THE ART AND SCIENCE OF RELEASE

I was in that Na-Na land commonly referred to as airplane sleep pretty much from Denver to Anchorage.  If you’re able to sleep on planes it’s that state  of semi-unconsciousness between being drowsily awake and asleep. It’s where you wonder whose snoring and then realize it’s you. Anyway, we landed so I got up and wandered into the terminal, flowed with the crowd to baggage claim, retrieved my rolling duffel bag, walked outside and called the shuttle to my hotel. It was all good.

The next morning I was back at the airport for the PenAir flight to King Salmon where my friend Jon Kent was meeting me with his Cessna to fly me back to Painter Creek Lodge. Jon and his wife, Patty, have spent the last two seasons  putting the lodge back together after a couple bears mistook it for a drive-in diner toward the end  winter and pretty much tore it up. I’m here to help out a little and hang out a lot for the next three weeks. Of course, my ulterior motive is fishing and once I’m set up in the old guide shack Jon suggests we run upriver a ways to catch some arctic char. The suggestion is a little more urgent that usual since the weather report is calling for wind and heavy rain coming from the southeast.

 The river is loaded with char, some tail end of the king salmon spawners,  chums, and sockeyes which wouldn’t be much out of the ordinary, but is miraculous to those of us who been hanging out in this drainage off a for more than a decade.  But more about that later.

For right now we are pretty much catching one char after another on Jon’s world renowned Wonder Fly which is essentially an unweighted orange wooly bugger that you wake across the water’s surface until it’s attacked by a char. And it is an attack—you see the bow wave coming from three or four feet away and try to hold off on your set-up until the fish is all over the fly. It’s a lot of fight once you hook up, in fact after you’ve caught and released five or six char you begin to wonder if maybe that tennis elbow you thought you’d overcome is back again.

 So, this where Jon teaches me a quick release revelation this plentiful run of char taught him. First off, make sure you flatten the barb on the Wonder Fly then when the char strikes and you hook up and feel that the weight of the fish and the fight is about average throw a small loop of slack into your fly line. Unless the char is rocketing downstream  it will throw the fly and the release is complete.          

For me this trip is going  to be a lot about letting go or should I say the art of release. Stay tuned. I’ll be blogging every chance the satellite connection allows me to.

TALE OF TWO RIVERS - RIVER 2

So, I’m back on my home water dealing with all the demons associated with the trico hatch, its spinner fall, aging eyesight and having just returned from a trip where all I fished were dry flies and none of them were smaller than a size 12. Add in that it’s July 3 and all the jittery nervousness that goes along with fishing on the day before a major holiday. But I’ve just spotted the first rising trout of the day after waiting and watching the river for close to an hour. During that hour it took every bit of my willpower to not just cast helter-skelter to the water. I’ve learned that on this river you just have to wait for the first rising trout and it requires the same kind of discipline and resolve that keeps good big game hunters from fidgeting on a stand. In my case it also takes a solid faith that the trico hatch and spinner fall will happen today. It may be heavy or it may be sparse, but it will happen.

I start off with a size 22 trico dun imitation and get a few refusal rises which tell me either the trout will be picky today or somehow my imitation isn’t presenting in a natural fashion. And that’s a drag. I fuss with that, change fly patterns and still the trout don’t like what I’m showing them and never do until the first of the spent spinners arrive splayed out on the water’s surface. I like get on the spinner fall fast so I knot a 15-inch long section of 6X to the bend of the hook on the trico dun imitation and tie my favorite size 22 trico spent spinner imitation to it. All the while more and more trout are rising.

I’m figuring I hit pay dirt when I get the first strike, but I’ve actually foul-hooked the trout on the trailing spent spinner imitation. I try to convince myself that I was just late on the strike, but I know the trout might very well have been going for a natural and just happened to be in way of my trailer when I set up. Whatever the reason, it doesn’t count. But I do manage to land and release three or four legitimately hooked trout before the spinner fall trails off. I have been so involved with the fishing that I don’t even notice that most of the other fly fishers have left the river. They are probably frustrated because the spinner fall was pretty short-lived today or they’re getting antsy about the pre-July 4 traffic that is bound to be chugging its way up the pass toward the mountains.

Fortunately, the PMD’s aren’t worried about traffic on the pass and start pouring out of the riffles. I live for this. I have most of the river to myself and the trout are rising to a different hatch. I also have the secret fly patterns. I know this for a fact unless something has drastically changed over the past 10 or 15 years. I also know that unlike the tricos you don’t have to fish to rising trout during this PMD hatch. If you can spot a fish in a feeding lane and put a bleached blond Elk Hair addis over it or a more specific match such as a PMD floating emerger pattern you’ll be into trout.

