Bass-fishing expert speaks Tuesday in Davis

The Fly Fishers of Davis will host Trent Pridmore on Tuesday in a program on “Fly Fishing the Upper Water Column for Large and Smallmouth Bass.” He’ll concentrate on the top 10 feet of the water column with an emphasis on fishing techniques using a floating line, hair bugs, poppers and sliders for shoreline-orienting bass.

For fish that cannot be seduced with top water lures, Pridmore will talk about simple, effective flies that can be fished with a floating or intermediate line in the same zone to optimize fish interest. He’ll cover bass physiology combined with the annual pre-spawn, spawn, post-spawn moods with an emphasis on how this relates to finding bass that can be reached with a fly rod.

Water temperatures, sunlight or lack thereof, water clarity and stealth will be discussed relative to bass aggressiveness and “the strike zone.”

Pridmore will show how to assemble the optimal bass bugging combination of rod, reel, line and leader and how to tune a rig, whether it will be used to accurately throw heavy, aerodynamically challenged flies, small Fat Alberts or ant patterns. He will emphasize casting skills, nuances in fly presentation and retrieves that affect success.

Pridmore, a retired dentist, lives in Grass Valley and Carnelian Bay. His family emigrated from Fairbanks, Alaska, in 1946 and settled in the Bay Area. He received a degree in field zoology from UC Santa Barbara and worked as a timber cruiser in Humboldt and Trinity counties. After earning a doctorate at UC San Francisco, he was deployed to the Philippines and other parts of Southeast Asia with the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War.

His zoological background stimulated an earlier interest in fly fishing that led him to involvement in angling conservation. Pridmore was project chairman and biological consultant for the Little Truckee River Trout Restoration Task Force in the mid-1970s that ultimately led to the Wild Trout Program.

In 2006, he orchestrated the regulation proposal changes that resulted in wild trout status for the Truckee River and its tributaries between Trout Creek and the Nevada state line. He also was involved in the implementation of winter angling on the Truckee and Yuba River systems and is the second recipient of the “Black Hand” conservation award.

Other angling-related activities include writing for California Fly Fisher, Sierra Heritage Magazine, Tahoe Maritime Museum and guest appearances on radio and television. He has taught classes on fly tying, fly casting and angler’s entomology. Major interests are stillwater angling for trout and bass.

In the mid-1990s, Pridmore formed Angler’s Education Service to expand his lecturing and educational programs. He is a member of Sierra Grape Growers Association and is working on a memoir collection of angling stories called “Chasing Rainbows … Tales of a Well Traveled Fly Fisherman” and a cookbook titled “Recipes from Jack Rabbit Hill and the Sierra Grape Growers.”

The Fly Fishers of Davis normally meet to swap lies at 7:30 p.m. on the last Tuesday of the month in the multipurpose room at Harper Junior High School, 4000 E. Covell Blvd. The meetings are free and open to newcomers and guests.

Those interested in learning to fly fish are invited to attend and ask anyone about the club’s introductory and intermediate fly fishing courses. The club is also working on a program for young fly fishers, under 16.

For more information call Lowell Ashbaugh at 530-797-6722 or visit www.dcn.davis.ca.us/go/ffd.