Kern River Tournament

By
Carl Wuebben

I caught one trout about 12 inch. dropped it before i could take a photo, one sucker and four pikes minnows about 6 inches long on Friday.    Rick P got a 35cm and a 30cm trout in the a.m. with me in the area i was controlling for the tournament Saturday. He was using a two fly rig for the first hour and got nothing then Gary Applebee stopped by to check on his student hahahah (just kidding- Rick is a very good fisherman on his own) and told him to think outside the box and do as Guy Jeans from the Kern river fly shop said and change the menu, and he did. He threw on a third fly (a nymph ) so I boulder hopped to the other side of the area and was ignoring him because of the no-fish-in-the-net syndrome he was having, and within ten or fifteen minutes he got his first fish of the day. I was on one side of the area and he was on the other so I came running over large and small boulders thru small spots of water and never missed a rock or slipped one bit and to this day I don't know how I made it there, in waders no less! But i met him right as he got to the side to measure the fish - a 35cm one not bad for a tough day on low and cold waters day fishing .  

 

Then I put the fish back into the water as Rick said "well at least  I'm on the board now" and I told him to now go catch that same one nineteen more times to fill his score card. He laughed and said "yea right". So I left him to go to the other side of the area because I found out thru the years that if I watch you then you will not get any fish and this is a proven fact.  If you don't believe me lets go fishing and I will watch you and you will draw a blank ( the Carl curse ) but if we don't see each other, you will get fish... Just ask Bob Y, we go fishing together alot and he gets fish if we don't fish next to each other. 

Then another ten or fifteen minutes and bamm another fish but I was only half way on the other side this time and again across the rocks I went without falling (whew) as he was leaning down. I was there to measure a 30cm fish this time and with about a half hour left to fish, i said only eighteen more to go and with another 'YEA RIGHT' he set off to get some more fish but I guess it was not to be. He ended with only two fish but not bad for  two hours of fishing the Kern River. 

Our team got third place again out of nine teams, which is very good considering the conditions we were up against.

VERY GOOD JOB TEAM DEEP CREEK!   

Now let's get ready for next year. This time I will let someone else do the rock hopping for me and by the way I was staring almost all the time at the guy fishing with me in the afternoon so he would not get fish and it was working until I was trying to see where the other controller went downstream from me and that's when I Had to rock hop one more time to measure his measly 29cm fish which was his only fish for the day and he was the top fisherman last year at this tournament. 

GOOD JOB RICK P. YOU SHOWED HIM.

Carl >))))))))('>

Kern River Tournament Photos