Fall Trout and Fun!

Above, a nice 20+" brown all colored-up. Thick-bodied tank.

I did some end-of-season fishing this weekend. I had a blast. I was on unrestricted season flies-only water that is open year round. I did not rob the redds! There were a few pairs showing some interest but I suspect the mating dance has passed for most of the the browns. Fishing from the bank. 

At left, a real tail-walker rainbow. He made the album for his circus act.  Fought hard for a fellow only a little over twelve inches. Maybe fourteen. Maybe..

Another brown. Nice fish.

Brookie. Another good fighter! Went 17 inches.

A nice rainbow something like sixteen to eighteen inches all peppered-up. Stunning.

A hare's ear flymph in 16 : a favorite of the rainbows. This fly is "resting" after several fish. I believe this is a brown hen hackled fly. Note how well the teased hare's ear holds up.

Grouse and synthetic hare's ear wrapped in micro-wire . Quite difference from the natural above though I did wire wrap the the whole thing so there's that ...

A wire wrapped SLF Hare's ear in #11 after some serious use. This fly took eleven fish in an hour. Same fly. All species. It would drift through a fifteen to twenty foot deep pool on very little current and the fish would take. I'd wait. I'd wait. Then I'd smoothly take up tension allowing the fish to hook themselves. They'd dive for the deep and the hookset was performed without any sudden motion from me.

In this cold water, the stream bite was short and soft. I caught one fish on streamers but had tons of short takes. Using the soft-hackles allowed the fish to catch themselves!

I lost the above fly on the next fish electing to cutting the line rather than digging in the gullet. Meh. He had hammered the fly -- one of the few to do so -- and rather than the side-jaw hinge hook, he'd swallowed it. So, I spared him the rooting around.

I haven't had any extended time on the stream since September and the Driftless so I was thrilled at the three day outing here. Great time. Fished with some fly typing buddies from the Beer Grotto Monday night sessions.

Can't wait to go tomorrow night. It is consistently the highlight of my social interaction each week.

Soft hackles -- even tied in the clumsy fashion evident in my wire wrapped above  -- can save the day. As I show in this post, they can withstand serious abuse from fish after fish while continuing to perform.

I didn't take a single fish on the Hornberg. Disappointed. I did take three trout on the surface with a copper-hued trailing shuck CDC X-caddis fly. The trailing shuck business works for me (Thanks, Lauren!) and the fly performs well when drowned and pulled as a micro-streamer.

It was the soft-hackle fly which dominated the weekend, though.

There was a fair amount of scotch taken internally for strictly medicinal purposes once we left the stream. It helped restore the humor after hours in a cold breeze.

Enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday. I'll be grateful for a great pre-holiday weekend outing!

Prost.   

Fur Harvesting

My recent absence can be explained in a name: Lilly, pictured at left.

She's the new pup in the house now at 11 months old. We've had her just over two months and it has taken that long to patiently mold her into a good companion what with the cats, the wife,  my wildlife visitors of foxes, turkey, deer, the possum family, chipmunks, and that damned black squirrel!

Barky Barky Barky.

Anyway, she's in our household and is cute as a button.

Uncle Lou pictured at left takes it in stride. He is a good partner and has done well determining what is worthy of a howl and what is just an incidental event.

The Amazon guy? Howl.

The turkey? Not so much.






So, I've tied a little this last month.

Things gradually are getting back to a placid routine. Monday night tying at the grotto in Dexter is going strong. There is talk of upcoming trips. The Catskills feature strongly and the local fly shop is bound for Cuba in a week. One of our friends fished the San Juan here a couple days back and killed 'em.

So: fall.

I've got some unruly CDC trailing shuck caddis here that I'll have on the Madison next summer.

Tied on some #16 1x short Partridge of Redditch I had lying around. The wing is maybe too much so I think I'll go online, look at some pictures, and maybe tie some with less mass.

They're drowned caddis, really. I'm not too worried is they're a little unkempt.


Hope all goes well here now that the season has closed. Looks like a long winter.


Prost.

The Rains of the Driftless

Driftless trip to Vernon county last week. A bit of rain. Then a bit more. Finally: rain.

