Small Creek and Dap rodding

This summer i had the opportunity to guide Chuck Cook, the Director of the Nature Conservancy and some of his associates for a couple days. One of the venues we stopped at was a small creek i sometimes like to fish in the spring near hopevalley.

Chuck and his friends raised many small trout to dry flies. Here's Chuck with his cigar.
Along the way upstream we ran into a couple guys from the valley Dap rodding. This guy had a 20 foot rod on a 2 foot wide creek. The rod telescoped and only had a 3 foot piece of line on the end. No casting involved. Just lean it over and place the bait or lure in the water. Too bad these guys were fishing worms. Would have been way cooler with flies.
Nice little trout fry enjoying the slow moving side water in a beaver pond. He was too small to be messed with by the baiters. Better hide when the otter or osprey come by though.

Fathers Day Trip

So the fishing has been super good this summer. I've been guiding a ton and spending as much time as possible out on the water. That's why i haven't had allot of extra time to update the blog. So i'm trying to make up for it a bit by posting a bunch of back logged photo reports from this summer now that things are slowing down a bit.

Here's some photos from a fun canoe trip i took with my dad for fathers day up at Bear River.

Nice bow on a nymph.
Big brother bow.
In the spring and early summer the lady beetles congregate and mate. Here's a little singles mixer happening on my Galvan Torque.
My Dad and my canoe set up. Great for two people and camping gear. Super stealth and eco friendly access. Great to fish out of. Love it.
When you spend allot of time out doors and doing crazy stuff every once in a while your going to get taxed. This time a rock jumped out and whacked me in the face when i was trying to dive into the lake. I was just diving in to go swim over and jump off a big rock and made the mistake of jumping right into the afternoon glare. Luckily some other campers lent me some bandaids.

Rivers Fiji

Had an opportunity to do some filming for O.A.R.S. rafting company in Fiji this summer. Here's just one of the five promotional videos i put together from the trip. Most people don't think of Fiji for it's rivers but they were some of the coolest i'd ever had the chance to float.

Rivers Fiji from Mikey Wier on Vimeo.

For more check out riversfiji.com

East Carson Float

Here's a few photos from an East Carson River float earlier this summer. Floating the E. Carson is always one of my favorite couple days of the summer. This year i only got one float in, but we got it just right. It's a tough one because the water fluctuates so much on this river. It's either too high and the fishing is tough or it's too low and impossible to float. So you have a window of sometimes only a week where you can do both with success. It's a 22 mile float. You can do it in one day but i like to make two or sometimes three out of it and really fish it hard. If you get stuck in the canyon it's a long walk out so you need to have your act together. My outcast pack 1200 is the perfect boat for two people.

This year Dave Shankman joined me. Dave stuck some great fish. I was very impressed with his luck and skill. Here's a nice rainbow on a streamer.
First fish of the morning on day two. It was a beauty.
I rescued a baby swallow who fell in the river on his first attempt at flight.
We rowed right up on this little black bear that was walking down the side of the river. The wind was blowing up canyon and he was near some rushing water. Dave and i got about 10 feet away from him before he finally turned around and saw us. Scared the beejesus out of him. We had a great wild life day. Saw two coyote, three deer, river otter, this bear, and even a Mt. Lion!
Dave with another nice rainbow on some nymphs.
This was my best fish landed for the trip. Photo is a bit blurry but you get the point.
Dave crushing it! Nice Carson bow. Props.

American Float

This summer i was invited on a float with Wilderness Adventures on the Middle Fork of the American River. They offer white water rafting trips on some of the best rivers around Northern California. This trip they wanted to explore some of the fishing opportunities in the MF canyon so they invited some fishing professionals including Ralph and Lisa Cutter, Cal Kellog the editor of the Fish Sniffer Magazine as well as myself and 8 other spin fisherman.

Ralph and Lisa staying calm in the tunnel shoot rapid as guide Grady pulls the oars.
Brian rows Cal and his niece down the gnar gnar.
Whip Tail Lizard. They are the fastest lizards in California.
Ralph and Lisa casting into a beautiful pool.
My first rainbow on the Middle American.
Ralph and Lisa bombing out some perfect casts.
On day two i got a really nice brown. We were the last boat so 9 spin fisherman had just hit this water right before i floated through and got this girl on a size 2 jig head streamer i tied up.
Ralph enjoying a killer spread of great food. We were totally spoiled for two days.
Grady in the heavy water of Rucka Chucky Falls. He lost an oar on this one but made it though alright.

High Sierra Music Festival

20 th annual High Music Sierra Music Festival

3 stages. Too many good bands to list.
This year i helped work the Cal Trout booth with the wonderful Shannon Moon.

We had some interactive games for the kids including some painting. I brought some canvas and donated some paints to the cause. Also worked on one of my own paintings of some leopard sharks throughout the weekend.

Holding down the fort.

Merchison Falls, Uganda

Some photos and a report from my friends Craig Smith and Jonathan Boulton's recent trip to Merchison Falls in Uganda. Might be the biggest Nile Perch ever caught there on fly.

Hi Guys - Don't want to bore you with too many details.

Just got back from a trip to the Murchison Falls in Uganda. It is a

fascinating rift valley where over millions of years some of the rivers have

changed the direction the used to flow in. It is rich in culture - Ernest

Hemingway, Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and Queen Elizabeth have

all hunted there. It was a real adventure as few people have fly fished this

area. It was hot - over 40 degrees in the gorge, humidity was 100%, the

river pumps, tsetse flies were all over you all day, hungry crocs, hippos,

snakes, colobus monkeys, etc. We stayed at the Red Chilli backpackers where

we were fed bacon with nearly every meal. The accommodation was really

sparse and the ablutions were shared by over 50 people. But, the beer was

always cold and plentiful.

Jonathan checked my equipment every evening replacing broken lines and

retying all my knots. We fished at the bottom of the falls at the start of

each day. The Victoria Nile is channelled into a gap of 6 meters and drops

down 40 metres spilling 300 cubic meters of water a second - not sure what

that is in feet. I fished hard about 8 hours a day for 6 days and landed a

total of 4 Nile Perch. One of these happens to be the new recorded record on

fly - 25kg's. It fought me for about 35 minutes (with a lot of instructions

being shouted by Joanthan - I think he panicked for me) on a 10 weight rod -

I did not know fly rods could handle that amount of punishment. Length 1.23m

and girth of 82 cm's.

Our guide was the renowned wildlife expert Paul Goldring who was fascinating

and taught us a lot about the bush. He also showed us a lot of unusual

things we would never have seen if we had been on our own - for example:

fresh leopard tracks on a path we had walked on the day before, a royal

python in the papyrus (something he said we would never see in our lives

again - he has picked up a dead one which he has in a jar in his house, and

then the one we saw with him). The rocks you see us flyfishing from always

had crocs on them and we had to chase them away to get a spot.

We also experienced the true Africa in Kampala where we had to bribe a local

traffic officer for an alleged offense - even having to give him 2000

shillings for his taxi ride back to his post after he had fleeced us for 60

000 shillings. I loved his response - either put up with it or leave - this

from Paul, not the policeman. He was not planning to leave.

Craig Smith