CrowMountain.net

I had to fly to Denver last week for a business trip.  The time in Denver was great, learned a lot and met some amazing people.  However – the packed flights in both directions weren’t so hot.  Of course, I ended up catching something and I’m still only half-recovered.  This weekend, the weather turned cloudy with moderate temps and combined with lower flows, I had a feeling that one of my favorite streams would be firing for dry fly fishing…

…I was right.  A reasonable hike got me into some nice water and zero other people.  I lost count of how many small cutthroat I caught but I also caught three memorable fish, very nice sized for this river.  One other that ‘felt’ even heavier than those was hooked but immediately came unstuck.  Funny thing was that the smaller 10″ fish were the better fighters, some of those little guys spent as much time in the air as in the water, just jumping everywhere.  The bigger fish mostly bulldogged it in the normal cutthroat sort of way.

My ‘confidence fly’ has become a small stimulator variant that I came up with this spring.  It’s has an olive abdomen with just a little sparkle and a darker, peacock herl thorax.  Coachman brown hackle in the back and grizzly in the front.  The wing and tail are in natural or even better dun colored yearling elk.  Since it’s such a natural color, I also tie in a small tuft of hot pink or chartreuse antron on top of the wing for visibility.  I keep trying other flies on these rivers but nothing seems to produce like this stimulator.  In 14 and 16 sizes, it imitates everything.  For the small Western Washington streams, I could probably get by with just a few of these and a couple soft-hackle spiders…

Set a heat record in Seattle tody at 94deg F.  Of course like 95% of the houses around here, we don’t have AC.  Hot nights like we had this weekend were better back in Sweet Home Alabama ’cause everywhere has AC…

Given the heat and the fact that I had already fished three times this week, I gave the warm little trouts a break this weekend.  I just tried to move as little as possible.  I did finish up some summer steelhead flies for a swap over on Washington Flyfishing.  Been a while since I tied any steelhead flies and it’s got me itchin’ to get out there with my two-hander.  Might be time to take my first trip down to the Grande Ronde or Clearwater?

I did make good on one of my New Year’s resolutions – to take someone out who has never tried flyfishing and help them catch a trout on a dry fly.  Hit a small stream with a friend from work and she got the hang of it pretty quick.  Learning to cast and fish at the same time especially with a crap teacher, isn’t the easiest thing in the world but she hooked several small trout and landed one pretty little cutthroat.

Pre-meeting chit chat at work on Friday morning and someone remarked the the drizzly gloom was forecast to remain in effect all weekend.  They looked at me like I had three arms when I expressed my excitement at the prospect of a rainy weekend.  Especially when it’s Sea Fair…  I could give a damn about hydro races or the Blue Angels, I was thinking about fishing.  I was actually hoping for what my dear departed gandfather called a ‘turd floater’  to bring the S-Rivers up a notch and maybe push in a new batch of Summer-run Steelhead.  I have yet to break out a spey rod this Summer and I’m starting to get the itch to chase unicorn-fish…

Headed up to the home water Friday after work and enjoyed a very not rainy sunset along with a few willing Coastals and a couple small Brookies.  Didn’t throw dries much, mainly swung a soft hackle.  Zen fishing…  I tried a spot close to the road that I never fish because I figure there will be too many people.  I was right, there were three other fly fisherman in sight at different times. That’s three too many more than I usually see at my more normal spots…

Saturday, Mom, Aika and I had dinner with a new batch of Leadership 1000 scholars, a program administered by the College Success Foundation.  I’m incredibly lucky to be able to sponsor several scholars.  I got to meet three of them at the dinner and it was awesome.  I’m sure they are going to do great things in college and I feel privileged to have been able to help in a small way.

No big rain, just some drizzle so Sunday was for the troots, not the Steelheads.  Hiked into a beautiful bouldery run and picked a bunch of nice Coastals from the pocket water.    Came home and found that the women-folk had whipped up some Pakistani-style lamb curry.  Man, what a great weekend!

I’ve taken Aika fishing plenty of times, Angus too.  However, I think today was the first time I’ve taken them both at the same time.  They are independent enough now that I can bring them both and still actually do some fishing myself…  Other than an ill advised and slightly sketchy river fording, today was a good day.  Aika was the top angler by a mile.  Angus was having skunk-luck and missed/lost several nice fish so I started putting him on the best lies.  Aika would fish the ‘bad’ water and caught two to our none every time.  She must have caught 10 or so.  I ended up catching one ‘king of the pool’, a nice 14″ Coastal cutthroat which is almost huge for this river.  I wish Angus had been able to land one but he was the missed-strike & LDR skunkee today.

…well, maybe not the best thing, but certainly high on the list is being able to leave work, take a reasonably short drive and get in a couple hours of dry fly fishing hiking on a beautiful small river before dark.

Highlight of the day was catching a pretty little Brook Trout.  I know they aren’t natives, rather remnant populations washed out of stocked alpine lakes (bad idea).  Still, it’s so rare to catch one, it’s always a bit of a kick.  They sure are gorgeous char.