Todd drifting a line on the Timber Coulee on the night of our arrival. The water was stained but not bad. The fish responded.




Then, the first of the nightly storms blew through during the dark hours.

Our typical fare. Black leeches and black beadheads did produce a few fish.

Obligatory fish picture.

As it came in one afternoon.

Something I tried. No joy.

Bishop Branch Creek. Last day. Afternoon. One to hand.

Hello. Note the black micro-streamer: the week's trademark color.

I was in the wrong band. My companions moved to spin fishing for the week early on and had some success. The Gulp was there to pull my chains. I think. I never saw anyone using bait but bait guys can be sneaky.

We did eat fish. It is Vernon county and if there is anywhere in the world that can use some population relief, it is Vernon county.

Camp creek. Obligatory driftless cow pictures.

The outflow of the silt entrapment on Maple Dale creek. For reference, this held clear water for thirty-six hours until the silt worked through the impoundment.  Worth noting that this was some of the best water in the county when things started clouding up.

Look, rain is coming. Probably in the next hour.

Lightening, too.













Good trip, though. Rain is rain but silt ... well, silt sucks.

Prost.

Flies and Flies: Driftless

AT left, my Pink Squirrel. As my wife reminds me, I am completely colorblind and she asks: "is it supposed to be a purple squirrel?" The Ice Dub bag said "pink."

Going to the Driftless here in a week with some novice and some not novice fly fishermen. It's a mixed bag.

We'll be artificial but a couple of the guys are clearly more about "fishing trip" than "fly fishing trip" which is fine. I'm the fellow with the maps and research.

I'll let the spin fisherman fend for themselves. Anybody can find the Timber Coulee. They'll be fine.

My Ausable Bomber at left. The calf hair shows poorly against the white of the cigar box. The tail is waxed red-dyed hen. Probably should trim this one so it doesn't wrap the hook.

My angora ant at left. i've thought a great deal about ants over the last couple years. This is what I have settled on for use. I try to segment the bodies a bit more but noticed: the trout didn't care.

I like this better than the ants with the bare abdomens and the single wrap of hackle in the middle. This guy has a hackle wrap in middle the but there is a bit of scissor work and comb-out on the end product. When wet, the stiff middle hackle does its job. 

Cigar box of some of the tie-ups. Left: squirrel; middle: bomber; right .... the San Juan worm.

Yes, converting spin fishermen involves catching and catching is easiest on the San Juan. (sigh).

Ants.
Worms.
Bombers.
Squirrels.
Beetles.
Small crickets.
Small hoppers.

I think that selection works for an afternoon. Add in some Adams and Syl's Midges and we're good for a day.

I'll use a partridge and orange and a pheasant and herl. 

Prost.

The Wabakimi Report

It isn't about trout. Rather, it is the Canadian fly-in experience.  We were on the lake the first week of August and I've been playing catch-up at work and home (new beagle moved into the house when I returned).

So photos and comments:

The toasted ham-bacon-egg breakfast sandwich. Huge hit this trip. Wrapped in a paper towel and foil and it is a boat-ready breakfast.

Fishing partner after drive to Canada. We're at the Hideaway Lodge in Emo, Ontario. Doug and Kathy are great hosts, though Kathy has grown tired of our 4:30 AM fly-out bit.

Cloud tops, Fly-out morning. Low ceiling today.

My seatmate: Moki the Power Hoe. He's got a new Briggs-built engine and is on the way to Wabi with me. The thing is pretty much just possessed. The hoe, when running, is subject to random thrashing. Yea - it was manhandled out of the plane.

The Otter all tatted-up like a 70's conversion van.

Nice work, though.

My $2200 fish. (First fish).

Mike's first fish (mine's bigger ... though that was the smallest he caught all week).











Bear swimming. Best photo I have. We saw two. This was the best snap.

Gut bucket.

Guts on bushes of island guarding our lagoon.

Trying for an eagle pic. He's shy and won't come down. Gulls are however not camera shy.











Guts always attract an audience ... this time my fishing partner.

Rare snap of Mike driving the boat. He ran over the buoy. Hooked a buoy 4 times. Hooked the anchor line.

Subsequently fired.

 Morning prior to a day's outing.










An a panorama of the lagoon.

