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Uncategorized

Nervous Water

March 31, 2022 By admin 3 Comments

“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 3rd 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.

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Steelhead Magic

August 22, 2018 By admin 1 Comment

 

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/

 

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Christmas Island

November 9, 2017 By Nick Rowell 2 Comments

 

This June, before summer steelhead season really got going I was able to go on my first saltwater trip. Lucky for me this trip happened to be to The Ikari House on Christmas Island. Even luckier, I went there with my girlfriend, Kelsey and her dad, Dave. Dave has been several times and was kind enough to take Kelsey and I along to one of his favorite fly fishing destinations. Over the years I’ve heard countless, epic tales of the fishing on Christmas Island. So, to say I was excited, was a bit of an understatement!

Being my first saltwater trip, packing and prep seemed crucial.  Having friends that’ve been on every trip known to man, and a good relationship with a kick ass rod company (Beulah, obviously) made this part much less stressful than anticipated. I took 5 rods for kelsey and I, about 10 dozen flies, extra fly lines, a bunch of tippets and leaders, clothing and lots of sunscreen. All the rods were Beulah Opals (8, 9, 10, and 11 weights, plus the 9/10 two hander) matched up with either a Hatch or Nautilus reel. Of the 5 rods we took, we really ended up only using 3 of them. Kelsey, a first time single hand caster chose the 8 weight as her weapon of choice. It ended up being perfect… lightweight enough for her to cast all day, but enough backbone to fight bonefish, a big trigger, and a pretty much constant wind. I ended up using the 9 weight for my bonefish/trigger/milkfish rod, and always had the 11 weight close by for Giant Trevally. The rods kicked ass to say the least!

 

I could easily go on and on about the fishing, the lodge, the people, the guides, etc…. I think instead I will keep it short and sweet, and let the pictures do the talking. I’ve attached a small photo gallery with captions, below. All photos were taken by Kelsey Kilhefner, Dave Kilhefner, or myself. Hope you enjoy the photos… I’ll be heading back to Ikari House as soon as possible, can’t wait!

dropping in on Christmas Island
Heading out in the morning from the beach at Ikari House
Dave fishing a typical “pancake” flat in the lagoon

Christmas Island bonefish
Kelsey and Pete hunting bonefish on the edge of a flat
Not a bad way to get around! Photo: Dave Kilhefner

Opals ready for action
Kelsey and Dave enjoy the shade on the boat during lunch
Getting worked by a milkfish while a black tern investigates

Milkfish… these things pull hard!
Opal and a milkfish motor
Opal 8 weight korked on a big trigger!

Kelsey and Pete with the catch of the week
Pete ready to tail my first GT
Saying goodbye to a fish I’ll never forget!

11 Weight opal and solid GT
Heading to the Korean Wreck
Average bonefish at the wreck

Swallow tail at the wreck
Camp at the Korean Wreck
Opal 11 weight and Bruce’s baitfish pattern. The GTs couldn’t say no!

GT Double!
There are no words to describe how hard these things pull!

 

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Temptation & Weakness, Long Odds.

November 4, 2017 By Mark Martin 2 Comments

It’s a strange year to be a person who swings flies for steelhead around here.  Most strangely, there aren’t really all that many fish at which you’d swing.  I won’t get into it.   If you have any awareness of the inland Northwest steelhead fisheries, you know what’s happening with the upper Columbia and Snake tributaries.

The grim news started coming in this spring, when fish began to trickle over Bonneville.  Record-low counts, then even lower.  The worst was the projected wild-fish return:  about 1,000 native fish to the whole state of Idaho, to split between eleven or so rivers.  In case it’s not obvious, that is AWFUL.  A few years of this in a row could send some of the smaller-river strains on a straight, short path to extinction.

Due to the present reality, I did a lot of thinking this summer.  I conclude it’s time to have conversations about limiting our effects as fishermen, whether fly or spin.  In the interest of putting my money where my mouth is, I came up with the plan to just not fish this fall.  Not that I’m a particularly deadly force, but we know that there can be unintended mortality associated with catch-and-release practices.  I’d never get over it if I hooked a wild fish and unintentionally fought it to exhaustion.

