Tue, 21 Aug 2007
There’s fiction, and then there’s fishing stories.
I hope you enjoy them.
This story is from the
[/ramblings] department
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Norm Albiston, who teaches fly fishing at the University of Utah at Provo, says there are four stages to a fisherman’s development:
Please just let me catch a fish.
I want to catch a lot of fish.
Please let me catch a big fish.
I only want to catch big fish.
I’ve just caught my first fish so I’m firmly in the first group. But this list of stages doesn’t take into account all the previous stages such as:
Please let me cast without catching my fly in the trees.
Please let me get that darn tippet through the eye of the Gosh Darn hook.
Please let me cast without splashing my line on the water and spooking the fish.
The thing is, just because you’ve achieved one level it doesn’t mean that you’ve left the previous level. I’ve finally caught my first fish on a fly line, but it doesn’t mean that I’ve left the past behind.
On Friday my wife and I went out to our favorite fishing spot. She was casting from the very spot were I caught my fish and I went downstream to cast upstream to the very few rising trout that we could see. Although I’ve had days where I was casting really well this time I was throwing air knots, I was splashing the water, and touching the bushes behind me. I certainly wasn’t catching fish.
I noticed a fish splashing across the river and just a bit downstream from me. I turned to cast towards it. It was quite a way away so I needed to make a big cast. Somehow the rhythm of my cast was right on and combined with the wind that was blowing in just the right direction I was ready to make that big cast to a spot just upstream from the trout. On my last back cast, just before my final cast, my line seizes up. I’m caught in the tree behind me.
Luckily, I’ve read about people breaking rods trying to release a caught fly. So instead of pulling with my rod I pointed the rod directly at the fly and pulled on the line with my left hand. The fly came down without too much stress. With my fly back in hand I repositioned myself so my back cast would go into an empty area between two trees. After several cast to just the right spot I still was getting no reaction from the fish. Feeling a bit frustrated I decide to go upstream to the hole where I’ve hooked a big trout twice (but couldn’t land him).
I waded into my special spot and roll cast to the spot where I know my big trout would hang out. After a few cast he started to rise. Just like the last time I hooked him I had to present the fly a dozen times or so and he started getting more interested. I’m in a great position to present the fly properly and I can just feel him getting closer and closer.
I present him with the fly and let it drift down to his feeding spot when he jumps. But when he jumps it’s not just at the fly, he jumps over my fly line like a high jumper. When he jumps he’s turned 90 degrees to me so I can see him perfectly.
First of all, he’s huge. At least for a trout in this stream. To my stunned eyes he looks to be about the length and the girth of my forearm. But more than that, he’s golden yellow. I’ve heard of golden trout in the high Sierras, but down here in the foothills we’re too low for them. I may be completely mis-remembering the event but for that split second when he was in the air he looked golden.
I want him. I’m going to catch him. He’s my fish and he can’t run away.
I keep casting to him and after a few more cast he hits my fly hard. I set the hook and instantly it comes back slack. I reel in the line and check my fly and it’s gone. But more importantly the line broke right at the knot. I can still see the curled up tippet where the knot use to be.
My mind goes back to that snag in the tree. What I should have done is to cut the fly off and re-tie it as soon as I retrieved it. What I did was to fish with a damaged knot that was ready to break at any moment. If I was lucky I would have hooked one of the small rainbows first and let them break off my knot. If I was smart I would have re-tied the knot.
So the big golden trout has been hooked 3 times, he’s broken off 2 flies and I’ve actually fought him twice. I think my next step in the journey is to catch this specific fish. That’s not obsessive is it?
This story is from the
[/ramblings] department
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A couple of months ago my wife and I decided to go visit my favorite spot on the Bear River. The drive, the suiting up in my waders, the hike, the rigging up and tying on the flies, they’re all starting to feel familiar. Little things like threading the tippet into the fly and tying the knot are now almost 2nd nature. The excitement is still there, but I’m starting to feel like I know how to do this.
I waded out at the downstream end of the pool and my wife found a rock where she had enough room to roll cast. We started to work the water.
There have been evenings like last week where I could see a dozen fish rising across this pool. But last night it was incredibly calm. The occasional fish would rise and up near the rocks where my wife was I saw a fish actually jump out of the water, but for the most part, it was much slower and calmer than normal.
I fanned my cast across the area where I hooked a trout last week. No reaction. I started to think that maybe I was spooking the fish, but that would require evidence that fish were there in the first place. Twice I reeled in my line and prepared to move to another spot and THEN a fish would splash. How do they know?
Meanwhile, my wife has 4 or 5 fish rising right in front of her, but they’re ignoring her fly.