And it’s true. I’m thigh deep in the river talking to myself. I’d be singing but I might put the trout down. 

TALE OF TWO RIVERS - RIVER 1

I’ve only ever hit the salmon fly hatch right on the money once. Or I should say twice as of a couple of weeks ago. And by saying “hit the hatch right on the money” I mean all that I needed was a dry fly imitation.

I know several rivers in southern Colorado where the giant Pteronarcys californica is abundant, but the trick if you want to fish dry flies is to hold out for a low water year. And that’s not easy to do because as a rule southwestern Colorado receives more snow than any other part of the state. But that wasn’t true this year, so I knew this might be my chance.

Naturally, the question is why do you need a low water year? Well you don’t really, unless you want to fish dries. It’s just that in more typical runoff years the high, off-color water limits the number of trout you can pound up on a dry fly. The trout are still there and still engaged in gobbling down salmon flies, but they’re usually hanging close to the banks nailing the nymphs as they migrate toward the shore and climb out of the water where they emerge as adults. The trout may eat the occasional drowned adult or even an adult that ends up on the water’s surface, but it just seems like there is less surface activity.

Most of the low water dry fly action I see, at least where I fish, occurs during the egg laying phase when the adults head back out over the river. Once the trout tune into the event you don’t even have to see the naturals to get strikes. Just fish the dry fly in the softer water up against the willows along the banks. Or drift it through the more gentle riffles or along the soft side of the creases. Believe me; the trout will attack the dry fly with reckless abandon.

All I can say is those are the tactics that worked for me, but then again I’m a newbie at hitting things right when it comes the salmon fly hatch. I should also say that I carried all kinds of fancy salmon fly patterns, but the trout simply wanted an Orange Stimulator and that was it.

Finally, I must add that it wasn’t just the salmon fly hatch this last time. I saw Green drakes, golden stoneflies, little yellow stoneflies, yellow sallies, small blue quills……

I even caught a few trout here and there on a size 12 Adams that probably passed for a drake and might have caught more, but the larger trout were there for the salmon flies. And so was I. 

FOILED AGAIN ON THE RESERVOIR

Just wanted to follow upon the reservoir fishing. I went back again last Thursday and got blown off the water again right when the Chironomids were starting to come off. I did manage one trout on a Pheasant Tail emerger fished very slow with a hand twist retrieve.

I just got word that the salmon fly hatch is on down in the southern part of Colorado. I'm on my way now and there's no wi-fi down there. So you'll get my report on when I get back. I'll be taking notes for sure. And at least it's a change from reservoir fishing.

NEW FLOAT TUBE & TOUGH FISHING

Early morning "flat" water on Spinney Mountain Reservoir. 

Everything went according to plan when I launched my new float tube on Spinney Mountain Reservoir early yesterday morning. The operative word here is “early” because this time of year you can bet that the wind will come up about noon and you’ll want to make your way back to shore. That doesn’t mean that it won’t calm down toward evening, but I usually pack up and head to a nearby river or stream to pass the afternoon hours. If I have any energy toward evening I sometimes head back to the reservoir.

The new float tube is a dream. I can stick the inflated tube in the back of my small pickup truck and be on the water in a matter of minutes when I get to the reservoir. More importantly I’m sitting a lot higher up than I did in my old “donut” float tube which means I’m a lot warmer, it’s easier to cast and I am able to see the fish better.

The fishing was a little bit of a different story. It was a chironomid day and I wished my friend and acknowledged stillwater fly fishing expert, Phil Rowley, was along to teach me how he catches trout that are feeding on these larger midges. I was hoping I’d run into the Callibaetis mayfly hatch which I do understand a little better and for which I have a few productive fly patterns, but apparently that hatch is still a several weeks off.

I thought I might be able to catch a few trout rising to the emerging Chironomids, but that has always been a tough game on Spinney Mountain Reservoir and it was even tougher because not that many trout were rising. However that doesn’t mean they weren’t feeding below the water’s surface.

After a frustrating hour or so I decided to switch over to “suspension” style fly fishing. In the most basic incarnation of the tactic you suspend your fly imitations below a strike indicator, cast it out and wait and hope for a strike. Of course, the science and art of suspension fishing is that you have to figure out which fly patterns to use, how deep to fish them and when to set the hook when a trout “bothers” your flies. My rule of thumb is that I set when the strike indicator goes under with authority or when the trout runs with the fly. If the indicator is just “nervous” I try to hang on and wait for a more authoritative take. That’s about the extent of my suspension fishing knowledge when it comes to stillwater.

The simple fly imitation that worked!

I fooled around trying this fly and that until I remembered a pattern that had worked for me in the early season a number of years ago. It’s nothing more than a Brassie tied on a curved hook with a cream colored thorax with a little mylar thrown into the dubbing mix for good measure.

