Wanderlust, urban exploration, whatever it was I couldn't drive over the bridge one more time and look upriver and ignore this stretch of my hometown river.
This river has it's A+ stretches where it doesn't seem possible you're 5 minutes from a Starbucks, but there's just as many where your as likely to encounter a homeless encampment as a rising Redband trout. It's got a troubled past when residents avoided it like a disease. Smelly, raw sewage, trash, and more....it was treated like the red headed stepchild of the city
Like many other urban centers across this country, the river's that flow through hundreds of thousands of people's backyards are starting to get their due. They're centers for urban revitalization, civic pride and for us fishing degenerates, improving areas to toss bugs.
Our city mascot, the marmots scurried underfoot as I found more and more places to fish that were a hundred yards or so from the busiest street in town. The fish on the other hand weren't very cooperative as we are in the middle of runoff. Pieces of rebar and concrete wire mesh darted out from the urban mess on the banks but just off the shore, the seams and troughs looked just like a place where a fat fish would hide under the right conditions. You just have to time your casts to avoid snagging a jogger decked out in neon.
It's a gritty river in this stretch. The voices of the past before development are still there, reminding us of what a great asset it is for our city. Ducks and geese poured in from overhead, beavers worked the banks, herons stalked the shallows and if my guess holds true, wild trout swim in the currents impervious to the 500,000 people living around them.
Get more info on this river in recovery by clicking HERE
