Early Season Trout

It is spring. Almost.

At left,  a Partridge and Yellow Spider ( I think it is yellow and not orange ...label fell off thread) soft hackle.

I can't see color so I have to depend on the labels and when they fall off, I'm lost.

Anyway, spring flies. Too early for them here, but I've tied some. I tied the ones I want to fish most in my last sessions this year.

There's a dedicated group of fly tiers who meet on Monday nights at the Beer Grotto through the winter. They start in November and tie through until about now when it is time to work on the grounds and go fishing. It's been great to get together and think of spring trout all through the winter.

We probably won't get together again until fall.

This weekend: bluegill warm-up. There's a small warm water pond downstream from me where the crew teams practice. The river and my local trout stream are high and unpleasant.

Bluegill it is.

The Christmas beagle has appeared at my house - actually it is Lou the foxhound as I rummaged in a particular household cabinet. He's fairly tolerant about wearing a Christmas hat. Has never made it far enough to be the Christmas card, though.

He's tolerant here because I'm holding Tillamook cheese. He howled about five seconds after I took this picture.

I'll howl for cheddar, too.

New field watch I'm trying. Could be a keeper. This is a Bertucci in titanium.

No complications. Quartz. Five year battery. Analogue.

Turns out, it is a little hard to find a basic field watch for a price you might want to pay. There are "cheap" field watches out there; but, they fail. There are overpriced watches with solid outdoor vendors' names that pack plastic watchworks. Be careful of those.

There are some great field-grade watches out there too; but, I'd rather a custom piece of cane for the price.

Omega. Rolex. Breitling. Hamilton. Sinn. Seiko.

Various styles make it or almost make it. Lower end manufacturers push you to the diver's watch for the durability a field watch ought to have. Higher end manufacturers make you choose: trout car or field watch you'd trust.

Bertucci is a little bit of a crap shoot as they're newer to the market but if they hold up: bargain.

The crown won't fall out on this watch - hopefully - as it did in my last Timex stopgap. Even $32 is a lot for something that fails in a month. You go broke on "cheap" that way.

Watches fail at the worst time and this Bertucci has the potential to make it past "the worst time."

The dial is big enough to read without glasses. It tells the time. Screw crown. Solid lugs (no little pins to fall out allowing the band to part). Screw case. Sapphire crystal.

I could use a phone to tell time but then I'd be handling the phone on the stream and that is inherently a bad idea.

I've dropped sandwiches on the stream. If food can slip my paw, a phone surely will.

I wore a 007 Seiko diver's watch for some years. Massive thing. Unbreakable unless I died in the process of its failure. I put it on another guy's wrist who needed it more than I did. Good watches are transient that way, just like good fly rods.

I'm happy with a field watch that costs less than a decent snow tire. 

If I get a few years out of it, I'll be very happy. My outfitter wears one of these and he'll put it through more abuse in a season than I will in a decade. Works for him, should work for me.


I'll take my snow tires off in a couple weeks.

It looks like spring out there but let's not get carried away. I drove through flurries to fish the Au Sable two years ago on the weekend before Memorial Day.

Spring is like the Soviets: trust, but verify.

Prost.

North Country and March Brown

At left, the view out of my library window this morning.

It's April but this is a Michigan March scene.

March and most of April are winter months here. We've been spoiled by a mild March and the hint of spring; but, yesterday it let us know: we're still in winter.

I expect the North Country has a little of this now as well. I'll find out one day. I might have to spend a year or two in that part of the world.

Steelheaders have no idea what I'm talking about with this winter/spring thing. The ice is off and so they're out. The Alaska bound crew should take note. 

I'm working on spring. Maybe if I spend some time getting ready, it'll come sooner.

Here I am fitting a huge Medalist 1498 CJ to my Echo Glass 3wt 10'6" switch.

It is a heavy reel but the effect of the counter-balance keeps me using my lower hand for the power around the lowered c.g of the rod and thus, I don't get excited and "throw" my top hand. I can get away with throwing my top hand on my salmon rod -- which I almost never use -- but this little 3wt is more sensitive to solid technique.

I could use the two-handed tune-up. I never was "good" but merely "okay." I'll settle for "competent" and no blown casts over an entire day on the water. This rod will help me get there.

I've spooled with with a 7wt TT floating line from Wulff and this hits 190 grains right on the button.  It also seems perfect for the 10'6" rod.

