Happy Birthday, Dad

Fourth Christmas Eve without Dad. I decided to celebrate his birthday in a way I know he'd approve of. Just me, my flyrod, and a long stretch of clear, flowing water. Oh, and a few nice rainbows for good measure. Hope he was able to take a break from whatever he's doing on the other side to see them tail-dancing across the water. Love you, Dad!

 

Another Successful Black Fishday

The Governor may have ordered us to avoid Thanksgiving gatherings to reduce the spread of Covid-19, but luckily he didn't order outdoor recreation closed down as he did earlier in the year (I think we would have become conscientious objectors if that had happened). In the great outdoors social distancing was of no concern as we had a mile and a half of stream to ourselves. 

Tom and I met at the Big Ditch to see if we could repeat the magic of last year, this time with Brad and his dad Jeff joining us. My drive was in sunshine until entering ice fog the last few miles, but Tom and the others (driving in separate vehicles for separate households) had fog and icy roads their whole drive, a typical indicator of good things to come. And that indicator held true yet again.

With good roads I arrived before Tom and the others, and like the good brother I am, immediately headed to the stream to get a head start on the fishing where I quickly found a bright 17-inch bow swinging a black bead-head bugger (the fly and method that found the most fish today).

Tom and the others soon arrived and we began working our way upstream searching for more. And the same as last year, we found a good number of large, feisty rainbows.  

Brad and Jeff had been lagging behind (not necessarily a bad thing since the fish Tom caught above was found in water I had already fished through), but it's always nice to be fishing fresh water. So we set them up in a run where we found several fish last year, Tom gave some instruction on how to swing through the run, then we headed upstream to some fresh water of our own. We shortly heard some excited shouting coming up to us from downstream and said it sounds like they found one. Sure enough, Jeff had swung up a nice rainbow (the refs threw a flag on the picture for holding, but Jeff looked so happy I just had to photoshop the penalty out of the pic and post it).

A happy face

Just like last year, we found fish scattered all along the way. Tom and I each caught several over 20".

Tom had the largest at just under 23" (escaped before a photo could be taken, but here is another nice one he found).

We also found quite a few "little guys" in the 15 to 18 inch range. All healthy strong fish, many long and acrobatic runs. The black bugger swung was largely the ticket, although Tom also found several nymphing a jig-head October caddis. Another successful Black Fishday in the books!

If Tom had my wicked fish catching skills, he would have had a picture of his 23-incher...

Golden, But Not the Trout, and Stream #142

Rick and his daughter Sarah made a quick overnight backpack trip to the Chelan-Sawtooth mountains to look for gold. Not the trout, but the annual display of color by the larch trees found in a narrow habitat range in the North Cascades in Washington. 

This deciduous conifer turns bright yellow in early fall putting on a beautiful show if early snows don't make trails and camping unpleasant, if not impassible. The weather cooperated this year and gifted us two mild, beautiful days for the trip. 

This was primarily a daddy-daughter photography trip, but since we were camping at an alpine lake with trout, the trusty Fenwick pack rod from my days as a Boy Scout forty years ago had to come along with the cast-a-bubble. We arrived to the lake in early afternoon with a bit of a breeze putting a chop on the lake. 

After camp was set up, Sarah saw a couple fish jumping as she was down at the lake taking pictures. I was already getting my rod ready to see if we could add a fish to our dinner menu. I started with the trusty brown hackle yellow (which I recently learned is actually called "the professor"). The fish were no longer jumping, and none were visible, so I started blind casting. About the third cast, there was a big splash behind the bubble and a fish was on. Surprisingly stout for a fish in a lake at 7200 feet, I got it right in front of me where it splashed and twisted its way off the hook. In the range of 13" or 14" that would have made a nice complement to dinner. Working my way along the shore, I had a few more strikes, but nothing hooked. Switched to a yellow wooly bugger and promptly caught this beautiful 12-inch cutthroat, that became a tasty dinner cooked in foil on the coals a few minutes later.

Not spectacular action in the few minutes that I fished, but I'd forgotten how much fun it is to fish in beautiful locations like these high lakes. After a beautiful morning taking photos, we packed up and headed back to the trailhead, where exhausted as I was, I found enough energy to add stream #142 to my tally, jumping out of the car for a few minutes to pick up a little rainbow before turning for home.

Definitely going to try to spend some more time in the mountains next summer. Photos and fish, a good combination!

Smoked fishing...

