I haven’t been able to get to the streams because of weather and working, but I hope to soon. Meanwhile, Anthony Naples over at Castingaround.com has been busy putting together a little piece of collected works. Some of my poems and pictures are included in this project.
Thanks Anthony for your work and dedication to the project.
Here is a pdf file of his project:
I drove my daughter to school in my waders. It wasn’t the first time, but she kept saying, “That’s weird”. She’s almost 10, but I wasn’t going to let that wreck my day. Today, the sun was out and it was just at freezing when I left for the river. I was pretty sure that today would be the first good day for fly fishing.
I was going to fish the deep pools and soak up all the sun I could. The river was very clear and stealth was a priority.
I caught eight brown trout, but the largest was only 12 inches.
In one section of the river I found a completely submerged dead fox. It was trapped between some boulders just off the faster current. Often in late winter/ early spring, I find the remains of animals that perished somehow through the winter. The body of this fox was almost in perfect condition.
As I was finishing up my morning of fishing, I saw a cross country skier who had a fly rod strapped to his back. He was heading deep into the woods, but he was the only other person out there today. It felt more like a normal day of trout fishing.
A small stream with very few pools to fish.
With the threat of a new snow storm coming, I decided that I had to get to the river while I could. I knew that I would have about two free hours and I was going to make the most of it. I raced through all my domestic duties. I got the kids up and ready, took them to school, swam laps for some exercise, gave the house a quick once over, and then started to get ready.
My waders and boots were in the garage from my last excursion, and now I found that the boots were frozen solid. I was forced to de-thaw them in the kitchen sink, but otherwise I got ready in just a few minutes.
After parking my car and climbing over the four feet of snow at the side of the road, I made my way down to the river. I was in such a hurry that I hadn’t noticed that it was mostly iced over until I was at it’s side. I stood with a dropped jaw and stared. Was it fishable? Should I even try? After observing for a bit, I notice that most of the pools were open, but the other 85-90% of the river was iced over. I decided to give it a try.
The air temperature was slightly warmer, but the water was definitely colder. I began casting in the first pool, and I was forced to move on when my line got stuck on the ice. I made my way along the shore as much as I could to the next pool, but at times I was forced to enter the river and break up the ice. It was slow moving through the ice. I fished about three pools before I gave up. I decided to head up stream where I was sure that the water would be open.
I arrived at the site of my video “Breaking Down the Door of Cabin Fever“. I saw that the water was open, so I gave it a try. Using my 12’ Iwana would be tricky here, but not impossible. I also knew that I would have maybe one or two casts per pool before the pool was shutdown. I tied on a size 16 sakasa kebari fly and crept towards the first pool.
A small brown trout.
I casted into the first pool and brought my rod up for line control- nothing. The second cast was better placed and almost immediately there was a bend in my rod. It was my first fish of the season- a little brown trout. I fished each pool for a while before creeping and crawling to the next one. There were five pools total that were fishable, but I only caught one trout.
I headed home. I quickly shed all my gear and moved the laundry from the washer to the drier. I gulped down some leftover pad thai and relaxed. I felt satisfied that I caught my first trout for the year, but the next step would be to get some better weather. Of course that is out of my control.
Reflections in the river.
The river has been unburden to man’s predation for months, and today I tried waking it from that slumber. It was the opening day of the catch and release inland trout season, and the world was covered in deep unmarked snow and a heavy cold.
I was very over dressed in long underwear, multiple pairs of socks, a fleece hood and hat, my fishing gear, neoprene waders, and a backpack with extras- in case the wet or cold got the better of me. Overall, I was warm enough. My feet were cold only a few times, but my hands worked overtime to help keep my line and fly free of ice. At one point my fly was encased in a nickel size piece of ice. Another time, my Tenkara level line froze to my boot, and it had to be forcefully removed. It was definitely cold.
I saw a few fish, but the day lacked the pleasure of any hook ups. It was a day for getting the rust off and for working through the mechanical problems of all the ice. I expended a lot of energy, and I think most people would have given up and gone home.
