Reeling in the Breeze

Ballan reel I bought from an outfitter friend at a stamped-from-tin price today. This is a solid model (Heirloom) and a solid build of that model. Classic look for a brother-in-law price.

There is some noise about engineering, production quality, and the rest online. I'm happy with this one. Looks nice and feels nice. It'll get gentle use. Should be fine.

I was given a new Orvis Battenkill click-and-pawl for Christmas a year ago. Wow. That's a model that has sure changed but let's face it: for Michigan river trout fishing these things are usually line hangers. [ Nice Christmas gift from non-fisherman any way you look at it, too].

We're not fighting tarpon off the reel here.

I got a 444 DT Sylk line in 4 with it so it'll go nicely with a 88" piece of bamboo hanging on my wall in its hemp sleeve. My Mill Creek set-up is just about perfect which is great because the water is opening up nicely.

Ten inches of snow this week so I'm gearing up for spring. I'm tying all sub-surface right now: darker colors, too.

I also bought a very nice piece of darker coastal deer hair (my two pieces are quite light in color - and that helps me see my DHC in low light which is why I bought them in the first place) as I'm going to try a little of the darker style as the surface fly on some of my early summer dry-dropper rigs.

I caught almost everything in early summer last year on the dropper (various soft hackles) and that probably means I should work on the floating fly a bit. There are so many bugs in the drift once spring breaks open here that I'll be happy with a 1:10 or 1:8 ratio of surface takes to subsurface. Last year was more like 1:20.

I'm leaving off grizzly hackle in front of the wing this year to "sit" in the water a little better. I "cut" the fly flat in the fall and had much better luck having brookies attack the surface fly when I'd maimed it in this fashion. I had a couple smallish brown trout hammer the surface "sitter" late in September on water I thought was purely brookie territory.

So, I should just be listening to my idols and fishing more "in" the water than "on" the water.

Surface takes are fish heroin for me, though. Flies flush in the water film might give me the same old fix.

Dog knows that the focus on always having something on the line sub-surface has made a world of difference in taking Michigan trout. Hook-ups are much better even when fishing downstream, too.

Now, I'm fishing classic flies and I'm using classic-style gear and I'm looking at classic tactics.

I must be getting old - er, well - classic. A knock-off of classic, anyway.

A Bear in the Library with a Fly Rod

The title comes from the venerable board game Clue. I admit I've never played it. I am drawn to murder and mayhem.

I write about murder avocationally.

At left, part of my trout library.

It is very early spring and I'm in the library trying to make things better.

I'm not sure if I can; but, I'm sure in some pretty fine company as I dig about in my volumes of troutness.

I have a cold so I'm not "better" myself. I'll get there.

I regret my current copy of McClane's is the reprint with the photstatic fly plates rather than my original with the glossy inset color plates. I have my original CRC Handbook and my Mathematical Tables (gotta love the reference section on Laplace transforms).

I don't however have some of my other books. I'm missing a signed set of J.F.C Fuller's Military History of the Western World and a first edition of B.H Liddell Hart's The Other Side of the Hill.  These things happen in life.

I'm home with a cold and a fuzzy head and am working on a small field guide that I hope my Amber Angler comrades may find of use when they stand on our local rivers' edges and contemplate "what now?"

I've had to get better at stream ecology here in Michigan which is a topic I've mentioned in these pages several times. Throwing a bushy dry to the sides of a mid-stream boulder during July and August no longer answers the riddle of "how do you catch trout?"

My nymphing technique is still generally poor though the last two months have seen real improvement by using a high-contrast piece of mono as the almost-terminal section of hand-tied leaders. I hate "bobbers" and indicator fishing but I will consent that a "sighter" has really improved my sub-surface enjoyment.

The French Nymphing curly-q sighter bit is a giant PIA, though. Why do something that intentionally introduces slack in a system? Where's the fun in that?

I like to tie-in flouro as the terminal section to make my fly+tippet flouro-flouro easier to manage on the stream (I pre-rig a lot when it is cold and make an Albright connection of my rigged tippet sections to leader.)

I've written about limited fly-boxes and do an adequate job avoiding "magic fly" proclamations and temptations.

Yes, I am convinced that there are times that the local "magic fly" is the thing to use. I'll concede that locals know things that are ...special. I also know I'm absolute shit at looking in a fly box containing Joey's two-and-a-half-gainer and remembering where/when/why I should fish it.