With the air having cleared to merely "unhealthy" levels and with a Friday off after a couple weeks of long hours at work (or is it at home? at home work?), I gave the WhatToDo meter a spin and as expected, it told me to...

So I did!

I arrived at my favorite local stream just as the sun was beginning to vaguely appear as a dim orange ball shining (kind of...) through the smoke. The water was low, and with the big floods last winter having scoured the stream, there were a lot of wide, shallow riffles over flat gravel that were barren in the low water and some areas that would normally hold fish left high and dry. Started with the psycho, and even with the magic fly, things were slower than normal and the average size was much smaller than my last visit in June.

Seeing shucks from October caddis all over the rocks, I remembered a previous morning visit at this time of year when the fishing was similarly slow. The October caddis hatch seems to be the one time of year the psycho magic wanes on this stream. So I put on a stimulator and got a lot more interest, though my hooking ratio went from what seemed like 90% to 10%. I don't know if they are fast, I'm slow, or if the fly is just too big for many of their small mouths. But there was much more action and the size tended to be a little better.

Found fish under grass by the banks, in the pocket water, everywhere they are supposed to be. Still, not nearly the numbers as in June. Fishing dry, it was fun to watch a few of these nicer ones rise slowly to the fly.

All in all a great morning. About 30 or 40 to hand and a lot more to the fly. The air may have been unhealthy, but the fishing was definitely healthy!

Utah Trout Time

Tuesday in Logan Canyon 

The best part of having a child attending Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah is that it provides an excuse to come fishing the wonderful Utah streams the week before classes start each August.  This is Brian's last year at BYU so I may have to start coming to visit nieces before their classes start in future years.

Tuesday, Brian & I headed to Logan to fish one of our favorites, the Logan River.  We've found the Bear River Cutthroat there previously (one of the four sub-species of Cutthroat trout in Utah).  Last year was a very late and cold spring and when we went the water temp was 44 degrees and the fish were sluggish and insect life was missing in action as well.  (See post from that trip at:  Dads and Sons )

This year was definitely better!  And we didn't have to do battle with wind and rain from thunderstorms.  Brian and I each landed a nice cutt in the first few holes.  I was fishing a Renegade and Brian had on a Chernobyl (foam) hopper.  Fish seemed quite happy to take a taste of either one.

First hole, first fish

However, as the day wore on we noticed a rather obnoxious pattern in the fish--they would come up ever so slowly and gently, turn downstream, and then gently eat the fly, all the while drifting with the current and facing downstream. This makes good hookset very difficult, especially with lots of brush overhead and on the sides.  We had lots of fish to the fly, fewer on the hook, and fewer still to hand.  Many came off at our feet as we reached to lift them for a nice photo. Frustrating when they are a sizable pretty fish and you didn't get a photo to prove it.

A beautiful Bear River cutthroat

I was able to finish the day with a very nice cutt that was a slab!  Great to fish with Brian and return to a river we love so well.

Wednesday South of Springville

Wednesday morning Brian and I met up with Mike Dover at his home in Springville to check out some new water (to us) that he'd explored the previous year.  Mike was forgiving of our tardiness--we arrived at 8:01 for our 8:00 departure.  We loaded our things in his truck and headed off.

When we arrived we started fishing right in the campground where we had parked.  Unusual, but hey, Mike knows what he's doing.  

A cold clear mountain stream
(with lots of beavers)

Brian with the only tiger trout of the day

My first cutthroat of the day

We continued fishing and found a fish here and there, usually in the deeper protected pockets with overhanging branches or some other type of structure. Beaver dams were plentiful and as we got upstream to where there were fewer willows we were surprised to find beaver dams constructed primarily of rocks with a few willow and other branches used as materials as well.  Brian was carefully casting to the darker green bush on the right bank above the dam and was rewarded with a beautiful cutt.

Our first mostly rock beaver dam

Found him hiding under a bush

Mike found this nice trout in another beaver dam.  Patience and letting the fly slowly drift with the (at times painfully) slow current flowing through the beaver impoundment.  However, that patience was sometimes richly rewarded!

Nice day!

We continued until finally about 3:00, with temperatures hovering in the mid-90's, and having had not food nor water since we started, we began the trudge back to the truck, some three miles distant at this point.  Hot, thirsty, tired, but exceptionally satisfied we trekked back, opened the truck to find our snacks and water.  And more water.  And another bottle of warm water.  We were soon heading home with memories of another wonderful place where we spent some quality time with family and Utah trout.  And Brian should now be ready to face the rigors of another semester.

