Fishing and Thinking in Minnesota

2012-01-24T22:28:00.006-06:00

It's pretty effin simple

This is a flat 100% eat every time. LOD iteration with the chenille and hackle swapped out for a skinny little strip of palmered tanned squirrel hide. The top of the squirrel pushed down by the peacock wingcase. The deal secured by a wrap of medium wire. The wire providing the segmentation that gives this thing a tangent of a look of a house centipede or a hex bug or something crunchy and soft at the same time.

Back in June the scene was this: John Montana and I, walking up a flat with the sun taking a serious fall at our backs. Carp were in front of us like big hooded lanterns there, facing away with asses tilted upward maybe 30-45 degrees... it was like we'd arranged the set up. Waving wands and progressing through the gameboard, dealing flies to these monk fish who didn't hesitate even once. The only thing that limited us was the ruckus caused by each hook up. Worked our way through that with deadly precision there as the grayness came on. Nice sandy bottom for wading. And of the millions of people in the world... we were the only two walking in Lake Michigan that night; the only two seeing those fish and connecting with them. I always find that hard to believe: that something so sweet is so overlooked. But in the end that works out well. The point of that recollection is that I used one fly that evening: Legion of Doom. It is your destiny, fellow swappers.

*Pictures taken before head cement applied; that loose-looking thread will be shored up nicely.

2012-01-06T20:28:00.017-06:00

Report: Janury 6, 2012

You may have taken the Farmers' Almanac and put it in the outhouse for whatever purpose. It's taken some serious shots over the past month, being that it feels like March and all. Worst winter in a decade. I suppose I'll knock on some wood and leave it at that. This is strange man. Very strange. I can't remember a winter like this.

It was criminal to be indoors yesterday. To keep things right then, I left work a little early and met my neighbor at a local water. Fished until about 415 PM. This was the outing as it was meant to be: many fish in places you'd expect to find them; brook trout included; some moderately large brown trout. There were two bouts of 6-7 fish each, with misc sprinkled in there. So may have approached 20 fish which is a high count for January. Most fish ate an orange scud.

The best sequence of the day did not result in a fish to hand: working a hole and knowing fish are there; no takes though; so move indicator up; still no takes; so take the two #4 Dinsmore shot and separate them - put one between the two beadheads; first drift, beautiful brown hooked and subsequently lost. Still though, it's another check-mark on the lesson board of nymphing: the fish are in the holes. The job is to apply shot and indicator movement in iterative fashion until the fly gets in front of the fish. This is, if you want to dredge the bottom for the trout lying down there in those bellies. If you don't want to do that, don't do it. Someone famous said "the trout can have the refuge of the deep water." Today though we took that from them: fishing the soft edges and mending to let the nymphs sink... twitching the nymphs now and then... catching good trout. It's a pleasure to nymph with moderate success.

There were midges in the air; between the two of us though we observed only one rise. Paid no attention to dry fly possibilities. Didn't even fish that much for the second half of the allotted time. Drank a pint of good beer and talked about where we might go next.

Now on to tune up the ice fishing gear in prep for an outing with boys tomorrow.

Fish pictured here measured at approx 14".

2012-01-03T12:27:00.008-06:00

Trout Opener: January 2, 2012

Fished 1300 - 1600.

Gear List:
8.5' 4 wt Avid
4 wt Rio Windcutter
G. Loomis Adventure 3
pre-tied tandem nymph rigs
equipped lanyard
Simms waders, boots
waterproof winter coat
Buff
two pair gloves, for travel only
brand new muffler
nice stocking cap
shades
some oats mixed with PB and chocolate
hot tea
survival kit: matches, lighter, compass, headlamp

This, for going down in the valley. Not a fishing-at-road-crossing deal. Cold, windy day. Headed deep into the valley. Approx 15-18 minute walk from parking place to the water. The lack of snow made the walk relatively easy; but the combination of snowcrust on leaf litter made descent challenging. Couple controlled falls were anticipated and executed.

The fishing report amounts to not much. Not sure exactly what happened here. I talked to one guy who went out on Jan 1 and lit it up pretty good... same water on Jan 2 showed two fish. I like the water I fished and it looked and felt good going in. But hole after hole would come up blank on me. Holes from which I pulled good mobs of fish in 2011. Not today though. Only a few stray, small fish here and there. I figured I'd better take one token picture of the first fish of 2012; it took a while to get a fish to hand and I sensed there would not be many to follow. Fishing unremarkable. Other important notes though:

(1) It was indeed cold and windy. But the armor I set up beat the elements really well. I'd say I was in pretty good condition all along. I came across a coupon for that Gander Mountain hand muffler, so I went and bought it: $12. My initial rating on it is very good to excellent. No gloves while fishing; duck hands into muffler now and then for solid warmth. Recommended.

(2) Gander Mountain fly shop is worthless. I ran out of #1 Dinsmore shot. Messing with a person's split shot is a big deal. It's not as simple as just getting some more; buying another brand or another size. A guy gets used to certain shot. I tried some bogus substitute and it was just garbage. Different size and weight and I had a hard time setting up my rigs. Couldn't take it OFF the tippet, which is a key disadvantage Dinsmore is worth the money.

(3) Yet another found gear item: seat pad out in the woods.

This was essentially an ice-breaker. Hadn't trout fished in Minnesota since September. Needed to get out. The solitude was appreciated. I figured I wouldn't see anyone and did not. At one point watched six bald eagles circling under the moon. Much left to be desired though: finding and catching a pod of trout for example. I suppose that'll happen on next outing, likely on a warmer day.

Most importantly, those valley walls are good medicine. I took a few pics in an attempt to capture how towering they stand. This place has been here for a while. All the dirt went away and the groundwater now flows at the land surface. The trout hold in cold water behind rocks and in bellies and wandering folks can look in after them.

2011-12-29T16:26:00.018-06:00

Anticipation and Consideration of Potential

As noted previously, the days are getting longer now. We trudged to the bottom of that valley and are now climbing up the other side. Thankful for that. And now even brighter as things move toward winter fishing and anticipation builds. A few days ago a guy stopped by my desk and we bitched a bit about sports and we drifted back to the 2009 debacle in which the phony Saints advanced to the Super Bowl and proceeded to be handed the most bogus Super Bowl trophy of all time and then get their team picture taken with Obama and then rally the beaten and trodden-down peoples of New Orleans two years after a hurricane came through. The specific mention here was that he felt robbed of the opportunity to anticipate a game-winning kick when Childress ran twice for zero yards and then sent the wrong play in and set up Favre to throw the game-losing INT. He asked me if I thought he’d have made the kick and I said yes but his take was that it didn’t really matter he just wanted to sit for thirty seconds, anticipating a game winning, Super Bowl berth field goal attempt. Just the attempt would have provided him the satisfaction. The robbery was the snatching of that opportunity. This idea applies very broadly, especially in the case of various fishing undertakings. Could you say that you enjoy thinking about what you are going to do on the stream, sometimes nearly as much as you enjoy actually doing those things? I can say it. In fact sometimes I start jumping around and yelling when I see in my mind what I’m going to do. The days leading up to a big carp trip are a good example: we are gonna light that shit up, no doubt. Etc. Days coming into some time on the stream: looking ahead to walking alone, working riffles and holes with tandem rigs, muttering under breath. Etc. There’s a lot to the buildup. And you could say that if you are bound to this stuff in a genuine way, damn near everything has an element of build up to it. You talk with people about fishing. You read about streams and bugs. You jot down notes about places you need to check out. Places that are good for kids to fish.

There is the potential to go out on Sunday or Monday and watch the bend in your rod while standing in a deep valley of limestone cliff faces. That’s what I figure I’ll do. Technical note and/or stating what is known to most but maybe not all: winter trout season in MN opens January 1, 2012. If the end of the world somehow jumps ahead of schedule to any time before that day I’m going to be bummed out.

Here are a couple elements of anticipation and consideration of potential:

(1) When I got on the #14 bus at 4:38 PM today, I was carrying among other things: a blaze orange hat, a backup hat, leather gloves, LaCrosse knee boots, Leaves of Grass, Fishing the Four Seasons, Delights and Shadows, the Fall 2011 edition of The Drake, a digital camera and two note books. Some of the stuff is just standard backpack component. But the boots and the camera were needed because I’ve already started fishing in some respect. From 12:00 to 13:30 I walked a bit of private property, looking at a stream reach that is largely mysterious. We have trout streams and we have non-designated trout streams. This was a non-designated, non-trout stream with the potential to be a trout stream. Bit of a fantasy. Tucked away; on no maps. Trout stream but no trout. What could be maybe. Important consideration.

(2) When I got home last night I said “I wish I had enough money to buy some beer” and then later on I tied fifteen standard HE with blue beads. While doing this I sat with my wife, watching a movie. And drinking leftover sangria, then Black Bottle scotch, then the last of the sangria strengthened with some gin. Over the course of the last few nymphs, the motions of setting down the whip-finisher, then the bobbin, etc. became very fluid and it felt like I was thinking about them after actually executing the movements. Then ate some sauerkraut and pickles from Big Red Barn.

And finally, here is what I will do on either Jan 1 or Jan 2, 2012: I will go to a stream near my house. No snow shoes because of the oddity of this year, even though I want to try out the newly-lended bits. I will walk quite a ways down into a deep valley. I will be alone. I will work my way up a series of pools anchored in a great vertical fall over a short reach. I’ll slowly nymph every alley of each piece of water, starting at the short side and moving across. I’ll promise myself I’ll set the hook on any oddity, due to winter lethargy considerations. And then I’ll do so. My guides will freeze. My fingers will move slowly. I will swear a lot but not mean anything bad by it. I’ll catch some fish; some nice fish too; probably some BNT between 11-13 inches. It’s unlikely that I will take them out of the water. Rather I’ll hold them in the current; take a picture or a few; watch them swim away and then go home.

Some tying, after a long hiatus

Stream recon work

2011-12-21T15:19:00.003-06:00

Brown winter, gray time, but days now get brighter

It’s a gray morning and the nights have been long. It’s been suggested that I am a poster case for passive-aggressive (negativistic) personality disorder and I tend to agree. The description of the affliction fits me. But I figure it’s because I haven’t been fishing lately. Further, on that:

I guess what you’d call “a long time ago” I lived in a 20x20 cinder block house on a sand farm. No rent; only the obligation to take care of four horses, flock of chickens, some geese, dog and cats. This was right around the forecasted end of the world ~2000. It happened that a guy I know had no home around that time, so he moved into the cinder block shack for a month or two. He slept on a mattress on the floor and almost every night he got up and turned the lights on at 4 AM and mixed a jug of orange juice. The notable thing though is that while he was there, he wrote a short essay on Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD); aka winter blues, etc. The U.S. National Library of Medicine notes that "some people experience a serious mood change when the seasons change. They may sleep too much, have little energy, and may also feel depressed. Though symptoms can be severe, they usually clear up." In other words, the jones for fishing can be strong, even if you don’t readily perceive it as an important cause of your grumpy state, negativity, bitching, moaning, blaming other people for things, pissing off everyone around you, yelling, losing your temper, etc. Maybe you’re thinking “let’s make up a syndrome for it” sure that sounds good like ADHD and all that. Acronym, etc. Well, whatever the case I think there is something to it. Because I am ornery and maybe moreso than usual. It is entirely possible that I am genetically predisposed to be grumpy. I’ll never know. But I do know that I don’t choose to be like this. It just happens. I should chart it; maybe it’s around this time each year. SAD indeed.

Maybe it has to do with the expectation that a person need just “accept” the busy-ness of being an American family in industrial society. Wake up, go to work, pluck at a fucking keyboard, come home, do the dishes, put the kids to bed, go to sleep, wake up, do the same. “Yeah, we’re busy. I guess we just have to get used to it.” Well, I have a response to that: BURN THAT SHIT IN HELL for all I care. I am not ready to sign over life to “being busy.” Not ready at all and I’d like someone to shoot me if I ever cave on that one. “Oh sure, no problem; I’ll be a shuttle service, dishwasher, wage-earner, that sounds fulfilling. Why not? Everybody is doing it.” To hell with that. Burn it in hell. Now if I were busy AT HOME, doing work at my home for the direct betterment of land, family, food, etc. that might be a different story (but then again, one always yearns for what one does not have, I understand this, but let me keep on that line). Example: last night I went outside and took a bow saw, and cut off some hunks of black walnut. Juglans nigra. Our family tree. We eat it. I cut off those hunks in the backyard, then used an axe and a maul to chunk off the outer wood and leave the black heartwood (splitting through the pith to allow for drying). I did this kneeling on the ground in my yard. Wearing a stocking cap. Silent night with no flickering death pixels to mar the vision. Then I took all the sticks and scraps that were stockpiled on a cement slab and built a bonfire. Lit it up and drank one single beer. That all took approximately 40-50 minutes. Afterward, I was ready to go. It can’t be explained fully, but generally I’d say it comes down to meaning: doing something meaningful in the world. With your family: even better. Another example would be walking a stream and looking at limestone outcrops. Or being in the middle of a spinner fall. Etc. With your kids: even better.

How many people could be screwed up because of disconnection with the real world? I’ll never know and neither will you. But I suspect it could be a lot. Go get some drugs, go see a counselor. Let’s check a couple possible scenarios/prescriptions:

(1) Okay, take these pills – they’ll make you forget about your horseshit state. And then go to a counselor and tell him about it.
(2) Son, the world isn’t wall paper. Put yourself in it and rid yourself of your disgusting, white, soft hands! Shoot the keyboard with a shotgun and we should be good to go. It’s not wall paper to frame your existence! It is your existence and if you’re not in it, well you’re not in it and that says it all.

I just can’t deal with the “You’re busy, you gotta accept it.” because I know that one day I’ll realize that it wasn’t right to be like that and I’ll be pissed about that chapter just like I’m pissed about a lot of chapters I look back on. That’s the tragedy: we have memories, and we tend to get better with age; thus, retrospect is always frustrating.

So tired of perceiving that fishing is thought of as a hobby. It’s not a hobby and it’s not a game. It’s a direct link to planet earth. It’s not a club you join and then quit. You don’t just decide “Well, I’ll be a fisherman now; maybe later I’ll stop.” That can burn in hell too. I’m tired of apologizing for and sometimes feeling guilty about fishing. You spend 98% of your time either at work or with your family. The 2% you spend on your own, maybe fishing, serves to make you a better man, a better family member and overall just better. Probably in ways you don’t even comprehend. What good would it do you to delete fulfillment from your life and thus become a worse person for it? And the answer is NO it’s not a choice to become a worse person for it. Plain and simple, some things impact people without consent or choice. If your buddy dies, you are sad. You don’t choose to be sad. You can tell people you are not sad and you can try to bury it but you are still sad. Likewise if you feel wronged by being chained to industrial society and banned from meaningful interaction with soil and water, that’s how you feel and the impacts of such a situation will shape you. And it won’t be a choice. You can try to bury it but the negativity and the depression will seep out or maybe disguise itself as some other ruinous embodiment of pain. Come on man, it’s not a choice. You can’t just say “Okay, I don’t need to fish anymore. Everything will be fine.” Destroying yourself is no favor to your kids.

Is anyone surprised that people are saddled with acronyms and plagued with dissatisfaction and murderous and propped up by drugs and television, when the majority of folks touch QWERTYUIOP etc. all day? We might as well admit that in many ways we have become lame.

Another installment in the flow of thoughts regarding how one can be better.

The Stolen Child, by W. B. Yeats

WHERE dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than he can understand

The Fisherman, by W. B. Yeats

Although I can see him still—
The freckled man who goes
To a gray place on a hill
In gray Connemara clothes
At dawn to cast his flies—
It's long since I began
To call up to the eyes
This wise and simple man.
All day I'd looked in the face
What I had hoped it would be
To write for my own race
And the reality:
The living men that I hate,
The dead man that I loved,
The craven man in his seat,
The insolent unreproved—
And no knave brought to book
Who has won a drunken cheer—
The witty man and his joke
Aimed at the commonest ear,
The clever man who cries
The catch cries of the clown,
The beating down of the wise
And great Art beaten down.

Maybe a twelve-month since
Suddenly I began,
In scorn of this audience,
Imagining a man,
And his sun-freckled face
And gray Connemara cloth,
Climbing up to a place
Where stone is dark with froth,
And the down turn of his wrist
When the flies drop in the stream—
A man who does not exist,
A man who is but a dream;
And cried, “Before I am old
I shall have written him one
Poem maybe as cold
And passionate as the dawn.”

2011-11-21T11:59:00.003-06:00

Ancient Music

Winter is icumen in,
Lhude sing Goddamm,
Raineth drop and staineth slop,
And how the wind doth ramm!
Sing: Goddamm.
Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us,
An ague hath my ham.
Freezeth river, turneth liver,
Damm you; Sing: Goddamm.
Goddamm, Goddamm, 'tis why I am, Goddamm,
So 'gainst the winter's balm.
Sing goddamm, damm, sing goddamm,
Sing goddamm, sing goddamm, DAMM.

- E. Pound

Shed roof, gray and biting day of 11/20/11.

