Solstice Celebration (wtihout Rob)

My Friday off fell nearly adjacent to the summer solstice, which of course meant it was time to fish until dark. With Rob off in Peru fishing at the equivalent of the top of Mt. Rainier, I found an old friend, Trevor Larson, to accompany me. He had not fly-fished in years, and is one of the few who actually followed through and called me on an offer to take him sometime.

We left in the evening, after Trevor had finished looking in peoples' mouths and I had completed nearly a full day of honey-dos, helpful when you are going to be gone until long after dark. We climbed the steep road through the rolling wheat fields to the astounding elevation of 1,660 feet (take that, Rob!), where we found a beautiful and familiar stream. I had both my 3-weights rigged and ready with the CGPPN -what else to use? Me with a size 12 and 16, Trevor with a size 14; I thought it wise not to give a newbie two flies, that's asking for trouble.

I slipped into the water, and had a couple fish to hand in the time it took Trevor to follow down the rocks and make it over to me. Yup, I love this place. With a little coaching, he soon was getting reasonable dead drifts, handling the slack in the line as it came towards him on the upstream casts, and finding fish like this one, his first of the day.

Trevor's first trout after a long hiatus from fly-fishing

As usual, the upstream pace was excruciatingly slow, because there were so many fish. I'd want to move up to the next run, but how could you when you were still having a fish nearly every cast? The trout were even prettier than I remembered in the past, many with deep red color. 

Beautifully colored rainbow

Size was good, probably more than half in the 8" to 11" range, with the assortment of flyers and chesters, and the occasional one pushing 12". As usual, fish were often in the shallow water at the edge of the moving water as well as in fast water lest than a foot deep. We also found lots in the few deeper pools. In one little pool at the side of a fast run, I had two doubles along with maybe 20 fish or more, while Trevor kept pulling them out of the riffle on the other side of the fast water. I told him he couldn't use the excuse that I caught twice as many fish as he did because I didn't let him use two flies!

I finally left that little pool when the fish started getting small, and it was approaching nightfall. There was still some good water upstream to hit. We continued up, finding fish everywhere they were supposed to be, and a few where you wouldn't think they would be. Trevor sat in one little fast riffle and probably caught 20 fish before things slowed down. As it became too dark to see, Trevor climbed out to the path, but I needed just a couple more in a beautiful run we had just reached. With the sunglasses, I couldn't see anything on the water, so I cast blindly, and found two more nice ones stripping the indicator in, then stumbled to shore through the now black water which hid all the rocks underneath. Walking back to the car, we both had big smiles. It took us 2 1/2 hours to fish through a quarter mile of stream, and between us we probably found 150 fish. How could you not have a big smile! Happy summer solstice!

Another of many beautiful fish

Trout at 13,060 feet

Beautiful stream with incredible backdrop!

Mary and I are on assignment in Peru as humanitarian missionaries for 18 months.  This is our first time living in the southern hemisphere.  Our assignment has taken us past a couple of streams that definitely looked “fishy” but our schedules are usually packed and it isn’t possible to do much beyond our assignments.

However, as luck, fate, inspiration, or star alignment would have it, we returned this week to a place where we have travelled before, passing through a place that definitely looked fishy, but this time we were the ones in charge so could have a little more control of the schedule.  I had prearranged with our driver for a stop at the outlet stream of a high Andean lake (they call them Lagunas) that was said to have trout in it.  Our elevation was  13,060 feet above sea level so my fly casting was much better than normal since there was less air resistance.

Laguna Querococha--elevation 13,060 feet above sea level

I fished in the middle stretch between the highway crossing and the lake outlet.  Click the link below to go to a map showing the location:

This is where I found the trout! :-)

Mary and I were traveling with a video crew who will be doing some filming of the school project we’ve been working on and a formal delivery ceremony scheduled for Thursday in the main town square.  I let our fellow travelers know there would be a little break before we hit the summit of the Andes (tunnel through the top is at 14,816 feet above sea level!) on our trip.  On the road to Huacaybamba (our third trip to the remote province) I stopped this time to fish the river below Laguna Querococha.  We finally weren’t travelling in the dark, or with the Area Welfare Manager who wouldn’t be able to understand why one would stop in the middle of nowhere to throw a hook with some feathers tied on it into a river to try to catch a fish just to let it go again.