The Echo glass will throw a much much heavier line but the recovery is poor in the tip. Echo gives me a solid grain window and this TT 7wt is right in the wheelhouse. I'll be able to cover the waters I want and get better day-by-day for a big fall spey steelhead season.

I got pro advice on the line. Thanks, Steve. I went with the TT over a DT but endgame is nearly the same. I'll be able to cast AND mend all the way to the fly with this line over the previous Ambush head I used for swinging fall streamers.

There's a pile of gear in the corner of the library needing a solid field test. I replaced a Frostline kit-made sleeping bag (goose down) I made years ago then left in a rental cabin last fall. Hey, 30 years and several pieces of duct tape means it is time for a replacement, anyway.

I went synthetic from Marmot. I'm more likely to need the insulating power of a synthetic in wet conditions these days. Shoulder seasons are damp.

I can stand the savings over down, too. I don't have enough days left in me to get "the goody" out of a $350 bag. REI points I've carried forever bought the bag.

New daypack there too (I haven't had one suitable for fly fishing) and a new heavy pack as well. Cookstuff  (Banks fry-bake pan) and new stove (Solo Titan model ... no more dealing with white gas).

I'm old and have more money than brains thus better gear. I've also seen the north country tinder dry and so I'm less inclined to cook over a free-form open fire than I was back in the day. In a dozen years of Ontario fly-ins, I had one dry year. Several trips saw me all but sleeping in rain gear.

It can get dry here in Michigan. The stove is a reasonable provision.

I'm tying. 

I have the excellent volume The North Country Fly: Yorkshire's Soft Hackle Tradition by Robert L. Smith. I purchased the volume here this spring from an independent bookseller. I encourage you to do the same.

AT left, my North Country Spider inspired May Brownie. 

The pattern books are full of some wonderful March Brown versions. However, in reading and studying Mr. Smith's wonderfully comprehensive survey, the herl collar stood out as a prominent feature I have not incorporated into my tying. I tie a herl thorax, but not a collar.  This, this new beast.

March Brown based patterns are solid here in April and May into early June. I'm extending them a little while with a slightly heavier dubbing to cover Hare's Ear flymph territory and will probably tie a dozen with grey-to-black transitional dubbing patterns mixing the two across the wraps and also add a darker hackle - probably black hen - for more work in the summer season. I'm listing my pattern here for the use in spring.

Warning: I tied this beast but haven't proven it's worth through the season. I'm just happy to be doing something so be aware of that lingering winter madness in my reasoning. April in the library is not May on the stream!

May Brownie:

Hook: standard 12, any make. Pinch the barb, please.

Thread: Peasall's silk in orange.

Tail: pheasant hen. This makes a wonderful tail material for soft hackles. I like it better than cock pheasant tail on wet flies.

Abdomen and Thorax: Wotton SLF mixed synthetic hare's ear on a dubbing loop. This fly carries no wire wrapping so the dubbing loop is essential for durability on those occasion where you use it all afternoon.

Hackle: Ginger Hen. (I have a new ginger hen saddle that is butter soft. Thanks to Lauren at the Painted Trout !). Two wraps. My saddle has a nice iridescent quality when wrapped.

Collar: two peacock herl mixed with dubbing loop strand for durability. Small collars are illustrated in the old flies preserved today. Follow their lead: small.

I'm ready to swing.

I'm ready to fish upstream to current seams an arm's length away from my right leg.

I'm ready to find a half-warm PBR in my side bag late in the afternoon.

I'm ready to laugh on the water at jokes I've heard before.

I'm ready. I'm certain you are, too.

Prost.

Friday Nights

My camera requires a special cable to charge and I lost the thing. Again.

At left, Henry Ford, Edison, Pres. Harding, Firestone, and I believe Sec of Treasure Mellon (not identified in photo but looks like him) from a public domain photo hosted on wikicommons.

The gentlemen are camping and the young men behind appear to be attendants. They're too well dressed to be guides.

I like to camp but I seldom wear a tie or take corrupt politicians with me. Seldom, anyway.

I've one I'm trying to corrupt but the bastard has the nerve to resist my best efforts. Maybe I put a higher value on the a can of PBR in my side-bag.

I hit Mill Creek tonight. The water is up - chest deep - as we've had plenty of rain. This weekend, snow.

Driving home tonight I had a revelation: Friday nights have lost their luster.

Sometime between the cancellation of The Brady Bunch and the Partridge Family on television and now, Friday nights have lost any special appeal.

I say we change this.