 

a good-looking stack.

 

I almost made it. I sat out all of October, swung up some trout, did other river trips and cut firewood.  When my buddy Ian invited me to float one of our favorite sections of a local river the other day, I broke down.  I decided it was unlikely I’d hang one anyway, and thought I’d make sure by not bringing a sink tip, and just fishing dry.  The water temp had been hovering in the lower 40’s, what could possibly go wrong?

 

He hasn’t yet landed a fish, but he’s still fishing a dry line and classic hair wings. That is STYLE.

 

Ian keeps the faith.

 

It’s an entertaining, though useless, exercise to think at least briefly about what the odds were that we’d hook a single steelhead.  Then, what were the odds that we’d hook two, on dries?  That the one landed would be a native fish?  What were the odds we’d get grabbed in nearly every run we stepped into?  There’s one answer to all these musings: the odds were, inexplicably, 100%.

If there’s a moral to the story, it’s got to be this:  if you truly deep-down don’t want to catch anything, don’t go fishing.

Whoops.  Money’s no longer where my mouth is.  My bad. 

 

Rods: 13’7″ Onyx 7Wt., 12’6″ Platinum 6Wt, 12’4″ Platinum 8Wt, and a couple other randoms.

Lines: AeroHead 510, Scandi 400, and a home-chopped hybrid.

Flies:  a purple Muddler, a foam-backed October Caddis skater, and some freestylers.

Dogs: 4 black ones.

Boat: Juuuust barely big enough.

The Fish:  A zippy little hen with translucent, white-tipped fins.  Perfection in a summer steelhead.

 

Fischer takes a break.

Ian refuels.

Chaos reigns on shore.

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My Little Gem – Terje Bendiksby

September 6, 2017 By admin Leave a Comment

My little gem is The Platinum 3 weight. I have discovered a new way  of  fishing  in the wooden lakes in my neighborhood in Norway. Actually we are fishing at places, I have thought would be impossible to cast a fly. My fishing buddy Truls taught me the technique. All the pines surrounding the lakes make it difficult to cast without losing the fly in a tree branch, even if you try single hand spey.

The 3 weight length of eight feet combined with a line, with 25 feet head makes you put the back cast under the tree branches or roll cast the distance needed. If the wind is right up 40 feet, but usually shorter. The presentation is so delicate that it does not spook the fish. One trout I caught the other day, I stood on and casted from a cliff 15 feet above the water, hiding behind a tree trunk, missed him twice and hooked him on the third strike.

The trouts we catch are usually one pound and up. My friend has the the record with a 6 pounder on the three weight.

While I was in Mexico, I read a post from my fishing friend about the advantage of a short three weight. I asked James about the Platinum three weight. He highly recommended a custom build one. A choice I never will regret. The difference between the three weight and my four weight Platinum is as big as the difference between the four weight and the Opals I use in Baja. I had to adjust my double haul technique to be less aggressive, but I have gained the possibility to fish places I thought was impossible to fish with a fly.

The lakes we are fishing is one hour away by car and then one hour though terrain, were there has been no logging in three hundred years. The ice on the waters melts in the end of May and the fishing season ends September 15th. You may discover two or three different species hatching during the day, but if you are in doubt: Daddy long legs and the the Platinum 3 weight is the winning combination. Try it.

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Spring Break in the Land of Rain

April 11, 2017 By Mark Martin 5 Comments

I’ll admit, I can be somewhat of a Quixotic character at times.  I’m drawn to activities whose point or purpose tips a bit to the side of aesthetic rather than pragmatic.  Most happen outdoors, and are sensuous in nature – the kinds of stuff that feel really good, but are hard to describe.  Like a telemark turn, or greasing a rapid in a drift boat.  Or like a two-handed cast that lays out perfectly…so naturally, I swing flies for steelhead.  I’ve obtained a bunch of soulful Beulah two-handers and industrial-strength reels and other stuff that is destined to handle far fewer fish than any of my other gear.  I tie a lot of flies that don’t really imitate anything in particular, but are a kind of swimming poem.  I spend time thinking about what the steelhead might be thinking about.  And approximately once a year, around when the world’s youth are engaged in elaborate spring-break rituals, I travel to the coast of Washifornegon and spend as many days as I can string together, seeking a bright winter-run fish.

techy water.