I nonchalantly cast my two-fly rig out armed with this fly pattern and another gray midge larvae pattern with a tungsten bead for weight and it wasn't long before the indicator went down, stayed down and I set up. The rather large rainbow trout that had taken the fly immediately got airborne to the tune of about four or five feet. When he hit the water after the aerial display he headed straight for me. I was not ready for this and furiously stripped line, but could not keep up. You know the rest of the story. The trout got off and a nearby float tuber commented, “That one sure liked dancing.”

The wind came up shortly thereafter forcing me to head for shore. I couldn't stop thinking that if I’d furiously stripped line and cranked into warp speed on the flippers I might have been able to keep up with that trout……

Float tubers and light water craft head to shore when the wind kicks up on Spinney Mountain Reservoir.

When I got home I checked the weather forecast for Monday. It looks like the wind will be calm in the morning. I’ll give it another try then. And I also took a look at Phil Rowley’s website (http://www.flycraftangling.com/). I’ll for sure be tying some of his chironomid patterns tonight.

RESERVOIRS, THE HIGH COUNTRY & "BLOG-ITIS"

Okay, I’ll admit it. I got a case of “blog-itis” and had to take a break for a while. Anyway, I’m back in the saddle again, so at least for the time being the Lone Angler rides again. I should also admit that I wasn’t sitting at home during my break from writing the blog. I did manage to get out fishing. It was mostly reservoir fly fishing where I waded out from the shore and tried to get a beadhead Chironomid larva imitation in front of these big rainbows and cutthroats that were cruising the shoreline. It’s the kind of sight fishing I like. And I actually caught a few of those big tugboats.

This all came about because here in Colorado we’re in the midst of spring runoff and the rivers and streams are cranking. It looks like it will be at least a few more weeks before things calm down. In the meantime, I’ve been going through my tackle and gearing up for the high country small stream fishing season.

Fran Better's classic fly pattern, "The Usual", modified for possible use on Colorado's high country streams later this season. 

I’m working on putting Fran Better’s “Usual” fly pattern into my high country lineup. I’ve been busy tying a bunch of them and testing the patterns on a nearby creek. The Usual looks like a really easy fly pattern to tie, but the simpler a pattern is and the fewer materials that it uses the more you have to pay attention to details and the properties of the material. I’m still perfecting the Usual into the fly I want for the Colorado high country. I’m using Colorado snowshoe hare for my Usuals which makes for a few extra fly tying challenges, but somehow it just seems like a nice touch to fish a fly tied from native Colorado snowshoe hare.

Other news: With any luck tomorrow will be the maiden voyage of my new float tube. I finally upgraded to a model that keeps most of me out of the water. I can’t believe I was still using the old donut style float tube for all these years! I thought about selling those old “donuts”, but I found out that nowadays it’s hard to even give them away.

I’ll give you a report on how it all goes. I do know the big Chironomids are coming off up on the reservoir. There may even be some Callibaetis mayflies. I hope so.

THE FRYING PAN REPORT

If you’re wondering how my efforts to “lighten my load” (see April 29 post) went on a recent fishing trip to the Frying Pan River here’s the report and my apologies for not getting this post up a little sooner.

Based on past experience I decided that the best way to lighten up for the early spring trip to the “Pan” was to go with small flies (hook sizes 18 and smaller) and light lines. I carried a 4-weight graphite rod and a 4-weight back up rod. The most difficult part of all for me was getting the number of fly boxes down. I did that by reducing the number of copies of each fly pattern I carried while increasing the variety of patterns in my fly boxes. I ended up with two compact fly boxes containing way more flies than I’d ever use. In addition, I stashed one fly box with a few streamers and some larger beadhead nymphs in my truck. My thinking on the beadheads was I could use them for weight if we ended up having to nymph. I don’t know exactly what I was thinking on the streamers since I only had 4-weight rods. Oh, well.

So when I got to the “Pan” and saw it was running high, cold and clear my first thought was that this might be embarrassing. I probably should have thrown in a 6-weight rod for the backup. However, once that initial rush of panic subsided I settled down and started asking myself what was possible with the tackle I did have with me. It didn’t take too long after that to notice a few trout rising to midges in the ribbon of slower moving water along the banks. In fact that and the slow-moving tail outs below the larger pools were the only places they were rising.

I was then able to tell myself I was plenty well equipped to catch those trout, although it would be nice if the wind wasn’t howling down the river. The fishing wasn’t easy that first day, but we worked hard and all of us landed trout. And with water temperatures at 36 degrees the trout we did hook up weren’t inclined to streak out into the heavy main channel water so landing them on a 4-weight rod with a 6X or even a 7X tippet was possible.