Rob's best of the day

Mike takes the measure of the monster before releasing

Happy Brian with Mike the Master in the background

Gold in Them Thar Hills! (Golden Trout, that is!)

Well, it's been a while since the O.G. Merrill Boy Blogger has posted.  Finally I have something worthy of posting.

Golden Trout!!

After several fruitless hikes to apparently sterile lakes, I took my good luck charm (Elisabeth) with me.  After a rather strenuous hike, we got to the suspect lake.  There are not many lakes in Washington State with Golden Trout in them.  I was 0 for 4 until this point.

It was beautiful and sunny - not exactly ideal conditions to be casting a dry fly into gin clear waters.  Especially with my casting skill level.

After spooking a few fish with some splashy casts, I convinced this little beauty to come up and sip an Elk Hair Caddis off the surface.  A quick photo op and a gentle release and this guy was back into the clean and clear waters.  There is a reason the scientific name of Golden Trout is Oncorhynchus aguabonita.  Aguabonita is Spanish for "Pretty Water".  This lake fits the bill.  

One thing I love about trout.  They almost always live in beautiful places.  Granted, we've caught our share standing on a culvert or in some hideously ugly places (Sorry, Moses Lake).  But trout love pretty places.

And fortunately, so do Elisabeth and I!

A Hopper of a Good Day

At the end of a day of fishing foam hoppers, this is what you like to see:

A well-loved hopper

Teeth marks all over the foam show that it spent time in the mouth of many fish, and so it was today. The most amazing day of hopper fishing I think I have ever had.

It started with a text from Tom and Rob Thursday night with pictures of a couple fish they'd caught that day. Friday was scheduled off for me, but I was planning on working some overtime. The text immediately started me thinking about an alternate plan.

My sweet wife readily agreed with my What-to-Do spinner, so I was up at 4:15 am the next morning on my way to the stream. 

In contrast to last week, it was only 50°F when I arrived and there were no other cars present. A perfect morning. Fished the Morrish hopper, pink body, all day, with the occasional switch to a bugger in some of the deeper runs. Up until the early afternoon, it was a decent day on this stream. About six fish to hand, all on the hopper, the largest a fat 18 or 19-inch rainbow, and a couple nice ones lost. I saw my hopper disappear into the mouth of one in the 20-ish range, but the hook didn't stick.

Then something happened and the next hour was crazy. Huge rainbows started attacking the hopper with reckless abandon from their hiding places under the grassy bank. 

No need for the hopper to be floating right in the grass. If it was within a foot of the clump of grass on the bank, a fish would dart out, its back out of the water, and pounce on the fly. Over and over and over.

In a 150 yard stretch of bank, I had I think ten fish, eight of them 20 inches and outrageously fat. 

The magic bank

It was so silly I lost count, but I have those I took the pics of plus the one that ran a circle around me and broke off plus the one that broke off when I was trying to get the fly unhooked from the net plus the one that got off when I was trying to net it plus the one I left with a fly in its mouth when I popped too hard on the hook set when it exploded on the fly (amazingly only happened once). You get the picture of how crazy it was. 

I fished a little more after that amazing hour, found a few more smallish fish, and decided to call it a day. A hopper of a good day!

 

An Amaya-zing Day

Today was a return to my happy place, The Creek, but for the first time with Amaya, who married our son Brian last year.  You may remember Amaya from when I went along in 2018 on their fishing date, the first time she'd been fishing since childhood and the first time ever fishing with an artificial fly.

(See:  http://fishingwiththemerrillboys.blogspot.com/2018/08/along-for-fishing-date-at-9000-feet.html?m=0 

Monday, August 27, 2018 Along for a fishing date at 9,000 feet)

We chose a stretch of the creek where a fire burned through a few years ago and had removed much of the surrounding (and overhanging) brush so it was a little more open, at least in some places.  I dropped my fly in where I was getting ready to step in to start, and was promptly rewarded with an average rainbow who immediately attacked the Renegade I'd tied on to start.  Good omen.

There were still some burnt tree remnants overhanging where we stepped into the creek so Brian and I fished the first few yards until we got to where Amaya could cast without hitting those trees. We each had a fish before it was Amaya's turn.  Within the first few casts she had a fish to the fly.  However, it was "faster than I ever would have expected" according to her and it was a missed fish.  The first, but definitely not the last of the day--for any of us!

