Fisherkid

When I was a kid, I used to like to fish the small streams for trout, where I could hike in and take nothing with me but a spool of fish line and an aspirin box full of fish hooks. After I found the right spot I would cut a willow stick for a pole. The creeks were usually fairly cool in the hot summer, so it was a nice place to hang out. The creeks smelled like the caddisfly and dragonfly larva that lived in them. Those that don’t know what that smells like, it smells like the front-end of your car after you’ve driven through a bug storm.


The larva is irresistible to fish, so that would be the bait that I would use. The lava is easy to find, all you have to do is move a few rocks below the edge if the stream and the larva would be the cone shaped object in the water around it. It hatches about late May to early June, my time to fish. The larva likes to decorate their shell with objects that it finds around them, that fools the fish but their cone shape sticks out like a sore thumb to anyone that knows what they are looking for. I just slid my hook through the larva and threw the soft shell away, then I would sneak quietly upstream and toss the bait in the water if there was a fish in the hole it would be on my willow stick in no time at all. Sometime I would use worm or a grasshopper for bait later in the season. After a days worth of fishing I would usually have a willow stick loaded with fish and then I would hike back home. I’ve never liked to pack things with me, so I would usually not take a lunch. So the fish dinner would be extra good.

I used to like to fish in Brock Creek by Eel Rock, or Indian Creek in Piercy, or Ten Mile, or Rattlesnake, or Coleman creek in Laytonville. The upper South Fork near Branscomb was also good fishing.

I used to fish the large holes In the Eel River with a small spinning rod and reel with four pound test line. A Super-duper was killer in the riffles.