I have this friend named James with a similar set of fishing tendencies, who lives on the southern end of Washifornegon, in a region referred to by its inhabitants as Jefferson.  I usually start with him on his home rivers.  For a while I’d been on a break from catching winter steelhead, focusing instead on improving my casting, tailing fish for others, and a little bit of rainforest botany and mycology.  I have to admit I was hoping I’d find a fish or two this time – it just gets tiresome to explain, you know?  – “No, I haven’t caught one in two years.  No, I don’t really mind.  It’s just nice to be on those rivers, on the hunt, immersing yourself in…Never mind.”

Ever step up to a spot and think, I’m going to get one in there?

I’ve always maintained it’s better to be lucky than good.  I think I’m living proof.  Some days, too, if you’re doing it right, before your fly hits the water you count yourself lucky.  If you look around and you’re in the Northwest, steeped in moss-covered forest, next to a dropping, clearing steelhead river, aren’t you fortunate enough already? What more do you truly need? Whether or not I truly need it, sometimes I go asking for it.

Against all statistical odds and probably some karmic ones, I got luckier.  I didn’t manage much for photo documentation of measurable success, but I have some photographic memories to hang on to.  A two-fish day in hammering rain, all by myself in a small inflatable kayak on 6,000 CFS made for a milestone.

How I roll…in the Falcon 1.

A series of 1-for-whatever and 0-for-something days followed that up, but since none of them were witnessed by James or any other living soul, I guess you can decide for yourself whether any of it even happened.  In any case, the south coast of Washifornegon was good to me, and the drag on my favorite reel got some solid exercise.

See-through. A grabby day indeed.

As spring break marched on, I had to follow the open season northward.  In the central Washifornegon coast there’s a place where the steelhead streams are clustered especially thick, and some long stretches of swingy water stay open through the spring.  I went to that place because I’d never been, and it was time for some solo exploration and reflection.  I like adding new rivers to my repertoire.

I found lots of low and clear, which I far prefer to chocolate milk in the trees.  And I also found fish.  I spotted fish but went grabless on a tunnel-like little stream of clear blue water and unfurling lady ferns.  I switched to a larger stream and began to get that funny feeling in well-structured bedrock and boulder runs with broken surfaces…and had grabby days.  The punctuation to my spring break was a fish that crushed a UV black-and-red squid twenty feet above the lip of a tailout.  The tailout led to a couple tenths of a mile of steep, eddy-less whitewater, and thence to a complicated class-V drop.  When this fish headed downstream, things, as one might expect, became epic.  I have no photograph to back up this experience, so let your imagination supply the steelhead, the “fight”, etc.  I’ve never felt so outgunned and thoroughly ass-kicked by a fish.  I’m satisfied to say that I didn’t land it.  To do such a thing would have taken a skilled net guy (which I categorically didn’t have), or fighting to its utter exhaustion the most impressive freshwater native fish I’ve ever seen, let alone hooked.  I hope he found a lovely lady and spawned like the champion he was.

Not a coffee table book sort of photo, but it’s the scene of the crime…who would be foolish enough to hook a giant steelhead here!?!? yeah, me.

This is how you don’t ever expect a fishing trip to end:  reeling up your broken tippet with shaking hands, squelching your way in overtopped waders up to the truck, changing, getting in, and immediately turning it for home.  An hour out from being a rainforest river creature, you’re in the systemic shock of Portland traffic.  By the same time the next day, your’e home, the truck’s unpacked and your laundry’s done.  Did it all really even happen?  Of course it did, but it’s still hard to wrap your head around how lucky you really are to get to live a long-held dream, for a week and a half, every single year.

Spawned-out cutthroat bycatch, on that red prawn fly! fish just eat that thing I guess.

Postscript, James has made this all possible for me several times; with river beta, sensuously satisfying two-handers, couch space, hotel room sharing, swapped photography, good Scotch, truck shuttles, etc, etc.   And for it all I’m duly thankful.   Couldn’t have done it without you.