SO CLOSE…  Aika went 3-2 at Jr Nationals which put her in a tie for 9th.  She only needed one last win to make All-American (top 8 ) and she drew the defending champ and #1 senior recruit in the country.  She was just a little too much for Aika this year.

She ended up with the same record as the woman who went forward to wrestle for 7-8th but the other girl had a couple pins while Aika won her 3 by decision.   She was in the toughest bracket of the toughest weight class and still came out in the top ten in her first try at Nationals.

We’re HUGELY proud of her hard work.  She’ll be in it to win it next year!!!

Got up at 4:30AM to take Aika to the airport where she met her teammates for the flight to Fargo, ND for Jr Nationals.  I’ll be headed there myself tomorrow.  I wonder if they have trout in Fargo?

Did a little exploring this afternoon and found some nice pools and runs with plenty of willing little Cutthroats.  I’m partial to our native Coastal Cutthroat but I picked up a couple Westslopes today, they sure are pretty fish.  In one section, you could really see the power of the Winter/Spring flooding that hits these mountain streams.  A high bank was completely worn away dropping big Douglas firs into the stream bed which created nice habitat for the Cutts.

Funny that after I posted the thoughts about sharing secret spots below, I came across an essay of “sharing” in Fly Fusion magazine, online version here:

To Share or Not To Share

Last Friday, I hiked into a spot that I had researched via satellite photos and topo maps.  Amazingly enough, I stumbled upon a couple pools that held fat Cutthroats much, much bigger than anything else I’ve seen in this stream.  They were eager to hit the fly even after their cousins had already been caught so I’m thinking these guys have rarely seen a fisherman.  So, who should I bring to this spot?  My kids?  Regular fishing partner?  Only myself?  Or maybe even leave these beautiful fish in peace to propagate the waters with their genetics without the stress of being tormented by a catch & release fly fisherman?  Food for thought…

Kid #2 got back last week from visiting his maternal relations in Nagasaki and was recovered enough from jetlag by Sunday to start hitting our home water.  We did some boulder hopping and caught plenty of little trouts.  He missed one outsize fish for the stream.  If he’s anything like his pops, he’ll be reliving that one in his dreams.  He also caught one extremely colorful Coastal Cutthroat, deep blacks and bright reds, early spawning colors maybe?

One particular riffle that is usually good for several fish wasn’t producing anything.  I did a complete reversal from my normal late-Summer tactics and started using a downstream wet-fly swing with a traditional north country spider soft-hackle.  I told Angus, that  this was how we fish for Steelhead and he gave me a “WTF” look.  Right about that time I started landing fish…

Not much I like better in trout fishing than making my way up a boulder strewn mountain stream.  I hiked up an upper section of the ‘home stream’ this afternoon. The warm weather earlier in the week has the flows still a bit too high but I was able to scramble upstream and fish the rocky pocket water of this little river.

The cooler weather today and cloudy evening skies seemed to turn on the fish.  I caught more little Cutts & ‘Bows than I could count.  In one pretty little run I caught 3 on 3 casts then got a 4th when I threw my line to fix a tangle…  It’s funny, the Rainbows fly into the air the instant they feel the hook and the cutts do just the opposite.  Some of the Cutthroat in the upper section had a very different sort of coloration, very dark and heavily spotted, spawning colors maybe?  Gorgeous little fish!

Made the best out of an abridged schedule and spent a full day on the North Fork of the Couer D’Alene river yesterday before dropping Aika off at training camp this morning.  We caught a good many decent trout all through the day but the fishing was best in the evening.  Weather was sunny and very hot in CDA but in the upper section of the river it wasn’t bad at all.

Fishing was slow but steady throughout the day until about 6PM when a lot of golden stones started buzzing around and the bigger trout seemed to notice.  Earlier in the day, I lost the first 4 fish I hooked and was thinking, “oh no, one of those days…” before I started landing a few moderate sized cutts.  Later in the afternoon a monstrous cutthroat rose to my fly and I went completely ‘buck fever’ and jerked the fly right out of his mouth.  Of course, it never rose again…  I did manage to redeem myself with a couple fat Westslopes from a beautiful hole I found last year while hiking around the river.

It was Aika’s 16th birthday and she fished like a champ.  Her casting is improving as well as her mending and general line control.  Best of all, she really seems to be enjoying her time on the river.  She was really excited about the moose (plural, we saw 3) that we kept bumping into.  One cow gave us a serious dose of stinkeye from across the river and I was starting to get a little nervous before she trundled offf into the bushes.  A young bull just seemed to shrug his shoulders as if to say “sheesh, another low-holer…” and faded back into the brush.

I asked Aika if she was sorry she was fishing in Idaho instead of having a sweet-16 party back in Seattle and she looked at me like I was a complete kook.  Scholar, Athlete & Angler!!!