Henry David Thoreau said, "Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after." While I can't deny the philosophical truth to those words, sometimes when you go fishing, you DEFINITELY want to catch some fish! Steve and his son, Alex, came up for a couple of days to fish the North State and the Lower Sac did NOT disappoint. We did a super long float and fished hard from start to end. This was both of their first times fly fishing, so we spent some time learning how to cast and mend the line and then got started. The smoke was pretty bad but we've all decided it's "manageable," especially since the fishing has been so good. We started the morning using the typical midge stuff and as the day progressed saw a few caddis and PMD's, so we put the appropriate patterns on (Peaches 'N Cream, etc.). The grabs were pretty steady throughout the day, though definitely the "hot" peak was from about 12:30 until 3. Steve (Dad) hooked a monster as a bunch of rafters were passing by and the fish gave up three nice jumps before breaking off. Heavy fish on 4X tippet make landing pretty challenging sometimes, especially when those fish decide to take off right when you start reeling (or so we learned). Alex also hooked a couple of big boys and one in particular destroyed us by swimming into a log jam before we could even begin to THINK about trying to turn it. Such is the life of fishing! But after we hooked some good fish on the rubber legs, Alex asked a really good question. "Luke... can we put TWO rubber legs on?" Why yes, Alex... we can. Annnnnnndddddddd that's when the fishing continued but the catching stopped. Total river shut down by about 4pm. But we put a good amount of fish in the net and lost some big ones and all in all it was a smashing success. In regard to the river, the flow is coming down and is still pretty clear. Lots of Saturday traffic and I'm sure that'll only increase as we get closer to "hero season" (aka, egg bite). You mine as well book a day and not miss out because memories are being made and big fish are showing up in force. Bring your "A" game and a good attitude and you'll have a great time!