on the Fly in Squaw

After 2 weeks of altitude induced hypoxic euphoria I guess it's time to share a little. Our annual trip up the hill started with much anticipation. It's seems amazing how in my 20's I could pack for a month long trip in 15 minutes.......if a change of clothes, fishing pole, a gun or two and truck bed full of beer constitute packing that is. I felt like I was "getting ready" for two weeks prior to launch.

After a winter of near epic snowfall in the Sierra Nevada's it was a different feeling driving to Squaw Valley and seeing snow "EVERYWHERE" during the second week of June. Squaw creek, while a small creek, was flowing like a river due to snow melt in Shirley Canyon. We settled in and enjoyed a "nothing on the schedule" Monday. Tuesday however held some early morning fun for me. Through Facebook I found a deal for half off a Fly Fishing course with Matt Heron. Matt offers the full Fly fishing experience with instruction classes for beginners to guided tours for those looking to land that trophy fish. I had a dabbled with a fly pole back in the early 70's when my parents took my family to Alaska....30 yrs later I forgot everything I had taught myself, which wasn't much. At best, if you were to categorize the levels of Fly Fisherman....I would be a hack! With Matt's instruction, I became a hack that could cast a line in the water where I wanted it to go repeatedly! 






















Shortly after this pic was taken, my son climbed down the embankment to join me and took a header. So I turned around and walked up to the truck with him and for the first time in my fishing career buried a hook in my finger past the barb and needed to dig out my trusty Leatherman to extricate the hook from my digit. FUCK that hurt ! But fish on we did. As noted earlier, the record snowfall had an sweet effect on the area watersheds around the Tahoe basin. Donner Lake has a nice little public dock where we can sit down and let the kids fish....and I get to hone my skills as a bait master, constantly re-baiting hooks to keep up there pace of "feeding" the fish as I call it. Donner was visibly higher this year, a local Real Estate agent said there was a recorded surface temperature of 39 degrees the week prior to our arrival and yet they were people enjoying all forms of watersports.

 This shot is looking towards the East end of Donner Lake.
 We have been heading up to Boca and Stampede reservoirs to fish for a few years now. This year we were pleasantly surprised to both reservoirs at or near capacity. In years past, Stampede was down about 20 feet or more. 

This is the sight had from our spot at Stampede. Something we have never incurred before was a rising lake level. The first time we were there we took a dirt road down to the spot above. Prior to us being there someone had a campfire ring where they had their fire, well 4 days later we came back and I noticed the ring had moved about 6 feet closer to the waters edge, 3 days after that the ring was under water and during last excursion the said ring was underwater and 4-5 feet from the shoreline!

We also managed to get off the paved road and hit some dirt. It did not take long to hit snow on the trails....I finally had to stop when there was 4 feet of the white stuff crossing the road. So we stopped and my sun dug his sand toys and snow boots out of the back of the truck and dug in













While off the public roads I decided it was time for more driver training for my oldest kid. Might as well get off road certified at 12yrs old right??? She first was thrown behind the wheel in Utah at my brothers house last year where she took all of 18 seconds to settle into a calm groove and look relaxed.  This time she had more than a 1/4 mile long driveway to deal with though and proved to be quite the driver. We had a lot of fun this year as we
always do. That is what vacations are all about right?
After lamenting about being a bad fisherman my
son caught his first fish, a nice 13" long brown trout. Happy as a clam, he nearly cried when we
told him we would bring the fish home to his Grandpa for dinner........so we let him go. The only fish we caught were at our "honey hole" pictured above at Stampede Res., but we had a blast fishing.






I guess no trip would be complete without getting wet. Below, at Boca Res. the kids ventured into the water to play after fishing and you may be able to tell the water temperature by the look on Alyssa's face, although Shaymus shows no indication of the water being cold!