Monthly Archives: June 2011

Fly Fishing Photography Video

My feet hurt…

June 26, 2011 – 6:29 pm

Got out twice this week – long days both times, about 8 hours of covering water each day.  Found some new (to me) water, caught some fish on bamboo, caught some fish on graphite, saw bugs, snakes, frog, deer, birds and a crawdad.  Pretty good time, yeah?

Fished the Critchfield bamboo 3wt on Thursday and picked up quite a few nice fish.  Getting used to the slow rhythm of this rod and was laying out a lot of line for a slow bamboo 3wt, fun stuff.  While working upstream, Hog Johnson decided to show himself to me just to make me crazy.  I was working upstream through some pretty pocket water in fishing cruise control letting my mind wander,  I flipped my CDC & Elk into a likely eddy and a big cutthroat back porpoised then turned away at the last second.  Heart pounding, I snagged myself with the next cast…  I got my shit together and put the third one right on the money and he rose and refused again!  That was that, he’d had enough and didn’t come back for more.  Oh well, put a mental “X” on that spot.

I ate my sandwich and made the turn back downstream at a pretty spot with a chute and a nice little waterfall.  It was a fishy looking spot but I got nothing coming up through with a dry fly.  After eating and snapping a couple shots of the scene with the rod for the Classic Fly Rod Forum guys,  I put on my ‘hot butt’ wet fly leader and immediately picked my own pocket with a softhackle!

Around midday, I was replacing my tippet and a big dragonfly landed on my arm and wouldn’t move…  I finished tying the tippet, tied on a fly, got my camera out of the chest pocket of my waders and took a few close-up shots and it still didn’t move.  It finally flew away when I stood up.  I was hoping it’d just stay there, like some sort of living jewelry.

A couple days later, I was back on a different section of the same river, this time with the Tom Morgan graphite and the video camera.  Another fun day with even better weather, sunny and warm in the afternoon.   Again, I saw Hog Johnson or maybe his brother and again came up empty.  Same as before, it was getting close to lunch and I was just cruising through a section, hitting the pockets & seams with a dry fly while letting my mind wander and a big cutthroat comes flying a foot out of the water to take my fly, when I set the hook , she jumped 2′ out of the water and threw the hook.  I’ll remember the sound of that splash for a long time…

I still managed to catch a couple more nice sized (for a small stream in Washington = slightly less small than normal) cutthroats.  One in particular smashed a softhackle on the swing, turned into the current and charged downstream like he thought he was a steelhead making my little St George Jr scream.  It was very, very cool and I thanked him for the privilege of the fight before he fined off to his hole.

Another little solo video below.  Shooting solo is still a pain but the kid was feeling a bit under the weather and wasn’t up to the trip.  Next time, better angles, a different fisherman and I’m even thinking about reading the manual for the software…

To watch the video in native HD (bigger, very clear), click on the FreestoneJune link and choose the fullscreen option in the lower right, then choose the “scaling off” option in the upper right. That should put you into native 1280×720 HD.

FreestoneJune from CrowMountain on Vimeo.

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Fly Fishing Photography

June

June 19, 2011 – 11:57 pm

June is the midsummer month, yet in the temperate latitude of southern England and the British Columbia coast it is not full summer; growth is still fresh and young, and the rivers still have the flow of stored up winter snow or rain.  All the summer months are trout fisher’s months, I suppose, wherever trout swim and feed. -Roderick Haig-Brown, A River Never Sleeps

Maybe a little selfish (?) but I spent Father’s Day by myself fishing.  I hiked into a new area that I had researched last fall but had been waiting for the flows to drop a bit before making the trip.   It was a long drive followed by a long walk but pretty soon, after breaking through a bunch of this:

I came out to find this:

I was very happy with the new water.  I didn’t see another boot print all day, only the marks left from the passage of many black-tailed dear.