2011-11-17T20:42:00.009-06:00

Deer Hunting 2011

Scouting was done up pretty well. Many conversations with various folks who are better hunters than me. Planning was intact. Anticipation was more than notable. Excitement re acquiring meat was notable. Well.

My viewscape (looking south) from 4 AM to 5 PM on opening day. I had set up a little blind on the south side in the strip of woods, but the strong wind was from the south, so I made a change on the fly and set up in the corn looking south at the line of scrapes depicted in the air photo. The scrapes smelled like piss and the branches were chewed up above them. I got up periodically in the afternoon and walked the corn a bit, looking carefully for any bedded deer.

My viewscape on day two (Thursday). I blew off the scrapes and hunted a sidehill, looking down onto the river. I could just make out some riffled water through the trees. I propped a folding chair against a tree on that steep slope, and sat sideways. No reading. Looking and listening only. One doe came into my viewscape for ~2 seconds; just the top of her back and her head; then she dipped down below the crest of the hill. Never saw her again. I spent most of this time fascinated with anticipation, thinking what a struggle it would be to get a deer out of that bottom.

Didn't take any pictures on day three (Sunday). It was a dutiful, disappointing day. Left around noon to salvage part of the day to spend with family.

Notes:
(1) I know a guy can't just decide to get a deer and get one. To think so would be an insult to studied deer hunters. That's why guys who luck into deer without any work are sometimes insults to deer hunters I'd think.
(2) The nature of a hunt like this is interesting: a lot of sitting and waiting. Without trail cameras or first-hand observation of deer, and without extensive knowledge of their habits, you are asking for favors. Like still fishing with bait. Asking for something to come along. In contrast to the fishing I usually roll on: fishing water in which I know trout exist; sight-fishing for carp. If you aren't getting the fish, you go find them and feed them something and watch them eat it. Not really asking for favors. So feeling a little helpless, sitting and hoping was a bit of a torment. Set up best you know, then sit and wait. Get up and walk around, stalking deer... That one got me a bit. I tried it, and I'd tried it last year. I can't see how that can work really well at all; how a person could be quiet enough. But I know folks do it. Seemed positively futile to me though.
(3) Hunted for 27 hours; $1/hour on the license cost.
(4) Wow, effing wow do I hate sitting on my ass for that long. My ass is sore. Can't stand that. I stood up a lot in the woods; leaned against trees when possible.
(5) Frustrated or not, you can't really argue that it's a bad thing to sit out in the woods, listening to a river or maybe the wind all day.
(6) The public land factor was in play on opening day. I figured I'd be the first guy out there: got up at 3 AM, at the parking lot by 340 AM. Already one vehicle. Turns out he got there at 1 AM. Well. I got set up. The watched the cars roll in. Listened to the doors slam. Voices rise and fall. Then a group of about five headlamps peeped in and out of sight... bobbing closer. Voices louder. I flashed my headlamp. They stopped. Heads turned sideways. They went away. Second group of guys came right on though. Walked right in front of me, over the line of scrapes. Then a solo guy came along. He came right up to me and talked a while. Not clear on any etiquette. Interesting to be a part of something like that.
(7) Very few gunshots on any day. Opening day included a couple 1-2 hours spans of no shots heard.
(8) 65 pounds of venison in the freezer, taken via roadkill a couple months ago. Turns out that's all we'll have going into winter 2011. I buried the head in the backyard with the antlers sticking up above the ground.

Back next year, due to sense of duty, interest and the fact that I like SE MN November and being on that land.

2011-11-10T19:58:00.006-06:00

November 10, 2011 Report

Cloudy, windy, cool
Can't trout fish in MN which burns me a bit
So drove 58 miles one way to Iowa
On a Thursday four other cars in the lot
Rusty mediocrity ensued
Only enough fish to keep us going
Nothing more though
Really nothing remarkable about the fishing
Did keep some large RBT though (14.5" and 13.5")
Being that they are stockers
And I paid my fair share to Iowa Fisheries today
Lost one really long and skinny BNT easy into high teens
Was too eager with it popped off at arm's length
Deal today was watching Danny watch everything else
He wanted to keep all fish
He wanted to kill them himself
He carried the creel most of the day
And he slept on the way home
So I stopped talking and watched cows at pasture
Quilted countryside
Danny's report was positive
He wants to go again tomorrow

2011-10-31T20:35:00.010-05:00

Halloween 2011 Report

"You and your quiet," said Brett. "What is it men feel about quiet?"
"We like it," said the count. "Like you like noise, my dear."

- E. Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises, Part I page 61

Setting for 10 AM - 2 PM today.

The sauger (Sander canadensis) is a freshwater perciform fish of the family Percidae which resembles its close relative the walleye. -Wikipedia

Can't remember if I'd caught a sauger on a fly before today. Maybe. It's up there with with bowfin and mooneye in a triad of nice fly-caught fishes. Told my kids it was a baby water dragon. They believed it. I believe it.

The River is the ultimate sorter. It can take unlimited tons of mass and group by particle size in beautiful geometry. Fans and bars. Waves of sand. Slow deposition. Episodic resuspension and transport. Then sorting again. No man will ever be able to do this. Not even with iphone applications.

No matter how much it may be used by towing companies and water companies and commercial fishermen and trappers and the like, the river doesn't belong to the workaday world. And no matter how much it is used by pleasure boaters and water-skiers and the like, it doesn't belong to the vacation world either. It is never concerned, if you can see what I mean. Nothing keeps to its own way more than the river does.

Another thing: No matter how corrupt and trashy it necessarily must be at times in this modern world, the river is never apart from beauty. Partly, I suppose, this is because it always keeps to its way.

Sometimes, living right beside it, I forget it. Going about my various tasks, I don't think about it. And then it seems just to flow back into my mind. I stop and look at it. I think of its parallel, never-meeting banks, which yet never part. I think of it lying there in its long hollow, at the foot of all the landscape, a single opening from its springs in the mountains all the way to its mouth. It is a beautiful thought, one of the most beautiful of all thoughts. I think it not in my brain only but in my heart and in the lengths of my bones.

- Jayber Crow, by Wendell Berry, page 310

Zumbro River riffle. Not bad for an assemblage of pixels. I could look at it for a while.

2011-10-18T12:16:00.021-05:00

October 2011 Notes

(0) Pretty sure I haven't caught a fish in the month of October, outside of maybe a panfish or two logged with kids, but I can't even remember that 100% at this point. I know one day we took out a little buddy approx age six and guided by James, he caught his first ever fish (crappie). For old ass 35 year old me though nothing going.

(1) I've noted with interest the continuous air temp data logged at the local USGS station. October has been a remarkably welcoming month. Perfect days to be outside. Playing a lot of catch. So on, etc.

(2) Finished rereading Another Turn of the Crank. Frustrating exercise to absorb such good analysis that leaves you with a negative vibe. I put a link in the sidebar to some WB essays. Worth a look. He's not called the modern prophetic voice for nothing.

Couple excerpts:

Conserving communities:

now claim that they can do a better job in running a global economy? American agriculture has demonstrated by its own ruination that you cannot solve economic problems just by increasing scale and, moreover, that increasing scale is almost certain to cause other problems-ecological, social, and cultural.

We can't go on too much longer, maybe, without considering the likelihood that we humans are not intelligent enough to work on the scale to which we have been tempted by our technological abilities. Some such recognition is undoubtedly implicit in American conservatives' long-standing objection to a big central government. And so it has been odd to see many of these same conservatives pushing for the establishment of a supranational economy that would inevitably function as a government far bigger and more centralized than any dreamed of before. Long experience has made it clear-as we might say to the liberals-that to be free we must limit the size of government and we must have some sort of home rule. But it is just as clear-as we might say to the conservatives-that it is foolish to complain about big government if we do not do everything we can to support strong local communities and strong community economies.

But in helping us to confront, understand, and oppose the principles of the global economy, the old political alignments have become virtually useless. Communists and capitalists are alike in their contempt for country people, country life, and country places. They have exploited the countryside with equal greed and disregard. They are alike even in their plea that it is right to damage the present in order to make "a better future."

[]

Conserving Forest Communities

That early regardlessness of consequence infected our character, and so far it has dominated the political and economic life of our state. So far, for every Kentuckian, like Harry Caudill, willing to speak of the natural limits within which we have been living all along, there have been many who have wished only to fill their pockets and move on, leaving their ecological debts to be paid by somebody else's children.

But by this time, the era of cut-and-run economics ought to be finished. Such an economy cannot be rationally defended or even apologized for. The proofs of its immense folly, heartlessness, and destructiveness are everywhere. Its failure as a way of dealing with the natural world and human society can no longer be sanely denied. That this colonial system persists and grows larger and stronger in spite of its evident failure has nothing to do with rationality or, for that matter, with evidence. It persists because, embodied now in multinational corporations, it has discovered a terrifying truth: If you can control a people's economy, you don t need to worry about its politics; its politics have become irrelevant. If you control people's choices as to whether or not they will work, and where they will work, and what they will do, and how well they will do it, and what they will eat and wear, and the genetic makeup of their crops and animals, and what they will do for amusement, then why should you worry about freedom of speech? In a totalitarian economy, any "political liberties" that the people might retain would simply cease to matter. If, as is of then the case already, nobody can be elected who is not wealthy, and if nobody can be wealthy without dependence on the corporate economy, then what is your vote worth? The citizen thus becomes an economic subject.

(3) I walked into a cubicle that confines me for hours on end and the place had a brightness to it that was brought there by a box from The Big Red Barn kept by WFF. Gem tomatoes, pickles, salsas, pizza sauce. Most of it's eaten already. Few nights ago had brown trout with caper sauce. Put the cream in the dirty pan and mop it all up. That's the sauce recipe. Then throw capers in there. Soups, breads. Last of the peppers. Arugula and beet greens. Potatoes. Grapes and raspberries coming to end.

(4) Regarding the previous post in which I foolishly spoke with bravado regarding a stake-out method to be employed in an effort to hook one last carp: it didn't work. The water was down a good bit, and the silt plumes, while visible, were out of reach. There will almost certainly be no carp for the remainder of 2011. Danny and I found three urban wanderers last weekend, but all were out of reach, and had they been accessible, would have been not-landable given the local flood control channel (really high walls). One exceedingly good bit did come of that outing though: as we were lining up a rod in a parking lot, two guys approached; Danny volunteered: We're going fishing. They replied: For what, crappies? Danny: Nah [not no, it was nah], they're too small. I file that one away in the best-ever category.

(5) Figuring I will head out deer hunting again this year. Many years of failure don't get me too down because it's an enjoyable undertaking. I'll be fishing a trout stream again this year, very close to my house. Scouted around twice, second time with Danny (pics below). BTW, Danny shat in the woods on this outing, with no TP and thus messed his underwear a bit. Then he stepped in his own droppings. Happy and impressed to report that he walked funny for a few minutes, but then: not another word. The kid is not a complainer. I am fully convinced that he would follow one on pretty much any adventure, provided you have snacks or candy to keep him committed.

(6) Must be about time to walk around on the river a bit, see what's out there.

Happy fall to everyone; I hope you can look past the shortcomings of humanity and somehow figure out a way to relax. I know I can't, at this point anyway. It'd be nice though and it's a life goal: to relax.

2011-10-13T22:29:00.018-05:00

Closing Time

Another season ends...

Interesting fall thus far. Unseasonably warm. Which is good, mostly. Spending time watching things transition. Collecting nuts. Wrapping up the garden. Watching all the biomass on the tomato plants get that extra push from the heat and turn would-have-been-forever-green tomatoes bright red. Eating various colored peppers. Practicing handoffs, passes, receptions with kids. Etc. etc. But in a backwards way the whole deal makes me even more grumpier than I already am known to be: I look outside and get pissed that I'm not out there. Instead I'm in an office. Burns me up a bit. Fuckin nice weather. I did make it out on 9/30, with a mind to fish a tough, crowded stream full of nice BNT. I was going to start up, work down, swinging streamers. Tucking black leeches and buggers under log piles. Etc. Good plan there. 9/30 was many things: a Friday; a perfect weather day; last day of trout season; and most notably: the day that DNR decided to shock the stretch of stream I was going to fish. I drove down an old field road... quite a ways back there... and "WTF - is that a gleaming truck cab?" Yes it was. Well I harbor no resentment there. On the contrary, I love every one of those guys and I appreciate what they do. I left the scene and fished a downstream reach; couple fish to hand but heart wasn't in it. Went on to another stream and didn't cover much water because I was intrigued by some trout cinema playing out before me: a pod of moderately sized fish, dancing in midcurrent, taking nymphs. Somewhat fascinating to watch. Gripping anyway, enough so that I did not move for a good number of minutes. I watched and floated my nymphs through. Watching the flies; watching the fish. Caught a fair number. Hold, hold, spot something, shoot to the side, take, flit back to the hold. You could imagine then your nymph getting in that lane; at that x, y and z coordinate. Drifting through. Something to see really. Later on I spooked one of the bigger trout I've encountered. Easy mid-20s. It was in a relatively shallow reach; hiding under a log. It came out into plain sight and I stared at it. Vibrantly colored fish. Very deep. It moved behind a rock and I continued upstream. So the season didn't close with a conventional bang; but I was cool with it. You get what you get and you don't have a fit. The heart of the weekend was spent taking the boys camping on the local river. Twelve minutes away. Basic car camping. It's not really noble, wild or particularly special. But the boys love it; it cost $15; not much gas. It is good for everyone to be cold at night: local USGS station showed 40 F was the low. Amazing to sit outside and feel the exponential evacuation of heat from ~ 6 PM to 8 PM. Big fires in evening and morning were appreciated. And we are taking a different approach to camp food lately; in this case, stir fry: our peppers; friend's onions; road kill venison. So maybe noble afterall because that's a bang-up ingredient list. Just eat it right off the iron gridle. Salt, pepper, oil. James, he walked up to the river with his spinning rod; cast a twister tail once and landed a SMB. I AM good, is what he said. He proceeded to catch a handful of fish, employing a new-found bounce retrieve. Rock bass and SMB. A carp of 10-12 lbs swam within spitting distance of me. Didn't flinch. Rod was in the car. I'm cool with some carp swimming unmolested. Some carp. Well hell this is old news; season's been over two weeks. Days are ticking by. Xs on the calendar. I hope we're doing some good stuff around here but who knows. The kids bounce like yo-yos, in that one day we're slapping their backs and we're all smiling and good vibes are everywhere; next day we got all kinds of foul words and wishes and bitching and whining. It ain't steady around here. Not at this moment. Not bad though. Not bad at all. Maybe some good things going on. Watching one son read far past his grade level; execute various math problems, including application of negative integers. Marveling at his pretty powerful south-paw cannon. Seeing the little guy just want to love everyone around him. Watching him look for approval. Coming to understand that my wife helps a lot of people, in different ways. What I do is not readily explainable but lately I've been feeling pretty good about that too: some good analysis to add to on-going campaigns that, while obscure, are particularly and clearly important and necessary. Campaigns and struggles are long and grueling and they are made of component parts. Every component part must be constructed and installed. Even if ignored (deliberately or otherwise) they must be constructed and installed. There are few if any immediate rewards in such campaigns. No kids to smile at in class; no built house to look on in admiration; no sale to close. And that can be frustrating. But I play out scenarios all the time. Especially in non-engaging meetings. And scenarios without the aforementioned campaigns are dark indeed. But that is too much talk on that. It wasn't intentional. Fuckin keyboard. And monitor. Fuckin burn em all up and compost the ashes for what they're worth. Or better yet they can all burn in hell which is where they belong. The only other thing worth mentioning at this point is that not all seasons are closed. Not all closed. I have developed a lazy technique called layin in the cut that just might net me one final cyprinid. To implement this approach I will need approximately two hours this weekend. Just a couple hours. Waiting 'em out. For after this weekend, things turn dark and cold. Dark and cold... so this is the final show. Bring it on! Woohoo!!

2011-10-13T12:45:00.012-05:00

Time Series: Chelydra serpentina

Or: four guys drank Lake Superior Ale on a lonely shore miles from nowhere and watched a dinosaur dismantle a smallmouth bass.

After the initial ripping of the head and gill plate area (the kill), the snapper became very methodical about this undertaking:

(1) Thrust head forward to grasp carcass;
(2) Use front legs to push away while pulling with head to rip chunk off;
(3) Back up, swallow chunk hole;
(4) Extend snorkel-nostrils just above water surface; exhale; inhale;
(5) Submerge head;
(6) Advance and go back to step #1.

Common snappers are noted for their belligerent disposition when out of the water, their powerful beak-like jaws, and their highly mobile head and neck (hence the specific name "serpentina", meaning "snake-like").

The snapper is an aquatic ambush hunter, capturing its prey with its beak-like jaws.

-Wikipedia

2011-10-13T12:32:00.007-05:00

Pagami Creek Fire

As seen by a band of fishermen who cared peripherally about it (don't mean to sound crass, but we were in fact a band of fishermen). We were north of the fire a good ways. The images that follow the map (from Pioneer Press) were collected by me, from various vantage points, looking south and maybe slightly SE. Some of it was clearly "smoke as art" from our perspective. It was interesting to ponder it and zoom our mental eye closer and closer and construct the release of decades of carbon bound together by sun's energy; now broken apart and expelling that energy as heat.