I tied on a size 10 Renegade (my favorite go-to fly back home) with a size 16 green Copper John dropper.  First run a fish made a swipe at the Renegade soon after it landed on the water, which I missed.  Reflexes have slowed from lack of use, and maybe altitude had something to do with it.  I know my brothers would say nothing new there.  Anyway finally got the first small rainbow to hand, and as shown it is literally “to hand” but hey, it is my first southern hemisphere trout.  For that matter, I don’t know if any Merrill Boy has landed a trout in the southern hemisphere, so take that Rick and Tom!

First trout from South America on the fly

After the hour of “rest” was up I had brought 17 trout to hand, all rainbows, and fished about 125 yards of stream.  About one-third were on the Renegade and the rest were on the green Copper John.  I broke off the dropper on one nice fish so changed to 3x tippet to avoid a repeat of that.  It isn’t easy to get replacement flies here so I have to be much more careful than usual.  Thankfully the fish weren’t leader-shy. The largest was 26 centimeters (got to love that metric system—makes them sound even bigger!) but it slipped away before I got a photo.  I thought it was awesome that the trout here liked the Renegade.  Glad I brought a few.  Hope I can let a few more fish use them as “chew toys” before we return to the States in 2017.  I think I also set a new family record for highest elevation trout catching.

They loved the green Copper John

We then continued on our journey to Huacaybama, which lies about another 7 hours down the road (very rough dirt road—think Indiana Jones ride at Disney).  We crossed the Marañon River (principal tributary of the Amazon) just before ascending up to Huacaybamba.  A few weeks ago we were in Pucallpa on assignment along the Ucayayli River which joins the Marañon at Nauta to form the Amazon.  In two weeks we will be evaluating a project in Nauta so will be where the Amazon actually becomes the Amazon.  This mission is not only an opportunity for service, but we are getting to see some amazing things.  I hope to wet a fly again here in Peru—maybe in the Amazon for piranha or some other exotic fish.  Today was lots of fun and Mary, our driver, and the videographers were very kind to indulge me.

The coloration was different on every single trout

Huacaybamba is way out and there is very little light pollution so the stars are brilliant.  The sky has been cloudless since we arrived.  Tonight from the Plaza de Armas (main town square) we looked up at the star studded sky and saw the Southern Cross.  Really cool—especially after catching Southern Hemisphere Rainbow Trout, which I’ll refer to from now on as the “Southern Trucha”!

An interesting geologic sight--known as the "Map of Peru". The cleft in the hillside has vegetation that provides a darker shade in contrast to the hillside. Pull out your atlas (or look on Google Maps) and you will see that this does in fact roughly approximate the shape of the country of Peru.   This was on the hillside above the stream where I fished.

Memorial Day at Lenice

Finally downloaded pics from Memorial Day with Tom at Lake Lenice. Weather was nice, a little breezy at times. Water temp wasn't too warm after the recent cooler weather. Started about 11:30 am. Only a couple others on the lake. Fishing was not spectacular, but we found some. Tom had a few dragging a leech, more on chironmids. I had none trolling, and about a half dozen on chironimids. Action was very sporadic, would hit one, then nothing. Moved around quite a bit, finally had a brief spurt of consistent action on chironomids off the reef towards the west end of the lake. Tom headed home about 3:30. I stayed and kicked up to the inlet end where a father an son had been having more action than we had been having. Not much for me until I asked what he had been finding them on. He answered a size 20 chironomid, a couple sizes smaller than I had been using. Tied one of those on the dropper, had a couple takedowns, then things died there. Worked back down to the bay opposite the launch and found a couple. Left about 5 pm. Moving water opens soon. Lakes are OK to fill in the time, but I will be glad to get back to streams.

Moving Water

Visited an old friend with a good friend today. Kirk and I revisited a section of scabland creek that was too low to fish last fall, now recharged over the winter and running at a good level. We hiked through the sagebrush to the edge of the wide coulee through which the creek runs. What a view!