That’s pretty much the gist of it. For the rest of the trip I looked for trout in water that suited my tackle and it was all good. We even found a few fish rising to Blue-winged Olives a ways downriver. 

LIGHTENING THE LOAD

Most of the trout I catch on the Frying Pan River will be taken with one of the fly imitations contained in this box--I hope!

I’ll be heading to the Frying Pan River soon and the challenge that I’ve made for myself this year is to reduce the number of fly boxes I carry when I’m fishing. It’s not going to be that easy because I really like tying flies. At least, I’ve fished the Pan for years so I sort of know what I’ll need in terms of fly patterns, but there are lots of variables when you fish the early season. The one thing you can almost always count on this time of year is you’ll be fishing small flies. Anyhow, I’ve made up my mind which fly boxes I’m taking and make no mistake I’ll still have plenty of flies. The question is will I have the right flies? I’ll find out soon.

WHICH FLY TO USE?

Here’s something I didn’t have time to get to when I made the April 17, 2014 post. You may remember that I only used three fly patterns the entire day. Two of those were general purpose nymph imitations (a size 16 Pheasant Tail Soft Hackle and a size 22 Churchill’s Sparkle Wing RS II) that I had good success with considering the conditions. The third was a dry fly that I called Taka’s Emerger. It was wildly effective.

Here’s the dilemma. I was fishing home water that I’m very familiar with and having a ball catching trout. Obviously, the fly imitations I was fishing were effective. Sometimes at the end of the day I wonder should I have tried some other fly patterns just to see what else would work.

It’s so much easier for me to be “experimental” when I’m struggling to catch fish or not catching as many as I think I should be. For all I know the trout might have taken anything I threw at them that day or the flies I fished might have been the only imitations that worked that day under those conditions. I’ll never know.

Maybe the way you take your game to the next level is by having the discipline to say to yourself, “Okay, I know this fly pattern works. I wonder what else would work.” And then you change flies and your education begins.

BY THE WAY, THE "OLIVE" HATCH IS ON

I knew the “olives” would probably come off later in the day, but I got to the river early anyhow. It’s always been hard for me to wait around and besides when I get to the river early I almost always have it pretty much to myself for a few hours. Yesterday it wasn’t even “pretty much to myself.” I was the first one there. It’s an eerie feeling to be tooling up the canyon to a popular catch and release area and realize you’re the only one there. It’s only happened to me once or twice before over the 25 years I’ve fished and guided that stretch of the river.

I caught myself humming the theme music to the old Twilight Zone TV show hosted by Rod Serling, but then I reminded myself that I was simply the first fisherman to arrive that morning. There would, of course, be more. However, I did take a few extra minutes to check out some upstream sections of river, but I had already pretty much decided where I was going to fish. By the time I dawdled back to it the trout were out in the feeding lanes. It was all subsurface stuff, but who cares. I’d nymph until the hatch. I rigged up a size 16 Pheasant Tail Soft Hackle and a size 22 Churchill’s Sparkle Wing RS II.

I was betting on the size 22 RS-II point fly, but the when I quit nymphing for a lunch break the count for trout caught and released was about equal for each fly. Like most early spring mornings the nymphing was slow, but steady. If you fish methodically and patiently to trout you spot you’ll hook up.

There were just a few trout rising when I got back to fishing after lunch. Most of those first few risers were pretty eager and if you saw a rise and made a decent presentation you caught the trout. There is a funny aspect to this early season Blue-winged Olive hatch. You see a riseform and the trout will take a dry fly imitation, but you seldom see an actual dun sitting on the water’s surface. I’ve wondered if the trout are primarily taking emergers or if my old man eyes just can’t see the naturals on the water’s surface. No matter what, I’m always happy when they take the single dry fly imitation. It’s my absolute favorite way to fish a hatch---no trailing nymph or emerger imitation required; just the single dry fly and you catch your share. The hatch tapered off after a couple of hours so I headed downstream to see what was happening at a favorite bend pool. Trout were rising all over it. Same thing, too, the obvious rise with no visible naturals on the surface.

This particular pool is considerably more challenging to fish mostly because you need to read some pretty complicated water to get a decent drift. Add a predictable early spring afternoon wind and a not so predictable and sudden afternoon snowstorm and you have a great Blue-wing Olive day. The fishing was glorious. I fished until the snowstorm forced me off the river. I kept thinking I should shoot a few “snowy day fishing” photos for my blog post, but I just couldn’t stop casting to those risers. I’m hoping you’ll understand and would do the same. However, I offer you some images taken earlier that the day before the snowstorm.

In case you’re wondering---I caught every trout on a Taka’s Emerger (see my post for 11/29/2013).