For reference, we were in camp Sept 8-14. I see now that what I recall feeling like a south wind ~9/12-9/13 must have been more of a SW wind; pushing that maroon polygon north and east.

2011-09-19T12:10:00.034-05:00

BWCA 2011

I may be getting old enough to use the phrase years ago, but I’m not sure. Years ago, in the previous millennium, I woke up somewhere along the shore of Jackfish Bay to a clear and starry morning sky. Probably cold but not too bad. We’d scorned the tents that night and decided to line up our sleeping bags on the billion-year rock. I was with some guys who slept a lot and didn’t fish much. Don’t get me wrong: good guys. They chewed a lot of tobacco which I sampled and got a good high from but probably overdid it and got a little uneasy. Not as uneasy as the first time I sampled it and ended up running out of a van into the woods to vomit. This was more of an interesting high that peaked as we were paddling down a river in the afternoon sun. Then the high edged toward uneasiness and I thought back to that vomit but then the high pulled back just in time and I did not drop over that dreaded edge and I did not hurl into the shining surface waters of the BWCA. So the point is that chew, alcohol, sleep were priorities on that trip. Thus every morning I was the first to rise. Including this morning. I probably went out and caught some fish while the other guys slept. Not sure but the one memory that is burned into my mind is the point of this whole recollection: one guy rose from his bag, bleary-eyed, and executed the traditional bicep-flexing stretch in the sun while exclaiming “man, I love getting back to nature.” And as I write it now I’m doing the same thing I did at that time: chuckling in my mind and wondering about it.

Why would one drive the length of the state of MN, making all kinds of trouble and hassle for yourself, burning a significant volume of fuel, and leaving your family to fend for themselves? I don’t think you can offer a sincere report on something without working out just why you’re doing it. Maybe I’m wrong about that, but here is my take on it:

These are not reasons I go to BWCA:
(1) To get back to nature. Granted, that is a vague phrase and could be interpreted in numerous lights. But I’ve always hated that line. Don’t like “get back to nature” or “environmentalist” or any terms like that. Neither this world nor any of its places is an "environment.” (W. Berry). There is no “place” that is nature next to a place that is not nature. And thus you can’t get back to it because you don’t leave it.
a. And if this is to be interpreted as getting back to a place in which humans are not readily obvious and their impacts are not severe… Well, there are a lot of those. Despite common opinion on that, there are a lot of those and they aren’t that far away. I can go five minutes north or five minutes east of my front door and be pretty well lost in a place that doesn’t show much for human touch.
(2) For the fishing. Or rather, for the number of fish available to catch or the number of big fish available to catch. This may seem odd because I spend most of the time up there fishing. But the result (the fish brought to hand) is not unique to the BWCA. A guy can catch 100 SMB and some pretty nice ones right here. Literally minutes from where I am standing right now. A guy can catch very large northern pike – bigger than any I’ve seen in person in the BWCA – minutes from here. And the biggest walleye I’ve ever seen in person (7.5 lbs) was caught by me, while standing knee deep in the Cannon River.
(3) To buy a bunch of gear and make a “hobby” out of paddling. And you could do a lot of that. Hats, gloves, thousand dollar outfits, etc. You’ll see it all up there. But I hate buying stuff and I always feel guilty on doing it. I do kind of like gear to some degree but man can it be overdone. I own one piece of gear that is specific to BWCA travel: Duluth Pack – and even that has been subjected to other applications (like carrying four rotors for my car while biking through Northfield MN).

These are potential/probable reasons I go to BWCA (I can’t say for sure that these are the reasons because that would imply that I somehow know everything about my own inner-workings and psyche, which is clearly untrue).
(1) To revere something old. It hurts your brain to look at striations on a rock and think about how long they’ve been there, who has stepped on them, who has pissed all over them, etc.
a. The Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) of northern Minnesota fascinates thousands of visitors each year because of its true wilderness aspect of lakes and forest. But there is much more here, for the rocks exposed along the lakeshores and on the portages between lakes in most of the BWCA reveal a fascinating story of what this wilderness region, including the adjacent Quetico Provincial Park across the border, was like 2,700 million years ago when explosive volcanoes rose out of a practically lifeless sea to dominate the landscape (page 184).
Weathering and erosion by running water over a period of more than 2 billion years have reduced the entire Canadian Shield, including the present BWCA, to a low-lying, generally featureless topography. Then came the glaciers of the Ice Age to gouge out rock that was either softer than adjacent rocks or more thoroughly fractured, thus forming deep, commonly elongate lake basins separated by more resistant ridges (page 185).

-Minnesota’s Geology, by Richard W. Ojakangas and Charles L. Matsch

(2) To get the hell away from garbage pixels like the ones I’m staring at right now. As you know, we’ve passed the point of interacting with pixels and cell phones on an incidental basis and moved into the world of “fixtures.” Soon, they will literally be in skulls and control will be via thought-wave. It will come to that 100% sure. So the point is that in such an environment, one must be proactive in abandoning such equipment to wallow in its own electrical soup while you do something better, more meaningful and more memorable. The fact is that I don’t really use this stuff that much as it is, but clearly I use it too much. “I don't like machines,which are neither mortal nor immortal,though I am constrained to use them.(Thus the age perfects its clench.)Some day they will be gone, and that will be a glad and a holy day. (W. Berry).” Substance, feeling: you can’t get those things from looking at screens. No wave can come over your bow and no cold wind can hit your tent wall. You can’t tell your dad via email good job after he steers you into a lee shore. No fish teeth can wear out your thumb and no smoke can burn the inside of your nose by way of a computer. No matter how “virtual reality” you get. Being in the dirt and water is real. Kicking a rock down the hill is a real thing. Mixing coffee in the remnant beer from the previous night is a tangible thing. And it tastes okay by the way.

(3) Fellowship. Being in camp with people is a good means of bonding with them. You don’t have to do anything special; just be in camp with them, paddle around with them, bitch at them, fish with them. Do dishes after they cook, etc. I don’t get to see these guys all that much but these trips are impactful and memorable and thus we are able to forge relationships.

(4) For the fishing – some aspects of it anyway. Like opportunities to bring dozens of SMBs to the top in 8-10 feet of water to crush poppers. Sighting down your rod length at a blockhead popper on glass-still water under a full moon. You can mark that as a reason a guy would go to BWCA. Mark it twice in fact. God, giving me jitters right now just thinking about it. The best way to fish SMB. And BWCA offers that up in ready fashion.

(5) Some form of abstract adjustment of your person and/or magic. Not sure what it is exactly but I think old places can seep into you and make you better. I don’t need to know much more than that. I can feel trips like this one adding substance to my life. One could argue that such substance is the stuff of good memories; one could further argue that making good memories for you and others ought to be a primary goal in life.

Fishing Report: the fishing was fine. Not super, not bad. After 25-30 years of fishing the same water up there, my dad agreed to try another lake. It’s folly to think that you can walk into a lake complex and have it mastered in a few days. No way to do it. The bait guys couldn’t find the walleyes, save a couple dinks and one big dragon-headed rogue that my dad caught on the first day (4 lbs 8 ounces, digital scale). Only one pike was caught, but we didn’t really go after them much. The SMB were ever-present, but the size distribution was not what we were used to: it was a notch down. Meaning we caught unlimited 10-12” fish, a lot of 15-16” fish, but only one fish that broke 17” (KLW fish). This had it pluses and minuses. The 10-12” SMB are very good for frying pan: taste is good. Younger fish lower in toxics. We had such meals every day. Sometimes twice. And you could get these fish on whatever flies you put out there: poppers, clousers, buggers. I figure I caught 12-15 SMB per day, fishing the early morning and evening hours. That’s an average. A couple days were well into the 20s. My mates fishing bait caught plenty of these SMB too. One note to take away is that this marked the most SMB I’ve ever taken on poppers: many fish on top. There are only two notable specific fishing instances (other than the big walleye mentioned previously):

(1) The biggest SMB I caught was a loner fish just off a rock ledge, early in the morning (630). I had scouted the day before and noted the submerged ledge. Put the popper on the ledge… this fish executed the big-fish-sip. Glass water, and she just mouthed up and sipped a blockhead. I measured by ticks on my rod and estimated 16.5”.
(2) Got into what Holschlag refers to as a “wolf pack” of SMB. Highly memorable. I found an island with good bathymetry (spent a lot of time studying the lake map) and fished it for the first time one evening as night came on. Moving east to west along a north shore. Pattern casting with a popper. Smaller fish here and there. Then in a burst, four consecutive hits, three fish landed 15-16” range. I slowed down and concentrated on this little pocket of fish… first cast with a clouser and I watched my line jolt away from me before I even came tight on the strip. Proceeded to get ~20 fish to hand in ~30 minutes from this ridiculously small concentration of SMB. Half were smaller 10-13” and half were solid 15-16” fish. No hawgs though.

Logistical notes (mainly pertaining to fly fishing, not necessarily for spin fishing):
(1) 100% bring breathable waders and not rain pants. I started doing this a while back. Waders, wading boots, rain coat.
(2) Don’t fish from a canoe. This gets away from the romantic image of BWCA. But I’m telling you that you can cover more water and catch more fish walking the shore.
(3) Bring more footwear than underwear. Your feet must be comfortable and readily useable at all times. Boots for hiking back on portage trails (wading boots); sandals or wet shoes for canoeing; something dry for being around camp. Took a while but I’ve got this down now.
(4) If you eliminated every fly from your box save your poppers and clousers, you’d be okay. Different sizes and colors of those basic patterns is what you need. The flies that “push a lot of water” may deserve more exploration. However, two flies can weigh exactly the same, but sink at markedly different rates due to surface area and related resistance. I like the clouser sink rates: they are wispy and heavy. They drop like stones. I basically fish poppers, and then move to clousers, which can be effectively fished in up to 8-10 feet of water with a floating line and long leader. Deeper with a sink tip line.

There are some other things to note: the fire and an encounter with a snapping turtle. Subsequent posts if time allows.

Thanks to my paddling partners, and to KLW for another well-planned and well-executed adventure. And to my family for allotting me time away. Won’t be long and the boys will be paddlers themselves.

Following picture selection is in chronological order. Not many fish pictures because you can’t really gain much by posting 33 images of a 15 or 16” SMB.

2011-09-06T22:22:00.007-05:00

It may be true that
I found a big wad of maggots
In my gear bag
Due to the apricot left there
While fishing with the boys
And it surely is true that
My fuckin flashlight is shot
All corroded and burnt out
And we all know that
My headlamp won't turn off
And thus isn't worth a damn
And it's strikingly obvious that
It's 10:15 PM and I haven't packed
Any one thing in my Duluth Pack
Instead I'm drinking beer
And typing at pixels
But the best part is that
None of that matters
Because when this fleet
Of hair and feather
Is turned loose up there
All that bad shit
And even my wisps of gray hair
Will be forgotten

2011-08-27T10:15:00.000-05:00

BNT Length vs Weight 2011
From various SE MN watersheds

2011-08-25T12:53:00.006-05:00

Center of the Earth: the Old Water, August Morning

Like most nights prior to early morning fishing departure: not restful sleep. Laying on the couch to avoid waking anyone while slipping out. August so no covers; windows open to fullest; night sounds filtering in. Pretty good really. Used to fret about not getting enough sleep but now don’t really care that much. Used to put on that the only time I slept on the couch was before fishing. But we all know that's not the case. 4:05 AM was the target. Ultraviolet dreams leading up to that – the kind you have as you pass in and out of sleep. One that struck me as completely tangible was an episode in which the neighborhood kids were all hovering right there outside the window, only it was bright light out there. One boy kept looking in at me and saying something. I may have risen from the couch and looked out the window. Some other bright light stuff and various things that I know I know and remember but I can’t quite bring them to the forefront. All this leading up to 4:05 AM which came soon enough. All I did was roll off the couch, turn a burner on underneath my oney coffee pot, pull on some pants. Picked up my bag, rod and coffee and walked outside and stood in the middle of the street. Getting cool now as the hottest summer days are gone. You feel a little cool in the mornings now but you know you can roll with the light shirts still. No waders. Pretty light gear really. And WFF rolled up with his gal (bless her for her cooperation, coordination and understanding). So we were two guys left in the middle of the road at 4:30 AM.

The fishing was well-paced, highly pleasurable. We were walking on what is widely considered a blue ribbon trout stream, nested as a gem in the crown of SE MN Driftless Area. Bedrock controls, cold water, good pasture, good fish. We tried to force trico spinners on fish for a while. Then switched to nymphs. Then switched back. Did you come here to fish nymphs? Was a question at one point. But then later: I don’t think we can justify fishing these dries over the top of all this good water. Etc. etc. Classic case of indecision but there’s nothing wrong with that. We went back and forth. The #20-22 dry flies did produce some fish. Interestingly, they worked the best in water that did not show the thick trico clouds above, hovering and suddenly zipping horizontally… they worked in the best where we saw sparse or no tricos. The thought there is that in the thick of it the fish were keyed to a specific stage of the trico cycle, and we weren’t on it just right. Maybe in the water that wasn’t boiling with takes, the fish were aware of the ambient condition and looking up, but more willing to take what came their way. Some mystery involved and it should always be that way. We don’t need to figure it all out to enjoy it. In the end we got some great takes on tiny dry flies. Maybe 6-8 fish to hand using that method.

Late morning brought me back to the old crutch of nymphing. Only this was such a good day and cool and vibrant morning shed of cares that even a dog cynic grouch like me didn’t look at nymphing as a crutch this time: rather, I looked at it as a return to my old fishing method. I used to nymph like a madman, everywhere and all the time. So I rigged up the classic SE MN flies – nothing fancy – with split shot and indicator. And was subsequently reminded why I used to do it so often: it’s flat out deadly. And we didn’t even fish nymphs that hard, or for that long. Where we placed them in the water, we caught fish. For ~45 minutes I stood in a 5 foot circle, in the shade, at the base of a limestone cliff face. Across the stream was a beautiful gray belly-hole, with a rock ledge on the far side. We could see fish flashing in there. All along the bottom. Most drifts through that hole produced a strike. Most of those produced a hooked fish. And most of those got a fish to hand. I could see in my mind those fish down there. Not sure how many were caught from that hole but it was well into double digits. Other fish came from other good water. Done by noon and back home.

There were some notable firsts and lasts on this outing:
(1) New line for the 2 wt. DT. Nice.
(2) Old Blue Car became a member of WFF family. I love the car and it is pretty well woven through with good fishing memories. Thus, good to know it will stay active in Driftless Area undertakings.
(3) In exchange, new guitar. Need some time on it this winter as I’d hate to see it stand in the corner with a negative vibe.

Finally: I have no camera for a while, so these pics credited to WFF. And thanks for another good August outing.

2011-08-23T20:45:00.014-05:00

Garden 2011

Suffered a bit during shutdown. But yield is still decent. And plants, fruits beautiful as always. One of my good friends was adamant in this design concept: one does not need a big space to produce big yield. Our long-term goal is to be working example of this. Years provide iterative lessons and some things drop away and some things are further tuned. I am such that I like to go with what my surroundings can support and sustain; I won't bust my ass to grow something that doesn't want to grow around me. No going to store to buy all kinds of nutrient or special this or that. Grow brother grow and I won't get on your case or give you an unwanted neighbor. The garden is made of cast off buckthorn and scrap lumber. Enrichment (which was very necessary and is ongoing) is achieved by amending with compost from our home operation and from some neighbors' kitchens. Most water is caught via downspouts. Many perennial flowers and herbs, of which some are edible and some can be dried for tea. Hummingbirds, big fat moths, butterflys like these plants. And they can please the human eye. What I need to work on most is drinking beer in the presence of all this, seated and relaxed, enjoying it all. I mean to redouble my efforts on that.

What works around here:
Perennial crops that need be just left alone:
Raspberries (patch coming along okay)
Bluberries (just a novelty patch)
Grapes (favorite plants in the world)
Rhubarb
Black Walnuts

Other:
Tomatoes (all started from seed in garage)
Peppers (all started from seed in garage)
Beets (second favorite in world)
Lettuce (speckled trout lettuce is best variety for our plot)

What doesn't work around here:
Squash (too sprawling)
Pumpkins (too sprawling)
Potatoes (too sprawling)
Carrots (continual failure so gave up)
Monopa Spinach (won't germinate well)

We did cheat a bit and grow some zuke, squash, potatoes out at a friend's place.

2011-08-19T09:18:00.006-05:00

Looking for the perfect perch...

Gearing up for BWCA 2011. Tying list is set before me. Heavy with clousers, poppers, leeches. This year though I want to focus some of the clousers on perch imitation. All the clousers will work and be crushed and eaten and spat upon, but I'm curious as to whether or not a perch copy would do any better than standard half and half stuff. The perch are significant forage up there, if not f*cking very signficant forage. I see them everywhere: scattering in the wake of charging predators. And in the guts of recently dispensed fish. Recall image below from BWCA 2010.

I'll get into some Enrico's-type stuff with taller silhouettes. For now though just trying standard clouser forms.

The task: give me your ideas regarding perfecting perch coloration and shape. Share any patterns that you like.

Would appreciate it.

One final note: always carry 15-20 clousers in BWCA. Don't roll in there with half a dozen because that just ain't right.