Going through the Honey Hole to the Lower Wabi.












Thanks for indulging me. I'm not going back for a couple years and this trip will always be special. Too much travel to cover and Wabi has been good to me. Time to see some other country, too.

Too Long Away

Above, reason 1 and 2 why my summer has been post-free. Lilly at left is 10 months. Lou at right is 10 years.

I've been devoting a fair amount of time to beagle wrangling.

More in a bit ...

Drakes and Other Delights

Apologies to HA + TJB. Love the album, though. I think my folks wore one out back in the 70's.

Hold my scotch.

AT left, a bear drake. 

Size 12 4xl. Yep - big guy. 

Deer hair tails. Double dubbed body the back being a grey-copper SLF mix and the front being a green-rust SLF mix. Ribbed with the tag end of the tying thread. Double hackle: Speckled hen over brown. 

I tie this on a steelhead iron heavy hook in 7 as well. The light wire 12 floats nicely in the near-film. The size 7 sinks slowly and makes for a great twitch retrieve or for the hand-twist. Very effective last year on the Manistee which was low and slow (for the Manistee).  This guy robbed all the best pools.

Steve Bird's low-water Spey flies really helped me with this guy.  

There are lots of patterns for brown/olive/green drakes. Luckily, fine discrimination does not seem to apply when these large (size 8-10) beasties are on the water. Davie McPhail's own mayfly pattern he tied-up for Irish stillwater fishing is very similar in profile. 

Many patterns are tied on even larger hooks but I like the 12 and 14 4xl streamer hooks. The trout seem to take on the "gulp" whole mouth attack and so I find these hooks sufficient to connect. 

I'm going north this weekend and fish cold water where the local drake hatch has spread to a large lake adjacent to Lake Michigan. The large fish cruise at dusk and take these flies both as they emerge and as they return. They emerge and take to flight quickly on this water. 

I might have to whip up a few CDC winged variants and see if that helps with  the spinner return. Hmmm.

The emerger is a big shaggy mass of shuck and fly which is best represented by just that: mass. Fish clear the water taking the nymphs in their final ascent looking much like a Killer Whale at Seaworld.

Anyway, that's the story.  Dawn and dusk. 

I'm going to throw large flies for brown trout. I'll tie some western coachmen streamers tomorrow in case I'm able to convince my host to throw a few for "little fish" : my beloved brookies.

Hope the holiday weekend sees fly rods in all your hands. Might be hex time here. They're late this year. I'm going far enough north I don't have to endure the combat fishing which is the hex.

It's a good weekend to foment revolution. Pick a cause. Defy some authority.

Minister: "The colonies are revolting." 

King George: "They certainly are."

Prost.

Too Damn Old

My current desktop this Saturday afternoon: the WIP, a chess problem whose solution won't quite stick in the fore-brain without the physical mnemonic, my passport and assortment of "outdoor cards"-- read tax stamp --  required to buy the various licenses I need this year, and an honest brown ale.

I never intended to live this long.

I've outlived too many bullets that shared that point of view. There's one in a sock drawer that I thought would be self-administered for a period of years but I outlived that bastard, too. Keep him around just for sport.

Anyway, laying in a supply of decent pipe tobacco for the rest of days. I'll age these five years now that I've gone past my "best used by" date. I'm going to start acting like a responsible adult and plan for the long-term.  Pipe tobacco and fly rods are my version of planning.

 Nice but skinny rainbow taken this week at Trout Club for Bears.  Yes, I know he looks rather like a sardine. I'm saying growth spurt like a teenage boy. Went 16"+. Maybe 18" but I wasn't going to handle him.

No need. Social catching.

 Early morning fish. Took him on a coachman streamer at 6:30 AM +/-.

A grizzly hornberg. I went through a ton of these this week. Effective as a searching pattern. Versitile doped-up as a dry or pulled under and fished as a wet or streamer.

My thanks to Alan for introducing me to this beastie.  Felt good fishing it actively.

Lou the foxhound.

He wonders if I noticed the sign said  thirty-five and not the forty-five I'm doing.
 
Should have been a police dog.









I have to go buy licenses for outings. There are far worse jobs.

Where are you good fellows heading this year?

Prost.