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Carl’s Cutthroat

February 1, 2017 By Mark Martin 3 Comments

In September, I met Carl and his girlfriend Fredi at the Middle Fork River Expeditions boathouse in Stanley, ID.  They were on the happy side of a 24-hour travel day from his home in Florida.  I gave them an abbreviated introduction to the 6-day float beginning in the morning, and we parted ways for the night with handshakes and admiration of the Sawtooths in the forest fire smoke on the southern sky.  The next we saw each other we were boarding a little Cessna to fly over half the Frank Church Wilderness to the Middle Fork.

We landed, we floated, we fished, we ate, we drank.  I didn’t end up rowing for Carl and Fredi for a few days.  When I did, I noticed that Carl, while just as proficient as any of the other fisherman on our trip (and maybe with a stronger skill set than some),  – well, there’s only one way to put it – he was really laid back.  He was the rare kind of fisherman that’s a pleasure to row for, especially in a place like the Middle Fork:  he could hit every seam and bucket I pointed out, effortlessly manage a perfect drift, and then completely forget about it all to stare up at the otherworldly canyon around him.  He was a thoughtful guy; we talked at length about our lives, on and off the water.

But anyway…I want to highlight a fish that Carl caught just after lunch.  If you’re expecting a big stout slabby cutthroat, well, I’m sorry.  This isn’t one of those stories.  If I lost you by now, that’s cool – you can head back to Facebook or whatever.

We descended a steep riffle into a very steelheady run/pool on a 90-degree right, immediately above the rapid known as Haystack.  (Picture a 100-yard long steep boulder garden with sculpted pinkish-tan granite chunks the size of studio apartments.)  On the outside of the bend above Haystack is a fishy series of exposed and submerged boulders, seldom fished because of their proximity to a long hallway of wrap hazards.  A split-topped boulder begins the lineup of holding water, its upper four feet exposed at most flows.  Its upstream face is flat enough to form a little subsurface pillow…that is big enough to hold a decent trout…and it lies directly in the path of the bubble-line seam coming off a promontory of the left bank…   And so you get the idea: I pointed the spot out, Carl made a perfect cast and a perfect drift, and a trout rose and ate just above the boulder.

 

This was Carl’s fish.  As you can see, it’ll never be in a magazine.  It might hit fourteen inches on a good day, and it’s not exactly a physical specimen of a fish.  If you’re used to looking at pictures of fish that others display on various social media platforms and other interweb whatnots, upon first glance this might be a sad-looking trout.  In fact, I submit that if most of us caught this fish, we’d be immediately kind of unimpressed, if not straight disappointed.  You know:  You’d show him to your buddy, say something like “Not bad, kinda skinny though…” and release him, and get back to trying for your real prize – a fat, brilliant 16 or 17-incher.  Or whatever your ideal looks like.

I’d like to go a little deeper.  If you take a close look at this trout, you can see his belly and flanks are scratched up, scarred and healed.  The bottom lobe of his tail fin’s a little worn.  The bone structure that supports his dorsal fin is pretty well-represented.  His colors are a little muted.  What all this means to me, is that this trout led a pretty damn interesting life.  He was decidedly not the captain of the football team, who did well in college and grad school, and settled comfortably into a nice steady career and a sterile, featureless life in the trout suburbs.  Not a chance.  I’ve been making up narratives for him every now and then for some months – like maybe his natal spawning creek was a super hard place in which to make a living, and he barely made it down to the relative buffet line of the river with his life.  Or maybe he was just not quite big enough to throw his weight around in the creek, and got beat up and marginalized by the 15 and 16-inchers.

Or maybe, life’s just not that easy for any wild fish in any river, and we who would presume to prey, even if temporarily, upon these feisty little bad-asses ought to think that through from time to time; and let it sink into our flyfishing consciousness.  An inordinate amount of things have to go right for a trout to make it to an appreciable dry fly-eating size.

For sure, these are the musings of someone who has been getting into snorkeling more and more during time when he really could be fishing, just to watch trout and sculpins and caddis larvae and the like going about their lives.   On occasion it informs a fly pattern I’m developing, but more often I just like watching the Planet Earth episode that happens beneath river surfaces. Not to get too preachy, but I definitely see a majority of flyfishing happening to fuel ego-driven achievements these days, and a vast minority of it as an extension of someone’s naturalist curiosity about river life.

