Monthly Archives: December 2011

Fly Fishing

2011 Looking backwards…

December 29, 2011 – 3:38 pm

In 2010, I gave myself an explicit set of goals to guide my fly fishing during the year.  I didn’t perform so well against the standard I set to say the least…  Perhaps in reaction to that failure, I didn’t post a new set of fishing goals for 2011.  I just sort of carried on with the 2011 goals floating around in the back of my mind but without talking or posting about them very much.  The one exception was the goal to fish 52 days a year or an average of one day per week.  This one wasn’t about the actual days, rather as a catalyst to roll out of bed on those days that might appear marginal when looking at Internet forecasts, etc.  Sometimes, those can be the best fishing days of all as the river will be uncrowded due to everyone else sleeping in…

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.

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Fly Fishing Photography

Happy Holidays

December 27, 2011 – 1:55 pm

My tradition the last couple years has been to avoid the crowd on the river during the run up to Christmas but to make sure I get to the river on New Year’s day to get the angling year started.  It’s usually cold as hell on 01/01 and if it’s not cold then it is surely raining and windy.  I figure that if I can make that little sacrifice of personal fishing misery, the spirits that guide the rolls of the fly fishing dice might just tip them my way every now and then later in the year…

Not sure if that plan will play out this season.  Family obligations and some particularly nasty weather patterns are shaping up to hit around New Year’s Day.  If possible, I’ll get out there just to throw a couple casts and call it ‘good’ but I’m playing it by ear at this point.

Unusual for me, I actually did some pre-Xmas fishing this season.  My daughter caught a nasty cold and had to pull out of a two-day wrestling tournament for which I had secured vacation time.  Since the office was slow due to the holiday, I decided to go ahead and use the days for a little winter steelhead fishing.  The first day I worked through a well-known run on the Skykomish, my closest steelhead river.  Given the extremely dry December (in a La Nina year?), the levels were very low.  I was using my normal winter outfit, Guideline Le Cie 13789 spey rod, Rio Skagit Flight shooting head and 10′ T-11/14 sink tip.  However, due to the low water, after losing a couple flies, I switched to a lighter Rio MOW tip that was 5′ floating/5′ sink tip which had my fly ticking the rocks every so often but not snagging the gaps in the sunken boulders.

Looking upstream to a set of rapids that makes this a natural resting point for salmon/steelhead.  Note the dead Chum salmon in the right foreground.

My usual fishing method for this run is a variant on the traditional cast>swing>step down>cast… pattern employed on salmon & steelhead rivers all over the world.  If there is no one fishing behind me, I’ll make two casts per spot.  The pattern is cast>swing>cast>step down>swing.  The difference being that on the second cast, I step down to the next stance right as the fly starts its swing. This gets the fly a little deeper while putting me into position to cover the next bit of water.  If I’m casting consistently, it also puts the fly in front of a fish twice.

Oh yeah… the underwater rocks in this section of the Sky’ are basketball-beachball sized and slicker than goose-shit as they are covered with a combination of fine sediment and algae.  Three casts in to the run, as I’m stepped down through a precarious bit of wading, I feel the tell-tale tug of a fish.  I reached toward the fish to give him a little slack to turn then when I felt pressure again, I set hard to the bank and immediately got the solid run of a well-hooked fish.  I also slipped off the rock I was standing on and went up to my chest in the water.  Fighting the fish and climbing to more secure footing was a little too exciting but I managed to get myself set to land the fish.  After a couple runs, I worked the fish to me until only the sinktip and tippet were outside the rod tip.  It appeared to an average sized hatchery steelhead of 5-6 pounds or so.  I was fully planning on giving it the ‘stone shampoo’ and taking it home for dinner when I felt what all fly fishermen dread, the sudden loss of line tension.  Either through my poor fish handling skills or bad luck, the barbless hook slipped and the fish glided slowly back out into the river.  I wanted to dive in after the damn thing…

Glutton for punishment, I drove up to the Sauk River the following day.  I love the Sauk…  It is just a beautiful river basin surrounded by snow covered Cascade peaks, really an amazing place.  Too bad there are no steelhead in it any more.  The river no longer gets hatchery plants and the very depressed wild run would be later in the season.  With that in mind, I was targeting “Dollies” or Dolly Varden (which are really Bull Trout in this river) with a lighter spey rod, the Guideline Le Cie 13778.

