This site will remain up for a while as I transfer all the content over to the new domain.

The new site is:

Anyway…

In the lowland streams with some distance from the Cascade crest, the levels are dropping, the water is warming and the trout are feeding.  I got out a couple times over the last two weeks and the fishing was quite good.  The flows are edging into the ‘juuust right’ zone on my favorite spring spots.  Weather permitting, I’ll be fishing a lot more from here on out – a multiday trip to north Idaho is coming up and the prospect of many short runs to the Olympic Peninsula for summer steelhead have me frantically tying small buggy steelhead patterns.

A likely spot…

The payoff!

Bamboo and wild iris.

On a nearly unrelated note…  My new bamboo rod is nearing completion.  I’m planning a long, detailed post including the origin of the taper and photos of the build process but here’s a teaser.  The rod will be an 8′ hollowbuilt 3wt made by master craftsman, Rob Hoffhines off an innovative taper dreamed up by Tom Smithwick.  I’m having a hard time with the wait for this one!

The beginnings:

Not long now!

The flows on this stream were slightly higher than when I visited 2 weeks ago but the fish behavior was completely different.  The fish were actively feeding on the surface, or maybe just under.  There was a lot of insect activity with a several type of mayflies hatching.  In the morning, Blue-winged Olives were popping off consistently but that faded around midday.  From there on, red-quills were hatching all afternoon with a few larger March Browns mixed in.  Lots of other bugs flittering about, small stoneflies and lots of midges and flying ants.  I even saw a rare Adams fly perched on a Trillium…

I’m not sure how many cutthroats were brought to hand, double digits for sure.  Two fish in particular were fairly large for this stream, running about 12-14″ but of course I wasn’t able to get a photo of either.  I’ve mostly decided to stop stop taking photos of fish unless I can do it while keeping them in the water or can return them very quickly.  These two were while in a very precarious spot so I wasn’t able to get the camera out without stressing the fish so they’ll live in my memory and fishing log…

As usual, my hot fly was a softhackle.  Not usual was the method of delivery…  The winning ticket today was a #16 Starling & Green presented on a dead drift.  I tied it on as a trailer to my favorite caddis imitation, my mylar bodied Elk & CDC.  The high floating dry fly kept the softhackle just under the surface and enabled me to track the drift.  Both of the bigger fish took the softhackle dropper while a couple small fish hit the caddis.  I missed one fish that made my heart race, it was probably the biggest fish I’ve seen in that river, maybe 18″ or so.  Now I know where he lives…  The photo below shows one of the pretty cutthroats that took the  S&G softhackle.

While sitting on a log, I heard a load crashing from across the stream.  At first, I thought it was a few blacktail deer but they are usually stealthy as the move along the banks.  Then I saw a bunch  of black shapes moving through the brush and I was sure it was a pack of wild dogs so I started reaching for my bear spray in case they crossed the stream.  I was very surprised when a family of 5(!) otters popped out of the bushes.  They were much larger than I what I remembered for river otters, easily as big as a medium sized dog.  Kicking myself for not having my camera out, I whistled at them to get their attention.  One of them gave me a quick glance then ignored me like the other four as they started working upstream.  I figured that was a good time for me to change direction and head downstream as they are probably better at fishing than me!

The flows were still a little too high for my favorite pseudo-secret spot so I went to an area a little more accessible but still off the beaten path.  A hike and some bushwhacking got us plenty of untouched water and a few willing trout.  I missed one nice fish early in the day when I wasn’t paying attention but broke my skunk in a later run.  Fishing partner, MK picked up a couple fish on the way downstream, the second was a very nice cutthroat taken from a difficult lie on a soggy red quill dry fly.

Later in the day in a glassy, spring creek-like section, I picked up a couple trout.  The first was a small cutthroat that was rising across the river, taking something just below the surface, probably red quill emergers.  I was fishing a softhackle with a traditional wet fly swing but cast upstream to this fish anyway.  The trout immediately took the Primrose & Partridge (=confidence fly) and was landed shortly after.  A bit downstream, we saw a very large rise near a rock outcrop that has produced a few nice fish in the past.  A roll cast across, a big mend and slow swing yielded a jarring take from a fat 13-14″ coastal cutthroat.  It was the fist ‘nice fish’ of the season, exactly one week earlier than last year and taken from nearly the same spot!

This was also my first day fishing a new reel.  It is a handmade reproduction of a Hardy 1912 Perfect.  The reel is made by a master machinist and artist named Chris Henshaw in England.  I also have one of Chris’ large salmon reels that I use for steelhead so when this little trout reel became available, I had to snag it.  A couple new bamboo trout rods should arrive in late spring and this reel should be just right for the 8′ 3wt which will probably become my ‘go to’ small stream rod.  To be continued…

March is the last month of my posts aligned to the chapters from A River Never Sleeps.  It started with April of last year as a one-off but afterwards, it just seemed right to continue.  With this post, the annual cycle is complete.

