Jess and Dean have been fly fishing for awhile and since they are from Redding, fished the Lower Sac quite a bit. They are also members of Project Healing Waters, a national organization that's focused on the rehabilitation of disabled active military or veterans. I've had the honor of guiding a lot of PHW groups and they are ALWAYS a lot of fun. Jess and Dean may be my two favorites as I don't think I've laughed as hard as I did in a really long time! I hope all of the veterans that come through Confluence Outfitters know how much we appreciate them!

So the good is that we caught fish, some of them were very large, and we didn't die of heat strokes. The bad is that the fishing was pretty slow throughout the day and we worked hard for all of our fish. The ugly is that Jess lost a HUGE fish that took him 40 yards into his backing and seemed intent on swimming to the Sundial Bridge from twelve miles down river. Heartbreaking, to say the least.

In the morning there were a lot of caddis and BWO's but the fishing just never picked up like it should have. The temp being 110 degrees probably didn't help, but in the typical runs, riffles, and top-secret locations... the fish just seemed less than willing to participate. We went through a long list of flies and all of my typical go-to's and "guarantees" didn't seem to crack the code. But we kept fishing hard and despite it being hot and slow, we had a good time and did our best! By the end of the day we probably hooked a dozen or so fish and even landed some of them too, ha ha! Thanks, Jess and Dean, for your service and thanks for making the day so fun!