We should all just be ordinary trout bums on Friday nights. Some jerky. Crackers on the bank while scoping out the river. A pipe. A fly rod. Good humor.

Especially good humor.

It should be a national celebration where we all go to our local waters, fish for a couple hours, then get a burger from a drive-in (wrapped in wax paper) or a half-slab of ribs from a local shack where they look the other way if you bring a beer from the joint across the street.

Guides should eat free and no one should ask them for advice. We should all just be "guys on the river."

I spent two hours tonight with water too damn cold (39 degrees) for much feeding and left the creek with a smile a mile wide on my face.

I caught two little browns the size of which did not match the size of shiners Toonces bought (20 dozen) for a walleye trip in 2003. [ Toonces, cat who can drive a car from SNL. Yep, now you know how you get the name Toonces on a fourteen hour drive to your fly-out outfitter's base].

The size didn't matter, The fish didn't matter.

It was just fun technical fishing in tight quarters. Fun because I kept out of trees and brush. It's early and I didn't expect too much from my lightly weighted hare's ear flymph. I wasn't in the current casting upstream: a technique which certainly would have changed to fishing outcome.

It was good to get out. I'm in better spirits for it despite frau bear being down with a cold and snow in the forecast for three days this week.

Friday night fishing. I'll do some camping with that a little later on ... but definitely the fishing.

I'm leaving the tie at home.

See you on the water.

Prost.

The Chaos of Spring

AT left, a little chaos of my own.

I spent Easter doing mostly grounds maintenance here on bear hill.

I live where I can just burn stuff if I need to - providing no fire control is needed. SO, the winter detritus and a particularly unappealing trellis went away in the afternoon.

I also spent a little time with a new 7' 4/5 from Chris Lantzy which arrived on Friday.

Wow. It's a nice piece of cane. He had it on his web site as a pre-made that needed an owner. Never been fished. Great price so I bought it.

I'm having Chris make a Driggs for me so I can do a little Fox River Hemingway journey next year.

All reports are that the Fox is a real bitch to fish and the trail that runs a portion of the river is overgrown and neglected at best. Nevertheless, I have to make the homage to the Nick Adams stories and I'll write a little essay about the trip. E.H. wrote about the Two-Hearted but he fished the Fox. We drink Two-Hearted here at Amber Anglers but we'll fish the Fox.

My thoughts tonight concerns the spring preparation we all do.

I've been tying all winter and I'm crafting a little at-the-river guide to help my buddies. I've got a couple stories backed-up behind this little fly fishing missive - one about learning to like the taste of killing, so there's that  - and need to be getting the thing done. You see however the fly tying materials spread about.

I couldn't help myself last night. I had an idea for a a fur-bodied flymph and had to work on it.  Turns out, SLF dubbing works better in this than actual fur for the movement I wanted and so the fly has a life of its own. I'll tie a couple up that are picture-worthy and post them here. It's a bronze/black pheasant-tail affair just right for the shoulder season when we still have a few stoneflies moving around but then, so is everything else.

My shirt-pocket fly boxes are a complete mess filled with maybe 100 flies each from last year. Yes, they're tiny shirt pocket boxes. Too many flies and they represent the whole season. That's got to be cleaned-up.

Why are we so anxious for spring in November but do so little of the actual work to be ready for it until April?

Trout fishing: it's a kind of mental illness.

I've got it. So do you.

Take your medicine. You'll feel better.

Mine's in a small silver flask. I better refill that prescription, first.

Prost.
 

Shore. Lunch.

At left, a taco - aka Carne Asada with a good does of style. Jon Sullivan took the snap and while it is hosted over at wikicommons, Jon let's us use the copyright-free photo for any reason at all.

I'm using it at left. Fine quality food porn.

I did a little fishing Saturday afternoon and the trout told me to come back in six or eight degrees. It was fun casting and fun to get out. Cold water, though. Nipped the teens here last week and while the ice is off, that didn't do much for warming the drift.

Could be worse. 16" won't be outside the forecast for the folks on the Au Sable and Manistee this weekend. No trout dash camp Saturday.

Shore. Lunch.

Two words. Important words. Words we trout fishermen too often ignore.

I'm done with cheese sandwiches and tinned oysters on the banks. Ok - you've got me. I'm not giving up tinned fish. Yes I like herring too and no, I'm not Scandinavian. I'm worse.

I look at something like the taco in Jon's snap and wonder why we - collective trout enthusiast we - have not done a better job with the culinary enjoyment of our outdoor activities. Sure, I'm usually excited too and yes I want to fish. I don't mind a decent meal, either.