If I had really been focused on fishing, I should have been on the coastal rivers of the Olympic Peninsula this weekend.  The flows were agreeable and the sun was shining. However, the kids’ sports kept me close to home which is really no bother at all.  It’s a priviledge to be part of their development into sound, well-rounded people.  In this case, it was Angus’ Jr High district wrestling tournament.  He exited early but the fight he showed was inspiring.  His older sister, a more accomplished wrestler was in tears as she consoled him after his loss.  Relative to the scale of the event, there can’t be a tougher athletic loss than losing a wrestling match.  There was a very good article in the Huffington Post  by David Crisanti that describes this much better than I could:  May The Best Man Win

Crisanti writes “It is impossible to put in to words how it feels to lose a high level wrestling match — you have dedicated your life to this pursuit that required so much sacrifice and hard work, and if you fall short you have nothing to show for it and no one else to blame. No money, no fame, and most unkind, no sense of accomplishment, even if you are at that point a national runner-up. In fact, all you are left with at that moment is proof that you did not prepare enough, or do enough or have enough to be the better man.“

But the same is true at the lower levels even down to the high school matches and earlier.  The thoughts might not be as well formed but the feeling is the same.  I’ve seen it on countless young faces over the last four years.  However, the lessons that can be learned in this sport can be true character builders.  I’ve seen it in my own kids as well as in the development of other young men and women.  Again from the same article:

“Despite my background as an athlete I was not a big believer that sports build character. I was more on the side that sports revealed it. But with the benefit of time and experience, it is clear to me that this sport builds humility. It does so by dint of its lack of chance.  

In daily life, discovering our own true acumen can be much harder to come by. Any job, any relationship, any pursuit is beset with the whims of chance and more still, the participation and subjectivity of others. There is virtually no endeavor, within sport or without, as free from external factors as a wrestling match.”

I did get a chance to visit my ‘home water’ on Sunday.  It’s really too early in the season and I had no expectation of catching a trout but it was good to spend some time on a small stream enjoying the first signs of spring among the lingering snow.  Next month should bring the first trout of the year and hopefully, a few final winter steelhead!

My only day of fishing in February was on the 27th when I was lucky enough to spend a day with Jim Kerr fishing the Hoh river on the Olympic Peninsula.  For our family, the first three weeks of February equals the high school wrestling postseason run to the state championship tournament, otherwise known as the Mat Classic.  Same as last year, Aika came into the state tournament undefeated and a repeat district and regional champion.  Unfortunately, despite dominating the match, a single mistake and some suspect refereeing combined to hand her a very tough 1 point loss in the semi-finals.  She came back to crush the next two kids and take third.  I was very impressed with her classy sportsmanship after the loss and her ability to come back, focus and wrestle 100% for two more matches knowing that she had just missed one of her dreams for the last few years.  Her prospective college coach (who was at the tournament) sent us a couple nice emails afterwards complimenting her composure and confirming that she’ll be a valued part of the team next year.

The fishing trip with Jim was my birthday present to myself.  I can’t afford to fish with a top guide all that often but on the Olympic Peninsula, Jim is the man and I always learn so much, it’s worth the investment without a doubt.  Catching big fish is just icing on a very tasty cake…

The day started clear and cold, in the upper 20′s.  I had all my layers on underneath my waders so I was very comfortable but the damp felt soles of my wading boots kept freezing to the bottom of the boat!  More problematic was that the line guides on the rod would pick up moisture from the line, which would then freeze and clog the guides making casting difficult.  Even so, right off the bat, I hooked a very nice steelhead.  I must have been “holding my mouth wrong” as my grandfather used to say because the fish came unhooked on it’s first hard run upstream.  Continuing down the river, I hooked another nice fish which we landed after a prolonged chase downriver in the boat trying to get to a nice landing spot.  I was pretty nervous but the beautiful chrome hen fresh from the ocean was landed, photographed and released unharmed.  I have caught a few hatchery fish but this was my first wild, native winter-run steelhead and I am still giddy about the whole thing.

Given the higher than optimal and very cold water conditions, we were fishing subsurface nymphs (egg imitations) from the moving boat.  I haven’t fished nymph patterns very often (almost never) for trout and this was the very first time I’ve tried it for steelhead.  Normally, I fish wet flies for steelhead with a traditional wet fly swing using a two handed spey rod > wade into a run, cast across, let the fly swing with the current, step downriver, repeat until something pulls back or you get to the end of the run.  It’s a very rewarding way to fish in my opinion.  However, the places you can actually do this are limited.  Nymphing from the boat while moving downriver allows you to cover a lot of water that would not get fished otherwise.  Unfortunately, as I quickly learned, it’s hard to do well…

Being together in a boat for 7-8 hours affords a couple of guys a lot of time to talk and this was no exception.  When I’m fishing with Jim, of course, I try to focus on fishing and the Olympic Peninsula ecosystem.  Since this was my first time trying this type of fly fishing, we spent a lot of time discussing the technical aspects of nymphing as well as swinging flies.  Proud dad that I am, I also couldn’t help bragging about Aika’s great season.

