Adventures of Johnny United: Mission: to boldly fish where no man has gone before

Actually, it's not exciting as the title suggests: it's better! JU is very passionate about fishing.

This past weekend's mission was to search out one place where we have not fished.

0645 on Saturday, a text message was sent to brother Wiz that JU and the Miracle Squad were heading up the mountain. We met up at Micky's in Placerville. At this location, we decided to go to the West Carson River, South of the Pickett's Junction.

We got to our destination and were excited to see no vehicles parking nearby. As we scouted the area, we were surprised to find three fishermen already fishing. Since they occupied two corners of the river, we took up the other two empty spots. Within five minutes, the father and sons team left with some trout and Team United had the entire place. JU was very adamant in trying out his new fly fishing setup. For twenty minutes, he tried dry flies and wet flies, but was not successful in hooking any fish, although he could see fish chasing his flies and sucking and spitting out his flies too :-( Setting the hook was not an easy task. At the end of the twenty minutes, JU scored ZERO! The Wiz and the Miracle Squad, on the other hand were getting a fish as soon as the bait hit the water. We started fishing around 10 AM and by 10:20 AM, we already got a stringer of 8 good size rainbow and releasing a bunch of little guys. But since this was a location we already knew, it was time to pack up.

Here fishy, fishy...

At least the view is awesome :-)

Even a four-year-old can catch fish

We proceeded further South on Highway 88. We pulled over to a spot that we had not fished before just as the same father/sons team we met earlier picked up with a bag full of trout. The father told us to go down to the deep pool. Team United found a nice shaded area and spread out three mats for a picnic. Wiz and JU went up and down looking for the deep pool, but could not find it. JU hiked about a quarter of a mile of river bend, but found no sign of fish. Coming back to the picnic site, JU told Wiz to just drop the line directly in front. The water was brownish and murky; it was difficult to see to the bottom. Five minutes and no fish? We started questioning if the father gave us false intel, may be he was a student of Mr. Pickle (inside joke). Anyway, JU went opposite to the river and started to cast out the Genuine Silver Plate Thomas Thunderbolt. BAM. Fish on! It was a 12-inch keeper. We took back all the bad things we said about the father giving us the wrong intel. Once JU found out where the fish pooled up, it was back to the fly fishing. Once again, the same result for JU :-( Also, the same result for Wiz and the Miracle Squad. All in all it was a fantastic day among fantastic company: mission accomplished!