I did set up my camera under water, but after reviewing the footage, it showed how much the camera was under siege and bombardment from all the icy objects caught in the river’s current.
The conditions were not ideal in any way, but it still was just great to get out. Hopefully, warmer weather is on its way to show us some signs of spring and some better fishing.
I dug through my old media from last year and put together a little movie with all the unused leftovers.
Hope you like leftovers.
Old notes and drawings
In the early to mid-1990′s, I got my first fly fishing rod and went to it with little to no idea of what to do. My vehicle was a city bus pass or my mountain bike, so much of the practice that went into my learning fly fishing was in my head. No fly fishing opportunities existed on any of the bus routes or within biking distance. I wrote down notes and sought out any information that I could find. The internet was fairly new and I didn’t have it on my old black and white Mac Classic. Living in a big city had one major advantage- lots of libraries and I had a library card.
An old notebook of magazine and newspaper cuttings
Circa 1993-1995, I was constantly checking out every book that I could find on the subject of fly fishing and fly tying. Being an anti-social learner, I dug deep into those books and any magazines that I could find. I cut up magazines and newspapers with any hint of fly fishing in them, and I pasted them into notebooks. When the opportunity came about I was going to be ready.
The opportunities did come. I frequently visited my parents and requisitioned their car or I planned out small trips and rented a car. On my first car requisition, I went not far from my parents house to a small swampy pond in the middle of nowhere. The wind was horrible, and my casting not much better. I struggled and had a hard time focusing, but I kept trying. The good news was that even though I was a stranger in strange land with this bad outing, I managed to catch a 12” northern pike.
My brain soaked up a lot of information in those first years. Most of the notebooks are lost- only one remains and a few of my drawings (shown here). Now I live within biking distance of trout streams, and I own a car. I use the internet almost everyday to get my fly fishing fix of videos, gear reviews, or anything fly fishing related.
This season will mark my 20th year of owning a fly rod, and it amazes me how something so simple can change and direct your life. I was changed and maybe it brought out part of me that was always there too. Back then, it was a radical decision to buy that fly rod, and I’m sure some of my friends thought I was a little crazy and obsessed. However after 20 years, the fly fishing fire still burns stronger than ever.
Old drawings from a notebook. I think that the top fish image was a free hand copy of a Dave Whitlock drawing.
With the trout season not far away, I have rivers and fish on my mind, and this morning was no different. I awoke with words for a short poem and here they are.
With summer here and me having my young posse (my kids), it’s been harder to get out trout fishing. The weird weather has added to my limited encounters with rivers and streams. We started with drought like conditions and then too much rain and also very early heat. I have managed a few nights and these are some tidbits from my evening getaways.
When I have made it out, it is usually after dinner. After everything is cleaned up and sorted away, I suit up in my waders and drive the short distance to the stream. This usually gives me about a couple of hours before darkness starts to move in. I’m always hoping for the evening hatch, but I haven’t been able to hit any this year. Last year I had much more success fishing the evening hatches. This included a spectacular time fishing a brown drake hatch well past dark, but this year my timing or maybe nature’s timing is off.
Night fishing presents its own challenges, but it can also offer a different look at your favorite creek or river. On a recent outing like many others for me, just as the last light faded, the river came alive. Large trout attacked my tiny fly in the low light of the moon. Fireflies danced along both sides of the dark little creek. Even bats were making an attempt to catch my fly. One bat flew into the end of my 12’ Iwana rod, but they were too busy with eating bugs to care about me. Then not long after complete darkness everything stopped except the occasional blink of a firefly.
On another occasion, I was casting to a nice bend with a deep pool. I heard some branches breaking not far off, but I kept fishing. I heard more noises and noticed the tall grass tips moving in a rough path toward my direction. I was about one foot from the shore and right next to a path. From around the tall grass and walking right on to that open path next to me was a skunk. He was about five feet from me and hadn’t seen me. Not wanting to spook the fish in my deep pool, I made a slight sound to give my presence away. The skunk perked up from his happy walk. His tail went up and he did two 360 degree turns in the same spot- not quite knowing how to react to me. I made another slight sound, and he turned and ran back into the deep brush with several crashes and other loud sounds.