Which brings me to the point of this rambling post…  Aika lost her semi-final match because she made a tactical mistake.  She was the better wrestler by far and was leading with only 50 seconds left in the match.  Instead of playing it safe and stalling out the last seconds, she kept going 100% trying to get a pin that she didn’t need which put her at risk.  Of course, she then gave up a high-scoring move and lost by one point.  This is a lesson most kids learn early in their wrestling experience, within a couple years.  For kids in club programs wrestling at a high level, this is when they are in junior high or maybe the first year or two of high school at the latest.  Unfortunately for Aika who has only been wrestling seriously for 2 1/2 years, she learned this lesson in the semi-finals of the state championship she was favored to win in her senior year.  It was a bitter pill for sure but it’s something she will remember as she continues wrestling in college and beyond when the stakes will be even higher.  In her case, all the incredibly hard work she has done gave her the Technique but she did not have the experience (Time) to have learned the appropriate Tactics for the situation.

But since this blog is all about me… back again to fly fishing, more specifically, nymphing for steelhead.  I have put in the Time and with that time, including a lot of books, videos and listening to more experienced anglers, I feel I also have a good grip on Tactics.  Where I fell short last week on the Olympic Peninsula was Technique.  I really had no clue as to what I was doing at the start of the day.  By the end I had a glimmer of what it was all about but not much more.  It’s very easy to wed yourself to a single way of doing something, especially when you have just enough success for it to be rewarding.  The risk is falling into the old adage “if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail…”.  Now I’m not about to put up my spey rods and start nymphing all the time – swinging wet flies is still my preferred way to catch a steelhead and a trout too for that matter.  However, in the future, I plan on doing a better job of spending the Time to build a broader range of Techniques so that I can actually execute the best Tactical plan on any given fishing day.

Later in the day, I hooked a hot fish that almost jumped into a bush in it’s first run, then it ran under the boat and finally into a boulder filed rapid.  After a nice fight, I finally worked her back into some calmer water where Jim waited with the net.  Right before being scooped, the fish came loose and disappeared back into the Hoh.  Fine by me as these are wild, native fish to be released not killed.  The rush of the initial take and the fight is what I was after and that’s the awesome experience that beautiful steelhead gave me.  All in all, it was a great birthday present to myself.  Now I just need to think of some excuse for another day with Jim this spring…

I envy Haig-Brown’s January experiences in the PNW during the early part of the 20th century.  These days, December/January are the months when the hatchery steelhead return to PNW rivers, in ever decreasing numbers despite huge numbers of planted smolts.  The wild fish begin coming in in January but the later months of winter are best for the native fish.  I have read that the early returning winter steelhead runs have been largely exterminated by the hatchery cycle – early returning strains are selected so that they remain segregated from the later returning natives.  However, this means that any early returning fish face gill-nets, increased kill-fishery pressure and competition with hatchery fish.  So it’s rare to hear about someone catching a native steelhead in the early season these days.

The returns for Puget Sound rivers have become so depressed that they will close the first week in February to protect the native fish.  There is a lot of debate on the subject and it’s an incredibly complex issue but I feel that the impact of the incidental mortality of a catch & release fishery is pretty low on the list of causes for depressed steelhead runs.  Given, the environmental issues, Native American treaty rights, politics, etc. it’s a true “Wicked Problem“.  makes me depressed to think about it…

…and after a nasty morning of fishing getting skunked on my soon-to-close homewater, I was feeling pretty down.  We’ve had a lot of snow the last week and the plows had piled up a big snow wall in front of all the pullouts.  I ended up parking on the side of the road about a half mile from the normal pullout and hiked to the trail as cars loaded with skis & snowboards streamed past.  I’m sure they were wondering what in the hell the dude with the big fishing pole was doing walking along the highway in the rain.

Yes, rain.  And a bit later, driving wind to go along with slush turning the already snot-slick boulders on the riverbank into some sort of antigravity device designed to send anglers ass-over-head into the 34deg river.  All that to fish a river with no steelhead in it…

Yet, when I got home and read the Roderick Haig-Brown section on January steelhead fishing, something happened.  It was like a pat on the back from across the decades.  Reflecting on his passage above, I found myself silently nodding “Yes, that’s it exactly” and all this craziness somehow makes sense…

A new toy!  A 3 1/2″ 1912 Salmon Perfect built by reelsmith Chris Henshaw in England.  An original Hardy 1912 Perfect is outside my financial resources and even if I did buy one, no way I would take a that sort of collectable reel to the river (see the note about slick boulders above).  Chris’ modern interpretations of the vintage Hardy designs are functional works of art.  I can’t wait to hear this thing sing when a steelhead makes that first big run…

Here’s a full step by step with materials list:  Primrose & Partridge Softhackle

This year, I tweaked my back helping the kids with their wrestling and thought I was going to have to break tradition and stay home.  I was in a fair amount of pain the night before and still stiff on Sunday morning.  However, the weather looked surprisingly good – 50deg and partly cloudy so I downed some ibuprofen, grabbed my big Guideline LeCie and headed to the river.