I move above her to try another spot that was hot on previous trips but I’m still getting no reaction. The fish must all be relaxing in their Lazy Boy chairs watching Paris Hilton on Larry King because they sure aren’t feeding tonight.
This gives me some time to watch my wife cast. I can see that there are a couple small things she could be doing that would help her. I wade down and let her know, "You’re casting pretty well. I’ve seen you place that fly right on top of his head several times. Can I show you something that might help you get a little more distance?"
"Sure"
I noticed that she was bringing her roll cast back correctly. She was letting the loop form correctly, but she wasn’t stopping her forward cast until her rod was horizontal. I showed her how to make the power stroke shorter. She started making the "V" of her cast smaller. That used the power of the rod loading and unloading and her cast gained about 4 or 5 feet. Probably more importantly, her tippet was laying down flat instead of falling into a pile.
"Awesome. I think that’s going to help a lot."
I moved down to my "for sure" hole where I hooked two big trout that got away. One broke off my tippet and another fought hard and then threw the hook off. But tonight I couldn’t get a rise to save my life. I look back down river and the fish are jumping right near my wife. I decided to walk back and check in.
"How ya doing?" I ask.
"He’s right there. He’s taking flies right next to mine and I can get my fly in front of him, but he won’t take it. Do you want to try to catch this fish?"
"Sure, I’ll give it a try"
I cast out and sure enough, he rises to a mayfly right next to mine. On the next cast I notice another mayfly coming downstream. It’s fluttering it’s wings and the trout comes right up to it, just inches from my fly, and eats it. I realize that even though I hooked a big trout on this very fly, my fly is bigger than the mayflies they’re eating.
"I’m going to try something" I said. "Let me try a smaller fly"
I tie on a generic small brown fly with grizzly wings and not much hackle and toss it out. I’m about 3 feet short of where I want to be so I mend a few feet of line and roll cast it right in front of the trout.
Bam!, He hits it!
"You got to be kidding me" my wife says.
Thinking of the folks Over at FAOL I ask "Honey, could you grab the camera. This may be the first fish I’ve landed on a fly."
He fights a little bit but he’s obviously smaller than the ones I’ve hooked upstream in the "for sure" hole. I get him on the reel and bring him in. Making sure my hands are wet I gently scoop him up and land my very first fish caught while fly fishing.
It only takes a moment to get the hook out so I turn towards my wife for a quick picture of that little rainbow trout.
"Ok, Give me back my rod".
I give her the rod and we both laugh. "Well sure" she says, "If you put the right fly on the line you’ll catch fish."
"I swear! I hooked a big trout on that very fly last week."
She gives me a little more good natured ribbing but we’re soon back to fishing.
We got a few more close calls that evening but pretty soon it was getting too dark to fish. As we’re cleaning up and breaking down the rods we hear the local peacocks calling each other.
"I can see them. They’re up in that tree"
My wife points me towards the right pine tree on the far side of the river.
"I had no idea that peacocks would fly into trees." But there they were. Two really big birds up in the pine tree.
We hiked out by flashlight (I brought backups this time) and got into the car.
"I’m glad you were there with me to share my first fish" I said.
She smiled back. "Next time put the right fly on my line and it will be MY fish."
This story is from the
[/ramblings] department
permanent link
It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything about fishing. But that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been out on the water. Any time spent on the river is great, but it would be even better if I could hook a fish. So this time I decided not to go fishing, I’m going hunting (for trout). What’s the difference? When hunting for fish I try to be more aware of not spooking the fish, of presenting my fly to look just like what they’re already eating, of keeping low and quiet and not tripping on stones and kicking up mud.
The first thing I did was to tie up some flies of the same size and color as the mayflies
I’ve seen the trout eating. I made my own version of an Al Campbell’s "too simple" fly by
simply wrapping a hook with a thread of tan burlap and building a wing of white Antron yarn.
Armed with what I hope will be a half dozen deadly mayfly imitations I headed out to the river.
I’d like to introduce you to what I think of as "my spot" and "my river". The Bear river is not thought of as a great trout stream. It reminds me of John Gierach’s story "I’ll fish anyone’s St. Vrain." The St. Vrain is a little stream next to his house that has a few fish. It’s a fair to middling trout stream that’s easy to get to but doesn’t have too many people fishing it. It’s not famous and the fish aren’t anything that will show up in a magazine, but in time, you get to know every little pocket, hole and riffle. The Bear is starting to feel like my St. Vrain.
It’s a short hike to my spot and the view just wonderful.
The banks alternate between thick brush and trees and large boulders. The rocks form several deep pools at regular intervals.
After about a mile the river opens up to a wide, slow moving pool with large boulders under the water that provide lots of hiding places for trout. You have to be careful wading because if you’re not watching your feet you can step between those underwater boulders right into a deep hole. The locals call those "Hat poppers".