2011-08-17T22:15:00.006-05:00

Local Variety

In an attempt to shed the scourge of normalcy and contempt bred by familiarity with the local fishery, my boys and I decided to look after some new angles and different places yesterday. Good sun; not much wind; not too hot. A transition day welding a vacation to the end of this work week is what it was. The notable details are as follows:

(1) My offer of $100 for a 20 lb carp opportunity was picked up and cast back to me, with a good tip. I followed up. I know there are carp there and probably big carp, but it’s a deep and dirty rotten hole. Teeming with fish of all species and ages. But I can’t get to them. Can’t see them and can’t get to them. I tried a sink tip line and got some fish but not what I was looking for. I appreciate the note though.
(2) Upstream of this hole, I walked around a bit. All new to me, because of recent catastrophic flooding and damage to control structure. There were a few carp to be seen. Thus, I addressed and subsequently hooked one of the more unremarkable carp I’ve come across. It numbly ate a DB soft hackle in black. Put up no fight, and swam into the net. Probably 7-8 lbs. Not a bad fish and who catches 8 lbers with regularity? But once you’ve eaten a whole box of candy heart carp you might turn away from the liver and onions variety. Just by reflex. I guess if you really think about it, they are all lovable in the end. Still big buglemouths. Anyway: left that carp to wallow in its mediocrity and walked upstream. Nothing but hundreds of quillbacks. All little quillbacks skirting about and mostly looking up, feeding now and then. I avoided as long as possible but finally in frustration I started fishing to them. I’ve caught a handful of quillbacks: maybe ten by fair hooking. And I’d never successfully sight-fished to one. I think they have some solid ESP and/or special vision that allows them to see you in any stance in which you can see them. But on this day, I drifted that black softie by a quill and it moved to it. I picked up the rod and said “No way – I can’t believe you just ate that.” Little tiny, tiny littlest mouth out there. But the hook was curving through the top lip, situated correctly. Cool pyramid body fish. Big dark quill that is namesake.
(3) Shot that water to hell and drove home, making one quick stop that would prove to be a banner. Here is the sequence:
a. First see a guy with a fishing rod, accompanied by two girls, one in Daisy Duke shorts following him around. Only one way to show that guy up and it must be to catch a giant fish. Because I know I don’t look too cool in my Simms and my carp buff. And I didn’t have my new green fishing shirt on. So I looked to the water and immediately saw fish and immediately knew I was in. Fish caught. Just not sure which one.
b. Take #1: I dropped that black softie in front of a pair of cruising fish. I got the outstandingly good “oooh, exciting!” response and one sauntered forward and ate it. I set the hook and I watched the fly come shooting straight out of the carp’s mouth. No contact made. Not sure if I literally pulled while it was being sucked in, or if the carp spit it. Either way: negative.
c. Take #2: I was fishing a tandem rig, with a DC squirrel fly on the front. I dropped it in front of a decent carp that was half-feeding, and it just crushed the squirrel before it had even settled half way to the bottom. Set the hook. Tippet knot shattered. Good thing it was not a haunting fish. I still like that take though. Aggressive. Something that can shake off doldrums.
d. That fish blew out some of the water, so I sat for a second and retied things. Leader sucked. Tippet sucked. Figured I had a good chance. I peeked in then and scanned. Half hidden by the turbidity: nice fish laying in the cut. I recall saying aloud “look at that big son of a bitch down there.” Tail was not up, but the fish was feeding off and on, moving toward me. Only one fly this time: the DC squirrel. Dropped it ahead and to the fish’s right. Annihilation. The carp ate they fly and I exhaled and said something. This fish showed a big head, big mouth. Wasn’t sure about the depth though. So I was toying with the idea of a Miss River Basin 20 lber. It didn’t look the part necessarily but it looked like a fish that could be that fish. Only one good run, but it did burn my fingers a bit. Which I appreciate and will remember every time I walk by that position. Digital scale said 16 lbs. Not the biggest MN fish, but in the top 10 for sure.
(4) Fished to an orange koi of maybe 3-4 lbs. Actually got the fly to the fish, but it was presented mid-column as the koi was crusing… not ideal. No takes at all. Pretty cool though.
(5) James logged his first ever 20+ fish day. Honest estimate is that he caught 2 crappies, 2 SMB, 8-10 LMB and 8-10 sunfish. Some of the LMB were in the 12-13” range. Maybe touched 14”. At one point, he hooked something that he couldn’t land. I was some distance away, and thus did not see the fish. He sure had his rod doubled over though. The kid just wades out as far as his chicken legs can carry him, and zings a twister tail out there. Cranks it back. Fish jump on. Nothing forced by me. In fact, at 6:08 PM I really wanted to get home, but struggled to pry him away. He’s already a practitioner of the “one last cast” mode of operation. Far and away the premiere moment of the day was when Danny helped James net a bass. Beaming through a genuine smile he said to his big brother: “Well done James. Well DONE!”

2011-08-16T23:24:00.004-05:00

Door County Report: August 2011

The carp weren't in the easy-access, shallow bays. That's all the information I have. The rod was never rigged up. The boys never looked on a fish. It was a different kind of trip: fishing was not at the forefront. All the same, Lake Michigan is an enchantress. Her steel gray is immense and binding and hard to turn away from. June 2012.

2011-08-16T23:06:00.002-05:00

Free Range Dubbing

Please take off your coat, put a song in your throat for some badass dubbing put forward by Singlebarbed. Was fortunate enough to acquire a variety of dirty colors just reeking of buggy. Tonight in my basement messing with some. Got so excited I had to take a leak in the utility sink. But was able to wash it down by emptying the dehumidifier.

Order some here.

See more examples and photos here .

Thanks again to S-Barbed.

This is a mix of orange that will be seductive when applied in appropriate situations.

2011-08-07T22:20:00.006-05:00

Pondering Semi-Retirement from MN Carp Scene

Made a stop a couple days ago and some carp were caught. The first fish was looking upstream, feeding. I looked straight at it and noted to the fish that it was caught. Walked back to the car and lined my rod. Whistling. Ambled into position. Flipped a cast beyond and to the left and dragged a LOD into the carp's feeding cone. Immediate eat. Later on I caught a couple fish on the SJW. I could barely bring myself to take a picture of them. In fact at one point before casting to a 5 lb fish I squeezed my brain trying to think of any dimension of what I was about to do that would be memorable in some way. The only thing I could think of was the take, so I set my camera in the grass for one fish and tried to Blair Witch video the hookset. It worked but the camera wasn't situated quite right so the footage is marginal.

It's not that the MN carping bit isn't cool. It's that given (1) the reference information I have for comparative analysis, and (2) the sum of the parts here in MN isn't all that epic, it becomes more of a pastime than a memory-making expedition. Clearly, it is enjoyable to look for fish, see them and watch them eat. There is no argument on that one. But at some point the repeated lackluster and the repeated sub-par nature prompts one to question whether or not there are better things to be doing. Like fishing trout. Or trying to hook a muskie for the first time. Or taking your son out to catch LMB (he reguarly refers to them by this acronym now).

A carp revival will require any combination of new discovery: (1) some flats on Ole Miss; (2) some shots at truly large fish. Otherwise I figure a guy might focus time and energy on other things.

I'm always tinkering with strategies and plans. At this point, I'm close to solidifying Columbia River and Door County as my carp time. Leaving it at that.

In closing though: I still have a $100 reward offer to anyone who can point me in the direction of legitimate sight-fishing opportunities for 20+ lb carp here in MN. And believe me, if it were to come through, I'd send the check.

2011-08-07T22:02:00.006-05:00

Root River Trout with Capers
[following up on limit of BNT mentioned in previous post]

Get some butter and/or olive oil ripping in the cast iron
Chop the heads off the trout so they can fit in the pan
Give heads to chickens
Pan fry trout as one normally does: pretty hot and fast; flipping once
Remove trout from skillet
Add to the crustiness left in the pan: lemon juice, sour cream, capers
Other spices to taste
Use spatula to scrape around, pulling residue from pan into sauce

Just a few words in favor of creels, keeping of fish, simple cooking and memorable meals...

2011-08-03T13:03:00.015-05:00

A Three Day Weekend in the Fishing Doldrums
Day 1: kids fishing only. LMB and sunnies. I broke down and outfitted these boys with spinning rods. Given the “automatic” nature of these rigs, James is able to stand alone, cast, retrieve, catch fish. He’s becoming deeply intrigued with the various fish, how big they get, what they eat, etc. I stand about 20 feet away and watch him, occasionally casting a little jig out for Danny and then handing him the rod. It is highly enjoyable to watch the rod tip dip and see a face light up. One of my multiple gripes regarding spinning gear though is the size of the hooks that are typically available: too big. And the barbs are huge. For a kid, you want a hook that can easily fit in a sunfish mouth. That was why these guys enjoyed flipping little BH nymphs over the past few years: any fish can eat them. With these jigs though, the fish pound away at the #6 hook but can’t ingest it. Anyway: thinking I’ll make some droppers using little BHs. That should be deadly. James caught a 10” LMB on the first cast he made with his new rod. Proceeded to catch three more from this pond. Ended the day taking a night tour of Whitewater State Park.

Day 2: fishing solo. Every July and August I’m reminded that these months can be worse than winter. Hotter than hell. Thick vegetation everywhere. No good bugs coming off. Sure you can make it work. But it’s still the doldrums around here, when compared to every other month of the year. I can honestly say that January 2011 was better trout fishing than what I got on Sunday. It was fine. Fish were where you’d expect to find them. Figure I landed maybe 14-15 nice BNT. I take it back it was slightly better than fine. It was indeed a Sunday and I never saw another person. Blue ribbon water and not a person in sight. I take it back I did run into a family right as I pulled up: the young son was lining his fly rod. They said their goal was to get him into fish on flies. They had hopper patterns but no nymphs so I gave them a selection. Twenty inches of tippet I said, but they had no tippet. I told them to cut a piece of mono from one of their spinning rigs. Such mono could only hope for such a valiant application I thought to myself but did not share out loud. But after that: no one. Walked downstream and quickly realized that was garbage. In July you need to be in the water. For three reasons: stay cool, make it possible to actually move your feet forward without wrapping yourself up in vegetation, and keep yourself from finding the next day myriad welts and itches from what I refer to generally as “chiggers.” A common school of thought is “stay out of the stream” so you don’t spook the fish. That’s well and good but abandoned by me in hot summer months. In the water is good. Turned around and headed upstream. I was hoping for hopper action. Tried it. Kept nervously switching between terrestrials and nymphs. Tried some standard dry flies. Nothing going until maybe 9 AM. Two nice browns erupted on a black hopper pattern tied by WFF. Assassination attempts. Completely out of the water. The rest of the day was standard stuff: nymphs and streamers in good water produced fish. I took a creel of perfect-for-frying-pan BNT: limit of five. The only other notable fish was one that came from the highly desirable slot marked by the red dot below. I walked past this water and noted it: not deep, but a great grass overhang. You figure a fish wants to feel safe; it can do so by going deep in a pool, or by getting under something. This water was maybe 8-9 inches deep. But on my way out I stopped and put one cast of a tandem rig at the top of that little riffle and before I could even track anything a BNT of maybe 12-13 inches cleared the water straight up 4 feet airborne in agitated fashion. Geez. Nice. So maybe not the worst day afterall.

Day 3: James fishing only while Danny and I swam in the pond. He was wet-wading up to his waist, and tirelessly casting a little jig and twister tail. Caught a LMB and sunfish. I offered to help him remove the hook from the LMB, and he said calmly: I don’t need any help. I already know everything about fishing. Hehe. Well that’s that. He’s clearly into it and I think the spinning gear was a good move. Promotes independence and allows a kid to go at his own rate. He wants to go fishing tonight.

Some carp were looked in on over the weekend, by me solo and one morning with James. He forgot his shoes, so he did a little carping in socks for 2.5 hours. It was the typical MN carping garbage: sweat our asses off hoping and praying that we’ll find some fish. Plowing through weeds and tripping on rocks. Finding just enough activity to keep us plowing. Getting one shot a feeding fish from 30 feet away and not hooking up. The carp bar is near the ceiling now, and MN carping is on the floor. I can barely bring myself to do it at this point. I think a guy in SE MN should just trout fish. Then head out a couple times a year for banner carping. The only thing that keeps me moderately interested is the possibility of a 20 lb Mississippi River carp. That would further elevate the Great Lakes / Columbia / Miss triad. I saw one too and put flies on it but I knew in advance it would not eat. Logged one redhorse.

July. August. Doldrums. We need something dynamic here, like James getting a big LMB or maybe a trout. Or a 20 lb carp. Etc. The need is there. Probably no more trout fishing until an early morning trico session comes along.

2011-07-29T21:55:00.002-05:00

Back home, back into the floorboards

The afore-mentioned streaks being shattered: television flickering now, showing a movie. I've committed the sin of driving a motor vehicle and now I'm deep into some pale ale. Breaking all those streaks of abstinence. I suppose all good streaks are broken. For later pursuit.

"Is there anything the church can do for you?" says the movie. It's actually the kid from a movie I watched a while back who killed a bunch of people "taking lives." Now he's here in the living room.

And on this beer: it was the last twelve pack of Sierra Nevada in the store. The guy was pitching it to someone else when I walked up in a sleeveless shirt, Bug School basketball shorts and sandals. In my mind I said "if you take that fucking beer I'm going to run you off the road on the way outta here." Into the air I said "I'm going to take that beer if you're cool with that." Oh yeah man take it. No more words necessary.

Can't stand the word surreal because I've never really looked it up and it feels over-used. But my mind keeps swerving toward it when I think about the past month. Things came out of nowhere and we made quick decisons. Traced around the map. We'll look back and say "remember in July 2011 when you went out to North Dakota?" What a good chapter. What good things. Instead of waiting and stewing at home bitter bitter stewing I went out. Longest I've ever been away from home. Long long time.

Now I'm home and it's taking a bit to get back in. "Lost a man down the well" says the movie. "What man?" I don't know.

But I do love home. I watched a hummingbird moth taking nectar from our bee balm. Long, curved probiscus that it unfurled time again to insert into each flower segment. I put my face down close to it and it abided. It had a tail like a crayfish and it looked heavy. Looked into every part of that flower.

And then I rid my grapevines of a fungus that came along due to the wet weather and the dense canopy that came about in my long absence. I cut every diseased leave from those vines (THE DEVIL IS IN YOUR HANDS AND I WILL SUCK IT OUT says the movie GET OUT OF HERE GHOST GET OUT OF HERE GHOST). WTF is this movie up to? Some crazy shit man. THE ARMY OF MY BOOTS WILL KILL YOU IN THE SEA. What the hell? Some kind of rally in a corn drying bin. All dark. Arthritis I think. I did take every diseased leaf from that vine and I mean to burn those. No innoculate for next year. And the thinned out canopy does two things (1) promotes dryness which is a detriment to the fungus; (2) allows light to hit the spores, which murders them. I figure I cursed myself by bragging about my grapevines. More likely though it just got overgrown in my absence.

My kids need me and I need them. We lost each other a bit there and we need to engage in a good and fair setting. I see that setting as being the Whitewater River and the Root River.

My wife met me at a train station and she was crying a bit and holding a bouquet not of dogwood flowers but of bee balm, bergamot, black-eyed susans and purple coneflowers. Each one beheaded in our backyard. I'll remember that for a while.

And so we come to the streams: the water that dissects this place. It's very special. Not everywhere do you find groundwater coming out of walls, or bubbling up in streambeds. Six foot tall grass leaning over deep cut banks. You just don't see that shit all over the place. It's here though. What I can do to worship isn't entirely clear but I keep trying. And anticipation is a big part of it. Looks like some church time is coming my way and that's making me loosen up a bit. Something good is coming along.

And finally, a passage from Ted Leeson - from a book read over hiatus:

So I've always found it best to come in on a tangent, asymptotically, crabwise. And it helps to bring good optics. The occupation of discovering a river begins with preoccupation, some focal point that deflects awareness away from the subject and so sensitizes the periphery. For me, fly fishing offers just this type of lens. For others, it may be dabbing at a tray of watercolors, taking an aimless walk, or playing the cello. Anything will do as long as it suspends the mind's propensity to replicate itself in whatever it dwells on, and leaves clear the edges of acumen to be impinged upon, sidelong and incidentally, by what is really there. Only then do you begin to know what to look for and get some idea of how it may be found.

Home again home again.

2011-07-25T13:00:00.014-05:00

Hiatus

Here are the streaks that were recorded over the past 24 days:

No physical contact or even visual encounter with a computer: 12 days
No viewing of a lit pixel on a TV screen: 15 days (still going)
No consumption of a single milliliter of alcohol: 12 days
No fish touched: 13 days (ended last night)

In sum, the shutdown campaign was an interesting blur of emotions and experiences. The most intriguing was the open-endedness of it all: two days, two weeks, six months? Creepy feeling. We wandered all over the map; sometimes together, sometimes just me. Like the Indiana Jones plane flying from point to point. Some days found me drinking heavily on a beach. Other days busting my ass helping family members with various projects. And those folks – family and friends – were understanding and helpful: hosting us or me and offering appropriate slander of rookie politicians.

