ap·pre·ci·a·tion

Some Home River Love

Dry line smallmouth

I found a section of river where the bass seems to like top water flies slowly swung down and across and then left to dangle in the current on the hang down - dry line steelhead tactics for smallmouth, less than a mile from my door? - I'll take it.

Coho Jack

We've continued to have low and clear water on the Flat. It occurred to me last night that maybe I should try something smaller and a little less flashy than what I normally use. Awhile back, I had tied up a bunch of comet style flies, based on some Jay Nicholas/Oregon Fly Fishing blog videos. I had an excellent night a few weeks ago with chartreuse and black comet in low light for bass. But I really like blue and black at first light. I tied on a blue and black comet on a size 4 Gammy B10s this morning and hooked up with this little jack. He took it on the hang down right at the end of a deeper hole that sits on the edge a current seam.

Here is the link to the Oregon Fly Fishing Blog Post and Video:
Jay Nicholas’s Blue Chinook Salmon Comet Fly Tying Video

Fall Steel

This rocket ship of a hen crushed my Aquatic Nuisance style Bad Hair Day. Nice hook set and then she took off. Some lighting fast runs and amazing classic acrobatics. After putting a little pressure on her, trying turn her back towards me, she burst into the shallow water and amazingly beached herself right where I normally try to land bigger fish in this run. Snapped a few photos and a got her back into the current. She was pretty exhausted. It was really neat to watch her for a little while under water as I was reviving her in the current. Such amazing looking fish. In the future I think I'm just going to try to tail fish in the current and snap a few photos rather than walking them towards a shallow bank. It's so much better for the fish and just looks neater, plus the photos that I take at the bank usually suck anyways.

End of Summer (run)

I was swinging a black and blue Bad Hair Day streamer through my favorite run at first light this morning and this guy smashed it mid swing. Great hook set and a fairly quick, but heart pounding, battle on my 6wt switch rod. After a few runs and some crazy Chinook style, stiff as a board acrobatics, I got him in the net. Snapped a few pictures, broke the tip off my rod in the process and got him back in the water. This was the biggest steelhead I've ever caught (~30 inches), and likely the biggest freshwater fish I'd ever brought to hand, except for a couple foul hooked, half-dead Chinooks that were incidentals while stripping streamers for fall browns.

After he took off, I walked back to the bank, sat down and took it all in. I've been consumed with trying to make this happen for weeks (maybe more like months or years). This was the best end result I could have hoped for. All the countless hours of fishing, my efforts with fly tying, rigging, researching and reading stuff online. Living and breathing swung flies, spey rods and steelhead...all for exactly this.

With water comes fish

The Flat River below the dam has been running low and clear for weeks. We got a little rain yesterday morning. So today, I jumped in the river at first light to see if the fresh water had brought in any fish.

 First cast, hit and a miss, but it was something big. Next cast bam and he's on. Shaky knees, heart rate thumping - fight or flight in full effect. A solid hook set and my reel is singing. I quickly wade into shallow water and get ready to walk the fish downstream to a good landing spot. I'm waiting to see the rainbow accented silver bullet break the surface, but instead I see a spiny green dorsal fin. I'm feeling a mix of disappointment that it isn't a steelie, but impressed with the bass I have on. I take a breath and stop walking. 

As is usual for these bigger bass, he runs out of gas pretty quickly and I yank him in. Not super long, but fat, this guy has to be close to 2.5 pounds. I try to snap a few pics and then get him back into some faster current. With a nice tail slap he's gone.

This fish took what is hands down one of the best flies I use for low and clear water, Mike Schmidt's Guppy (Angler's Choice Flies). This is one of the first flies I learned to tie and it's still one of the best - Mike's Guppy Steelhead Alley Fly Tying Blog.

 I tied a few up yesterday using tan Senyo's Laser Dub for the head instead of Aussie Possum. I really like how they turned out.

Losing a good fish

At dawn nearly everyday for the past few weeks I'd been stalking a pod of stray Skamania Steelhead that had made their way into the Flat River.  Today I finally got a solid hookup on a swung red and white bad hair day streamer.
The fish crushed the fly and I had a great hook set (and a couple more for good measure).  He took off upstream towards the dam.  I kept the tension on but let him run (like I had a choice) while trying to work my way to a shallower spot on the river where I could attempt to land him.

He ran up under the dam and the fluid tension of having the fish on the line changed to solid, static and hopeless.  I moved around to different angles,  hoping my line was just hung up on something.  After a few minutes with no change in the situation, I swallowed my fate and did the inevitable, I grab my Skagit line, wrapped it around my hand a few time and started to yank.  Eventually the line broke free with no fish or fly on the end. 

I'm pretty sure I'd hooked up with the big buck that had just porpoised a few minutes earlier in the spot where my fly got grabbed.  To further confirm this, I saw him jump again from nearly the same spot where I broke my line off a minute or two after everything went down.

I can take some consolation in that I'm pretty sure I saw this same fish come unpinned in a wonderful acrobatic display from a Mepps spinner a guy was throwing the day before.

Here is John Larison's take on the situation : A Steelheader Farms Another One

"What happened next, I’ll never know for sure, though I have some suspicions. The line came tight, suddenly and abnormally tight, and then it wasn’t the animate flex of a fish I felt but the firm resonance of current parting over fly line. I leapt onto a rock to change the angle, and felt the resonance increase to a hum. And then felt nothing."

Sometimes nothing is the heaviest thing of all."

