Document text
Mark Freeman Commentary Eagle Point angler heads south to hook trout By MARK FREEMAN Dave Roberts is as Southern Oregon as fly-fishermen could ever come. He's a beard-growing, pickup driving, snuff-chewing, labrador owning, suspenders-and-belt wearing good ol' boy from Eagle Point who listens to U.S. Marines Marching Band records while tying flies and works nights strictly so he can fish every day. So it comes as no surprise that Roberts greets the spring opening of trout fishing with the giddy expectations of teens on prom night. "I'm so excited," says Roberts, 51. "I feel like a kid before Christmas." The surprise, however, is that this selfprofessed Southern Oregon redneck is not looking east, west or north for his favorite trout fishing on a fly. He's going due south. Right past the Agricultural Inspection Station en route to what is quickly becoming one of Southern Oregon fly-fishers' most lauded waters -- Northern California's Upper Sacramento River. The real start of spring fishing for Roberts comes Saturday in California, and Roberts will be among fly fishermen from across the West casting tiny flies for big trout on the Upper Sac. Last Saturday's opening day for trout fishing in Oregon came and went with little fanfare for Roberts, an Oregonian now going to California for good fishing. And he's not ashamed at this angling dyslexia. "I'm not sneaking down there," Roberts says. "I'm telling everybody I'm headed right over the border after work early Friday. The trout fishing's just so much better down there." The Upper Sac is for trout fishing what the Rogue is for steelhead fishing, a destination bigger than its local allure. The spring-fed river that flows into Lake Shasta is becoming a mecca for men like Roberts who relish thumping around a free - flowing stream with insect imitations meant to fool big trout that live among one set of river rocks year-round. It's the antithesis of Southern Oregon's famed steelhead fly fishing, where anglers intercept migrating fish that are here today and gone tomorrow. "The trout fishing simply is much better down there," Roberts says. "It's real trout water, and the fish are all in the same places. You don't have to hunt for them. You just have to figure out what they're taking." "It's what real trout fishing is all about," Roberts says. "And you don't get it anywhere in Oregon." That's almost heresy in Oregon, which imports more anglers than it could possibly export. But Roberts will be escorting a contingent of fellow Rogue Valley fly-casters Friday to Dunsmuir, the Upper Sac's fly-fishing hub that revels in an old-time Opening Weekend that is the stuff only grandfathers now speak of. It starts Friday night with fly tying expositions and chili feeds across town, where strangely dressed men congregate to argue whether the Prince nymph out fishes the traditional bomber fly. Dunsmuir's art galleries will create vast displays of fly-fishing pieces, and several establishments hold special wine-tasting events. "OK," Roberts says, "so you do get a little of that Yuppie stuff, too." But not enough to push Oregonians away. "People will be there from all over the place," Roberts says. "No one cares if they're from 'Frisco or Oregon. They're all fly-fishermen and that's what really matters." The Upper Sac first drew Roberts 40 years ago, when the then 11-year-old traveled from the Los Angeles area to fish the river with his grandfather. When Roberts moved north to Oregon in 1980, he eschewed all that was California. "I had no intention of going back across that border for anything," Roberts says. But things changed after a devastating 1991 chemical spill wiped out the Upper Sac's bountiful wild trout fishery around Dunsmuir. The river recovered and re opened to angling in 1994. The wild trout again thrived beneath the stream-fed waters that also sport an immense cornucopia of water bugs. Caddis flies, green drakes, brown drakes, pale morning Dunns, pale evening Dunns, mayflies, stoneflies, midges. The river spits out buckets of these and other flies with increasing regularity, and they provide a challenging invitation to fly fishermen whose "match-the-hatch" mentality makes mountains out of fooling one trout an hour. These prospects brought Roberts back to the Upper Sac in 1994, and he's been revisiting regularly since. The Upper Sac's season runs through Nov. 15. Angling is allowed only with artificial flies and lures with barbless hooks. But many fly-fishermen wade the many access spots around and downstream of Dunsmuir, where the wild trout population is its best. "This old redneck has a ball down there," Roberts says. "Last year, I took 12 trout 20 inches or larger. The best I had done before that was 16 inches." Trout fever hasn't allowed this beard-growing, pickup-driving, snuff-chewing, labrador-owning, suspenders-and-belt-wearing good ol' boy to completely turn California-phile. "Northern California isn't really California," Roberts rationalizes. "You don't hit California until you hit Redding." (Staff writer Mark Freeman covers the outdoors for the Mail Tribune. Call him at 776-4470, or e-mail him at: [email protected] ) Outdoor Journal Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Mail Tribune � 2000 -- Medford, Oregon USA