to be “blown”, as you will see….

I’ll park these here, says Jared. (mystery rod in hand)

 

Let’s get busy!

Where the hell is everybody? This place is usually crowded.

Shit, the ranger, hide your beer. Oh, he doesn’t care. Cool Dog.

 

So, we used SA 6 wt. nymph and steelhead lines on both 5 wt. rods and were able to both CZ nymph and indicator fish as needed. Our leaders were modified Andy Burk leaders, surprisingly for both methods. My leader consists of about 6 feet of 8 lb. PowerPro with a 2.25 mm tippet ring at the bottom. The top loop is the PowerPro contained inside some Gudebrod braided butt, 15 lb. made into a tight loop. A loop of Gudebrod 20 lb. is on the flyline. Below the tippet ring is a typical dropper rig made of 3x flouro main and 4x dropper. My anchor flies were a 1/8 or 1/16 oz. sculpin jig that I developed with a pink SJ worm, or whatever on the dropper. Jared’s big fish was on a fly we called the “cat poop”, a #2 or #4 dark brown shape that resembled a Jurassic stonefly, a big sculpin, or cat poop. He lost the fly on the next fish. He doesn’t listen. The pattern is lost.

For indicator, we cut off the braided upper loop and attached a tippet ring, then a 18″ 2x monofilament butt section. A Thingamabobber was put in the butt section as close to the tippet ring as possible so we could get a good vertical drop. That’s about it for what worked.

 

Built my rod. Built three of them – one for James all fancied up to look like a Beulah rod, and one each for Jared Paine and Me. Jared and I have fished, tied and built rods together for well over 10 years. We were really into this project. We built ours with recycled graphite reel seats and a discarded cork handles from when I used to work at Powell. We used REC Recoil single-foot titanium wire guides and 3/0 silk thread. A minimum of thread finish and we had 10 foot weapons that weighed in at 3 3/4 0z. We were pumped up to get out and wiggle them.

We stayed in the same house in McCloud from my trip in 2011. Late September. On our first night we started above the lower falls and worked up.

Things started happening fast. The 5 wt. was attracting fish!

 

Notice the arc in the rod. This is what I’ve been looking for! We caught dinks and sizeable fish on 6x and 3x and it was all very good on this rod.

 

That particular fish:

 

 

Another:

 

and another;

 

 

Let’s go to the Upper Sac…….

 

O.k., good idea.

I’m tired, let’s go home. I told you to put the cooler in the truck, what were you thinking?

and decided on a 5 wt., a 4 wt., and a 3 wt. 10 foot Czech or European nymph rod series. Taper, guide spacing, reel seat, weight, all of that was bantered about for a couple more years until James had his factory build a one-off prototype of the 3 wt. and 4 wt. for testing, Summer 2013. We had the 5 wt. dialed in already and Jared Paine and I were fishing with it as of Summer 2012.

What do you do when you have something like that in your hands? Go to Michigan. Traverse City. The Ausable, Manistee and Pere Marquette. The home of the “Adams” dry fly. I could see no other options. I had my sights set on two rivers – the Jordan and Boardman which are close to Traverse city. If you ever have a chance to go there you really should go. For the fishing. For the amazing fruit and produce. And the people are great.

I went in August. The water was a little warm, less than ideal. I checked out the Jordan and access wasn’t good for Czech nymphing so I defaulted the Boardman. It’s beautiful.

 

 

The 3 wt. is capable of a really nice tuck-cast.

 

The water was heavily silted by a recent deconstruction of a gravel dam at Brown Bridge. We saw very little life in the water – bugs and fish were scarce. After a few hours we headed back to where we parked.

The scour from these bridge culverts gave us a clear gravel bottom to fish on.

 

My heart was pounding – I knew I was going to catch the only fish in this river, and here it is:

My fear was gone. Our 3 wt. CZ rod not only didn’t repel fish but it attracted them. This protype rod and the 4 wt.were almost immediately sent to the CZ Republic for field testing. I wasn’t ready to give them up yet!

The next day we fished the skinny water above Brown Bridge where the gravel dam was. Pretty but the raft and canoe traffic and the lack of high-gradient were definitely not in our favor. I asked around and someone recommended the Pine River, about an hour south. We scouted the Pine until we found the right water which was above the raft and canoe traffic. All the people we encountered that were floating the Boardman and the Pine were really polite.

Here’s a glimpse of the Pine:

Perfect! A shot from the bridge looking upstream, the canoe put-in is just downstream. After only a few minutes I hooked a 12 inch or so brown on the 3 wt. He took a #10 golden olive CZ nymph. My wife was downstream and the fish bounced, I mean bounced out of the net as I was getting ready to take a picture.

The Beaulah 3 wt. CZ rod performed perfectly. I think it’s going to be pretty popular for a lot of different types of water and an upgrade for people who fish the Gray’s equivalent.

 

 

Around 2002 or so I was at a Mt. Tamalpais Fly Club Meeting and our presenters were Andy Burk and Steve Korbay on Czech Nymphing. We were shown flies, how to tie Czech nymphs, rigs, rods and techniques by both Andy and Steve. I went home and got to work right away. The “rod” poised between my legs was my second protoype CZ rod constructed on a Seeker blank. The first was a Thomas and Thomas Vector blank, plus I owned Sage 10 foot XP’s in 4-7 wt. All my 10-footers at that time were pretty decent indicator rods for both bank and drift-boat fishing, great roll casters, great at mending, and got the job done for CZ nymphing. I wasn’t overjoyed with the performance of these rods, nor any others that I fished, but I stayed optimistic. Something would someday come my way, given how the popularity of European nymphing techniques and technology was starting to permeate the fly fishing market here in the U.S.

A little bit about the picture – I sent this picture to a few people and it ended up in the hands of a CA DFG Biologist whom I shall refer to only as “Roger”. His response was a “reply to all” and I was blessed with his opinion. I laughed my ass off at his response. He claimed that the fish was a “mount” based on his observations and he justified his opinion point by point. I, of course, “replied to all” and expressed my opinion. “Roger” and I became quick friends and he may be included later in my tales.

Also, I sent a copy of this picture to Shane Stalcup. My friendship with Shane is worth another lengthy blog. Anyway, this picture was going to be in Shane’s book “Caddisflies, Top to Bottom”. He passed away before the book was finished. I’ve been in conversations for a long, long time with Shane’s mom and Amato Publishing about finishing the book for him. Enough said about that.

I was at the Fly fishing Show in Pleasanton in 2008 and bought four Beulah rods from James. The 4/5 and 5/6 Switch and 5 wt. Guide series rods quickly became my new favorites.

 A couple of years later I went to the Spey-O-Rama in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park because I knew James was going to be there and wanted to hang out and enjoy a couple barley sodas, learn a little something about spey-fishing and to get my hands on the new Beulah Platinum Series switch rods. Wielding a 6 wt. Platinum Switch rod with some kind of magic line they put on it I was casting across and out of the pond. Over and over again. I felt like a kid who just learned to ride a bike without training wheels. Then I cast the 5 wt. Platinum Switch. The answer was in my hands. I went home and fell asleep that night dreaming of shooting casts with the 6 wt. and making a Czech Nymph rod out of the 5 wt.

I returned the next day and told James what I thought and gave him some of my CZ nymphs and my improved version of the Andy Burk CZ nymphing leader. And this marks the beginning of the tale of the development of my three (plus one) favorite go-to flyrods.

A preview of the result – a 5 wt. Beulah CZ rod prototype at work. As usual, it’s the “rod” poised between my legs while I’m holding a trout. More about the development of this rod series for Beulah to follow in future posts.