It was cool, barely above 60deg and every so often a wave of dark clouds bearing a very fine mist would pass through.  Never enough to affect my fishing, just enough to add to the feeling of solitude in this little out of the way stream.  I worked my way downstream with a softhackle through a series of riffles & runs and a few deep pools.  Fishing was slower than it had been the last couple weeks in that I wasn’t catching little 8″ wigglers every second cast.  I still caught a fair number of fish, 3 pretty nice cutthroats in the 14″ range and several more around 10-12″.

The fish seemed healthy and happy, all were pretty fat which is understandable as there was abundant insect activity.  Mayflies were hatching throughout the day; BWO’s, Red Quills and a few Pale Morning Duns.  There were the normal cased caddis crawling everywhere but I didn’t see any adults as usual which has me a bit stumped.  Where the hell are the adult caddis coming out of all those cases…?  Lots of these big guys in the stream-side grass but not many were flying, probably due to the cool weather:

Turning back upstream, I started picking up some small ones with dry flies.  Began with a traditional Adams.  I love the way they look with the upright wings but after a couple fish, they are so waterlogged and bedraggled you have to change them out.  That was too tedious so I switched to a new pattern, a mayfly hairwing dun by Rene Harrop.  After catching a few with that and proving to myself it worked, I switch to my small stream stalwart, the CDC & Elk.  Of course it caught them too – managed a couple more bigger fish on the dry fly by the time I got back to the entry point.  On these small freestone cutthroat streams, I could easily get by with 2 or 3 patterns.  I just like tying flies so I feel compelled to experiment…

When I got home, my daughter had made orange-flavored biscotti for me, my favorite thing to go with espresso.  What a kid!  Her name, translated literally from Japanese is ‘Purple-Flower’.  The actual purple is really the dark purple-blue of the small Japanese Iris, one of my favorite flowers.  A different shade of purple, but while hiking back to the car, I came across these wild irises.

No complaints from me – it was a great Father’s Day.

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Fly Fishing Gear Reviews Photography

New Critchfield SB Special Dry Fly 7’6″ 3wt

June 12, 2011 – 12:19 am

I got my new Critchfield SB (swelled butt) Special Dry Fly 3wt out on the water for the first time today. I purchased the rod several weeks ago after seeing it on the auction site for a few weeks. I really liked the looks but I was a little concerned that the ‘medium-slow’ and ‘traditional’ descriptions of the action might rule it out for my use, especially since I flip-flop between cane & graphite. I contacted Bill and over the course of a couple emails and a phone call, it seemed like it would work so I bought the rod. What sealed the deal for me was when Bill wrote:

“If you decide to buy the rod and find it unsatisfactory for the fishing you describe the best thing to do would be return it to me for a refund. Sincerely, I don’t want anyone to be disappointed in any of my rods.”

I really doubt I would ever actually do that but for him to say it gave me confidence in him as a maker.

I bought the rod for my ‘home water’, a small freestone stream that I hit several nights a week after work in Summer and early Fall. I know it like the back of my hand and I fish it almost exclusively with a few #16 attractor dries upstream and softhackles downstream. At dusk, I might throw on a #14 Wulff just so I can see it. The fish are generally wild coastal cutthroats of about 8-10″ although every now and then you’ll tangle with a whopper that goes 12-14″. There’s even a brookie or a westslope that shows up every now and then, washed out of some mountain lake. The little bamboo 3wt should be just about perfect for my little fish friends.

Unfortunately, my homewater is in the middle of Spring runoff and is about 5X too high for fishing. My home-away-from home in the spring is long drive to a small low-gradient stream that is further from the mountains and comes into shape much earlier. It also has some spring creek-like glassy glides where the trout get fussy and can be selective. It takes some route finding and a long hike to get to my favorite section so it doesn’t get too much pressure. Also, you really have to study it to be able to catch anything other than 6″ wigglers so many people get discouraged and go elsewhere. I normally fish a longer rod on this stream as I’m often using spey casts and throwing big mends for downstream presentations but I wanted to try out the new rod so off I went.