I'm upgrading my game.

I've a day pack I can wear that's out of the way of my casting and landing fish. I've a little wood burning Solo stove (see link at right)  that will also take an alcohol burner. I've got light cookware.

That smell you detect out on the river will indeed be me making fajitas. I'll fry sausage and onions. I'll make a delightful creole rice. After dawn fishing that will be bacon and eggs.

I am rebelling against the cheese sandwich on the shore. Not. Going. To. Do. It.

We spend a mint of time and treasure - collectively or individually - on our gear. I've got more than fifty hours at the vise this winter (yes, I've got it bad this year)  and I've traded for different gear and I've bought a little, too. Overall, I've spent a substantial part of my off-season thinking, dreaming, and preparing for trout season.

I'm not even a "good" fisherman. I just like the outdoors.

When we're outfitting this year, we should consider our culinary enjoyment. Most of us can fry. Everyone can boil. Those two things and a little Thursday night preparation makes the Saturday shore lunch a fine event.

Hmm, tamales steamed stream-side and eaten out of their husks slathered in verde sauce.  Make it hot enough, it'll cut down the evening mosquitoes drifting in from the swampy parts.

Post dawn fishing omelette and coffee right on the river bank? Yes, I say. Yes!

Most of the food we love was invented for field eating, anyway. The French will fold an omlette cooked to leathery perfection into a piece of wax paper and put it in a jacket pocket before heading to the fields.

Pierogi? Pierogi!  Let's see ... butter, a skillet, a camp stove ... delicious.

We're miles from somewhere but miles are hardly a barrier to the willing. After all, we stand in cold water waving sticks. (Thanks to Mr. Gierach - brilliant line. Buy his books. All of them.). We can do with a little civilization out in the wilds.

Why shouldn't we trout fellows be known as much for our fine stream-side cuisine as for our delicate yellow sallies?

I say let's give the aluminum locusts something to stare at.

Hoist your fajita and say it with me: "I'm a trout fisherman and I'm not eating plain cheese sandwiches anymore!"

That is, if you can talk with your mouth full. (I've seen you guys at Spike's in Grayling. Some of you I know are up to the task.).

Prost.

Special thanks to Steve Bird for last week's plug over at his Soft Hackle Journal. Thanks, Steve. Have a fajita. Link to the Journal is over on the right. You should be reading it.

Oh, and Oberon is out. Already. I know! I'm going to have to ask Moberon about this development. It's Best Brown weather. Well, sacrifices must be made. I'm still recovering from excessive Hopslam-ing. Bell's Two Hearted: official beverage of the Amber Liquid crew. Drink some tonight yourself.

Tactical Trout

At left as hosted on wikicommons: The Gentle Art  by Ernest E. Briggs as it appeared in Angling and Art in Scotland (London. Longmans, Green, and Company, 1908). Copyright free.(expired).

Well. If she was fishing for fisherman, she'd have caught me.

Tactical Trout.

I went looking for a 7wt DT line today from Airflo.

I need a drink.

Forty Plus. Camo Intermediate. Skagit Compact. With me so far? Watch your step on this next part.

Super Dri Bandit. WTF? What is a "Super Dri Bandit" supposed to be?

Dri CAST Line (Turns out CAST is Canadian Atlantic Salmon Taper).

SLN Euro Nymph Line. I'm not making this up. Euro. Is that how you pay for the thing?

Oh, here's one. Maybe it's what I want: Super-Dri G-Shock Fly Line.

Isn't G-Shock a watch line by Timex? No, wait. He was that guy in 2LiveCrew. The one who could sing? You got me. No one in 2LiveCrew could sing. Just about my whole point here.

Our industry is losing its ability to carry a tune.

I'm calling bullshit on the naming of these lines. You want to let your FPS video game addicted 13 year old name your fly lines, your business. Don't expect me to spend my time looking through 42 WF lines to find a double-taper in 7 wt that can actually be mended by a human.

Has it come to this?

Maybe the next new rod on the market can be the "Body Count" line with models like ISIL and Thermonuclear Kim.

You're killing me. Airflo, you're killing me. You are squarely in the Trout Industrial Complex and you're not going to make your quarterlies if you keep up this bullshit. Consumer markets collapse when consumers move on and they're heading for the exit right now. You're driving away folks with money to spend on repeat purchases.

Am I the only person who has read Customer for Life ? Remove the barrier to sales. Then remove the barriers for repeat sales and make the interaction a self-esteem enhancing experience.  Turn the handle, print the money.