Regarding the fishing, I toted a 7 wt and a bare-bones selection of warmwater flies with me at all times. Just in case. Turns out over the ~23 day span there were only two fishing chapters of note:

(1) James and I hunted around my dad’s local lake for pike and bass. This was moderately successful. Poppers produced some decent LMB. Even caught a couple small pike on poppers which was cool. Key there was fishing at a creek mouth, casting into the cooler water. This lake is frustrating in that it looks so good re habitat for LMB, but every time a guy tries he only bumps a handful. Nice paddling though, and good to have an excited son along.
(2) For years and maybe even a solid decade we fished a certain lake up north with my dad: probing the thick pads with Moss Bosses. Four people in a 14 foot aluminum row boat, whizzing lures into the jungle. It would qualify as the water of our youth. We revisited this lake on July 9th, 2011. Fished from ~700-1300. Poppers managed approx four LMB of moderate size. Leech patterns took three northern pike, one of which we ate half of for dinner. Dad got the Moss Boss going again, and in dramatic fashion racked up the LMB in the last hour of fishing: maybe 4-5 fish of moderate size. Overall, the fishing wasn’t as good as it used to be and it never was (no typos in that sentence; it’s like a mobius band or an Escher painting). Really though, we didn’t catch any big LMB. Maybe in deeper water but we were too lazy to probe.

Regarding other adventure, I visited a new landscape with my brother and his sons: NW corner of North Dakota. I think a person becomes subconsciously aware of persistent surroundings – trees for example. You get used to seeing things both in your direct vision and your periphery. The land out there is not flat; it is indeed gently rolling. Relatively poor soil. Mostly wheat, hay and oil occupations. And not many trees. That gives it a sense of openness and vastness. Add to that the fact that the people live miles apart and they place just feels big and wide. Big Sky, etc. Pretty fascinating to tour really. We saw two moose. Quite a number of sharptails, pheasants, ducks. Some deer. Looked in on some of the old homesteads. Old wood and history in them. Took the Amtrak back home and that provided an appropriate viewing of the transition heading east. Very interesting and a much better education than one might acquire via air travel.

So ball that all up into an amalgamation of good people and places. Top it with an extended period of time with my brother and his kids (don’t get that opportunity very often). Cut it sour a bit with the fact that I was away from home for many weeks. And that’s the shut down. That’s a brief capsule re how it rolled out for me.

Northern MN Lake I

Northern MN Lake II

North Dakota

2011-06-30T12:28:00.035-05:00

The Third Installation of a Notable Triad

Occasionally, though, [the right] fish swims among the spawners. You need patience to find one and a certain stealth to approach within casting range, and at such times it is never clearer that sight-fishing to large fish, whether tarpon or bonefish, steelhead or [carp], is really a species of hunting.

-adapted from Ted Leeson

The fact of the matter is that we are dirty doggers aka lucky bastards but lucky only in one respect: we are truly fortunate regarding the time allotted to us by God, family and fortune. We are aware of this and we regularly praise and thank all said entities. We are not lucky with respect to the final outcomes of these fishing adventures once we’ve gotten the go ahead to launch. In fact, a close analysis would conclude that we are unlucky: regularly shitty conditions where ever we land on the globe. Seizing reels, decrepit wading boots, leaky waders, stinky buffs, flimsy fly selection, worn out skin on feet. That kind of thing. Through that though, navigation to a desirable outcome can be achieved by way of (1) simply walking around the planet earth (here, pertaining to fishing this translates to John Montana’s saying of keep your boots in the water), (2) persistence, (3) focus and drive, (4) fascination/interest, (5) love. And most important of these is love (did someone else say that?).

All that said, Lake Michigan being what it is, can foil you in short order. See last year’s report. If the fish aren’t in the shallow water, and you have no boat, standard logical concatenation confirms that you have no fish. Zoom the conversation regarding persistence out one level though, to encompass a strategy instead of a single outing… and you arrive at the scene: two swashbucklers driving east toward the Door County Peninsula for the second time in one year, with a hope and eye for carp.

What makes this special, like many facets of your life, is the sum of the parts: the setting, the fish size, the fish behavior, the method of approach, the gear used, the mode of exploration and the company kept. You could walk down to the lake and throw a dough ball in and catch a 30 lb carp tomorrow. But that doesn’t do it. You could go cast the most graceful fly rod in the world to rising brook trout but that doesn’t always do it (although that isn’t too bad of a deal). I could walk outside right now and fish to a carp in a pond. Big deal. It’s the convergence.

The setting is best communicated by maps and photos. Beyond what they convey, I will add only that it is highly desirable to stalk around flats and bays of such a remarkable body of water (steel gray horizon with no end in sight). The walking was generally very easy. Some minor challenges were posed by slippery slab rock and large boulders.

The method is multi-faceted: (1) desktop and interview recon to determine where fish will likely be; (2) scouting to confirm; (3) sorting through fish to find viable candidates for hook up (many fish were negative and simply would not eat); (4) singling out those fish and stalking to appropriate distance; (5) presenting fly in acceptable manner; (6) detecting the take; (7) handling initial jolting hook up and run; (8) managing occasional long run to backing; (9) bringing fish back, and netting. With many parts there are many opportunities to fail. We failed often. But hell, we caught a lot of fish.

The most notable thing about this trip was the difference we observed in the disposition and behavior of the carp. We all know (generally) what carp in MN do. We know what the Columbia River fish do. These Lake Michigan carp had a bit of sharkiness to them. A little more predatory. They chased flies. They broke out of formation to follow your fly. We used bunny leeches as our staple offering. That should tell you a lot about this bit. This is best communicated by recapping a handful of memorable takes. These are in my mind. John Montana has his memories and I look forward to recounting those too. And one note on this is that we quickly lost track of the great takes. Too many. Usually you have a handful to take home with you and think about but this trip was littered with them. The technical term would be “all kinds of crazy shit” out there. I’ll just say that the basic hook up went like this: find a cruising fish, estimate his speed and path and from 20-30 feet away cast to intersect it; know the sink rate of your fly, and strip at a speed needed to get the fly in front of the fish; fish will turn 90 degrees to follow your fly; watch closely and if you can’t see your fly guess at the take; set hook and cackle uncontrollably. Just roll out the cackling.

(1) We peeked out of a bay, into a hidden flat of sorts. There were carp everywhere. We had just finished fishing to a load of carp that were not in a highly positive mood. These fish though, were milling about. Looking for something. First cast went parallel to shore, and was stripped past a cruising marauder that was swimming parallel to shore… bunny fly was stripped quickly ahead of the fish, maybe 3-4 feet on the inside… and carp spun a 90, swam up toward shore to the point of nearly putting its back out of the water, and consumed the fly.

(2) On that same flat, John M and I fished apart for a while. Each catching fish here and there. I saw a group of 5-6 fish swimming in deep water at the flat edge. I put a cast in front of them and stripped past… nothing. I started to let them go, but then figured hell with that and ran to shore and sprinted ahead of them to position for another presentation. Running after fish is good. I put another cast out there, counted the fly down and stripped it past… I watched those big gray ghost shapes and there: one broke away. One fish broke a 90 and started toward the fly. All grayness and guessing then… watching the shape and figuring where that fly was… picking up the rod and finding the weight. That fish took me to my backing. Scaled at 17 lbs. Jogging after fish.

(3) Often times the fish would swim toward you. Seeing them before they see you is obviously important. So we adopted this “drop to ninja” technique which is basically get the hell down(!). So early on, a fish swam toward me… I dropped to one knee, crouched and whispered and held my rod out to the side… whispered again and dropped the fly and bounced it past the fish… six feet from me… ate it. Yep he ate it. And this became fairly common.

(4) And the most absurd take of the trip #1: I saw some ghost shapes out in deeper water. I cast a fly into them and let it sink. I began a retrieve and the fish ate the fly. This is 99% foreign to carp on the fly fishing. It’s cool but in a way it doesn’t seem right. That fish was scaled at 18 lbs.

(5) And the most absurd take of the trip #2: night was falling quickly on day three. JM had started casting to SMB. We had been pounding on tailing carp, culminating in the catch and release of a 23 lb sow (scaled). So I was cruising. I may have even been smiling through my standard stoicism. I started blind casting around for SMB. I saw in the rushes a big ruckus of carp sex. For the hell of it I cast my LOD up into that shamble and started slowly stripping it back (slow to avoid ripping and snagging). Fish on. It’s nearly dark. Must be snagged. But feels right. Fish to hand. That SOB ate the fly like candy. Blind fishing for carp. WTF.

(6) The 23 lb fish was cool but not a remarkable take. Three carp had heads together, milling around looking. I dropped the LOD in the midst of the three, and I was actually watching another fish closely… then I flipped my vision and saw a pig in a position that looked like “eat” so I came tight and found her on. I was a bit late so we had to extract the LOD with forceps. I was careful playing that fish. Tippet knots held tight. Trust.

Better stop typing now. There is a lot to remember and a lot to say. I’ll close by thanking our families for making time for us to journey a bit and engrain in our minds these adventures that we’ll surely remember forever. And thanks to John Montana for his continued guidance regarding carp fishing. Many things about this guy are much appreciated.

And The Triad: carp on the fly from Columbia River, Mississippi River, Great Lakes. What's next?

Pasted stats from Carp on the Fly:

75-80 total carp to hand

45-50 smallmouth bass to hand.

Largest fish, a 23 lb beast caught by Wendy Berrell. I got one at 21 lbs as well.

Roughly 10 smallmouth in the 17-18 inch range...we weighed one of those fish at dead on 4 lbs.

Lost flies...countless.

[following pics are from my camera only; have to look for JM's later on]

The Setting

The Carp

The Flies

Yes. As the book suggests: carp are some game-ass fish. But I like that they are largely ignored. It keeps the steel-gray flats lonely.

2011-06-29T16:33:00.004-05:00

Preamble: Lake Michigan

Good write up re Formation of the Great Lakes.

Facts and Figures

Overview
Lake Michigan is the third largest Great Lake by surface area and the sixth largest freshwater lake in the world.

Because Lake Michigan is joined to Lake Huron at the Straits of Mackinac, they are considered one lake hydrologically.

Many rivers and streams flow into Lake Michigan, and the major tributaries are the Fox-Wolf, the Grand and the Kalamazoo.

There is a diversion from the lake into the Mississippi River basin through the Illinois Waterway at the Chicago River.

Lake Michigan's cul-de-sac formation means that water entering the lake circulates slowly and remains for a long time (retention) before it leaves the basin through the Straits of Mackinac.

Small lunar tidal effects have been documented for Lake Michigan1.

Internal waves (upwellings) can produce a 15 degree C. water temperature decrease along the coast in only a few hours, requiring drastic alterations in fishing strategy1.

The northern part of the Lake Michigan watershed is covered with forests, sparsely populated, and economically dependent on natural resources and tourism, while the southern portion is heavily populated with intensive industrial development and rich agricultural areas along the shore.

The world's largest freshwater dunes line the lakeshore.

Millions of people annually visit the dunes/beaches at state and national parks and lakeshores.

References: Lake Michigan brochure, 1990, Michigan Sea Grant
1 [Ayers, John C. "Great Lakes Waters, Their Circulation and Physical and Chemical Characteristics," in Great Lakes Basin: A symposium presented at the Chicago Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 29-30 December, 1959. ed. Howard J. Fincus. 1962. Washington, D.C. American Association for the Advancement of Science.]

Figures
LENGTH: 307 miles / 494 km.

BREADTH: 118 miles / 190 km.

AVERAGE DEPTH: 279 ft. / 85 m

MAXIMUM DEPTH: 925 ft. / 282 m.

VOLUME: 1,180 cubic miles / 4,920 cubic km.

WATER SURFACE AREA: 22,300 sq. miles / 57,800 sq. km.

TOTAL DRAINAGE BASIN AREA: 45,600 sq. miles / 118,000 sq. km.
DRAINAGE BASIN AREA BY STATE/PROVINCE:
Illinois: 100 sq mi; 300 sq km
Indiana: 2200 sq mi; 5800 sq km
Michigan: 28,300 sq mi; 73,300 sq km
Wisconsin: 14,200 sq mi; 36700 sq km
SHORELINE LENGTH (including islands): 1,638 miles / 2,633 km.

ELEVATION: 577 ft. / 176 m.

OUTLET: Straits of Mackinac to Lake Huron

RETENTION/REPLACEMENT TIME: 99 years

NAME: Champlain called it the Grand Lac. It was later named "Lake of the Stinking Water" or "Lake of the Puants," after the people who occupied its shores. In 1679, the lake became known as Lac des Illinois because it gave access to the country of the Indians, so named. Three years before, Allouez called it Lac St. Joseph, by which name it was often designated by early writers. Others called it Lac Dauphin. Through the further explorations of Jolliet and Marquette, the "Lake of the Stinking Water" received its final name of Michigan.

Another story recounts that Nicolet, the first European to set foot in Wisconsin in 1634, landed on the shores of Green Bay and was greeted by Winnebago Indians, whom the French called "Puans." Lake Michigan was labeled as "Lake of Puans" on an early and incomplete 1670 map of the region that showed only the northern shores of the lake. However, only Green Bay is labeled as "Baye de Puans" (Bay of the Winnebago Indians) on maps from 1688 and 1708. On the 1688 map, Lake Michigan is called Lac des Illinois.

An Indian name for Lake Michigan was "Michi gami."

References: Great Lakes Atlas, Environment Canada and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1995

2011-06-22T16:42:00.020-05:00

Shut Down Fishing Part II: with kids
Context set in previous post: same stretch of river. Same amazement. Shared with sons. No more text because I wore that out already and these pics speak for themselves.

2011-06-17T14:07:00.018-05:00

Shut Down Fishing

The land is old and the bugs are old. I’m a worthless human who won’t live too long. I’ll probably die right as I’m gaining 1% understanding of things. Every time I look back on a previous chapter I realize how foolish I was as the main character and that makes it clear that I am in fact being foolish right now. There is no remedy for this and it may be characterized by some as the ultimate tragedy of mankind. There is no remedy for this and all I can do at this point is try to immerse myself in things that are older and better than me. And get my kids on that same track. There is no computer program that can recreate limestone and there is no one who can make a stonefly. If you offered me a goat prairie on one hand and a dx50001.2ab computer on the other I’d take the goat prairie and then I might jackhammer the computer. Many, many things are frustrating. Legislatures. Budgets. Technology as king. Profit as measure. Profit as measure for God’s sake. That’s where we sit. And the irony of typing of this subject at a keyboard is another thing. “I don’t like machines, but I am constrained to use them; thus, the age perfects its clinch (W. Berry).” So all you can do, when shut down looms and uncertainty permeates your household, is reassure your family; know that a good worker will always find work (see Booker T. Washington), and go pay some reverence to something greater than you and in exchange walk away with some perspective: etchings in silicone and pixels on computers do not topple the real things in the world. They don’t speak to quality. Beauty is important. Feeling and memories of beauty are important. Watching your kids do something beautiful is important. Your kids’ financial future is not important. Not if things go right and mankind can still put boots on streams and walk in walnut groves. Jesus, why do we have to get all blocked up in this stuff when all we really need is good food, good walking and some geometry from heaven to marvel at? Wish I could dump it. Suppose I could. We’ll see.

It shouldn’t be surprising then that around 3 PM one day the urge to take a walk was too much so I did just that. I didn’t fish a trout pond or look after carp in the middle of town. It got to me a bit to drive a little further, but I pushed on and went to a place that I like. I hooked a cow there once. There is a grassed flood plain that holds a hardwood grove, of which some trees are black walnut (my son, for Fathers’ day, gave me a drawing of Famaly Tree Waly – in reference to the tree that defines our backyard; we grew up smelling juglones in Texas (and who can say that?); so in general we like that tree specie). My goal was to get caught redhanded in a rainstorm. Forecast said it would work out. The bugs were everywhere: complex hatch scenario. I saw march browns, light hendricksons, other light colored mayflies, BWO, caddis and crane files. All in the air. Hours or maybe a day or so before they had been in the water. With gills. Tight in interstitial spaces. Now in the air, on some mission that goes way back. Old story indeed. Anyway, I fished various dry flies. Mostly Adams. Some larger flies. Clearly I stood no chance of working out precisely what was going on but at this point I’m fine with that. The generic fly is somewhat symbolic of our level of understanding and what we deserve. I don’t need to figure it all out. Let the flies rise around me and let me lay out that 4 wt line in dramatic fashion time and again. That never gets old and it’s one thing about trout fishing that eleveates it above some other fishing pursuits: no big flies, no dapping, to jolting measure, etc. Just grace and arcs and careful setting of flies on water. I can say that I’m not entirely graceful but it sure feels graceful. And like I said it never gets old. I just like casting those flies. Thirty feet is optimal. Sometimes further. So the fish came and went. Some were released. Others, like the one on the rocks in the pic below, are dead now. I am indeed a murderer and there is no getting around that. I’ve been thinking on that one for years now. Decades even. Back when were little kids we used to stand in newly-thawed lake tributaries and net suckers. Freezing. Dark. Fish thumping into the net in succession. Then we’d take clubs and sticks and smash their skulls. We did this with abandon. Then, later on (another chapter) I wanted to let all the fish go. I’d get on my family members to let fish go; especially LMB. And for a long time I let all the trout go. Now I realize that it’s not about the individual fish. It’s an embodiment of the land and the stream: a beautifully scaled, sleek and powerful assemblage of dirt, water and air. There is no question that I love them. But they are a little piece of something that I really want to get into: flee the madness and insert oneself to the extent possible into something better. Recall that natives often eat things that they want to be a part of them… And that guy in the alien movie wanted to eat the aliens so he could fire their guns… etc. I want to eat those fish. I kill the fish to bind myself somehow. Needs even further evolution and thought, but that’s where it sits now.

