Rock-tober

When the water is this clear, and the levels this low, you find little pebble beaches submerged in just the right location. The footing is perfect. I found just the spot this afternoon around 4 pm on the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie.

With water levels this low, white gleaming boulders are exposed. It's Rock-tober.

Further upstream, alongside a pool where the water was glassy and the fish were rising, I had tied on some fluorocarbon tippet and a Blue Winged Olive. I was putting the fly in the center of the ring, but there were no takers. I packed up, drove further downstream and took up my position at the head of a pool. Most months of the year this spot is part of a waterfall.

I cast to a nearby spot a couple of times as I scanned the water for rises. I was still sizing up the situation when I cast a little further out and noticed the current took my dry fly into the depths. Before I could get my bearings I felt a strong tug and my 5-wt bowed and arched. A nice, bright rainbow ran and lept.

Finally, aftera bit of a slump, I had a nice 12-inch wild rainbow in the net.

It's been a longtime since I checked the USGS streamflow. The Middle Fork at my location was at 150 CFS and still dropping. Temperatures were in the low 70s. We have had around 70 days of dry weather. We have a burn ban underway after wildfires struck the western slope of the Cascades, a rarity.

Fishing has been tough. Today was a good bounce back. I am planning a trip with the Steelhead guide J.D. Love to the Grande Rhonde later this month. Fingers crossed!

Lake Crescent

My year one anniversary of really learning to flyfish is this month. I still need to reflect on and write about that. It's been an amazing year learning to cast, read water, scout new locations, study fish, etc.

My last two adventures have not been very productive, however. I fished the Cedar River last weekend. I managed to slip away Saturday late afternoon. Water levels were low but it appeared to me that they were releasing water from the dam because the flow was a little more pushy than I had remembered. 

I used an Elk Hair Caddis and caught little 10-inch rainbows. Beautiful, feisty little fish.  As I waded downstream hoping to catch a feeding frenzy or at least a nice sized, my line got caught in a large tree stump that jammed into the middle of the stream. Rather than lose my fly, I waded out to dislodge the little bugger. Slippery rocks and pushy water caused me to force it more than I normally would. I pulled the line and heard a snap.

Snap!

The third segment of my wonderful Trout Unlimited 5-wt Winston rod snapped. It's the first time I've broken any equipment in this first intensive year of flyfishing. I wasn't upset but was disappointed that I didn't simply close the fly. I am now in touch with the Winston rod manufacturers. I will need to ship the whole rod back so they can customize the replacement. Because the rod is registered it should cost just about $50 plus shipping and handling.

On a happier note, I chaperoned my daughter's 7th grade school trip to Lake Crescent, nestled in the Olympic National Park. Below is a photo I took the first evening looking West.

 

 

I was excited for the experience with my daughter and her classmates, but I was also excited to learn that there is a rare sub-species of rainbow trout in Lake Crescent called the Beardslee trout. One of the camp counselors told me that he routinely catches 14-15 inchers, and he told me where to look.

 

In between programs and during free time, I would literally sprint down the lake shore looking for rises.  The counselor said to use large stimulators. At the mouth of Barnes Creek I found several rises near sunset on the first night. While searching the water for the next rise I felt a couple of good strong strikes, but never managed to bring one in. I got several follows, but that was about all the action over the course of several days. The weather shifted and the fish quit biting.

 

While hiking up Storm King Mountain on the second day I snapped the photo below of Lake Crescent from the trail.

 



A Sunny September Sunday

Thomas sat on a VW-sized boulder in the late afternoon sun, and told me the "king of the pool" was right behind yonder rock.

Having bushwacked through a fast-descending mountainside trail and crossed the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie, I was eager to fish. I barely heard his practiced advice as I started casting to a seam in the middle of the river, which this time of year is a very pleasant 200 cfs. Temperatures were in the mid-70s around 3:30 pm with light winds.

I quickly caught plenty of 8- and 10-inch cuttthroat and rainbows.  Thomas had brought us to a series of very nice pools.