I fished a couple of the better known spots downstream from the Suiattle confluence with no luck but the weather was mild and with the scenery, it was still very enjoyable fishing.  Moving to a lesser known spot I stumbled across in my ramblings, I managed to hook up with what felt like a decent fish but similar to the previous day, it came unbuttoned before I could land it.  I didn’t see this one but based on the river, season and bulldogging, non-aerial fight, I’m pretty sure it was a bull trout.

Two days, two hook-ups, no fish but good fishing is good enough…

 

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Fly Fishing Fly Patterns

PATTERN – Bourbon Prawn

December 25, 2011 – 8:14 pm

I’ve never caught a wild, native winter steelhead, only hatchery fish for me so far. My hope is that I change that fact this season with a fish from one of the coastal rivers of the Olympic Peninsula.  What would make that experience even better would be to catch that fish on a ‘classic-inspired’ pattern of my own design. So here’s one of the initial prototypes for that fly.

I have been reading a lot of Roderick Haig-Brown’s writing over the last couple seasons so the goal was to tie something that he or his British Columbia contempories would recognize as a ‘killing fly’ for PNW steelhead. Another strong influence in the pattern was the work of a fellow known as ‘whiskeyjin’ over on the Speypages fly-tying forum, especially the use of a synthetic underwing and shrimpy profile.

Given the influences noted above, my Southern-bred predilection for a particular libation and the initial version’s coloration, I’ve named it the Bourbon Prawn…

Here is a link to a full step-by-step set of tying instructions:

Bourbon Prawn Step-By-Step

Original Version

Dark Purple Variant:

Natural Ringneck Pheasant variant

 

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Fly Fishing Photography

December…

December 19, 2011 – 5:08 pm

A December river is dark and cold, though not so cold as it will be, and full running before the frosts of January and February cut down the flow from the hills.  December on the coast has dark, wet days when it is easy to be up at dawn and almost natural to be out at dusk…  -Roderick Haig-Brown, A River Never Sleeps

In another section of the December chapter, RHB notes that November is the end of the season for the fly fisherman when many will be tempted to lay down their rods and tie flies or otherwise stay away from the river.  This was certainly the case for me as I did no fishing at all in November.  I did, however, true to form, tie a lot of flies…  He later notes that December is actually the beginning of the fishing season, corresponding with the arrival of winter steelhead.  In my local rivers the hatchery steelhead start showing in the coastal rivers around Thanksgiving and probably peak in December before the low flows and heavy angling pressure put them off the bite even more than normal due to their hatchery origins.  Given the kid’s wrestling schedule, other than the odd impromptu run to the Skykomish, it looks like my winter steelheading will be limited to a few trips for wild fish later in the season.

This past weekend was a rare no-wrestling weekend that corresponded with unseasonably warm temps and sunny skies.  Instead of swinging for steelhead, I took advantage of the pleasant conditions to do some hiking on a smaller stream.  I took along the Smithwick 8′ 4wt “wet fly rod” and a few softhackles.  I wasn’t really fishing so much as purging my lungs and spirit of dehumidified, heater-scrubbed office air.  No fish, of course, but otherwise a very nice 3 hours.

 

People who have read this blog before will note a few changes.  In anticipation of the new year, I have updated the presentation template.  I have also added a gear review page.  In January, I’ll be adding two more topic-centric pages: fly patterns and videos.

Happy Holidays!