Hoping that springs and the little flow that remains through the summer keep it habitable for trout, we made our way down a break in the cliffs to the edge of a tall bank overlooking a deep hole. Peering into the water for several minutes, we saw nothing. The angle of the sun was perfect and the wind was light, so the view to the bottom was very clear. There were a few weeds that looked like fish with their side to side motion in the current, but no fish of any size were seen. Then, movement, a shadow over a lighter section of the bottom. Yes, definitely a fish. Very good size, maybe 16" plus. There was at least one in the stream. We found a break in the bank well upstream, crossed, then carefully approached from below and tossed our flies up towards where we had seen the fish. No response despite out best attempts. But there would have to be more, and we had confidence we would find some fish today.

A short distance upstream in a likely looking stretch of fast, deep water, Kirk got the first fish to hand, about 4" long. It was a long hike to catch a baby! The next run up, Kirk spotted a nice looking fish in a wide, spring creek like section flowing through weeds. He directed me from his position on the high bank, and I drifted a small black micro leech and psycho trailer several times near where the fish way laying, but it showed no interest. While Kirk moved upstream to find more fish, I switched to a cone head bunny leach without an indicator, tossed across onto the grass on the far bank, pulled it off and started stripping slowly. As the leech came into view, a good-sized fish was following, darting towards the fly, then turning away several times. I stopped the strip and the fish turned towards and away from the fly again, once, twice, and on the third approach the fish stopped right next to the fly. Then I saw the fly disappear. Fish on! After a good fight, he wiggled off while I was bringing him over the weeds to the bank. It was a really nice rainbow, maybe 16" or 17". Continuing upstream, we started finding smaller fish and more numbers. One run would be silly full of fish, the next none or only a couple. Beautiful water, fish in the running water, only an occasional one seen in the spring-creek like flat water.

Kirk manhandling the fish across the top of the water in a beautiful run. There were a ton of fish in this run.

Typical fish from typical water

My big one of the day, 13" or 14" on the leech. The last and biggest of about 10 fish out of this run.

Kirk and a pretty trout

Kirk's monster; can't see it? Here, let me zoom in for you...

Peek-a-boo!

About a mile up, we came to a section that was actively grazed. The creek spreads, flat, not so deep. A few small trout in sections where it is moving, but this would get hot in the summer. No banks, no trees. Dang cows!

The token brook trout. Don't know how they reproduce, I never catch more than one.

But there were a few sections where it moved and deepened a bit more. In one of these spring creek like sections, Kirk got this beautiful 15" bow to come up to his elk hair caddis. Just above in moving water, I caught a nice little guy on an irresistible. Then, the creek started shrinking dramatically. We could see greenery on the cliff side, indicating incoming springs. It was time to turn around, find our way to the top of the cliffs, and head for the car.

Kirk's big rainbow

Nice one on the dry

Two and a half miles back through rough sagebrush, dry grass, and.....snakes! Kirk exploded into the funniest, high-stepping dance after nearly stepping on this little guy, who turned out to be without rattles, just a friendly bull snake.

A rattler look-a-like

Shortly thereafter, we came across another bull snake stretched out on the rocks. Luckily, that was the end of the snakes. Back at the car, with not enough time to stop anywhere else on the way home (we had our float tubes), we headed back to the creek at the bridge, and found it silly full of fish. The channel had returned to the normal entrance on the left side, and we fished side by side catching way more fish than should be in this hole.

Typical bridge fish

In the midst of the abundance of small fish, Kirk was surprised by this monster that slowly rose in full view and took his dry. Great restraint on Kirk's part to keep from yanking it out of the mouth of this guy!

Beautiful fish!

Another pic of the same fish

We finally decided to move up when several casts didn't bring a hit, but really, we were just looking to fish more water. We could have caught a lot more. In the next run up, we found only a couple, until I put a sinker on and pulled ten out of the very top of the run, the largest being this 13-incher.

First of ten out of the next little hole up, after putting on a sinker to get down in the fast water

Nice 13-inch rainbow

Trying to long-arm him, I realized the fatal flaw of long-arming is always the fact that your hand looks so big when you do it. So I came up with an invention idea that every fisherman will need to have - the long-arm stick. It will have a scaled down, lifelike prosthetic hand, made from grippy silicone rubber, that you screw onto the long-arm stick and clamp gently onto the fish before you stretch it out in front of you for the larger-than-life (literally) shot. The hand would be available in multiple sizes, depending on how much help the fisherman needed to get decent sized fish. The half-size hand makes your fish look twice as big; the quarter size hand can turn a 6-inch minnow into a 24-inch beast (make sure to take the hook out first). Time for a Kickstarter campaign...