I prefer to stick with the partridge-and-olive in such cases. My loss. YMMV.

Anyway, I'm digging through trying to quantify what others before me have asserted we know about trout.

I've got it all down now. Here, I'll share.

What we know: trout generally prefer to live in cold clean water. They eat "things" in the water, usually. Some trout of a given population swim around in the water from place-to-place and other stay put. 

Yep, that's it. When you take the anecdotal and circumstantial and uncorroborated single-environment differentiated business out of trout in popular and scientific literature, you end up with a tiny bit of confirmed knowledge. It's more than my absurdest example; but, it isn't much more!

I put it to the court that we're deep in the land of Hearsay.

Doctor Simpkins, can you confirm that the trout in question confused your comparadun with the Hendrickson hatch which - at the time you were fishing - had ended some two hours previous?

Uh, no. I have no idea what the trout thought. He was a beauty, though  Let me tell you about my reach cast and how the drift ...

Thank you, doctor. No further questions for this ichthyologist, you honors.

We're not much better off now than W.C. Stewart  and his The Practical Angler. Trout are bloody hard work and I'm certainly glad I don't feed my family based on my own accurate, undisputed discoveries. Those'd be some skinny kids.

Mr. Stewart being a Scotsman certainly intended his volume to be practical. We can all hope our advice and observations come to that high standard.

I'm off to muddy the water - this time in a literary sense.

Prost.

Bloody Cold

Four below this morning. Tying soft hackled flies instead of wading Mill Creek. Surprise.

The local is slushy but hasn't crusted yet. It might crust over tonight but next week promises warmer weather and we'll be back on tack for "bonus day" early fishing.

At left, some fresh silks. I ran out of orange and had to order. My local shop doesn't carry silk and made some remarks about the uni being better to work with and silk was for rod building and ...

I understand.

However, I like silk. I like the thread bodies I can make with silk. I like the tactile properties of silk. I like the historical links to four hundred year old flies tied with silk.

That said, I'm submitting one of my favorite quick-tie soft hackles to the Soft Hackle journal and my fly features synthetic scarlet floss for the back third of the fly. There you go. Old and new.

I hope the bench is as rewarding for you this weekend as it is for me.

Sufficient antifreeze taken internally does seem to help with the perspective on winter. I'm using Glenfiddich.

Prost.

Early Outings and New Tools

Public domain picture of 1904 by Edmund Davis "Her First Forty Pound Salmon."

I not sure how that skirt fits into the waders;but, she's awfully dry for such a large fish. The rod in her hand does double duty as the centerpole of the excursion tent.

First outing of 2016 today: Mill Creek in Dexter, Michigan.

One of the Amber Liquid guys - Chip - came along and we enjoyed a nice outing in forty-five degree plus weather. Won't hold; but, it was sure nice.

I saw a midge fly down the stream in front of me as I walked. We saw a rock bass and a trout. The trout was in the stream behind a rock presumably feeding in just a couple feet of water. It didn't reach freezing here yesterday but the fish were out today.

I worked on the dreaded French Leader.

My apologies for not have a good photo myself. There is a link here to a great picture of one as deployed. Louis Cahill shot the image and I wish I knew Louis to ask if I could use it.

I used a 10' 3wt Echo fiberglass two-hander as a rod for tight-line nymphing (short line, more probably) with just a couple feet of line out on a leader I built myself last night. I made a "curley-q" French leader from some 15 lb. Stren hi-vis.

It works.

Now, the casting is a bit tricky. The curley-q business introduces slack in the system so a strong, brisk water-haul works great. An oval cast - as in Tenkara - works okay but just okay. A sharp roll cast work like garbage.

You need a good bit of line tension so the water-haul is the one.

I fished upstream using a #1 shot and a weighted hare's ear in 14.  I rigged the shot about 18" ahead of the fly and casting upstream in light current allowed this rig to roll over obstacles, pull free on snags, and still keep the fly in "floating" motion 4" - 8" off the bottom.

This was more learning than catching session and I learned plenty.

Short curley-q works best ... 18" is too long. I'll next try just 12".  Tight lining with the indicator bit tied-in somewhere around 6' down the leader is a good place with the 10' rod.