Fishing with my long Tenkara rod makes me more nervous in dark. If I had more open water and room to cast, I wouldn’t be as worried about striking the delicate rod tip on a tree or snagging the line around a branch. Also, the simplest of knots can be much harder in very low light conditions. As dark growers near, I try to position myself in good open water and I try to minimize changing flies. I always check my tippet too, and I make sure it’s a good length and has no damage or knots.
I use a head lamp with normal light and a red light. This helps, but on a small stream like I fish, I try not to use it because it’s easy to spook the fish. On one trip, it helped me keep tabs on a very large raccoon that was keeping pace with me while hiking back to my car. His eyes were illuminated by my lamp and gave the position away of the maker of growls and grunts. That coon stayed with me for a good 100 yards where field meets forest.
I have never fished through the whole night like I’ve read about others doing for the hex, but I have fished deep into the dark.
In the dark, there are always fish that will take your fly if you can set the hook at the right moment. Often the largest fish feed more openly at night, and this is the draw of fishing at night. This year I have done more standing in the dark and waiting, then catching large trout. Still, there is another side to the stream that you see in the day. The draw might be the fireflies, or the rabid raccoon, or those giant mayflies, or hopefully that monster trout hammering your fly. Whatever night fishing is, its still beautiful.
Here are some pictures from three different short fishing excursions. The weather lately has been too hot or the water too high and brown from rain. All three trips were still fun and fish were to be found each time, but the words still escape me, so I will let the pictures do all the talking. Enjoy…
Dark rainy morning
Hungry for a caddis fly
Muddy water
Muddy water brown
Rainy Morning
Nice little brown
Cow crossing
Nothing feels better than having a fish safe in your net
Goodbye little fish
Another watershed that I visited this past week near Madison, Wisconsin was Mt. Vernon Creek. This is another spring creek that flows through a small town, some farmland, and natural areas for a total of about eight miles. All of its water is classified as trout water.
In many places the grass around the creek was as tall as I am, so it made it hard to fish from shore. The water was also deceptively deep. At one point I needed to cross the river, so I chose a shallower spot to cross. I realized my mistake when upon entering, the water was almost to my shoulders. This creek also had deep aquatic plant beds of watercress and other vegetation. These plant beds hid the depth of the water and springs and also gave great cover for the fish.
An area filled with springs along the creek
It was tough fishing. The fish spooked easy, but I did catch some. While there, I experienced a tan caddis hatch that lasted about 45 minutes. Once the fish started taking these caddis on the surface, a smile broke on my face and I quickly tied on a size 16 elk hair caddis pattern. With the emerging insects, the tougher fishing turned easy for a time and I was able to catch six brown trout.
The largest trout that I hooked came when a red winged black bird repeatedly flew circles over my head while squawking. The grass where I stood was about five feet high, so if its nest was nearby, I would never see it. The bird never dove on me, but he stayed just out of my reach as he circled for about a minute. I tried to ignore him, but he was flying in my rods casting path, so I just waited him out. Finally, something in the bird changed and he flew off. I shook my head and cast my fly toward an undercut near a large submerged log. A long dark shape came from the darkness and took my fly, and then it quickly darted under the long undercut area. The fish gave me no chance, and it quickly got off and snagged my fly somewhere in the depths.
Typical view of Mt. Vernon Creek
In my morning of fishing, I came across several ducks with young, and they often spooked every fishing hole in front of me trying to get away. One mother duck left her young in its nest and went crazy trying to get me to follow her up stream. She was stressed and I was stressed after spooking about 50 yards of very good water.
I managed to catch 11 brown trout in my morning at Mt. Vernon Creek, and there was still much more river to explore and fish. I hiked back to my car and headed home, and I hoped to return again soon.
A little brown trout
Also, here is a little bit of movie footage from Mt. Vernon Creek.
