admin

“NERVOUS WATER, 9:30, 45 FEET!!!!!” I’m standing at the bow on a beautiful section of flats with a grassy, dark bottom.   Low angle light has this flat lander struggling to see anything.  Then, Alejandro directs me off the poling tower and his hawk-eyed son, Tommy, frantically points to a spot in the distance.   All I can think is: what on EARTH are they pointing at?? So let’s backup a bit…

The shuttle ride South was a long 5 hours from Cancun to the sleepy fishing village of Xcalak. Levels of excitement were high, and our arrival to the legendary Xflats was accompanied by hooting and hollering with a few “road sodas” splashing around. Two dogs, Bambi and Joey, greet us first and the reality of 7 nights and 6 days in paradise slowly settles into all of us. The Xflats immediately feels like home, and in a sense, we are really staying at Jesse Colten’s pad: simple but comfortable accommodations, laidback atmosphere and a small staff who very quickly feel like family.  Margaritas are passed out and off we go to get the lay of the land. Jesse never walks out on the dock without a fly rod, and we immediately see activity and even a barracuda lurking on our first glimpse of the water.

I spent time setting up for fishing that afternoon. I decided on 3 rods: 2 Opal 10 wt. single hand series with Scientific Anglers Amplitude Tropical Titan tapered floating line.  An 8 wt. Opal single with the Amplitude Infinity Salt tapered float line. My reasoning was as such: one 10 wt. would be dedicated to jacks and tarpon. I used a stretch of straight 40 lb. Seaguar fluorocarbon tippet to ensure maximum strength. I could really set hard and lay the hammer down on these powerful fish. Another 10 wt. had a 9 ft Scientific Anglers Absolute Fluorocarbon Saltwater Tapered 20 lb. leader to which I attached a 3-foot section of 16 lb. Scientific Angler Absolute tippet material. This was my Excalibur. This was my permit rod. In my mind, I wanted to have full advantage of a rod that could punch the wind. More on that later. And finally, for the bonefish peppered around the flats, the 8 wt. Opal with a Scientific Anglers Fluorocarbon 16 lb. SA tapered leader funneled down to a 12 lb. section of tippet was ideal.

So, before I go on, I need to tell all of you that I have never fished a tropical flat before. I learned most of my casting skills while striper fishing New England flats and shore casting.  My teachers were some of the most well-seasoned, salty Beulah boys on Cape Cod and off Martha’s Vineyard. For those of you who don’t know about striper fishing, it often involves blind casting into the full moon to nocturnal striper.  You have plenty of time to get pretty good at handling a 10 wt. Spent many summers with James Shaughnessy, the owner of Beulah, at his operation in Baja catching roosters and jacks in deeper waters. Calling Colorado my home waters, and trout fishing my way through the Rockies is how I honed my fly fishing skills. Hope that was an adequate disclaimer?

So here we go, day 1 of 3. I am just going to go ahead and admit, that these were what I referred to as “education days.” Cycled through 2 guides and their partners and really got a sense of what exactly they were looking for. “Nervous” water is not something that is easy to spot. When a pack of jacks or roosters arrive in Baja, it is explosive. Fins up, dark shadows. Can we use the word splashy?? Nervous water is subtle. As a fish (or pack of fish) cruises the flats, they displace water like a shark just cruising around for a easy meal. This displacement creates abnormalities on the surface, mainly in the form of subtle changes in the angles of the surface ripples. If you ever seen someone slowly wade into the flats, you can see that the surface ripples behind them change. Now try spotting these ripples across 180 degrees of water, changing angles of the sun, floating and submerged sargasso, the unbelievable camouflaged nature of your target species and the wind that always seems to be blowing in an inopportune angle. For the untrained eye (**cough** mine), you can imagine how useless I felt when I heard “nervous water” shouted, casting to a fish I couldn’t even lay eyes on.  Additionally relying on my split-second ability to visualize a clock and cast at whatever o’clock my guide is telling me to throw to.  And I also needed to know how to cast 30 feet and not 40 feet.  If a permit sees a fly line, you can be damn sure they’re swimming away.

Jesse Colten said it best to me after feeling slightly defeated the 3^rd day: “This is not easy, but you will get your eyes adjusted. And a good attitude and faith that you will connect are what really matter.”