The French leader is sensitive ...I could tell by watching when the shot/fly was ticking over rock, when over obstacle, when over sand. It's super sensitive and with a little observation and practice, you catch right on to "normal" versus "fish."

I will develop a better nymph feel using this crutch. My goal is to sharpen my knowledge of the subsurface take then eliminate the French leader enabler. I'm just too damn ignorant now to hook fish who are not hooking themselves.

I'm an unskilled nymph fisherman.

Strikes with small sharp hooks are pulls - not jerks. Don't let that fly and weight come out of the water on a hook-set. The bloody rig is tangle prone. Smooth authoritative lifts. Not jerks.

We went to a local ale house run by a brewery after fishing. Chip broke ice on the side of the stream so I could get out easier - damn nice.

The water is cold. The sunshine is fine. The fish are out and about.

Early days are as nice as mid-season days. Maybe nicer, as I dream of spring.

Prost.

They're In The Water

At left, the Bearfly: a black-dubbed gold-ribbed hare's ear in 16 with rusty hen hackle "leg-things". No, I didn't see the stray fiber hanging down until after the photos. It's almost invisible without the flash: a piece of the SLF fiber from Wotton's SLF in black.

There's a conventional herl thorax in there that didn't show distinctly in the photo but does show distinctly when it is in my hand.

Yes, it does have a bit of a fat ass. The black SLF is a little "stiff" and doesn't settle-in like natural.

For whatever reason, the black SLF is slightly obnoxious to work with when compared to the same brand in hare's ear  or the white.

I like the dark color of this fly and will tie them about 2:1  versus standard light grey hare's ear this winter. I just like it.

I'm tired of tying the standard hare. This pattern is easier for me to see to work on when tying without turning my desk lamp to "tanning."

Looks buggy to me.

I'm a dry fly guy. I like fishing the surface and watching the takes.

I don't catch a ton of fish using that technique.

Last year, I started using versions of the North County Spiders as soft-hackled flies I tie myself and ...boom: I started catching more fish.

I started having more fun subsurface, too.

I learned two styles of fly fishing - meaning using a fly rod. I could throw a woolly buggar subsurface or throw bushy flies on the top. I was experimental and cut off the bottom of hackle to make "splatt" flies on the surface film and did well on nutrient-poor high-county streams.

In Ireland, my Uncle tied big hair-wing streamers for me to use for trout. He fished salmon, exclusively. None of his flies survive; but, the smallest would have been a generous 6. No, I didn't catch a lot of trout in that period either but I did become a good flat-water slow-current dry fly stalker.

This was my first introduction to the meaning of presentation.

I'm working again this year on my sub-surface action.

I'm going to use some lighter feather-wing streamers this year. I have high hopes that I'll be able to do better at controlling these lighter angler-driven flies to entice takes better than my unimaginative "swing" of a buggar. I took three nice fish last fall on smallish hair-wings (size 12) with very little weight that I "pulled" or "snap-jigged" through the water. The takes were fun.

I'm at the vise just like everyone else. I'm thinking of spring. I'm revising my "must tie" list for '16.

My walleye buddies with whom I enjoyed years of fly-in fishing to back-county Ontario tell the story of one outfitter who dropped them off at the cabin and turned around after unloading the gear to crawl back into the float plane.

My buddies expected the usual "secret sauce" briefing from the outfitter as is customary in these trips so they asked "where are the fish right now?"

As the outfitter started the engine, he yelled out the window "They're in the water."

Haha. Everyone laughs. The crew never used that outfitter again, however. Service matters.

I have trouble detecting takes sub-surface when I don't have a good view of the leader in the water. It makes my nymphing poor.

I'm going to use some small 6 mm in-line bead indicators I tie-in myself into my nymphing leaders to help with this. I'm not a brave enough wader to keep all my leader off the water when nymphing holes and so I need a crutch. I cannot "tight line" everywhere I want to fish.

I hate "bobber" but I do need the help getting a better feel. A little visual aid may make the difference. I have a Bearfly to prove out so, I have to do better.

More soft hackled flies, this year.

I have been adding some beaver dubbing to some versions to create a natural "scum" class that will help when there is distinct surface action - without resorting to true dry fly. I get dry-fly refusal even moving down two sizes and 7x tippet. Last year I discovered the very real difference between "the film" type of emerger presentation and surface dry-fly style presentations.