Which brings me back to my friend Carl.  When he briefly lifted his fish from the water for a photo, I remember saying something like “Damn…he looks a little haggard.”

Carl the tarpon fisherman said “But he’s beautiful.”

 

 

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The End of the Drought, or Steelhead in Idaho

October 18, 2016 By Mark Martin Leave a Comment

It’d been two years since I landed a steelhead.  I know that for a guy who writes a blog partially about fishing for steelhead and lives well within the range of anadromous fish in the Northwest, that seems kind of rugged.  Believe me, for a solid while it was just as rugged as it would seem.  After a while, though, my ego and I had a little chat, whereupon my ego chilled out and let the rest of me enjoy swinging flies with, as we say, “no expectations, but complete confidence”.

My dad makes a trip to Idaho and/or Oregon each fall to swing flies for steelhead.  He’s been hitting the milestones just as slowly as you’d expect, yet steadily as well – first steelhead, first Clearwater fish, etc.  This year we ended up spending a solid week on the Clearwater.  Fish numbers over Lower Granite plus in-river conditions made it seem like a good idea, and on our first night, at one of our favorite runs, he caught this fish:

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Not a giant steelhead, nor even a particularly spirited or wild fish.  But a fish nonetheless.  A side note, is that he was throwing a brand-new AeroHead on a brand-new 13’2” Platinum 7.  Brand new as in, I just peeled the plastic off the cork in the parking spot before we stepped in.  I’ve caught steelhead on two brandy-spanking new Beulah two-handers (both fish from the very first run each rod swung), and now, I enjoy reporting that my dad’s done it as well.

The next day, my friend Ian and I found twin hatchery hens.  It was starting to be really easy to step into runs with no expectations but complete confidence.

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The next day?  No pictures, but Ian and I each hung big, solid fish on dry flies.  It hammered rain, blew, and for the second day in a row, we never saw another fisherman.  I repeat, we were on the Clearwater…where the bejesus was everybody?  Never mind, I don’t care.  Even if we hadn’t been feeling fishy, it would still have been worth it to be up there all by ourselves.

The weekend came.  Early on we found a couple, no fish to hand but… the rain fell, the water rose, the bro-show descended, and the fish disappeared.  Hope faded.

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We ended up unintentionally staying an extra night.  I’ll spare the long story, but you know how it can be:  you have stuff to do, somebody to meet; and it takes longer than planned, and on top of it they’re late.  Not a big deal, but it’s not worth starting the tortuous 3-hour slog back home at nine at night.  I wasn’t looking forward to it anyway, and I think both Dad and I were relieved when we were able to admit to each other that it’d be fine to just sack out in the back of the truck again, hit the Upper Spalding Coffee Grinder Hole in the Wall Grease Bucket run in the morning, and head home at a leisurely, medium pace once the sun started baking the river.

Morning brought the river valley’s first frost, eerily swirling low-down fog, and back to back big, chunky fish for both of us.  Interestingly, Dad fished his first pass through the run without touching a fish.  When I got one behind him, he got back in and found his personal best fish to date.  Not a lot of things in my life seem as much worth doing as when I can be a part of my dad’s excitement over a very big, strong steelhead.  I’ve seldom seen him so elated, and thus, I can’t help but hope that there are always steelhead for him to get elated about.  The “sport” (or whatever you’d call our little subset), and the rivers it plays out on, may be getting pretty thick with people, but I’d recommend anyway taking somebody steelhead fishing that’s new(ish) to it.  Make sure it’s somebody who deserves it, who will take care of it, if you know what I mean.  And that they won’t give your money spots away.  If they stick one, you’ll feel that excitement, vicariously, all over again.  It’s worth it.