Day 4 starts with a beautiful sunrise and an amazing stalking experience to tailing permit with guide, Kissi, who maintains that the best way to get a permit to eat is on foot. They stay feeding and you get close enough to make the perfect shot count. Slowly approaching on foot, ducked down and quiet, the elusiveness of permit became much clearer as I present that tiny crab to a set of fish whose direction of feeding is only given away only by the positioning of their dorsal fins and tail above water. Let me be VERY clear: you can do everything right. These permit just vanish into the flats and refuse what seems to be a perfect presentation.  Shot after shot, time after time, the slow turn away or disappearance of these fickle creatures becomes customary.   Be it cruisers by the boat I can now suddenly spot or feeding fish, they just don’t want what I have to give. But somehow my vision is there, and now it feels like only a matter of time.

The next day more shots at the elusive permit. We suddenly spot a large pack of jacks with an older and experienced guide, Nato. Swapping rods has now become a smooth operation with my fishing partner Scott Petersen, a permit whisperer in his own right.   I find a 10 wt. rigged up with a black and purple beauty of a fly tied by Tim Sheran at Vineyard Vise in my hand and BOOM!!! That sound of the reel sizzle that we all dream of. Jacks are, in my opinion, one of the most exciting fish to catch on a fly rod. Aggressive eats, insanely long runs and just pure brute force. The 10 wt. gets bent and the smiles and celebrations start up as I begin to slowly recover what seems to be a football field’s length of backing. The jack comes in, and the cold cervezas are taken out of the cooler.  Then the realization that this was not a typical jack crevalle, but a horse-eyed jack! This species is not generally a resident of the flats and comes into shallow water for an easy meal. And, according to Jesse, was a lodge record for that species as they generally stay slightly offshore. I really needed that win.

Day 6… So, as you may have gathered by now, the number of fish in the boat on my part was minimal. Shots at tarpon and brief hookups, smaller jacks, pesky, small snapper that always seemed to eat my crab as a pack of feeding permit approached. The shots at permit were what I dreamt of at night. The strange obsession these fish create was something I hadn’t anticipated at all. Get on the boat and the guide asks what you want to do and the first thing out of your mouth becomes: “PERMIT, VAMANOS!” And the guides on day 6? Pio and his brother Reuben, aka. Los Hermanos Locos. Now let me start by saying, that the eyes on these boys became apparent immediately! We are firing line at permit on a one in every 20-minute pace. On the boat. Off the boat. The day is running like a machine, and let’s just say we all start having a feeling. Scott happens to be one of the more experienced permit anglers on the trip, and we have 8 eyes on the lookout at all times for these sneaky fish!  I fire off a wind-assisted 80 plus foot hero cast to a monster 30 lb. permit, and we all brace for impact. Refused! 3 tailing 20 lbers after a brief stalk and cast. Vanish without a trace. The cruisers just won’t cooperate. But at this point, you are TOTALLY used to this! So I get the bow for the last stint on the last day. We are meant to be back at the lodge at 4 PM and it is now 3:45 and we are 40 minutes out. Overtime. But Los Hermanos Locos simply don’t give up.

We enter a shallower area with sargasso galore. The fly I have on is too heavy and as Pio throws me a crab straight off his hat, Reuben announces a feeding school to our 11 o’clock moving away. Pio poles hard as I frantically attach the crab and bite the tag end off with my teeth. And just in time. The permit turn and start swimming directly towards the boat in a V-formation. Needless to say the wind is blowing directly at me because… well that’s what wind does. But I have the fish in my view, they are milling, and I lay out a perfect cast with my Opal rod leading them by 5 or so feet. One slowwwwwwwww strip and their body language changes. The feeding schools will compete for food, and this is EXACTLY what is happening. 2 slightly faster strips and there is a wake behind the crab. I know immediately that this is it. The eat was not so subtle, a quick strip set and I’m in. Permit aren’t speed demons in comparison to jacks, but wow… they just don’t want to come anywhere near a boat. Multiple runs and some delicate work on 16 lb. tippet and it is in the net!

