Santa Ana River, San Bernardino County, CA 6-02-13

[Foxgap239]

As many of you already know my job allows me to travel quite a bit. About every other or month or so I travel out to the west coast to Ontario, CA. Until last year my trips were strictly business but then I found out about the wild trout opportunities in SoCal and I started to afford myself some time to explore. I think I’ve now caught trout on 6 different streams here in SoCal region but my favorite by far is the Santa Ana River. In PA I’ve fished bigger “runs” so calling it a river seems quite strange to me. Anyway, I got a chance to get up into the San Bernardino Mountains yesterday to fish it.

I got there around dawn due to the predicted heat here in the afternoon and I wanted to be headed home before it got too hot. First 2 hours or so was marginal fishing from what I’ve come to expect on this river. I got a few on nymphs and streamers. Then I came to a pool of rising fish and switched over to an Elk Hair Caddis and never had to switch back. I got many wild browns and even a few stocked rainbows, as CA does stock this stream with bows. Biggest might have been 9 or 10 inches but they are quite beautiful as you can see below.

I did have a sad occurrence happen while I was there though. Later in the day (maybe around noon-ish) I came to a long pool (well long for this stream anyway) and with the water being gin clear I was able to see fish in the slower pools and I could see some at the head of this pool. I started casting and even got a few missed rises but then got stuck in the streamside brush. I did not want to spook the pool so I decided to break off and continue fishing it. While pulling on the fly to break it off, it dislodged and came down on the water but I must have been hooked to some sort of bird nest because 3 newly hatched chicks fell into the water with the fly. I thought they were ducklings until I saw momma come running down the mountain in response to their chirping. I have no idea what type of bird it was but 2 of the 3 chicks were caught in the current and floating away fast. The only thing I could think of was to scoop them up and put them back on dry ground. As you can see from the picture below, the fall did a number on 1 of them but the other seemed good. I’m only hoping my scent was masked because my hands were wet but I’m not too hopeful.

Other than that, I great day in the mountains.

 

[Heritage-Angler]

As if Wile E. Coyote weren't bad enough.

Now the poor roadrunner has to deal with da Fox. :lol:

 

[martin0206]

Haha, after reading the story and knowing Ed replied I couldn't imagine what you came up with. Good stuff

 

[TYoung]

The whole story of mothers abandoning there young because they have human scent on them is an old wives tale. It isn't true. I think people tell their children that in order to keep them from bring baby animals home. Why would a mother abandon her babies just because they smell like humans or other animals? It doesn't make any sense.

 

[Foxgap239]

TYoung wrote:
The whole story of mothers abandoning there young because they have human scent on them is an old wives tale. It isn't true. I think people tell their children that in order to keep them from bring baby animals home. Why would a mother abandon her babies just because they smell like humans or other animals? It doesn't make any sense.

I hope you are correct because then I won't feel so bad about dislodging them. Although that is the first time in my life I have ever heard your take. When you think about it, that makes sense but I can't say as I've ever thought about it before since it never affected me like it did yesterday.

H-A, it is possible that they were roadrunners because they have them out here but if my memory serves me they are fairly thin birds and momma was not thin. My guess from googling images is maybe a type of mountain quail. Momma did have a peak on her head much like roadrunners or cardinals.