To use an over-used phrase, the water was gin clear and trout were rising nicely to dry flies.  Nothing better.

Thomas (below) had lent me his 3-wt trout rod and he was using his brand new bamboo rod, which has quite a provenance (perhaops another time).

 

 After awhile, I started eying the same spot Thomas had seen immediately upon arrival. His words came back to me, and I cast over the top of currents moving at different speeds and my fly landed just behind a large rock with a nice pool behind it. I didn't quite like the location or the presentation so I cast again.

From the depths darted a good-sized trout like a shark in some Hollywood film. He snatched the fly and dove down behind the rock. I set the hook and watched with great excitement as the largest rainbow I've ever pulled out of the Snoqualmie dove, jumped, banked right and left and ultimately landed in my net (see below).



 



 

I can't even count the number of fish we caught during 4 very active hours on the water. I got my share of small and medium sized cutts and bows. I learned a lot from Thomas and am very appreciative. Hopefully we can do it again another time.

Stripers!

Last night I wrote about my near-miss with a big bluefish  and the lack of striped bass in August. I also wrote about my current book, The Longest Silence, by Thomas McGuane.

As I lay in bed last night reading McGuane's chapter about his fishing trip to the Elizabeth Islands just off Woods Hole, where I am staying, I got a text from my friend Mark. It read, simply, "5 am?"

He had figured out the bite is on at first light in Quick's Hole, a passage between Buzzards Bay and Vineyard Sound that is larger than but behaves very much much like a river.

I eagerly replied, "yes," and continued reading.

Dave ran us through Quick's Hole between Pasque and Nashawena and pulled us into a beautiful, quiet bay on the north side of Nashawena."

So often the books and fish stories we read are about places distant and unlikely to be visited. Yet, this account was just a few miles and a few hours away for me.

Dave spotted a school of stripers...We had tied on Clouser Minnows, a pattern of nearly universal effectiveness, and striped bass see them as tremendous opportunity.

In a beautiful passage, McGuane writes, "I, often confined by riverbanks, was fascinated by this wide-angled view. I soon was made comfortable by our fishing along the rocks, the ocean gulping and foaming around their bases. It looked right when a big green-and-white Deceiver dropped into this turmoil and was drawn into this fishy darkness."

I slept well all night, with all the windows open so the fog could creep around my bedclothes and I could better hear the sonorities of the sea buoy. All night long I received cheerful visits from family ghosts and remembered how I once longed for a single striped bass.

I drifted off to sleep myself and was in Quicks Hole -- a good 30 minute sprint from Falmouth Harbor -- by 5:50 the next morning. The sea birds were diving and the fish erupting all around us. Having lost my Deceiver to the big bluefish the night before, I had rigged up with a large pink Clouser and a stronger test line.  I hooked one fish but he got away.  I cast and cast but could not entice another fish. Suddently the bite was off.

We moved on to Robinson's Hole, the next island over.

"This is what we dream of," I told Mark.

Sea birds were all around us and the fish were feeding in a frenzy right next to the rocky bank. I cast into the middle of the frenzy and finally, a good solid take from a fish I could handle with the right test line. I hauled in a beautiful striped bass. This was not the 28 pounder you see in those fish magazines, but it was a respectable striper caught on a fly.

I hooked another striper in the same spot, but alas that was it. Just as McGuane had written, "a single striped bass."

On the Cape

I am well into my second week on Cape Cod. The Cape League baseball season ended in dramatic fasion (CodBall post still to come), and I have been fishing quite a bit.

August is not prime fishing time on the Cape. The mighty Bluefish are generally plentiful but even they have gone on vacation. The striped bass are the main attraction but they are much further up-Cape and not very active this time of year.

So I have been planning, pondering, casting, changine flies, reading fishing literature and learning a lot about saltwater flyfishing.

My tally at this point is two small Bluefish landed, two bluefish hooked (not landed) and possibly the biggest fish I've ever hooked (got away).