Now I’m not exactly the emotional type. But let me tell you: when you just spent 6 plus days trying to accomplish what some would describe to be an improbable, borderline impossible task?? It feels euphoric. The whole boat erupted, and it almost seemed like we high fived until we all got tennis elbow. Hands shaking, legs trembling, I picked this beautiful creature of the flats up, and the smile plus the sweat-stained cap say it all. In overtime, on what really was the last cast of the trip, I achieved my dream.

Everyone knew something special had happened as we arrived more than an hour late to the dock. Jesse and a small gang came running down and the excitement was palpable. All smiles, Bluetooth speaker pumping out some Jerry Garcia courtesy of deadhead Scott. Beers and tequila with Los Hermanos Locos at the lodge. Just a feeling of peace and relaxation. And I will never forget what Jesse said as I came out of the boat: “I knew today was the day. Your attitude and refusal to give up caught you that fish.” And I fully agree. The permit was painted on the wall of Xflats lodge, and I joined a group of anglers that faced innumerable variables to catch what had become, and is now, a fish that will be a part of my dreams forever.

 

It’s a Saturday afternoon in late July and I’m leaving Maupin, OR to head back to Bend after a great Women for Wild Fish event.  My phone pings from the passenger seat. I glance over and see a text come through from one of my close friends, Taylor Geraths. He’s the owner of Taylormade Outfitters, a premier guide service in Central Oregon.  I open the text, “There are enough Steelhead in to make it worthwhile. When do you have time to go?” As any angler can attest, the prospect of fishing with great friends will always pique your interest. Within the next 10 minutes, I started figuring out how to sneak out of work for a day, along with all the logistics of getting myself back down to Maupin in 72 hours.

A few texts came through with photos of some beautiful steelhead Taylor’s clients landed on their most recent trip, along with pictures of the devastation left in the wake of the recent wildfires. My heart started racing at the prospect of catching my first steelhead. Simultaneously, the sadness of seeing our beloved river ravaged by fire was sobering. I guess I had to experience this all for myself. The draw of these magnificent fish of 10,000 casts and the witnessing landscape forever changed.

 

We added another awesome crew member to the trip, Bruce Berry. Taylor and Bruce have a long history, over 20 years of fishing and friendship. It was all coming together nicely. Taylor and I would meet Bruce at Deschutes Angler Fly Shop in Maupin and we’d put in at Mack’s for a 20+ river mile float to the mouth of the Deschutes. Up until this point, Bruce and I had only been in touch over the phone, talking fishing, Beulah rods, and how we’d have to get a group together and hit the river. You know when you meet someone for the first time and it feels like you’ve been friends forever? That is how it is with Bruce. We were telling jokes, sharing stories and our mutual excitement for some time in the wild. The boat was loaded up, rods assembled and the three of us cruised down the river in Taylor’s beautiful wooden drift boat.

The setting sun cast shadows on the canyon hillsides, making it difficult to tell the difference between where the fires raged and where another day was simply coming to an end. A faint smell of smoke lingered on the air, combined with the fresh, cool breeze coming off the water. Caddis hatches swirled around us and the sound of sporadic trout rising had my head on a swivel. I looked over at Taylor and he basically gave me the “we’re not here for trout, we’re here for steel” look and I tried to keep my excitement to myself. Let’s face it: most of us are still pretty damn excited when we hear that distinct sound of fish eating on the surface. I thought it was my drug of choice at this point. I was in for a big surprise.

 

Taylor rows over to the side of the river, sets anchor, and we lace up our wading boots. Bruce hands me a Beulah Platinum 7 weight Spey set up and we begin making our way through a maze of burnt blackberry brambles and six inches of ash. It was otherworldly. In some spots, you could see a salvaged grouping of green grass blades springing up. Others were so blackened, they looked like they could just disintegrate if the wind picked up in the slightest.

I fish a lot but the steelhead and two-handed or Spey style casting is very new to me. I acknowledge I have a ton to learn and, in all honesty, I think that is what keeps me so addicted.  Fly fishing provides an opportunity to challenge yourself and continually be learning. I know I can’t ever master it (well, unless I was Bruce and can throw line with the least amount of effort or Taylor and you can read water so well, you might as well be a fish finder) because a lot of the variables are out of our control.