The rain did come and I let it pour down on me. I got down to the surface of the river and watched the pounding. The fish stopped rising and then they started again.

The parting thought was a committment to bring my sons here. Did that just a few days after...

In the picture below: two beautiful fish (taped at 12.5" and 13.0" at home) took a cream colored compradun set just left of the riffle in that hydro-cushion. They rose perfectly to the fly and one even put itself on the reel.

"Haig-Brown discovered that the meaning of fishing lies more in its context than its practice: a day alone on a remote steelhead river; floating with your child; fishing a lake with your family… seeking a fish whose race is threatened by your own or whose ancestral breeding grounds have been lost to town crooks. Fishing is sometimes about a disinclination to go fishing at all. An important part of life – maybe the most important part – is the quest by each of us to discover something we believe to be more worthy and permanent than we are individually. Haig-Brown persuades us that the truth which angling can lead to about our place in nature is one such greater thing." - Tom McGuane

“But knowledge grows with age, and gratitude grows with knowledge.” Wendell Berry – from Andy Catlett

2011-06-08T12:16:00.014-05:00

Minnesota Carping: it just doesn’t stand up…

June 4, 2011: paddled with Danny Boy up to some backwaters I’d been eyeing via Google Earth. They are not accessible via road or wading. The weather conditions were favorable: pretty good sun all day, little wind (good for paddling). We found two flats that were full of carp. I stood in the stern, Bahamas style, and pushed us along slowly with my paddle. It was exceedingly good feeling: easy control, easy casting, no wind. Kid in front, paddling and doing general inquisitive duties and chores. But the vibe was cut off at the pass by turbidity: it was prohibitive. It quickly became comical. We’d move along deathly quiet, and push in front of us a wake of silt plumes and fish scattering about. Couldn’t see the bodies of the fish but could see their calling cards. The only consolation was that it was likely that these fish were stationary, because the water was only 1.5-2.0 feet deep, and we never saw any tails, nervous water or feeding plumes. And so the CQS (see previous post) would be this:
150 – 10 – 0 – 150 – 6 = -16. Tough to deal with. We finally found one group of 4-5 carp feeding in some cattails. Still really turbid, but we could make out their dorsals and general positions. We crept by and dapped on them… no takes. Recognizing this would be our only decent shot, we looped back and did it again. This time a fish seemed to move to the LOD; I wasn’t sure so I slowly picked it up, thinking I’d replace it… but found resistance and a fly in a carp mouth. The only notable events that followed were Danny’s reactions to the splashes, fight, and size of the fish. I estimate: 9 lbs. Kind of drab and pasty. This fish took all the line at my feet in short order, but didn’t run much beyond that. I was hoping maybe for a canoe tow. And speaking of canoe: I believe this is first carp I’ve ever caught from a such a craft. And so marginal carping. That aside, this day was top-notch due to presence of son. We were out for 6+ hours. Stopping on sand bars to poke around. Eat. Drink. Paddle. He almost fell asleep and tilted over into the water before I urged him to lay down in the bow. Highly memorable.

June 5, 2011: the carp are stacked up near my house. Sunning and staging for spawn. I had about 1.5 hours and I was presenting various flies to carp that entire time. 50% of the fish I put flies on spat on the offering and turned away. 49% of them didn’t notice or ignored the fly. I changed to John Montana’s super small SJW and the first offering was eaten by the remaining 1%. Small fish. Very little fight. Cleared off the flat so I went home.

Classic MN carping, as compared to Columbia River: work your ass for marginal opportunities at smaller fish that don’t fight as hard. A guy could do this every day. The question though becomes: would you want to do this every day? That’s why I’ve been tilted toward trout a bit more lately. This also confirms that more carp exploration must be planned and executed: need flats with feeding fish. Bigger fish too.

June 4, 2011

June 5, 2011

2011-06-03T13:35:00.077-05:00

Operation Alphabet

Carping Quality Score = 150 – [% cloud cover] – [(% above long-term mean flow)/2] – [turbidity NTU value] – [ABS((wind speed) – 6)]

Assumptions: time of year is typical and water temperature is generally acceptable. 6 MPH wind is considered optimal.

Example 1: 50% cloudy, 20% higher than normal flow, turbidity of 10 NTU, winds of 15 MPH: 71 carping quality score. This is a day that can be dealt with pretty easily: partial sun, bothersome wind and slightly high flows… but manageable.

Example 2: full cloud cover, normal flows, turbidity of 10 NTU, perfect wind at 6 MPH. 40 carping quality score. Everything is good and normal, except cloud cover, which is weighted the heaviest, so the score is low.

Example 3: full sun, 10% high flows, turbidity of 20 NTU, 10 MPH wind. 116 carping quality score. Flows up just a bit, turbidity up slightly and some wind, but with full sun, the most important thing, the score is high.

So this gets to why this particular outing is dubbed Operation Alphabet. In pre-travel banter, we lost track of what plan we were discussing: Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, Plan WTF. All over the board. John Montana, the top carp on the fly guy out there, had once again extended his gracious invite to MN folks to come out and ply the Columbia River for giant carp. He was suffering from slight worry, because (1) we’d be fishing under a flood warning, (2) we’d be fishing in wind advisories. See equation above. Carping quality score bottoming out. But I knew that in the back of his mind he was quietly confident. Like my grandpa used to say: if there’s anybody who can do ‘er, it’s you. That’s how we felt and I think that’s how he felt. We were resigned to the fact that we had tickets in hand and we were ready for adventure. And whatever conditions we encountered would be faced by the three of us (WFF was 33% of our personnel). Interesting commentary there: whereas in the past, a guy might have been really concerned about catching a lot of fish or big fish: guide-like situation: you’d better put us on success… Now, it’s moved toward let’s walk around and see what the hell we can find out. Do it as a unit and reap the rewards or suffer defeat together (see 2010 Door County post). And the MN boys were quietly confident too. There are always edges. There is always slow water. It just moves with the flows. So off we flew in a big shitty shiney airplane crowded and hot and annoying. Plagued by guilt for leaving families to fend for themselves for a few days. Mixed with excitement. Looking down on the mountains and the barrens passing below us. Finally landing on the bank of the Columbia River carrying only rods, flies and maybe a shirt and socks.

General synopsis:
The conditions were very bad to extremely bad. Various phrases like “we’re fucked” and “damn it” and “if only we had better light” etc. were strewn about constantly. The river was way up – well past long-term (maybe a century) median values. It was also turbid to the point of maybe 6 inches of clarity on the main river. For most of the time, the wind was a major hindrance; on one day is was at near-debacle levels. The sun was marginal: one day was great, but the other three were pretty cloudy. This stacked deck was beaten by (1) making the right decision to abandon the traditionally good water, (2) fish water adjacent to but not right on the main river, (3) go extremely slow: fish like a heron, (4) look upstream for better conditions, (5) abandon the idea of casting to fish, and go with the rod-length daps and flips. The poor conditions affect the fishes’ defense too: they provide camoflauge for the fisherman. We got close to hundreds of fish; it was just a matter of seeing them in time to present the fly before they became aware of the hulking figure peering in at them. We fished ponds. We fished flooded meadows. We walked train tracks and rip rap and looked so hard into the water that our eyes became sore. When it was all said and done we hadn’t decimated things like we have in the past: no 50 fish days pivoting on unbelievable flats fishing. Rather, we scavenged what was to become a remarkable (given conditions) pace of catching fish with some regularity and even some bursts here and there. I think was something like this: 19, 14, 8, 18 for a total of approx 60 carp to hand. Many more hooked. Many broken off. All this while wandering in the bottom of an eons-old gorge, looking at cliff walls and flooded forests. Better explained via pictures, so I’ll cut that off there. The only other general notes are pertaining to how each of the three of us managed this situation and reacted to it – my perception of that anyway: (1) John Montana was unselfish, calm and collected throughout – giving us the shots, rejoicing in our hookups and overall showing the quality of a guy that is confident and knows what the hell is going on; (2) WFF was a kid in the candy store, barely restraining (if at all) his wonder and excitement found in sight fishing for the greatest freshwater gamefish to be found – he was smiling near 100% of the time and that was a good thing; (3) I was in the middle of those two scenarios: entirely pleased with the situation, and even welcoming the relative difficulty; in awe of the surroundings, and completely fascinated watching carp eat flies. I’ll work my ass off for the visual record of a carp moving to a fly or better yet a carp opening its mouth in plain sight to say yes to an offering made by a fisherman.

There are a few specific instances worth noting in some detail:

(0) My first hook set of the trip went like this: so eagerly, so much did I want a carp... I presented the fly with some underlying tension and anticipation... watched the eat... set the hook really hard... and: found some weight on the end of the rig. More weight than a guy gets fishing "gamefish" which is what I've been enduring for the past months. I set that damn thing so hard and so excitedly, and hit that weight with such force that I was stunned and the rod started to fumble out of my hands toward the water. The whole thing. It was excited force meets immovable object and it was a feeling I'd been aching after for months. I splashed and bobbled and fumbled... laughed out loud while regaining composure and proceeded to admire the bow of the rod.

(1) There were limited opportunities for long distance stalking of tailing carp. These were like finding a nice EPA in a cooler of Coors Lite. They came about on the day we were working a big river stretch – still showing turbidity and high water, but fishable in some settings. This setting was a gravel bar. We couldn’t spread out. We walked as a trio, straining to look ahead for any dark shape or nervous water. We spotted tails breaking the water. This was very exciting. First shot went to WFF. He stalked maybe 70-100 yard, got too close to the carp (!) but put the fly on it anyway, undetected, and stuck the fish. I’ll leave the raw emotional detail to him as I wouldn’t do it justice. I can however say that the next stalk went to me. Nice big tail breaking the water. I crept on that fish successfully. It was tailing madly in shallow water. This put on my nerves in high gear because this was the only heavy-tailing fish I’d seen (would see no more). First cast went unnoticed. Second cast was deliberately put beyond the fish, fly dragged into position and dropped a bit up and to the side… Watching a movie now… the fish surged forward to eat that LOD. I recall setting the hook and moving low and to the left, angling the rod down toward the water. Not sure why. The fish erupted and put a crater in the water. I remember it looked liked a giant funnel hole. A big and deep bass note was sounded. The fish proceeded to run, and in maybe 1-2 seconds break my 16 lb leader. I attribute the loss to either/both a knicked/frayed leader (I knew it was the case, but my assessment prior to this fish was that it was not detrimental) or me locking down too hard on the fish. Whatever the case, the fish was stalked and hooked. That’s 80% of the deal. That’s the memory. Okay by me. I’ll keep telling myself that.
(2) I did manage to hook what I believe is the largest fish I’ve ever hooked. I was fishing in a weed-choked bay, to a couple other fish. WFF halted me though, and directed me to the left. At that position I saw a ridiculous fishing sidling toward me: blue-gray, big and round basketball head with a giant white trumpet mouth. Almost scared me. Best part though was that it was clearly looking to eat. This was confirmed when I picked up and dropped the fly in front of it, suspended in a little open water pocket among the vegetation. Instantly eaten was that fly. We saw it all. I got so excited I started jumping up and down and yelling, figuring this fish was locked up. It wasn’t to be though. The fish buried itself in the veg, and the trailing fly was caught in all the crap and I believe I lost tension on the lead fly… hook came out. Fish gone. Shocked me for sure but it’s manageable.
(3) John Montana gifted to me my favorite fish of the trip. This was later in the trip – day 3 I think – on the main river. Again, fishing to “small” 10-11 lbers, I was about to dap when he said “Don’t cast. Look left.” Another swagger-laden balloon of a fish was coming toward us. Just dripping with the message: I’ll eat if you make it possible. Flip cast beyond, drag to front and side… instant take. This fish was locked up, played and landed. A 14 lb mirror that was nearly fully scaled.
(4) Two of the days found us fishing in flooded shrub/forest and meadow. Absolutely tension-filled and highly interesting. Stalking through willows. Fighting fish in the brush. Looking at your buddies and seeing them staring at fish with no water visible to you. JM called me over to help him with a fish that had run through a willow copse. He had 25 feet of fly line extending from the willows to a log pile. I grabbed the line and worked it free while he wove his rod through the willow tangle. The carp was landed. I walked a flooded two-track road and caught three carp in 15 minutes, all of which were traveling in one of the track bellies as if it were their own infrastructure. And I guess it was more theirs than mine at that point. The water came up and the carp followed it. Always edges.

Technical notes: the only flies we used were SJW, Legion of Doom, soft hackle nymphs and hairballs (from WFF). They all caught fish. We changed up flies according to wind and thickness of veg. You needed to punch flies down through all the crap to get to the fish in some cases. High winds allowed for heavier flies, because splash factor was pretty much eliminated. Average size fish was 12 lbs. In fact, 75% of the fish caught were 11-12 lbers. With a few in the 13-15 range, and a few in the 8-9 lb range. Most fish succumbed to the LOD. Biggest fish went to JM at 15 lbs.

Only other thing that pictures won’t say is thanks: to JM for another chapter in what is becoming a remarkable book of carping, to WFF for expending the time and effort to join us and for reminding us that we should get more excited about this stuff, and to our respective families for understanding and even supporting ridiculous adventures like this one.

One more thing: some text from McGuane, with this single modification: the word "snapper" has been replaced with the word "carp." Notably, the passage remains 100% plausible/accurate/etc. He is fishing with Guy de la Valdene. This is a nice salutation; a nice tribute and thank you to Cyprinus carpio.

Guy stopped the fly and let it sink to the bottom. The carp paused behind it at a slight forward tilt and then, in what is to the flats fisherman a thrilling gesture, he tipped over onto his head and tailed, the great, actually wondrous, fork in the air, precisely marking the position of Guy's fly. I looked toward the stern. Guy was poised, line still slack, rod tip down. He gave the fish three full seconds and I watched him lift the rod, feeling foredoomed that the line would glide back slack. But the rod bowed in a clean gesture toward the fly line, which was inscribed from rod tip to still-tailing fish. Abruptly, the fish was again level in the water, surging away in a globe of wake it pushed before itself. A thin sheet of water stood behind the leader as it sheared the surface.

He nailed it. Carp.

Photos: John Montana's camera:

From my camera:

2011-05-30T22:54:00.004-05:00

Operation Alphabet

Pictured above is a representative average of the ~60 carp caught over the past few days. Figure I'll hit the hay and tell the story later, being that I just traveled across the country in a shiney tubular transport that some might argue is slightly out of place in the Great Blue Beyond.

But here, a note to say thanks to fishing companions and hosts for yet another marvelous tour of the Columbia River Gorge and its world class carp angling.

PS: the fly of the trip was the MN stand-by Legion of Doom. Many many eats.

2011-05-21T23:35:00.008-05:00

Cancel Christmas

Maybe you recall the line from the Robert Duvall and Sean Penn landmark film Colors. Cyprinus carpio may as well comply at this point. This is some highly edible stuff placed on absolute rock-solid hooks. Unbendable and unbreakable. Big gap. Bascially: you can't mess with this stuff.

Worms are nothing special but they have the key ingredients: the right chenille and the right hooks.

This is essentially a hybrid between LOD and Carp Carrot. In various body colors and soft hackle collars.

This is "the little green fly" or variant thereon.

Tung-head carp wooley. Absolutely irrestible, it looks, IMO.

And found this pic on downloading tonight. Older son took it: multiple chrysalis (what is plural of that word?) that he is keeping.