You're not helping the sport one damn bit, either.

Cortland 444 in peach, please. I can understand which line to buy from those guys.

Prost

A Better Lesson

At left, a soft hackle: the coug.

I had good luck with this beast last year in size 14 and 16 where the shank is wrapped with four to six turns of non-lead. It fishes in the bottom 1/3 of the water column and brookies love it. I'll tie it in 10 and 12 this year as I search for the larger fish under the smaller fish I observe on the surface.

The hackle is soft dun hen. The collar is peacock herl. The abdomen and tag are wrapped four-strand floss. Thread is claret in silk, as if that matters.

I do use a dubbing loop twisted in with the herl to make a stronger fly. Like some of you, I've had herl break and flies come apart from rough treatment. I don't think there is any cause for that and if one wraps the dubbing loop in with the herl, even broken herl stays in place rather well.

Note this fly shows a barb. In practice, the fly is fished with the barb smashed down. My local shop doesn't carry barbless hooks but a good pair of needle-nose pliers are never far from my hand.

This little beast is my connection with Dave Hughes, Syl Nemes, Vern Hidy, James Leisenring, George Skues, Mr. T.E. Pritt, W.C. Stewart and Mr. Issac Walton. Not all of these giants would agree with the degree to which I've hackled the fly, the use of weight, and probably the floss.

Oh, and I choose this list because these gentlemen addressed specific works to the wet fly in general and the fly we call the soft-hackle wet fly in specifics. Other writers discuss the wet fly or even the soft-hackled wet fly in fine terms; but, the  above authors address "wingless wets" with a special enthusiasm.

The fly does however work. The hackle has a nice taper in the water when the fly is pulling in the current and my strikes come upstream on the first half of my drift and downstream half on the swing and half on the dangle (or second dangle).

When I was a kid in fourth or fifth grade, a fishing show was popular in my area of the country: The Sportman's Friend with Harold Ensley. His theme song included the lyrics "gone fishin' instead of just a wishin'" and to a kid, that summed up how I wanted to live life.

I remember Harold fishing for Northern Pike and Muskie. When the big spoon - usually skirted with deer hair - reached the Lund, Harold and his son would make a couple large figure-8's in the water with the lure off the tip and frequently, this action provoked a strike from the large following fish. The fishing was filmed soundlessly in super-8 and the replay on the television was accompanied by voice-over narration by Harold and occasionally his son Dusty.

I use a second "up and back" pull with my rod inspired by those films of Harold when the soft-hackle is on the dangle and about half my dangle strikes come on the falling fly from this "second dangle."

No, I usually don't detect a strike on the dangle until I pull on the line and find a fish hanging about down there. Not trying to hook a fish downstream - and letting him hook himself - turns out to be a pretty good tactic. The fisherman doesn't get to mess things up.

We fish trout, not bass. No raring back with all your might to set the hook, mate.

Now, I'm showing "the coug" and talking about this line of fine fishing writers because I'm trying to improve my skill as an instructor. Catching is more effective at enticing new fly fishers than my romanticized speeches about trout living in the most beautiful parts of the world.  Trout do live in some wonderful places but sight-seeing isn't really the first purpose of the sport.

I ran across a passage this week thanks to Syl Nemes and his The Soft Hackled Fly and Tiny Soft Hackles. The passage is from W.C. Stewart in The Practical Angler:

Those anglers who think trout will take no fly unless it is an exact imitation  of some immense number of flies they are feeding on, must suppose that they know to a shade the color of every fly on the water, and can detect the least deviation of it - an amount of entomological knowledge that would put to shame the angler himself, and a good many naturalists to boot.

It is this sentiment exactly which I have inherited in my fishing from my Uncle who started me down this path by taking the time to coach me on a passable form with a fly rod some forty years ago.

I speak of the uncle who exclusively used a woolly buggar in brown or black and who scoffed at my dry flies as "having fun."  Depression era kids who once fished to feed their brothers and sisters had different ideas of sport than perhaps we do today.

The point of this follows: the coug looks like no known insect. In the water, its light and neutral tones do however look like most insects and moreover, the movement makes the fly look alive.

I'm going to send new fly fishers into the water with flies like the coug on easy down-and-across beats for a simple reason: it works.

We'll cover the joys of a Deer Hair Caddis (DHC) take on the surface right at dusk a little later.

I've been a poor instructor. I'm sorry for that.

Prost.