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We came home, and Dad flew back to Maine.  If I can get all my firewood set, plus my garlic planted, and the yard and house ready for winter, I’ll be back out again and I’ll write about it.  Meanwhile, know that this is happening on rivers of the Northwest, and make yourself a part of it if you can:

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Humble in the Jungle

August 2, 2016 By Steve Santagati Leave a Comment

My summer months are primarily spent going after striped bass in Maine. I’m unemployed  which means I fish every day. And when you fish every day you will inevitably have sessions when you don’t catch anything. I’m transparent with this fact even when the fat tourist barks out the hackneyed expression: “Catch anything?”

Not catching anything teaches me just as much as catching. I take the time with both the latter and the former to register the “why” and put it in my fish brain. The rules are there are no rules when it comes to fly fishing. Yes, there is etiquette and being responsible with the fish but how you catch them on a fly rod is up to you. IMG_3209

I’m fortunate to run into some humble and confident anglers from time to time. I watch them and share information. Not all of them fly fish either. Am I against trebble hooks? You betcha; they should be outlawed.  Do I recoil at the sight of styrofoam worm containers and trash? Of course. But I judge bait and spin casters one man at a time.

There are some guys out there who are responsible and have taught me a lot that I directly apply to fly fishing.

My point is simple; it’s the humble man who learns the most because his mind is like a parachute; open.  I caught the fish in this picture yon my Beulah 8wt Opel and nautilus No. ten. With 17lb fluorocarbon tippet. I put a swivel on my line so my fly doesn’t twist. This is my biggest this summer; 37″ and weighed about 25 lbs. Yes, he went into my backing. Yes, I’ve lost many fish this summer. Yes, I often go out and don’t catch a thing.  Yes, I’m obsessed with fly fishing.  #catchandrelease

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A Summer Flashback, Episode 2.

April 28, 2016 By Mark Martin Leave a Comment

John and his wife came to the Middle Fork Salmon from Brooklyn.  He was a writer, she was a nurse.  While six days of roughish camping and float dry-fly fishing may not have been squarely in their comfort zones, we were comfortable with each other.  I think there’s an effect whereby having very little in common can lead to some of the best conversation; kind of an inverse of what you’d expect.  Anyway, despite John’s pelagic fishing experience on the Atlantic, neither he nor LuHung had really spent any time with a fly rod.  As is usual, the first day was a learning curve of casting and dead-drifting; and for me, getting a feel for just how gung-ho these guys were – in other words, how badly they wanted to catch trout, and how many they expected to catch.  I did my normal dance between instruction and forming a true interpersonal connection, but there was one thing I couldn’t figure out.  One spot on the record where the needle kept skipping, if you will.  I couldn’t figure out for the life of me if I needed to, or even should, bring up this one thing:  Neither of them seemed to be able to hook a trout.  Out of the literal dozens that came up to eat their flies, each turned and dove for the depths again.  Now, as a guide, this is kind of troubling in a sense – the hooking of a fish is a goal of sorts, a measure of success for most; including the guide.  But did they care?  Were they trying to hide embarrassment at their seeming inability to stick one, and if I brought it up, it’d introduce the kind of awkward that’d change our dynamic for the duration?

In the end, the guide-y guide side of me came through.  I brought it up.  I don’t remember how, but I brought it up.  John looked back and grinned, and said, “We talked about it before we even got on the boat… we don’t need to hook a fish.  We just want to watch ‘em do what they do.  These trout are beautiful.  They’re like nothing we’ve ever seen back East, and we’d almost rather not drag them around too much.”

Fine with me.  Because as it turns out, that attitude meant we could relate to each other.  They’d somehow entered into fly fishing with a mentality that normally takes years to develop (it did for me anyway).   Quite a few  (the horde of brand-name clad, PBR-swilling, fish-counting, big-ego bro’s who seem to be multiplying on every river system in every mountain town) never seem to develop it at all.  John and LuHung were folks who, by default, already knew that there was more to life and self-satisfaction than some quantitative kind of fly fishing success: a notion I totally embrace despite identifying with fly fishing as pretty much my over-arching lifestyle.

But it was still somehow really, really hard to watch them not set the hook on all those fish.

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This one John hooked accidentally. I netted it on purpose though.

 

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And these because I’ve allegedly not posted very many cutthroat photos. Some of the few I was able to get pics of, what with last year’s absurdly high water temps.

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