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Fly Fishing Gear Reviews Video

REVIEW – Guideline LeCie 12’6″ 6/7 light two-hander

December 7, 2011 – 3:22 pm

Preface, just so you know who you’re dealing with: I’m not a very good steelhead fisherman being self taught over the last several seasons. I’ve made a half-assed sort of effort getting out on local rivers as much as possible but success was about what you’d expect – minimal… Casting was fine, I’m no great spey caster but I can flop it out to a reasonable fishing distance. I think I just didn’t (still don’t) know how to fish worth a damn and anything good that happened was probably by accident. It’s hard to tell what works and what doesn’t when there are so few fish to be found.

After a lot of experimentation with rods, I found one last year that seemed to ‘click’ for me, a Guideline LeCie 13’7″ 8/9. It just felt right from the first couple casts, probably all in my head but fishing is a confidence game. So when I decided to get a lighter summer rod, I went looking for the smaller 12’6″ 6/7 LeCie. It’s a beautiful rod to my eye, more of a modern, spartan Scandinavian vibe than rods like custom Meiser’s or even production Sage’s. The rod has a down-locking skeleton reel seat and pretty nice cork although nothing like the beautiful grips you’ll find on a Meiser or Burkheimer. Being a ‘scandi’ rod, the rear handle is fairly short compared to other spey rods but I think I actually prefer the short bottom grip as I only use the thumb and first two fingers anyway. I know that other people have differing views on this aspect of the rod. The blank is hard to describe, at first glance, it appears to be almost black but in the light it has a very slight blue/green tint. It has alignment markers and the other little things you’d expect on a high-end rod. Guide wraps are clean and neat in clear or maybe translucent blue(?) with a couple gold accent threads in the mid-line over the guide foot.  The guides are Recoil single-footer rather than snake guides.  I prefer the aesthetics of conventional snake guides but the increased durability of the Recoils is a nice feature.

 

Based on the limited selection of spey rods (and many single handed rods) I have cast, I would rate the 12’6″ LeCie as medium fast with a definite leaning toward the fast side. This is on a scale of a Loomis Metolius 4/5 and an old Sage VT-Something on the slow side to a Sage ‘Deathstar’ TCX 7126 on the fast side. Last year I did a side-by-side between the Deathstar and the LeCie 13’7″ 8/9 and my impression was that the Sage was definitely stiffer across the blank. I feel that the action on the 12’6″ Lecie 6/7 is pretty consistent with it’s bigger siblings – fast recovery, a little ‘tippy’ but not so fast that even a semi-proficient spey caster like myself can feel the rod flex deep into the blank with a good cast. As you would expect, a strong emphasis on the bottom hand pull with a high stop will be rewarded. The rod has a very different feel from something like a Meiser classic/MKS, Deer Creek, etc. Granted, a lot of the above impression will be line and caster dependent. Also – my 6/7 is a 4-piece model while my longer 8/9 is the older 3-piece version.

My primary purpose for the rod was to be summer-run fish with smaller flies so I have been using an Airflo Compact Scandi in 330gr. This is the higher end of the 20-22gram (309-340gr) recommendation on the Guideline website. Based on the line weights, it becomes apparent that this is really a 5 weight rod in conventional U.S. AFTMA type line weight standards, maybe even a heavy 4wt compared to other top US rodmaker’s recommended grain weights.  For example, Burkheimer’s 6126 has a range of 420-480gr and Bob Meiser’s 1265 has a scandi head range of 350-400gr.

For terminal tackle, I looped on a 10′ intermediate poly leader and another 5′ of tippet. In the grass field by the house, distances of 70-80′ were easy with snake rolls and switch casts. I could stretch it out to 90-100′ with some effort but the pile of leader at the end of the cast wasn’t so pretty, however, that says more about the caster than the rod. In real fishing conditions, distance for me is definitely less but not a barrier to fishing effectiveness. I paired the rod with a 3 3/4″ Hardy Bougle and a .24 Monic coated gelspun running line. The Bougle seems just about perfect for the rod in both size and aesthetics.