I fished a pool too long having each fish refuse my drift and fly several times. They kept feeding, though - so I didn't hose it up completely. I switched to a spider with beaver dubbing that hung on the surface.  I took two of the fish before sending the others down.

Scum won out. I was too slow in being a full fledged scum practitioner first. I wasted half a year.

My technique this year : Scum First. I won't jump back to dry when I see the first few hatches pop in the warm of the afternoon. I'll move to film-style soft-hackled flies.

I'm getting better. I hope to make my buddies better, too. More upstream work this year. More water study. Less thrash, more fishing like a heron.

I'm going to eat more smoked clams while watching the water on quiet afternoons. I'm going to see if I can listen for the trout.

Back to the vise.

Prost.

Detente

   

Above, the usual suspects in a U.S. Government photo dated June 1973 hosted on wikicommons.

My trout buddies thought my "Libraries" post might have been a little "preachy."

Ain't seen nothing yet.

Can we have a little gear detente among the members of the Trout Industrial Complex, please?

Lines

First, line manufacturers: WTF? 

Seriously. 

I tried to find a double taper line in 6wt and nearly was blinded on the Airflow site. Rio ... you're right there too. 

Damn. 

That's what I have to say. 

Does every line have to "do something for me", really? I have yet to see one cast itself. 

How many Bass Bug specialty lines can any one firm sell? If I'm throwing a HulaPopper, I'm not fly fishing!

Lastly, does no one mend?  I'll end up with a very nice Airflow Elite DT because my local fly shop owner will sell it to me with a cup of coffee, spool it on my reel, and tell me the best grease to use all in one transaction. 

Rods

There is nothing I can say here without sounding like I'm standing on the corner screaming that gas used to cost a quarter a gallon and I could buy a coke for a dime when I started college. [ I spent a long time in school.]

I'll pay a lot for gear because good gear lasts 20 years. I bought a Hardy rod last year my buddies will fight over the day they put me in the kiln.

$400+ for a mid-grade rod seems a bad thing for the sport, however. I'm known to have more money than brains yet somehow basing my business plan on such individuals appears unsound. 

What do I know? They're not giving golf clubs away, either. Seems to be the new fly fishing model.

Wading Boots

Felt works and the rest of it is just awful. No, I won't put bars on my boots and grind up all the rocks in my river. 

I will however put on my Vibram soles which are great for the hike to the river, get in, and spend most of the day slipping on rocks like a pig on ice.

There's a special place in hell for the designers of wading boot soles. It's in the section where they only serve weak coffee.

I do wear felt bootfoot on my home river. Works fine. Home waters only for those soles.

Megastores

No one at Megastore has ever offered me a cup of coffee on a Saturday morning or a beer on a Thursday evening as I bought tippet on the way to the stream.

I know how commerce works.

I also know something about building brands.

You get farther with a rod dealer and a cup of coffee than a rod dealer alone. If you work for Sage and read this: there's your takeaway. 

Megastores are just rod dealers. Sure, nice guys do work there. 

They won't however tell me there is nothing wrong with my existing 5 wt that can't be cured by learning to use a dynamic roll cast in splash-and-go mode. 

They'll sell me a new broomstick. Latest thing. Sexy.

Next.

What Does It Mean? 

Jockey matters as much as the horse. 

It isn't the gear as much as it is the skill of the fellow using it.

There is a consistent effort on the part of the T.I.C. to obscure the roll of education, practice, and proficiency on the part of the angler as the primary contributor to enjoyment and success. 

Sure, Sebastian Vettel drives for Fararri which is a pretty nice piece of gear. He'd also beat most of us to the airport though traffic in a Prius. He's a better wheelman.

Keep the existing 5 wt. 

Learn something new. 

I thought I was a fine fisherman when I came to Michigan because I could float a dry for a foot or so drift-free after the cast - well enough to take starved summer trout on the Big Thompson.

I didn't know Jack Shit.

I'm going to master tight-line nymphing before I go in the grave. Subsurface,  Jack says. The fish eat things in the water more than things on the water.

I've got to go tie.

Prost.

Sunday Fish Porn Returns

There is little as sexy as a good snake roll. Pete from Orvis has a pretty foolproof explanation, here.

Thanks Orvis!