I paired the rod with a St George Jr purchased from another forum member and it fit like they were made for each other. A great combination IMO. I fished upstream with a #16 CDC & Elk with a mylar body, sort of like an EHC but with a collar of CDC rather than a palmered hackle. The rod performed great, nice loops and plenty of distance for a 3wt although it’s not something I’d use in the wind. I was able to stretch it out to 45-50′ without a problem and my normal snake-roll>false cast>shoot sequence worked great. The soft flex of the rod enables some nice roll & spey casts. I had practiced on grass so I was used to the slower stroke but where I ran into a problem was hook sets. My normal rod for this stream, a Tom Morgan graphite 8’6″ allows me to be a little sloppy on sets as I can quickly lift a lot of line. I missed the first couple takes with the new rod until I got used to the length/flex in fishing conditions. I ended up catching a bunch of little cutts and a couple nicer ones at 12″ or so.

Turning downstream, I tied on my ‘hot butt’ wet fly leader – flourescent Amnesia butt sections followed by flouro tapered to 5X over 9′. Started out with my latest ‘killing fly’ a Primrose & Partridge with two small green glass beads for a thorax and a little wisp of cream Antron for a tailing shuck. That fly caught so many I had to retire it because almost all the partridge was gone. The rod handles the soft hackle work fine. I later switched to my old faithful Partridge & Green with a peacock thorax and it worked even better with the slightly lighter fly. Oh yeah, that one caught a bunch more…

I’m very happy with my purchase. For about the price of a top of the line Winston/Sage, I got a handmade bamboo rod that a skilled craftsman put in 50 hours of labor to finish. In my opinion the quality/price ratio is very, very high with this stick. Most importantly, I can tell it has built in mojo and fishes like a mofo…

A little later, it looked like this:

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Fly Fishing Photography Video

Just Breathe

June 6, 2011 – 12:50 am

Beautiful day today, perfect fishing weather.  The river had been steady to dropping slightly, the temps were right at 70deg and there was high a overcast sky and only a slight breeze.  I arrived early, about 8:30AM and by the time I hiked to the first run, about 45min later, there were already bugs on the water.  Mayflies rose steadily throughout the day.  There were lots of small Yellow Sally stoneflies in the bushes and a good number of big Goldens started flying later in the afternoon.  I even saw what must have been a Green Drake fly by.  That’s the only mayfly that could have been that big ’cause it was huge.

Today was the first time the fish seemed to be looking up for food.  There were rising fish here and there all day.  Good presentations to prime lies usually brought up a fish.  I caught many small cutts as I worked my way upstream to the spot where I missed the big fish last week.  Not this time…  It rose to a dry and I got him, a nice fat, colorful cutthroat, a quick photo and he was back in his spot under a snag.

I only used two patterns all day, four flies total (two of each).  I fished upstream with a CDC & Elk tied with a body of pearl mylar tinsel.  Coming downstream, I used a pale Yellow & Partridge sofhackle with a glass bead for a thorax.  They really hammered that softhackle.  In one of my favorite runs I caught one of my biggest yet from this little stream.  It slammed the softhackle then rolled out into the current making my little St George Junior sing.  I was shooting video so I didn’t take the time to get a photo of this one but I did get a shot of another smaller but just as pretty fish, the last one of the day.

I was fishing the Tom Morgan 386 today.  Man…  what a sweet rod.  Tom & Gerri build amazing fishing tools that are functional works of art.  It was paired it with a St George Jr since my little Farlows is headed off to Bill Archuleta for repair.  The Hardy reel was a little too small for the reel seat but the 3″ version is a bit too heavy.  I should have a vintage Featherweight soon so that might be the one for this rod.  A couple very interesting reels on on their way to me right now, stay tuned…

Finally, I shot some video today.  I bought the camera to film my daughter’s wrestling matches but I plan on taking it fishing more often.  However, I’ve learned through this first effort that it’s just about impossible to make a good video by yourself especially if you have no clue about the software.  My 13yo son and 16yo daughter don’t yet know that they have just been promoted to camera men, videographer and/or fishing model.  I’ll be the Creative Director – Producer…

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