There were a lot of people out on the river so I went to a run that I knew I could have to myself.  Probably because there are never any fish there…  A shame really as it’s a nice piece of swinging water.  My thought was to just get my line wet to preserve the tradition and head back to the house.  Maybe sneak some greasy fast food (never get it at home) on the drive.  Hiking down to the river, I noticed my back was feeling pretty good.  I ended up working through the run and going back to hit a couple of the fishier sections twice.  It had rained hard earlier in the week and the water was dropping and clearing with that nice ‘steelhead green’ color.  However, the thing I didn’t notice before I left was the wind.  It was howling.  Luckily it was blowing downstream so even my crappy river-right double spey didn’t matter.  Just toss the line up in the air and let the wind take it.

I fished my new Bourbon Prawn most of the run.  It swims very nice and the red Golden Pheasant and Jungle Cock really glowed in the water.  I also tried out a tandem tube bunny leech that I recently tied after the Silvy pattern.  When I want to get down and nasty, that’ll probably be my go-to fly.  I had one grab that might have been a fish but I’m going to call it a rock so I don’t feel bad about missing the take…

Anyway, I paid my penance to the fishing spirits and I’m looking forward to fishing in 2012.  My resolutions for the year are much more simple than the 10 of the past two years:

1)  Fish more than I did in 2011

2)  Have a net decrease in my investment in fishing tackle

3)  Continue to help beginners or newcomers whenever possible

4)  Contribute both time and money to conservations efforts

Oh yeah, catching a big native winter-run steelhead on the OP wouldn’t suck…

Happy New Year!

Anyway, here are my (Un)goals of 2011 and how I fared:

1. Take the kids fly fishing more and coach their casting less – Partial success, Aika couldn’t fish this summer due to her knee injury but Angus and I got out including a trip to Idaho.  I still coached his casting too much…
2. Get some return out of my 2009 investment in a cataraft – Total failure, even wore than 2010.  I think I only took the cat out twice which is a ridiculous waste.  Need to get off my butt and either sell it or use it.
3. Fish at least 52 days in 2010 – Partial success, ended up with 43 days which is pretty good considering the record snowpack and high water until late summer.
4. Fish in Oregon, Idaho, Montana & BC – Fail, only made it to Idaho.  I was barely over the border from Montana but the high flow levels prevented the second leg of the trip so we stayed on the NF CDA.
5. Camping trip to headwaters of the Elwah – Fail, just couldn’t get it done.  This was partially due to spending more time fishing for summer-run steelhead on the Forks rivers which I like better any way…
6. Keep an accurate fishing log (should be helpful for #3) – Success, kept good data about each day’s fishing, weather, flows, catches, etc.
7. Take someone who has never fly fished before to a river and help them catch a trout – Partial success, while I didn’t take anyone fishing, I did give a casting lesson as well as help a couple people get started in fly fishing through info sharing over lunch meetings, etc.
8. Spend less money and time on gear and more on actually fishing than in 2010 – Partial success, I definitely spent more money on actually fishing but I’m not sure I spent less on gear.  However, most gear purchases where via the proceeds from other gear sales so I’ll give myself a break on this one.
9. Attend a spey casting lesson and break my bad self-taught habits – Partial success, while it wasn’t a formal casting lesson, I did go out with well-regarded Olympic Peninsula guide Jim Kerr for an instructional day of fishing.  There was some coaching on the cast but it was mostly about learning how to fish.
10. Take my ’serious’ camera fishing and actually use it for a change – Success, but the serious camera became a video camera.  I made a couple short videos, learning a lot along the way.  Much more in this direction for 2012…

Depending on how much ‘credit’ I give myself for the partials, I’m coming in somewhere between 70% and 45%.  Not bad compared to last year’s paltry 40% giving myself full credits for partials.  The three items marked “Fail” all seem to relate to traveling to fish.  2012 will be tough in that respect too as is my final season of playing the combined coach/Dad role and there will be a fair amount of wrestling travel this summer.

Even so, I’m really looking forward to spending an increased amount of time rediscovering the Olympic Peninsula this year – not just for steelhead,  I’m also very excited about the potential for sea-run cutthroat on the little troutspey, resident trout fishing and of course, salmon.