2011-05-21T07:19:00.002-05:00

It’s 9 PM on a Saturday and one kid is here behind me sleeping after reading through a compendium of Tolkien-related paintings and interpretation. The other kid is downstairs trying to hold some juice in his system after puking at least 12 times today. In fact: a housekeeping note is that at this very moment there is a pile of red puke on the floor right by the table and I don’t really care all that much. Many, many things were covered in vomit today. There were also pools of human feces to clean up. Fucking place has some lingering odors. As you might guess. Man oh man. So at this point, I just finished a John Henry 3 Lick Spiker Ale (9.1%). My good neighbor, who is pictured in the photos below, was good enough to share this with me – knowing that after a day of cancelled itinerary and stomach-acid-mopping I might need such an elixir. He was right. And now I’m chasing it with an IPA I guess. Out of a Chuck Foreman pint glass. He was number 44, as you probably recall. Maybe strong brew is my muse. I’d be good with that. Hell, I just sat outside in my backyard and looked at all the plants that hung in stasis over the winter, waiting to burst forth and show. Looked at our grapevines that have recently revealed just how many bunches they will offer up: probably ~40 lbs worth. Looking at the walnut tree showing some compound leaves now. Looked at hostas and bergamot and bee balm and lemon balm and monkey flower and blazing star and speckled trout lettuce. All as night came on there under the walnut tree. Hens cooed a bit. Lay some fucking eggs I said in reply. Read The Week and got informed re Bin Laden’s porn stash. He’s like everyone else I guess. Drank that John Henry and ate popcorn popped in a popper that was given to us for our wedding. The popper is made in Monon, IN. For anyone who has viewed the movie Hoosiers, that should ring a bell: I’ll hide-strap your ass to [something or another] and send you down the Monon Line. Well this product from Monon is a good one and I popped some corn in it using canola oil that has been soaking with hot chiles for ~ 1 year now. The popcorn is so fucking hot you can’t really eat it. I chomp a few pieces, cry a bit and then drink beer. Fucking stuff is hot I say. But the only way you can really get going on this blog, after thinking about the various contradictions floating around out there, the various problems with fucking keyboards and monitors and man’s dispositions and that other shit, is to drink in excess and then take to it. Recall that Poe’s character loved animals all his life and then he hung that fucking black cat Pluto. Drove him nuts. I’m not driven nuts yet but I can’t bear to look a computer in the face without being (1) at work, or (2) chemically altered. Poe’s guy hung that cat and then that cat came back and really did him in, didn’t he? I read that story some years ago; then listened to it while driving a month ago; then read it again last weekend. The gallows. They were coming alright.

So there have been all kinds of thoughts and things bouncing around with kids, family, fishing, etc. I’ve been thoroughly attached to the kids lately and I’ve been enjoying that. The plain truth is that now that they don’t fill their pants and need constant attention, they can be companions in all sorts of ventures. It’s highly pleasurable to be at home or out and about with them.

Just drank the last swill of IPA. Going to crest this high and come down in a hurry so better get on to narrative that is pertinent here.

Fact of the matter is that my friend and neighbor conceptualized a great day: long walk on the wild side. Hell with road crossings. Let’s get deep into the wild for a bit here and see what happens. So we did that. Dropped a car, drove downstream and started upstream. In at 7:40 AM. I think we came out just shy of 9:00 PM. To a full moon seated just on the crest of the horizon. Very full moon. We adopted a calm but steady pace for the day: fishing properly but not too intensely. We could have pounded some water but we only tapped at it and then moved on. We took in a lot of experience. We learned that the good water keeps on coming. We saw many good riffles and talked of “if only there were bugs now” etc. etc. Many good corner holes. Many good slow reaches full of fish. Not complete solitude (we ran into two parties), but pretty close. No road crossings. No tilled acres or homes in sight. A person needs to know he can walk a day like that and see nothing but the forest floor and the river. If you don’t have that all your daily life is changed in ways you can’t readily notice or understand. But you’ll be crankier and more ready to get pissed at someone. But if you know that there is a walk out there that is close to the walk that it’s always been before Europeans rolled in here and gummed things up a bit…. You’ll have some underlying peace. If you can look up at cliff faces, and see only river up and down you’ll have that peace. I don’t know why that need is there but it is surely there. Go read The Peace of Wild Things maybe – that could be it, summed up in a poem by a prophet.

[first four pics are credited to my neighbor]

Must pause and say that this is new favorite pic of mine. Regardless of who it is... we're looking at a ninja-like persona there, deep in the wilderness, battling a potential meal with an apparently very flexible fly rod. If that isn't what we're after... who knows what we're looking for then.

Just a couple more things to say here. First: we found some forgiving fish that ate traditionally-hackled flies in dead glass water. We were putting Adams and EHC on them, and they were taking them readily. In an aquarium. Sweet.

This fish came as evening set: prospecting with an Adams in a big and broad western-style riffle. Came in from the side and crushed the fly... all visible and beautiful in the action. Closed out a memorable day.

2011-05-21T07:03:00.010-05:00

Mothers' Day 2011

Whitewater River Valley
Per Mom's request
Kids were adept at climbing up
Vertical rescue team had to help down

2011-05-05T20:03:00.005-05:00

Spring Celebrant Episode III

Finally got it: heavy caddis hatch. Many cars. Many people. I know by now though, that in this case: doesn't matter. You can fish all day in sight of someone up and downstream of you and still catch 40 trout.

On this day I had about three hours. Starting 1 PM. Walked up to the first hole, and did not leave it until 3 PM. Notes:

(1) Immediately, the fish took adult EHC patterns. Maybe 15 fish in the first 30 minutes. Then a lull of maybe 15-20 minutes. I noted mayflies on the water, mixed with caddis. So I tried the Adams pattern. Taken readily. In fact, it fished as well as the caddis. I believe that the pattern was originally designed to imitate a fluttering caddis.

(2) They say that if you don't catch fish, you still have a great time, as long as you are fishing. It isn't quite true, but with a slight modifier I can say that I'd go along: as long as you have some action and/or some visuals, it doesn't really matter all that much precisely how many fish you get to hand. Case in point with this hatch: it was just as sweet to observe the patterns, and watch the trout repeatedly charge and then refuse flies as it was to watch them crush and sideswipe and hit flies before they even landed on the water surface. Saying that honestly. I actually enjoyed being refused. In part because it's an education.

(3) Clearly I was not fishing this situation "just right." For two reasons: (1) I don't know how to do that exactly, and (2) it's unnecessary really. I believe that the fish were eating caddis in the film for a lot of the time I was there. Hard to say for sure. I did see them charging the adults bouncing on the water, but careful observation showed a lot of fish hitting unseen insects. LaFontaine describes this in his book. I should have been using some "damp" or emergent pattern. But if you give them the adult, they will eat it. Maybe not right away, but they will eat it.

(4) Tried various skittering techniques. Tough. I think the immediate mend is a good approach. I also tried holding rod high and shaking the tip. These approaches need refinement.

(5) Stomach contents of kept trout showed almost 100% caddis pupae. Green and black wads of gorge.

(6) Watching trout eat dry flies is one of the pinnacles.

(7) Needed this medicine because the busty spring was starting to get to me.

(8) Wore out all my EHC. Need to work on fly durability.

(9) Hard to say, but probably 30-40 fish to hand. One was low teens, otherwise a lot of smaller fish. Kept fish ranged from 9.25" to 11.50". We've eaten our share of trout, so this creel was shared with others.

2011-05-04T22:53:00.010-05:00

Spring Celebrant Episode II

I figure if you spend enough time deep in old valleys - at the base of cliffs that are older than you can comprehend, you have a good chance of absorbing goodness and maybe even becoming a better person for it. There's really no rationale for the claim so there will be no typing in that direction. It's a feeling and as I tick off years I tend to put more on feelings and judgment and perceived goodness than on proofs, facts, etc. I just figure the sound of water, the sight of limestone: good. Probably really good.

So I walked around a bit, throwing a dark streamer because it was still gloomy and doggy and there was no chance of seeing any bugs in the air. No riseforms would be had today. Several beautiful fish were brought to hand in fairly short order. The first of note was a-laying in this dark little slot surrounded by boulders. Fished the near side of the situation, and then waded across, leaned on the boulder in the foreground and high-sticked the rig through there. Instant flash from the depths: watched BNT rise up to eat. Nice burning into memory there. I figure he was just tailing in that current watching detritus come by... investigating some of it, charging some of it pulling up just short on noticing it was not viable food... then in plopped a black, elongated mass: looked like a big bug or maybe a dying trout fry. Charge and eat. What came next. Something like the Primus song - Ol' Diamondback Sturgeon maybe. Can't say for sure but I put him back in that lay.

Water like this is absolutely ripe for streamers: some current, but relatively flat and deep. Fish hang out here. Casts up and across were stripped back but regularly interrupted by jolting objections to retrieval. Playing some of these fish the backdrop was noted as spectacular.

Like the look of the new scuds, which incorporate wiggle dub - a gift from John Montana.

Favorite fish, as of late, tend to be produced by context as opposed to the fish itself. This was clearly favorite: waded across to big red dot. Leaned over and high sticked rig to small red dot. Fish shot up and ate. It isn't dangerous whitewater, but it was an uncomfortable perch and a hell of a spot to hook a fish. It's not often in SE MN that you find yourself hooked up with pisces that is racing down a chute of rapids. Thoroughly enjoyable and memorable.

Of all the duplicative fish pics that me/you/everybody puts out there... sometimes a sweet one rolls out. I like this one: the background is right on, the fish is relaxed and beautiful. Says SE MN fishing.

Didn't even fish on the way out. In fact, wandered away from stream for long stretches.
Watched yellow rumped warblers wreck havoc on BWOs (which were around, but were not being eaten by fish). Those birds are efficient in their pursuit of the bugs. Swooping. And hovering even, over bugs on the water, to pluck them from the aqua. The bugs have it tough: mortal danger from above and below. Monsters eating them and all their brothers. Barred owl called twice. Up on the hillside I think. And nothing to say about Dutchman's Breeches. Just look at pic. Forest floor: a person could spend a lot of time there.

Got some nettles on the way out. That's about it.

2011-05-04T22:12:00.015-05:00

Spring Celebrant Episode I

Number of things to note as spring rolls around. Household things dealing with plants, compost and good dirt and kids spending more time out and about. World greening up a bit. Grapevines starting to show furry buds. A lot going down. And it's been a long time coming. After that long winter... being subjected to continuous rain, snow, cold in April and May. Has a guy down now and then. Especially when he reminisces on spring 2010, when April was lit up with all kinds of good stuff. So when the sun finally does shine down and things start to unfurl a person feels good. Many dimensions to it. But I guess in this forum the notes worth sharing pertain to fishing. So here are a few, derived from some recent episodes in the good woods.

Found this path and was struck by the river valley and how old and deep it is. And something that can't be communicated by pics too well: the greening of the forest floor. Coming up through the leaf litter. I always note to my kids that trees go back to dirt. We like to tout trees as completely renewable and thus usable for whatever we want. Complexity there for sure. And in the scheme of things: wood is a desirable material for folks to use. But when you see the green coming up through the litter embodied in the organic material that was a year or two ago leaves or maybe a few decades ago tree wood, you are reminded that extraction of trees from a forest is a mining operation. Organic matter held in various forms. Etc. etc.

I think I got to the river around 815 AM. It was May 1st. It was snowing. That's how it was. My wife uses facts like that to spurn discussions regarding moving away from MN. I admit it was mildly frustrating because what a guy wants to see is bug life: he wants to observe insects hatching and fish eating and take part in that to the extent possible. He doesn't want to just catch a fish. So tying on flies with fingers that were rapidly slowing down... I was my normal grumpy self. Bitching about this or that in my head. It was gray and cold and dark and no bugs were to be seen so the fly of choice was a #6 Tombstone Shadow, trailed by some generic nymph. Moved some fish right away. I was on the take too, being that I wanted some fish protein and figured I should bind some more of my family's cellular construct to that of the stream. I figure that's a good bond and therefore I justify crushing skulls of salmo trutta and a brief respect paid. Interesting to note that all fish kept on this day showed only chironomids in their stomachs.

Hit a major lull up to maybe 1015 AM. Just nothing going. I started questioning my rigs: was I down far enough, was the streamer to bulky and water resistant and sinking fast enough, etc. Looking back on it, the fish I did move or catch reacted to strips and aggression... the dead drifts just weren't doing anything. Likely the case that the fish simply weren't really active that early on a cold drab shitty morning. Translated: I should have stayed home and made breakfast for the family instead of stealing away at 530 AM.

Fish did start to come though. Couple beauties here, both too big to keep. The second fish was right around 16 inches according to the rod reference note made on the stream. This fish ate and orange scud trailing the streamer, on a dead drift.

The fish are beautiful, but what I've been more fascinated with lately is the water from which they come. The situations. Pictured below is the drift that turned up these two fish. I think I fished that riffle first and got maybe a fish or two. Then waded across to that nice soft edge adjacent to the woody debris. Cast up to the head and mended to let rig sink... drift on through there, maybe a jolt or twitch to get attention. Sweet water.

And then right at this water, someone called out to me. I had picked up a visual on a tall guy in white, fishing behind me. Made me hurry a bit, both because I like solitude and because I wanted to give him some space. Turns out this guy was fishing with WFF, and they approached me just after I had methodically put these four drifts across this nice water, in succession going away from me each produced one fish.

I liked the fact that the person I'd run into on this day was WFF. 36,000 acres or so and we were the only people on it. We caught up. Strategized a bit. Shared some food and then were on our respective ways. On the way out, I didn't fish much. More of a spring walk. Still gray and cool but now much more tolerable. Trout lillies, wild ginger, nettles coming on. Back home for late lunch.

2011-04-30T08:48:00.005-05:00

Stocking Basics

Turn over rocks and most of what you see looks like this: dark, #16-18 or so. Been a while since I restocked any basic flies. This is in part due to having little time and also in part due to going to bed earlier because I'm old now.

This is a PT, but with black flashy dubbing for thorax instead of PT fibers. Could describe it as Nick's Walking Hares Ear, inverted. It's easy, fast and is a good general imitation for SE MN. Third pic shows a flashback variant.

Laziness, disorder, spring-wind-blew-my-list-of-things-to-do-away type nymph box. This does have its pluses. If you find this scenario in your own possession, it implies that you have in fact had ample opportunity to lose the flies that formerly held rank in those rows. This gets to the idea of a good problem to have.

Toward responsibility, order and replenishment, of which some (moderated) is good. Add a couple dozen flies, discard some rusty hooks (strip down to keep beads), and reorder everything:

2011-04-30T08:27:00.006-05:00

First Creel of 2011: April 22

This sandy hole gave up first kept fish of the season. Dirty, doggy water. Had to wade in quicksand to get into position.

Moved on to other water and got into some fish on dry flies. It all seemed a little blah because only a few hours were available and a person felt rushed to harvest some fish and get home before heavy rain came (which it did). Next outing will be better.

Whatever the case or the quality of the time, a few hours later, fish were in this state.

Unrelated to meal, see unfortunate dog below. I surveyed the scene/context and my current speculation is that this fellow was likely lynched: hung by neck to die from bridge just upstream. Can't say for sure.

2011-04-20T21:24:00.005-05:00

The Tombstone Shadow
[iteration of SMB and/or conehead bugger]

hook: #6 3x long is just about right on (curved shank is good)
tail: whatever crap marabou you have laying around
underbody1: the crap marabou wrapped forward and lashed down to add bulk
underbody2: flashy leech dubbing (from WFF)
hackle: grizzly or whatever garbage is laying around
collar: chocolate guinea
head: 1-2 coneheads depending on size

Note: fly will fish better if you swill beer and listen to namesake song while tying. Guaranteed.

This is tied precisely to be a big nymph or small streamer, to lead 2-nymph rigs in standard Driftless Area fishing. Twitch retrieve is nice. Dead drift is nice. What the hell. Pretty nice. When the caddis won't hatch and the rain and snow won't stop a guy can only make big dirty flies and catch fish below the surface. All the while singing this song:

When the sky is gray
And the moon is hate
I'll be down to get you.
Roots of earth will shake.

Sinister Purpose
Knocking at your door;
Come and take my hand.

Burn away the goodness;
You and I remain.
Did you see the last war?
Well, here I am again.

Sinister Purpose
Knocking at your door;
Come and take my hand.

I can set you free,
Make you rich and wise.
We can live forever;
Look into my eyes.

Sinister Purpose
Knocking at your door;
Come and take my hand.

Mm-mm-mm-mm....

And who wouldn't love yelling this on the stream?: TOMBSTONE SHADOW ON THAT ASS!

FOOK WHAT SPAWT (T. McGuane)

2011-04-13T21:33:00.010-05:00

Close the Book on 2011 C&R Spring Season

One final outing before streams get crowded for a while. Here are notes:

(1) Started out nymphing, with a SMB or SMBesque fly as lead, and #16-18 HE or PT trailing. As has been the case lately: deadly. Fish love the drab and dark streamers. The twitch is deadly. I've all but abandoned the straight-up dead drift. Twitch, wait. If no strike: slow lift and a lot of times a trout will pick up the trailing nymph. 20+ fish taken even at relatively relaxed trot. Got to see quite a few takes. Every single fish but one was sporting a gut. Would have been interesting to knock one and look at stomach contents. Wrapped up nymphing around 1 or 130 PM.

(2) Put on an Adams, despite no definitive hatch. Got a handful of fish on #18. Was able to watch one BNT rise up from the tail of a pool, open white mouth wide and take fly. Found a nice little group of feeding fish, and put Adams on them. Moderately effective. I sat down for a while and watched bugs. Noticed BWO showing more of a presence. So switched to darker mayfly - traditional BWO pattern #18. This fly was crushed pretty well by the remainder of the fish before me. Some leaping takes.

All that said though, this was not a bug day by any means. Only minor dry fly action. I count on hitting that up next week.

(3) Dusted off the Avid 4 wt for this outing. I was planning to dredge a bit for bigger fish. I even brought a sinking leader. Not too driven on that though. Guess I changed my mind. Didn't do it. However: I really enjoyed returning to the nice power of that bigger rod. I have a Rio Windcutter line that I used today, and that thing shoots really well and overall the line just glides through the guides. It was laying down dry flies at quite a distance with good accuracy. Better than the 2 wt. I suspect that the 2 wt line I have is shot, and that is affecting performance of that outfit.