Taylor takes the rod from me and makes a few casts to refresh me on my off-shoulder Snap “C”. It was his fourth or fifth cast and he feels a tug, turns to me with eyes as wide as saucers and proclaims, “There are fish in here.” He hands me the rod and says, “Jenny, we’re burning daylight. Get after it.” I grab the rod and start making a few casts.

 

The wind picks up and Bruce steps in to offer me some coaching on my Snap “C”. Taylor heads downstream to check out a lower pool and I feel a slight tug on the end of my line, the one that every angler hopes for with each step/cast/step. The next thing I know, my reel is spinning and line is hauling down river. A million thoughts run through my mind I remember the fifty times that Taylor has told me over our friendship to NOT SET THE HOOK! I heed his advice and come back to reality: I’ve hooked my first steelhead! Bruce gives me guidance on how to play the fish, trying not to be too over-bearing and I’m holding on for dear life to the rod. Next thing I know, the fish is gone and I’m left with shaking knees, not knowing what the heck just happened.

I hang my head in disappointment in myself- what could I have done better? Did I put too much tension on the line? Did I not turn the fish the right direction? I reminded myself that I have so much to learn and that I was fortunate to even connect with a fish that early in the trip, let alone hook one at all. By this time, the sun had set, we had about another 10 minutes or so of light before we need to reel up, float, find and set up camp.

 

“One more cast, guys…okay?” I holler at Bruce and Taylor. They gave me the nod of approval and I walked a few more feet downriver, threw out a cast and watched the line slowly swing towards the bank into the glassy water. I paused, waiting for that same sensation of that subtle pull. Nothing. Knowing we had to set up camp, I slowly turned my reel a few times, simultaneously taking a step or two slowly towards the bank and hoping that a willing fish would be right at the end of my line. I exhale, accepting that we had another day of fishing ahead of us. Suddenly, I feel that grab, grab and then WHAPPP! I’m hooked up again! Still shaking from the first fish, I yell, “Guys! Guys! GUYSSSSSS!”

 

Bruce comes up and guides me up river, giving Taylor some room to help land the fish. It jumps and we get a good look at it. “Dude, it’s a donkey!” Tay yells. This fuels my excitement which in turn, makes me hold my breath, filled with determination to bring this fish to hand. I watch the rod bend, the reel scream and I’m praying that this moment will all come together. The next thing I know, Taylor is trying to get a handle on this beast with only a sliver of light left. I exhale. The fight was over and WE landed it, on a fly that Taylor had tied that afternoon.

 

I walk down to Taylor, barely able to utter words, tears start welling in my eyes from sheer joy and thankfulness for the experience. I look down at this beautiful chrome hen- this miraculous fish who has swam through treacherous conditions and thousands of miles- and it all clicks. Now I understand why “Steelheaders” are complete junkies. Feeling that grab and landing that fish will permanently be etched into my memory.

I hold the fish upstream and let the current run over her until she starts shaking her tail and disappears into the depths of the run. Turning to Taylor and Bruce, I give them both huge hugs of appreciation for their guidance. There is absolutely no way I would have been able to land that fish without either of them. I will eternally be grateful for their coaching and selflessness in that moment. They both could have been fishing. Instead, they allowed me first crack at this run, stood by my side to help, and celebrated like mad when it all came together.

 

When I was able to get myself together enough to walk, we reeled up and made our way back to the boat to find camp and settle in for the night. As we navigated towards the boat through the ash-covered trail, I knew I was forever changed by this experience- not only for the incredible privilege of connecting with this magnificent fish but for the friendships that were even more tightly bonded by that moment. There is no doubt in my mind some of the best people around are anglers and I was fortunate to have these two amazing guys in my corner.

That evening, we sat around in our camp chairs, dirty and exhausted, eating a minimalist dinner of salami, string cheese and Doritos, washing it all down with a cocktail in celebration. I’m sure you could see the perma-grin on my face from a mile away. In that moment, there was no other place I would have rather been than on that river, with those friends, hoping to experience more river magic bright and early the next morning.

 

Story by Jenny O’Brien

For more information on guided Deschutes trips. visit https://taylormadeoutfitters.com/