Last summer, in order to give my steelheading success rate a boost, I engaged Jim Kerr for a solo instructional/fishing day. I told him that I was just as interested in learning to fish as catching fish but he wisely laughed that off with a joke. We discussed my preferences/goals and I let him know that my primary interest was in swinging flies with the two-hander. After driving to check out the fishing pressure of a couple spots, he asked if I’d be willing to forgo the float and hike into some less-pressured spots that are good for swinging flies. Of course I said “Hell yeah!”. I get the impression that this is something he reserves for clients with a reasonable level of fitness and a strong predilection toward swinging flies.  Author’s note – I have nothing against nymphing, beads or anything else. I just want to get halfway good at swinging before I take on technical nymphing. Plus, I like to tie and fish pretty flies…

The river was about 60-80′ across in most spots with a high and very bushy bank tight to the edge of the water. Most casts ended up being to seams along faster deeper water on the far bank, about 65-70′ so shooting roughly two rod lengths of line although in some places I was fishing with only the head out of the rod. It would have been extremely difficult to fish these runs with a single-handed fly rod. Jim commented that light spey rods were real game changers in these tight, low-water conditions.

 

The LeCie seemed just about perfect to me for these conditions. Other than the occasional flubbed anchor, the far bank was never really a problem. The length was great for line control but wasn’t so long that I was in the overhanging branches and brush except when landing a fish near the bank. The rod had plenty of backbone for putting the wood to the smaller summer-run fish of 6-10lbs that we were targeting but able to protect the light tippet we were using from my inept fish-handling. I was fishing the same intermediate 10′ polyleader but with a longer step down section of flouro tippet due to clear, low water and spooky fish. In retrospect, I think the 330gr head might be a bit heavy, especially for a skilled ‘pure’ scandi caster. I was able to easily use sustained-anchor casts like the Snap-T as well as touch-and-go casts like my favorite river-right Snake-roll. I’ll probably give the 300gr head a try but the versatility of the 330gr for this sort of ‘scandit’ approach is handy when max distance isn’t needed and you are faced with awkward stance options.

In the video below, I am shooting 3 loops of running line combined with the 29′ head and 15′ of leader and tippet – so a cast of approximately 80-85′.

I have since tried the rod with a 400gr Skagit Flight and light (T8) MOW tips.  It cast this combo just fine with a medium sized streamer, however, it wasn’t nearly as enjoyable as casting the light scandi head.  A slightly lighter skagit head would have been better but if I had the option of using a different rod for this type of fishing, I would.  I’d probably bump up to the LeCie 12678.  Still, for those odd deep slots you might want to probe when fishing for summer runs, A Skagit head and a couple of tips would be worth carrying along.

On one trip, I even tried two-hand overhead casting.  I was fishing with a skater and was on a wide-open bar with a nice slot a looong way away close to the far bank.  Single-speyed the line into the air then did a controlled back and forward cast.  By slowing down the forward cast I was able to get a very tight loop and pretty close to a 100’ cast.  Not a tactic I’ll use often on the rivers I fish but I might take this rod to the beach sometime with an appropriately weighted Rio Outbound line and throw bombs for Coho salmon…

In conclusion, it’s a very nice rod that works well on small/medium rivers which I would recommend to people in the market for a summer-run stick. I plan to use it on the Ronde, Deschutes and Wenatchee as well. If big wind is an issue, something that will throw a heavier line might be a better option. I don’t think it’s significantly better/worse than the other high-end options from the other rod-makers but it does have a slightly different ‘feel’ for lack of a better term. Pragmatically, I think they can be found for significantly less money. I bought mine via eBay using the “Make Offer” option, which was accepted for what I thought to be a good price, about 2/3rds of what I would have paid for a new Sage TCX. Warranty service could be a risk but it seems like Guideline’s renewed presence in the US with the (much more expensive) Reaction series may have alleviated that issue.

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