Note gut. Many fish in this range: 11-13" or so.

The holes showed good fish, but all this gray water with a little foam maybe... don't walk by it. Fish or two in there for sure. I stopped to cast at everything but the shallowest stuff.

Money fly. Credit WFF. I have come to realize that I can no longer figure that I have enough flies... and that I "need to get out to lose some before tying more." Fact is, I'm running low on standard PT and HE. Scuds. Need to get do it. And need to whip out some SMB.

Around us now here in Driftless Area are trout lilies, speckled trout lettuce and speckled trout themselves. In other words: April is good to us. Can't believe it's half over already.

2011-04-11T22:29:00.008-05:00

The Drifter

This guy fairly naturally took to dragging and flipping rigs upstream and high-sticking with the current. I think he got some hits but no connections yet. Didn't help that the water was worked over all day before we fished it.

This guy picked a fight with a mother goose sitting on her eggs. To match her, he spread his arms out wide and hissed in her face. They were nose to nose, maybe 4-5 inches apart. Goose took one solid shot at kid and nipped him. Kid hit goose (lightly) with a 2010 version golden rod.

All the while singing this. He's got it pretty well memorized.

From backyard:

2010 speckled trout lettuce that wintered over. This did not work quite as well as 2009 to 2010, but we had a number of viable plants when snow melted.

Worst thing about April is that it has an end. Attention turning to one more C&R outing. Skipping town while mobs hit streams for catch and keep opener. Returning mid-week to fish dry flies and bring home salmo trutta.

2011-04-11T22:05:00.007-05:00

Recounting the Weekend Part II: Flies and Other Notes

Going back to C&R opener notes.

Root River Special, or a variant on it that I got via a swap some years ago. I fished a lot of rigs that were led by a larger nymph or small streamer (SMB, bugger, etc.) and trailed by a standard PT or HE, etc. This was devastatingly good. All weekend, everywhere. It allows for twitching, stripping, dead drifting. Indicator, no indicator. Very versatile. Bigger trout ate the bigger fly, generally speaking.

FIrst hole I walked up to on Friday morning I applied a tandem rig using Root River Special in lead, followed by orange scud. First three fish at RRS. So I started keeping score out of interest. In ~20 minutes counted exactly fourteen BNT to hand. Ended up being 8-6 in favor of orange scud, in dramatic comeback fashion. Most of these fish were smaller. But very healthy and gutty. A short-mouthed strain of BNT (I'm convinced that this stream has short-mouth genetics that are prevalent).

And here pulled out a fly that is maybe 6-8 years old. Sitting in my box. Quick Descent copper dubbing. Fish ate this in ready fashion.

Here is some big, sweet water that I stumbled onto. Turns out it was too big for me to fish at the moment I found it. Couldn't wade it well, and couldn't get down. Caught a couple fish but didn't do it right. I estimated a riffle of maybe 70 yards in length. Bug factory. Followed by nice, deep broken water. Something that someone should work over for a while. I've only ever fished one western river for trout, but this stretch drew my mind to that western water for sure. Most like it of anything I've looked at in SE MN so far.

Fished with this guy for a while. Nice outing. Caught a lot of fish. He stood at one location and nymphed up a half dozen in maybe ten minutes. And he brough goose stew (honker taken in Rochester) for post-fishing meal. Even heated it up on site. Very generous.

Money triangle: one of those dirty doggers posted previously was sitting right in that triangle. Hydro-cushion, perfect lay for a trout. Jolting strike. I'll look in again.

2011-04-05T22:03:00.006-05:00

Recounting the Weekend: Money Water

This stream was so garbage, that any little pocket of deeper water or any vestige of cover had a fish in it. Seemingly a big fish. This subtle little slot produced a beauty.

This stream showed a few great reaches like this: fairly slow but enough current to carry a nymph rig. Good depth. At the end of the drift: strike after strike. Hit it on the way out: same deal.

Another slow reach. Deep. Cast up, let rig sink... strip hard or twitch and then twitch or slowly retrieve back... strike. Strike. Again. This was exceedingly difficult to wade due to deposition of fine material and high banks. It was worth the effort though.

Bellies. Gray bellies. Always drift nymphs in them.

No red lines needed here. Hard to get much better than this:

2011-04-03T22:24:00.002-05:00

Today's dirty dogger. Check the gut.

Yesterday's dirty dogger. Check the ripple.

2011-04-01T22:32:00.006-05:00

April 1st, 2001

Report later. Maybe. For now, suffice it to say that this day provided some remarkable variety with respect trout fishing:

(1) Fished three different streams near my place;
(2) Started with BNT numbers, inlcuding a run of 14 fish in 25 minutes;
(3) Then moved to BNT size, including three fish ~15-16" easy;
(4) Then moved to BKT;
(5) Then moved to BKT on dry flies, including at least a dozen that ate mayfly patterns;
(6) Hooked and played two trout at once, twice today - but in each case only landed one fish.
(7) Other than last year's caddis hatch fishing, I'd say this is the most trout I've caught in a day. And I only fished fairly lazily, for maybe 2/3 of the daylight hours. 50 trout.

And it's not even tomorrow yet.

2011-03-28T12:48:00.002-05:00

Five Years Ago Today

Looking through some files. Found these old notes that I made some years ago. Struck me as a good end-of-winter-season-post.

Various angles in there, and various thoughts re whether or not a person has changed at all over five years. Maybe not. Probably though.

I used to take meticulous notes in journals - did that for years. Still take notes and photos but resolution is diminishing. The write up below was meant for my own annals - something to keep and review. I remember the day: still recall the wilted spinach takes and the wonder that came with them.

Anyway: happy spring, and enjoy the (broader) catch and release opener: April 1st.

2011-03-25T12:50:00.003-05:00

As I face new water, I always ask myself if I ought to fish with a nymph or not. Presumably you don’t walk directly into rising trout. Camus said that the only serious question is whether or not to commit suicide. This is rather like the nymph question. It takes weight, a weighted fly, split shot. Casting becomes a matter of spitting this mess out and being orderly about it. This requires a higher order of streamcraft than any other kind of fishing, because it truly calls upon the angler to see the river in all its dimensions. Gone are the joys of casting, the steady meter and adjustment of loop that compare well to walking or rowing. The joys of casting are gone because this ignoble outfit has ruined the action of your fly rod.

From Midstream, an essay included in The Longest Silence, by Thomas McGuane

Book recommendation came from a fellow fisherman. I'm passing on the recommendation. The fishing literature genre is pretty packed, and to be honest I've explored only a fraction of it. I can say though that McGuane offers great content, exceptional writing skill, good humor, and sincere reverence and thought. Good author and good book. $5 from HamiltonBook.com.

2011-03-21T21:48:00.024-05:00

Let's go fishing Dude

Moderate level of depression around here, due to the assault on public employees. A guy can take the lowest salary of all his college buddies in the course of serving the public and still be attacked as having too much. Layoff the taxing of the wealthy; instead take pensions and salaries from pisant public employees. Jesus, who wants to get into that. The point of it as intro material is that one of few escapes is to get out and see planet earth as it's meant to be seen: in reality. In dirt and water and the perfect geometry. Hold some fish. I worship fish 100x more than any politician. For the record that is. If a guy sits around languishing at the house with all the pixels and soundwaves - man - he's going to die right there. Depression and disrespect floating around. So he needs to leave and remember that even if all goes to hell it really isn't a lot more than pixels and little grooves written into silicone media somewhere that represent bank accounts. If it goes to hell he can take advice from Greg Brown and become a hippy in a tent. A much more valorous endeavor anyway. So that's the point here: remind onself of the great Walter Sobchak: Fuck it Dude, let's go bowl. Or if you're in the Midwest, fish.

Before I get into the report, one more thing on the plan to attack the 2% of the state expenditures that goes to state government: suck it Trbek.

Fished 11 AM to 3 PM
One of few streams that was not blown out
Nymphed all day with standard PT and HE
Saw a couple small black stoneflies
Midges were about
Waited for rising fish but they never came
Water was very clear
Probably 15 fish caught, of which several were decent, one pretty nice

Danny came along on this day. He didn't execute all components of fishing, but he did about what would be expected of a ~4 year old kid. Fought some fish, unhooked a few, held and released a lot of them.

This little brown came on the second cast. The action was right to keep things moving along. Paced very well. Picture confirms that he gets pretty excited about fish.

This water gave up at least six trout. Even after Danny threw multiple sticks at it. The red line delineates the drift. Up past the overhanging veg, mend to right and drift through slot. Take. Take. Etc. One nice fish came here.

You can see that his fish holding got better as the day ticked by.

This pic requires some explanation. I regularly urge the kids to place fish back in the water after a short examination and appropriate respects paid. They don't always comply immediately. So as I was urging Danny on I cast again and caught another trout. Kid asked to hold two trout and I couldn't say no. Both fish swam off puzzled but okay. Kid was fascinated.

The guy is an impermeable warrior when it comes to water, mud, temperatures, discomfort, etc. He walks in over his boot tops without pause or complaint. Within half an hour he was covered in mud and pretty much soaked. My honest assessment is that his attention is on exploration, goofing around, singing/chanting, asking questions, etc. enough so that he glosses over discomfort. I did what I could to keep him in good shape, and he did more than his part with respect to keeping on. This outing served as a prompt though to get my kids waders. They won't need them but for certain situations; would be good for days like this one.

Yellow Sally aka Golden Stone

So this guy logged a winter trout fishing outing before his fourth birthday. One of my favorite days for sure.

2011-03-19T22:54:00.010-05:00

March 19 Recon Day

Spent the day marauding around Whitewater State Park, looking over the land and water. The flood bullet has been dodged, due to iterative melting pattern and lack of significant precip over the past couple weeks. The bigger water is still turbid, but not really that high even (save the very high order big river reaches). All of the gauges show hydrographs peaking yesterday. There should be plenty of water ready to fish at this moment and going forward. I've come across multiple reports of BWO action.

Started the day following the park naturalists in some distillation of maple syrup. Kids skip several steps, as is often the case.

Then up the trail to Chimney Rock.

Q: Why do you think the snow is still on one side of the ridge trail but not the other?
A: Because the sun doesn't get to it. - James Watkins

Middle Branch WW, just upstream of confluence with swimming impoundment outflow (which was clearer), 15:25 CDT. Still pretty turbid. I saw a couple guys fishing. Fishable, but I wouldn't want to be on it today. Better water out there.

2011-03-13T19:44:00.015-05:00

March 11, 2011 Report

En route to a non-fishing engagement, I came upon a trout stream around 1030 AM on Friday. A stream that maybe 5-6 years ago I fished with some regularity. Now, given new homebase, I do not drive to this stream because it's the wrong locale. That is, I like other water better. Further south and east I mean.

Immediately saw fish rising and midges in the snow. I showed the risers some dry flies and emergers but couldn't get them to take. Crutched out and went to nymphs and logged maybe 10-12 fish over the first hour or so. Then with some fish to hand I went back to the midge dries with a little more determination. I sat on some fish and got the presentation down and caught them. The first was a bit of joy for sure. The fourth or fifth one was a great take by a fish that bumped into the low teens.

From that point on, I kept a dry fly out there and put it on every piece of decent looking water. Crappy casts and presentations due to numerous variables (primarily strong wind and lack of sufficient skill) were the norm, but when it came together fish were caught. Maybe a dozen on #18 dry flies. The most intriguing take was by a fish that had not been rising, holding near an old bridge piling. Looked like a beauty. Connection failed though, and he was not to be fooled again.

Noted the black stones in the snow too. Fish very definitely stopped rising at 2 PM.

This fish was caught nymphing, but I had to snap some photos because I was enchanted by those prominent spots. What a beauty.

First fish that ate the midge dry:

Best fish that ate the midge dry:

I'd be happy rising fish like this all day...

Productive water - both cushions on the sides of the rifle, and the tailout:

Any #18 traditional hackled fly was playable, if presented decently:

Could be that I'm not recalling the past ~10 winters correctly; could be that over the course of them I didn't fish dries in the winter enough (likely)... but it seems to me that winter 2011 has shown a pretty impressive willingness to give up good hatches and thus plenty of trout to dry flies.

2011-03-01T13:13:00.010-06:00

You Stay at Home

So long to the waiting month: February. We love you and everything else, but we sure don't fret your passing. March, and sun will be upon us soon.

Following are misc shots from a good and diverse weekend at home. I consider all settings in the photographs to be representative of my home.

And perhaps most importantly: the Bigfoot Ale can be purchased at Silver Lake Liquor: $9.99 for a sixer. Do the math, and factor in the alcohol content. It'll lay you low. Introduced to me by Roughfisher, one year ago.

2011-02-21T11:01:00.011-06:00

Blizzard Weekend Carp Tying

The Terminator just pulled a urinal off the wall and smashed it over the bad lady's head: T3, Rise of the Machines. Been watching movies and tying flies when kids are in bed. Not the best fishing weekend, as water is up, likely cold, and roads are bad. So go with it instead of fight it. Turned out maybe 50 carp flies by way of intermittent sessions with cinematic backdrops. Watched Aliens and Alien 3, up till 1 AM the other night. Watched a bit of The Big Lebowski too. Drinking coffee, tea, beer; eating venison sausage cooked in old wine that turned to vinegar; toasting homemade bread and spreading on 2010 grape jelly; wild rice from northern half of state; etc, etc.

Sobchak Marabou Humpy

Didn't even mean to tie this up, but en route to other patterns, this came out. I like it for trout and carp. Marabout tied on a hook. Simplest bit out there. Let the feather do its thing man. Will take fish.

Maude Lebowski: What do you do for recreation?
The Dude: Oh, the usual. I bowl. Drive around. The occasional acid flashback.

#6 scud hook, bead chain eyes spray painted black, red/black dub from WFF, wine hackle from River City Fly Shop:

#6 scud hook, bead chain eyes spray painted black, shiney chenille from Roughfisher, chocolate brown strung guinea from River City Fly Shop:

#6 scud hook, bead chain eyes spray painted black, shiney chenille from Roughfisher, orange chinese pheasant rump from River City Fly Shop:

#8 scud hook, shiney chenille from Roughfisher, orange chinese pheasant rump from River City Fly Shop; will cement heads later - trying the light colored thread heads per tip I read: sometimes a guy can track those in the water as the fly falls:

2011-02-16T20:39:00.017-06:00

The Sun of 2011

You can see here that just a week or so ago we were hard-pressed to break 10 F and the rivers were pretty static. Now we're hanging above 30 F even through the nights, and the water is rising. Thus far rising slowly but peak heat is to come tomorrow. Feels like this is about one month early. Chatted with WFF a bit. We sensed this was coming and we got out in front of it for a little fishing in the sun the other day. Turned out to be a marginally arduous and very enjoyable journey out into a pretty wild place. County road to corn field to stream to smaller stream was the general sequence. After leaving our vehicles we did not encounter one road crossing, and we saw one farmhouse and one abandoned building off in the distance. That was about it regarding homo erectus and his structures. When we stopped for lunch around noon we had a high valley wall to our southwest, sun about us, and small water at our feet. Here are a few notes that pertain to fishing:

(1) We started off nymphing with tandem rigs: various scuds, etc. This was slow going. The wind was still about, and the sun hadn't really taken its place of prominence yet. So we ran flies through seams and over the course of 2-3 hours caught three brown trout between us. Many more words than fish for the AM period.

(2) We acknowledged that a big part of fishing is simply being on the water enough to allow oneself to walk into the right situations. The early afternoon was perfect case-in-point. We paused by a meadow edge and wondered if we should head back downstream, or approach some water we hadn't looked at yet. Who knew. We didn't know. We decided to walk over to the unseen water and we stumbled right onto a perfect stretch of stream: plunge pool followed by broken water followed by nice tailout. Fish rising over the entire reach. We used various dry flies and over the course of one hour or so we each caught 4-5 brown trout, of which most were in the 10-12" range. Some nice takes. In February. Who knew.

(3) On the way out, WFF stopped to nymph up a load of fish. Bunch of them, all from one hole. I proceeded to swing a baby brown trout streamer through a series of holes. Caught some fish doing that. Notable was a series of nice browns that edged up into the low teens that were all caught from the water in the last picture below. They really socked that little baby trout pattern.

(4) Never had this happen before: walking out in the deep and heavy snow just crushed me. Whatever muscle holds your hip to your thigh - that which is used to pick up your leg and set forward in step fashion - was just dogmeat by day's end. I've walked a million miles and never had that happen. Must have been the heavy snow and lack of snowshoes. Anyway: I sat in bed with my pants down rubbing muscle ointment into my pelvis (hehe). That did seem to help. Next day I was limping from the bus to the office like an old cripple. I figured I was done in, but the following day it was pretty much good to go. Old body is losing dependability. That burns me a little. I'm set to walk a stream for work on Friday - it'll be a good test. Maybe the muscles have been made stronger. Let's go with that.

(5) Bugs: we saw plenty of midges and black stones in the snow. Some stones 100 yards or more from the stream...

(6) Water temp: 49 F reading around noon I think.

(7) WFF report here.

Thanks WFF for bringing lunch, and for some important time exploring some new water.