Not much to say this time around. I'm not keeping as detailed records as I hoped as this trip was a comedy of errors. First, I forgot to bring my log book, which would have been ok had I had a pen but I didn't. Then I broke a my seine and lastly, I ended up calling a porn line when I tried to call the DFG Poaching line. 

I seined 3 areas. The top of the Cable Hole and the bottom of the shoot riffle. I sampled two fish. One below the burping rock and another below the big pool. The seine sample at the top of the Cable Hole confirmed the dominant mayfly presence I suspected with my seine sample being 50% midge larva and 50% mayfly nymphs. I've yet to identify the mayflies but they were likely Beatis. This time larger than previously, easily size 18 or a short 16. 

I fished the Cable Hole for about 2hrs, desperately trying to get a stomach sample. I played 5 fish in that time one of which in the 17-18 inch range. I lost them all. I was very perplexed at my poor landing rate, until I looked at my spool of tippet. What I thought was 6x was in truth 7x (I didn't even know I was carrying 7x) and I was putting a bit too much pressure on it. All the lost fish were hooked on midge imitations. Either a Zebra Midge of Black Magic. I didn't fish any mayfly imitations as I was still testing the Czech nymphs.

The first stomach sample I took showed mostly midges and the second sample was entirely adult midge. The second seine sample again showed mostly caddis with midge and some mayflies.

Fishing was good and mostly everyone I spoke with was catching many and large fish. Surprisingly, the bait fishers were out as well. I say surprisingly because you wouldn't expect the bait fishers on a weekend- because of the crowds. I guess they figured that Super Bowl Sunday would be less crowded but they figured wrong. There were tons of fly fishers on hand and at lease 3 others must have seen them as well. I confronted one bait fisher to no avail.

I tried to continue fishing but was so put off by the poaching that I packed up and left. I had decided earlier that day not to bring my cell phone and now, the one day that I truly needed it, I didn't have it. I drove the 20 or so minutes into Oakdale to make the call to the DFG tip line. I couldn't remember the number exactly, I thought it was 800 DFG Tip or 800 Cal Tip but neither one of those is long enough to be a phone number. I called the 800 information line to no avail. The automated look up service couldn't find my listing and living humans don't man the lines on the weekends. I then made a guess as to what the number was and called 800 Fish Tip. This ended up being a porn line which was perfectly willing to help me once I dialed in my credit card number. Frustrated, I jumped back in the car to drive an additional 25 minutes to my in-laws.

Once in Modesto I signed on to the DFG Web site and spent another frustrating 15 or so minutes trying to find the number listed on the DFG site. I think I finally found it by down loading the fishing regs and getting it off that. After passing through several phone menus I finally spoke with a person who recorded my "offense".  "May I have your day time phone number" she asked, "a warden may phone you for further details".

I've not received a call, presumably because the warden knows of the poaching on the Stan. Like the trash, it's fairly prevalent and there seem to be new bait containers every week.

By the way....the correct phone number is 1-888-DFG- CALTIP.

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