Ephoron Success

I hardly ever dry fly fish anymore, but this year the majority of my dry fly fishing has been at night. With Gray Drakes, Hex and now Ephorons, I've been having a heck of a time getting a fish to stay pinned. I did some research and I think my problem centers around two main areas:

1. Slack 
2. Angle of hook set.

I found the following video,  it really drove home some good points:


I went out tonight and started with a hopper. I missed a couple nice fish right off the bat.  So I  broke down what I was doing, worked on improving my angles and made sure I had zero slack once the fly landed.

Fish on!

 This guy came on the swing below the dam, I went look for stray summer steelhead before last light.

The Ephorons are here, the Ephorons are here!

I was fishing below the dam in Lowell a few days ago and caught my first Ephoron hatch of 2013. It was pretty substantial - lots of bugs everywhere.

Tonight, on the way to pick Brigid up from work, I noticed quite a few Ephorons on the bridge over the Grand. On our way back home, we stopped at the boat launch.  What we saw was nothing short of epic. We got there just after 11:30pm and the river and shore were nearly covered with bugs - awesome!

Earlier today I made the rounds to grab a few tying materials for a simple White Wulff - Ephoron pattern. My largest Flat River Smallie, up until this year, came on a #10 White Wulff during an Ephoron hatch. These are meant to be exaggerated bass versions of the fly. Hopefully I'll be able to get out and give them a try soon.

Stray Skamania Steelhead

Saw a group of steelhead trying to ascend the dam this morning.  Assuming they're stray Skamania from Indiana.   The DNR fishing report says that steelhead have been caught at Sixth Street dam on the Grand.

I'm not a hater

Rockbass aren't my favorite fish, but when it comes to top-water poppers in summer they are true playas....

Biggie Smalls

Caught my biggest smallie ever tonight. From lip to tail it was the length of both the handles on my switch rod, which makes it about 20"- no pics, low cam battery. I was swinging a Dave's Bad Hair Day - Eat a Peach Sculpin in olive w/ copper and green flashabou on a #2 Gammy B10s. Bummed about not having a pic... The fish took mid-swing and put such a heavy thump in the rod I thought it was a steelhead at first. This is my second "big" smallie this year. These big guys are awesome but seem to run out of gas pretty quick compared to their smaller 14"+ brothers. Just prior to landing this guy I had brought in a ~14 incher that had my reel singing and was doing acrobatics all over the river.
I also landed what could easily have been my smallest smallie ever today. It was my first fish of the evening. I was working top water with a "Warmwater Whammy". The fly measures out to be about 3.5 inches and the fish was just a tad bigger.
My guess is that these bigger fish in the system right now are post-spawners trying to pack on the pounds before heading back out to wherever they come from.

Game Face

Flat River Fairies (Light Cahills)

Light Cahill (Stenacron interpunctatum)

The Coldwater River and Upper Flat

Caught this youngster on the Coldwater River. He fell for a swung pink Vladi worm tied with UV Pink Ice Dub (rather that the more common material). I haven't fished the Coldwater in a couple years even though it's less than 10 miles from my house. The river hasn't been stocked since 2012 with browns, so this guy is wild. Awesome to see reproduction taking place. I did see a fair number of 8"-10" fish rising for drys. I hooked up with a couple that I'd guess were about that size. I was using a swung Mudler, but both fish popped off. Before I left I walked up stream and hitting the opposite bank with a gold and brown streamer. I rolled one fish that I'd guess was 12" or bigger.

In hopes to redeem my morning I hit the Flat at Fallasburg. Didn't have any better luck. High and fast water. So after I hooked up with this guy I called it quits.

Two-Handed Skagit for Smallies

I lined my 11foot 6wt Cabelas Tlr switch rod with a 19foot 390 grain Airflo Skagit Switch using a 5'float x 5'sink light MOW Tip.  I tried this out last night and thought it was horrible.  Although, I was still managing from time to time to cast 50+ feet with nice loops. I couldn't believe how heavy and out of control the line felt  I came home watched a bunch of Ed Ward and Tom Larimer casting videos, had strange dreams all night about being at a casting clinic in the Pacific Northwest with Ed Ward.  When I woke up in the morning I hit the river for about an hour.  After a few casts I realized I was too stretched out with my casting stroke.  I pulled things in tighter and closer and things really came together.  I was hitting 60-70 foot casts with a big nasty streamer.  And it was all rolling out in a  nice looking loop.

This let me swing through some parts of the Flat River that I can't normally get to.  I hooked and landed a few nice fish as a result.

Feenstra's
Black and Blue Baitfish

My smallmouth bass interpretation of  Senyo's Artificial Intelligence

Fishing - May 11th 2013

Hit the Flat River around 7am on Saturday.  Started out using a large Circus Peanut type streamer, but was having trouble casting. So I ran through a few flies until I got an eat on a Arctic Fox and flash Clouser type streamer I had tied up using a fishskull head and large red eyes.  I had quite a few bumps, hooked up with three typical sized, but lively Flat River Smallmouth bass.

I also accidentally ran into this guy with my streamer.  

These suckers are jumping all over the place on the Flat

Rockbass on the Flat River

First Smallmouth of the year

Got a my first couple smallmouth for the year along the Lowell River walk.  I was using a Keven Feenstra style crayfish pattern I tied up.

Flat River Fall Steelhead

A small "Jack" Coho Salmon ~16"

A 27" hen