Well guys, headed out to Tomales Bay with Brad for some crabs tomorrow. Goin to use the fish carcasses and the octopus chunk Brad caught for bait. Hopefully we'll catch a few anyway.
Man, that piece of octopus STINKS to high heaven. That otta call every crab in Tomales bay to our traps.

This morning my 3 year old grandson saw me smacking all the household fire extinguishers against my anvil and wanted to know why.

My first reply was that I was going fishing this coming weekend and wanted to get a headstart on my daylight savings time change routine.

From the look on his face (like the one I give him when he forgets to say please or thank you), I could tell didn't like my answer.

Here's a summary of my second attempt to answer his question.

The following is based on first hand experience and recommendations from a retired fireman.

Background: After hanging for a year, the powder in an ABC fire extinguisher will settle and set in the bottom. The longer it hangs, the harder it sets up. (If you want to see for yourself, grab yours and give it a shake--if you can't feel and hear the powder moving, it's packed.)

My experience: I have a sister in law that lives with me and she's a firebug (too much oil in the deep fryer, Christmas presents on top of a 500 watt pole lamp, portable bathroom heater to close her bedding, etc). A couple of the times when I grabbed the closest extinguisher, all I got out of it was air.

Fireman's recommendation: When you change your clocks:

(1) put new batteries in your smoke detectors (the ones that I take out go into the remote control bag).

(2) Collect all your extinguishers and one-by-one beat them up. Rap them against something hard but don't hit them so hard that you leave big dents. Then give them a good shaking like you would a can of spray paint. If you can't get it to free up, replace it with a new one.

(3) Hang or lay the extinguishers horizontally. They won't pack up that bad.

(4) If you need to use it rap it against something before squeezing the handle.

My boat owner recommendation:

Add mugging your extinguishers to your biannual maintenance list.

Be safe and GO OUT AND GET SOME
PapaD

Was up on the Sacramento river above and below Shasta reservoir Mon - Wed of this week.
Shasta frighteningly low when you actually see it. No snow on Mt Shasta.
Upper Sac: Fished Pollard Flats, two other turnouts/tracks that take you down to various parking places next to the Amtrak rail lines, and Sims. Scramble down the rocks to the river. Water - low. Riffs and pools are there but really need about 6"-1' higher to be good. Flies were hard to match to the feeding patterns. Ended up with nymphs, both singly and with floats added most of the time, altho did dry-fly fish for the dusk time frame. Fishing - fair to average. Took a lot of wading and hiking to get from decent riff to decent pool.
Redding: You can fish near that bridge in Redding and that was interesting as there are some very big trout hiding there.
Lower Sac: From town to the first pullout. Guide and boat. Fished small foam bobber and two very small nymphs. Towards end, three hooks. River is low but rowable/floatable all the way down. At junctions and slow moving areas where salmon normally congregate by this time of year, almost none. Late this year maybe because of water temps and/or water levels. I did hook into about a 15-20 lb and played it for a long time but once under the boat in about 4' water it broke off and that was it.
Maybe with a change in temps and cooler (rain?) weather, it will bring the salmon up quicker.

Generally good fishing altho I had a little trouble adapting to the boat cast from the plain fly casting we were doing the other days. Several "doubles" (two on and in the boat simultaneously), no "giants" unfortunately. All on barbless hooks and C&R.

Overall score: 7.5/10. Why so high? The weather, that we were fishing during the week, and the just delightful boat time. Deer in the flats, birdlife was outstanding with two Golden Eagles spotted along with Osprey, Egrets, Heron, etc, etc. We located good places for striped bass and WMB for later fishing opportunities. All to be on fly, altho spinners may be in order if they are coming in bigger. Just outstanding days on the river!

One other comment - it is always surprising to see how much there is in Redding and what a good town it is. The Fly Shop and the other fishing stores in Redding are 10/10 - excellent.