Since we take turns casting, changing after each catches a fish, it was definitely in my and Brian's interest for Amaya to successfully hook and land one so we could get back to fishing, so we did all we could to help her get into the rhythm.  She did land her first one pretty quickly--still in the first hole where she started, and Brian and I each managed to find fish and get it back to Amaya for a repeat performance, which she executed admirably well.

So it went through the afternoon, back and forth between us, enjoying the beautiful stream and the beautiful fish.  Avoiding the stinging nettle with our arms and tree branches with our flies.  Taking the occasional extra casts when one of us snagged up forward and had to be in the "penalty box" while the others executed the "power play" until we got to the point of hookup and released the snagged fly and resumed our "turn".  

Occasionally, when the grass was overhanging or encroaching and there was less than a foot of water even available, Amaya would say, "I think that's too narrow for me to cast the fly.  You go ahead."  Music to my ears.  Good reason we love that girl!  Brian and I had quite a few in those tough to cast spots so when we got to a nice open run, our consciences got the best of us and we let Amaya cast first.  She had several come to her fly and finally hooked a nice rainbow.

Our consciences still said we'd caught way too many fish in the "narrow" spaces, so we let her keep fishing.  As she gradually worked her way upstream, casting left to the grassy bank, center in the current, right along the watercress, she kept finding another fish, then another, until finally she had landed eight in that short stretch.

Our consciences eased at this point and Brian and I each cast into the next long quiet stretch and landed several before we got up to where there was a little more current and Amaya could cast more easily. I asked her what time Mary said dinner would be.  Amaya replied that she said 4:30 was dinner time.  A quick look at my watch told me it would be just shy of 5:00 to get home if we left right them.  I said we'd better each catch one more, then head home.

Amaya went first and she promptly hooked and landed another one.  Next was my turn.  Nothing where normally we find several.  Up a little higher near some branches dragging in the I current found one hiding there who nosed out and sipped my fly.  Okay Brian, your turn.  Cast, cast, cast.  Finally dangling it under water to where he can at least see some small ones near the bottom. Nope.

Not to be denied, Brian pushed through the brush to the next run and promptly found his final fish.  NOW we could go.  

Once we got back to the car we had some ice water in our Nalgene bottles that we'd brought with us.  Nice and cool and wet.  Brian commented to Amaya, "Imagine it's this hot and you start and 5:00 in the morning with Tom and finally around noon you get back to the car and there's maybe some warm water you can drink while you drive to another spot to go fishing."  We let Amaya know we like her so well, we even bring ice water for her enjoyment as well as our own.

Finding Triple-Digit Trout

Nope, the title isn't referring to numbers of fish. That would be on my home stream where I have caught triple digit numbers in an evening. Today it was a different stream with larger trout and triple digit was in reference to the air temperature, which was 84°F when we started in the morning and 103°F by the time we finished in the afternoon. With Tom's and my birthday the first two days in August, it will sometimes be a little hot when we get together for our birthday bash.

Hoping to get some teeth marks in the new batch of Morrish hoppers

We arrived early morning to three vehicles where we normally start. No one was in sight, but it was obvious these were fisherman, so we headed to another access and found a few nice fish.

Tom with a nice bow from a shallow but undercut grassy bank

Reaching the end of the most fishable water, we decided to return to the original start point and hope we'd be able to find some fish behind those who had gone out earlier. We did. The fishing wasn't spectacular, but we found enough to keep it interesting. My poor skills rubbed off on Tom today. As he was drifting a bugger, he left it sitting out of the current while looking where to toss his next cast. I saw his indicator go down as he pulled in a little line to get set for the cast and thought it sure looked like he had a fish. A couple seconds later, he looked down, saw the indicator down, and was surprised by the presence of this nice rainbow at the end of his line.

Tom's fish that hooked itself

Tom's good skills also rubbed off on me. I had drifted the hopper past a clump of overhanging grass when Tom called out that there was one following it. I immediately spotted the fish, watched it slowly follow the fly downstream and nose up to it until the fly disappeared from sight. A little lift of the rod and the fight was on with this nice brown. It took a Tom-level of patience and calmness to not pull the fly away too early. 

This guy was hiding under the little grass clump right above my head in the picture

Talking to a couple guys we ran into who had been there the day before, they said there had been a group fishing it all week. With the high temps and that much pressure in the previous days, we were happy to find the fish that we did in the triple-digits. Another successful birthday bash for Rick and Tom.