The long-arm

Well, all good things must come to an end, and so did this day. We continued up to the riffle above the flat water and only found a fish or two, surprisingly, given all the fish below. I just had to drop in below the bridge before we left, and quickly had 20 to hand, mostly 6 to 9 inches, but a couple 11 to 12 inches, while Kirk returned to the bridge hole and continued catching where we had left off. Kirk motioned that it was time to go, but I just had to make a few more casts into the run directly under the bridge. Casting over the barbed wire that spans the stream there, I landed three more, then hooked number 24, a nice one about 13". Instead of running down under the barbed wire like the few before him, the acrobatic fish jumped up and through the barbed wire, ran back upstream, wedged the line in a barb, then ran to the side and broke off. I guess it was a sign from the fishing gods that Kirk was going to leave me if I made another cast. That was OK. Ten hours of hiking and fishing beautiful moving water, new and old, makes for a pretty awesome day!

The acrobatic fish jumped between the two wires!

Good Day at Beehive

Nope.  Not the classic beehive hairdo of the 60's or the Beehive State of Utah (which I hope to put some damage on in July), but Beehive Lake up out of Wenatchee.

Sorry for no photos.  I forgot the camera on the nightstand.  That's OK.  The fish just got 50% larger as a result!

I arrived at the lake around 5:00 pm.  It was fairly crowded with people, but only a few people were out in float tubes or boats.  I started with a chironomid set up, had a take down on the first cast and then nothing for about 15 minutes.  My ADD kicked in at that point, so I switched to a black bugger behind a clear camo line.  I immediately started catching fish.  Fortunately with more action that the bait fishermen from the bank!

After kicking around and catching them on the bugger, I switched back to the chironomids.  I LIKE watching the bobber go down!  Still no action on the chironomid.  I think the recently planted guys still didn't know what bugs look like, since the green strike indicator got more action than anything else!

After another 15-20 minutes of no chironomid action, I went back to the bugger and continued regular consistent action.  I left around 7 having landed around 30 and having missed a bunch more on short strikes.  All were small in the 7-12 inch range.  Wait, without a camera.... in the 12-18 inch range!  ;)  The action was fast on the bugger and non-existent on chironomids.

I'll have to get back once the fish learn what natural food looks like.  

Monster Lost...

A quick trip after work to a lake north of Pasco where Kirk and I had found a bunch of triploids around this time last year. It was 7 pm by the time we hiked in, just about the time when the rainbows started rising in the arm of the lake the previous year. Calm, warm, mostly overcast, perfect except the bows decided to be somewhere else this year. One other angler in a float tube said the water temp was 70°F, and the one trout he had caught was deep at the other end of the lake. Oh well, there were bass cruising the shallows; some very, very large. Out with the spinning rod and a perch rapala. Lesson for the day - there is a reason those bass fisherman on TV use 20 lb or 30 lb test line...

About the third spot I stopped along the shore, I pushed my way through the reeds to the edge of the water, cast to the left about 5 ft from shore. The line caught a little in the reeds, so the rapala sat there floating for a moment while I pulled the line free from the end of a reed. I reeled the line tight and immediately felt resistance, then really good resistance that started moving towards me. At first I thought stick or weeds, then I started to feel the back and forth of the fish swimming. I had a fish on! A pretty solid one at that as it continued to swim straight towards me. It came right in front of me about 12 ft out and passed by in its full glory. It was a huge largemouth! We had seen one earlier cruising that Kirk said was probably about 18" and 3 lbs. This was probably 6" longer than that and much, much fatter. After giving me the full-on side view, it decided it was hooked, turned, and ran steadily back where it came from. With 6 lb test that was several years old, I couldn't do much to try to hold it back. I also remembered this was a small spool on the old Mitchell 303, so I was starting to see the bottom of the spool when the fish stopped. The line was against the reeds as the behemoth had headed into some short reeds almost on the shore. Nothing to do but hop into the thigh deep soft muck adjacent to the reeds and slowly work towards where the fish was sitting, hoping it was still there. Keeping the line tight with my rod in the right hand, hanging onto reeds with the left, I made my way through the muck. I found my line tangled in some reeds, and as I reached down to get the line off, the fish splashed nearby into some more reeds a few feet away. Still on. Off the first reeds, on to the second tangle. Pulled the line off of those, but it was now pointed straight into another small clump nearby. A couple steps towards them, another big splash, and off went the fish, leaving the rapala on the reeds. Wow! Might not be a trout, but pretty cool. It could be fun to actually try and catch those things. With new, 20 lb test line. And a decent reel. And maybe a little skill rather than blind luck.