This is "my pool".
Now that I’ve been there half a dozen times I know that fish will rise just in front of those small rocks on the right. But the big fish will be in front of that large white and gray boulder. Just upstream from that big boulder are a few smaller rocks that I can hide behind and let my fly drift downstream to the pocket. I tied about 6 feet of 6X tippet to my line and then tied on my own too simple mayfly. Even as I’m setting up my rig I can hear some BIG splashes from the trout hitting the bugs. This is going to be a good day, I can feel it.
I’ve tried fishing form this spot before, but I couldn’t roll cast far enough out to get to the fish. This time I had waders so I carefully waded out about 6 feet into the water where I could hide behind two of those low boulders. The bottom drops off quickly there and I’m already up to my waist. A few more feet and I’d be in over my head.
Sure enough, there’s a good size splash right where I knew he’d be. About 15 feet out there’s a boulder that’s creating an eddy and the trout is hitting mayflies just at the seam of the quiet water that the eddy is creating and the fast flowing water coming between the rocks. I roll cast my fly into the eddy and watch.
The first thing I notice is that the fast moving water is bringing my fly line down stream faster than the fly and I’m getting drag. So I need to practice mending my line upstream to keep that downstream loop from forming. After a dozen tries I’m starting to get the hang of it. Meanwhile, the trout is still hitting flies at that same spot. I must not be spooking him.
I keep placing my fly upstream from him and floating it down. He takes a mayfly right next to mine. Then another just behind mine. Then I see the wake as he takes a run at my fly but then ignores it. I just keep tempting him with it. One dozen, then two dozen cast and he’s always so close. He wants it, I just have to keep tempting him.
I find myself talking to the fish. "Eat it. Come on buddy, look at that big fat fly. Eat it!"
After all those big splashes I saw my fly disappears under the water with a simple gulp. I raise my pole and pull in some line and that when it hit’s me. I’ve got him!
My gosh he was a log! I’ve hooked a couple other trout but this guy felt heavy. He wiggled a bit but it was more like a big fist grabbing my line and pulling it to the bottom. Once again I find myself yelling "I’ve got him. I’ve got him." And once again I realize that I don’t know what to do. I’ve got slack between my right hand and the reel so I can’t use the drag of the reel to bring him in. I grab the line with my left hand and try to strip in some line to bring him in. He starts to wiggle hard and the battle really starts. I give him a little bit of line so he doesn’t break off but he’s really fighting. My mind is pretty much blank and I’m so excited that can barely process thoughts. He takes off for a bit and then goes straight down again and as quickly as it started it was over. The tension on my rod releases and the line goes limp.
I reeled in my line and see that he broke off the fly.
I’m staring at the end of the tippet with a huge smile on my face. I hooked a big trout with a fly that I tied at a location where I knew he would be. But the excitement of actually hooking a fish is so overwhelming that I go brain dead and can’t think of my next move. I’m going to have to go over that in my mind and practice the motions of retrieving the fish so they become 2nd nature when I do hook one.
Through the rest of the evening I hooked one more very briefly but he spat out the fly almost instantly. I did have two other small adventures though. After doing a couple of laps on that big pool from the downstream side up to the boulders I decided to go back to the roll casting spot and try for some of the others that started rising again. By this time it was getting pretty dark and as I cast a small brown bat flew right past my face just inches from my nose. I jumped, and then laughed at myself. Looking up at the sky I could see half a dozen bats taking bugs in the air.
It started getting too dark to even see the fly on the water. The trout were still rising and it was a half moon last night which gave off plenty of light. But down here in the canyon at water level it was pretty dark so I decided to pack it in.
Now, I’ve done a lot of backpacking, hiking, camping, and rock climbing so I come prepared. I had a flashlight in my pack and I put fresh batteries in it yesterday. But for some reason the damn thing wouldn’t work. So now I have a mile hike back to the car in the dark. In some spots the trees open up and the moonlight helps. But when the trail goes back under the trees it’s freakin’ dark. But I’ve dealt with this before and I know that you just take it slow and easy and eventually you’ll find your way out. I once climbed Taquitz peak and topped out a 1000 foot vertical face just as the sun was setting. My wife and I had to hike off the back of the mountain and down to the car (about 5 miles) as it was getting darker and darker. We eventually made it to the car 3 1/2 hours later. Like I said, you just take it slow and be careful.
Luckily, this hike was only a mile long and I was back at the car in about 20 minutes. I called my wife to let her know that I was running late and I did make it out of the canyon safely. looking at my cell phone I realize that it’s after 9:30 already. I hiked in at 6:15. Where did those hours go?
This story is from the
[/ramblings] department
permanent link
