Santa Ana River, San Bernardino, CA 3-23-14

[Foxgap239]

I'm not sure if anyone likes or even reads these CA reports so let me know if you want me to decease in writing them.

Had to head out to California for work and decided to come out a few days early so that I could get some CA wild brown fishing in. Good timing again since I see they are predicting another PA snow event. 🙂

Decided to hit my favorite SoCal water the Santa Ana River up in the San Bernardino Mountains. Never ceases to amaze me when I fish for cold water fish then turn around and see cactus everywhere. LOL Got there around 10AM and the air temp was in the mid 50's. A bit overcast but a nice fishing weather. Water level was what I would expect to see in August not March so I guess this drought is real but water temp seemed very cold. Didn't bring my thermometer but I would guess in the high 40's or low 50's which is cold for out here. They do need rain. Fishing was extremely slow. I fished until about 3PM and only hooked about 10 fish. If you ever read my past reports on this water, you know that is really slow. Got 1 on a dry and the rest on my pink beaded SJW.

Below are a few pictures of the pretty fish from this water. Hope you enjoy the pictures and my report.

Fox

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

I enjoy them but I would love to see some pics of the streams too.

 

[geebee]

nice fish. keep the reports coming - always good to see different areas IMHO and to add to the knowledge base.

last week i went to a fly club meeting, and after they had a presentation on Patagonian (Chile) rainbows, and my first thought was, 4 days and $3,000 round trip, plus $5,000 for 5 nights a lodge.... - isn't there wild trout in Socal and NM in the winter ??????

so FWIW you do more my kind of fishing my friend - btw what kind of altitude are you at ?

cheers

Mark.

 

[Foxgap239]

Thanks for the feedback. I took the friend that keeps my gear out here for me with me and he has never been flyfishing so I do have some stream pictures with him fishing the waters.

Enjoy.

 

[Foxgap239]

geebee wrote:
nice fish. keep the reports coming - always good to see different areas IMHO and to add to the knowledge base.

last week i went to a fly club meeting, and after they had a presentation on Patagonian (Chile) rainbows, and my first thought was, 4 days and $3,000 round trip, plus $5,000 for 5 nights a lodge.... - isn't there wild trout in Socal and NM in the winter ??????

so FWIW you do more my kind of fishing my friend - btw what kind of altitude are you at ?

cheers

Mark.

There are signs as I go up the mountain and the highest I see is 6000 ft but then you go down into a valley. I'm going to guess I'm fishing at 4500 or 5000 ft.

 

[delta_dog]

Nice George! I'm glad your working hard. Lol

 

[englishprof]

I wouldn't want you to "decease" either.....nor desist. Ha!!!!!

 

[Foxgap239]

englishprof wrote:
I wouldn't want you to "decease" either.....nor desist. Ha!!!!!

I was hoping no one would catch that but of course the Englishprof would point it out. By the time I realized what I typed I could no longer edit it! LOL

 

[englishprof]

Couldn't resist, but all in good fun. What town were you near again? I'm going out there in early June.

 

[lv2nymph]

Thanks for the report on water in Ca. I was just thinking I'd love to see some pics of the stream and you had them up. Pretty fish, Great looking little stream.

 

[Heritage-Angler]

Always enjoy your "road trip" pictures and stories, George.

Be careful, and watch out for those roadrunners. ;-)

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

Foxes eat roadrunners

 

[boychick]

Love it... good stuff Fox, thanks for sharing. I wanted to get up there while I was in Laguna, I just couldn't swing it. I fished the surf instead, which is pretty cool too.