We fished a little more, not too concerned about the occasional distant rumble of thunder until we climbed out from the lake to where we could see the southern sky and a scary-looking wall of black. Kirk said we should be good, as storms generally move SW to NE. I told him I watched the weather the previous night, and the weather pattern had the storms tracking straight S to N, or directly towards us. We had 1 1/2 miles back to the car, so maybe we could beat it. About halfway to the car, multiple bolts flashed across the southern horizon. Then Kirk curled up in a ball on the trail and started crying softly. OK, he didn't actually do that, but he is seriously terrified of lightning. Seriously. Like he probably goes and climbs in his kids' bed with them when a storm comes through so they can comfort him. The storm appeared to me to be tracking a little east, but that wasn't consolation for Kirk. As the bolts got closer and the thunder louder, I gave him the keys so he could run ahead the last 1/4 mile to get to the car. The storm did track just a couple miles to the east, or it would have been right over us at the end. A fun evening, a monster lost, and some weather excitement to go along with it. Oh, and a new fishing strategy learned - if you are out with Kirk and he is crowding you a little, just pull out your phone, set off the flash, point to a nearby cloud and say, "Did you see that bolt?" You will then have the hole all to yourself...

Spring breakin (new fish record)

Amy took all the kids to St.George for their spring break.  Since I'm still relatively new to my job, I"m trying to limit my days off, so I stayed home.  Not a lot on my agenda but first order of business is fishing.
I decided to break in the fishing year with a trip to Diamond Fork Thursday night.  I get to my spot around 5:30 without another person in sight.  I decide to go with the green Psycho Prince Nymph and a red beadhead WD40 dropper.  I hit the first seam I see and get a bite but my rusty reflexes are a little too late and I miss the the strike.  That is the only action I will see for the rest of the evening, it was discouraging.
I decided on a change of venue for Friday, so I head to the Provo.  I drive to the spot just below the camp ground before the Deer Creek dam.  I'm greeted with 5 cars in the parking lot but I decide to head down anyway.  I make my way to a favorite deep run with a BWO emerger and an olive scud dropper.  I know this run has fish in it but they do not like what I'm offering.  I notice a fairly bigger fish rising and just sipping bugs off the surface.  I change my setup to a BWO dry fly and move my way over to the rising fish.  On the second cast I land this fighter for my first fish of the year:

First fish of the year.

I continued to clean out the run with 3 more fish, smaller than the first one.  I decide to call it a night.

I decided to head back to Diamond Fork on Saturday, knowing the Provo will be a popular place with the nicer weather in the forecast.  I start with the same set up as a couple of nights ago (Psycho Prince Nymph and WD40).  No action in the first 30mins.  I snag my line and break off my current setup.  I decide to take the opportunity and change it up.  I put on a Crystal Flashback Scud and a beadhead Prince Nymph.  I decide to double back and try my previous holes I just fished.  First cast in and my yellow strike indicator dives down fast....fish on.  A small 12 inch brown, first fish landed on Diamond Fork this year.  I hit the same run and almost the exact same fish landed.  I move up to the next run and land 3 more, roughly the same size.  Then as I'm about to move on my strike indicator disappears quickly and to my surprise, I land this meaty brown:

Healthy Diamond Fork brown

I love the contrast in colors between the two fish from different rivers.  I fished most of the day and land around 15 (Diamond Fork record) on the same setup, they went back and forth on each fly, it was a great day.