Temperatures were soaring when we got here but things have cooled off.  The first morning, my friend Mark and I went out early in the morning on his boat. We found seagulls diving after baitfish, and we cast into that madness but I failed to land anything. Mark threw a lure out on a spinrod and landed a nice smallish bluefish.  the school was thin so we headed up-Cape to Waquoit where I hooked a small bluefish and had a couple of nice takes but no fish landed.

The next day, I decided to head out on my own along the rocky shore of Nobska Lighthouse point on Martha's Vineyard Sound.  Within three casts I had a small bluefish landed. I used a sinking tip with a small pink clouser.  A half hour later I had a larger bluefish almost to hand after casting 60-70 feet offshore toward a large rock. The fish threw the hook just at the last minute, which is fine.

Then, nothing. 

I returned several times at high tide, low tide, night and day.  Nothing.

Well, not nothing. I have gotten a lot of cuts and bruises. Fishing the rocky coast with its barnacle-laden rocks means that I am scampering and scraping my way from foothold to foothold. My body is covered at the moment with cuts and antibacterial lotion.

Today, temperatures were gorgeous at about 75. My brother-in-law, Rob, took us out south of Woods Hole on his boat. Water temperature were warm and the winds were mild.  We fished a hole that reminded me of a swift western Washington river current and I saw baitfish working.  But still nothing. Nevertheless, this area looked and felt fishy.

I left the hole and walked over to a rocky point that turned into a shallow sandy beach about 50 feet offshore.

After hundreds of fruitless casts this week, I noticed seagulls starting to pay attention to my general area. Suddenly I heard rapid splashes all around me, and then I saw a small bluefish fly past me at eye-level, clearly trying to outswim (and out-leap) a predadtor. I whirled to my right, cast in the direction of the pursuer and wham, one of the hardest takes I've ever experienced. My 7 weight Sage rod bent deeply and felt the weight and fight of a ferocious fish. I assume it was a bluefish but it is possible it was a striped bass in that shallow sandy area.  After a brief fight the line snapped and the fish was gone.

Rather than fight, I should have let the fish peel off line but I didn't.

I pumped my fist and turned to a couple on the beach watching me.

"The one that got away!"

I was fishing the outgoing afternoon tide.  As soon as I returned home, I switched out my 24 pound test line for 60 pound test line. My brother-in-law says bluefish are not leader-shy so I am gearing up for the biggest fish for my remaining days.

As mentioned, I am reading about fishing as well. Thomas McGuane's The Longest Silence (A Life in Fishing) is enjoyable reading and really funny. At the moment I would put McGuane and John Gierach at the top of fishing lit elite.

I also have been very impressed with On The Water (the Anger's Guide). This magazine is well-written and very practical. I would like to see it extend from East Coast to West Coast coverage.

Finally, a dry fly evening

The heat of summer comes to the Seattle area long after desperation deflates even the memory of what a stinging sun can feel like on your skin. We sit out here in the remote lefthand corner of the USA reading about the drought and searing heat of regions far away. We fly fishermen put down the paper and drive through the wet blanket warmth that is our summertime. We pull on GoreTex waders and fish icy rivers that swell with rain and then snowmelt through July.

And then an evening like last night happens.

The heat on my car thermometer showed 89 at about 7:15 pm (today's Seattle Times records 92). The Cedar River was down to 230 cfs. Remember that early in the fishing season I caught a Cedar River cutt at 800 cfs.

After a neighborhood pig roast, I arrived on the river at about 8 pm and the light was fine but quickly diminishing. I chose a section of the river that was easy to access from the trail but hidden from view. It had a relatively shallow bank and then deep pools toward the center of the river where the flow was steady but not too strong. I climbed over a few large boulders and sat atop one about 10 yards out into the stream. There I had good room for my backcast and could see the surface of the water in the twilight.

I had a small nymph tied on already and I cast that a few times. Nothing. Thanks to the piles of reading I've done throughout the season, I quickly realized these were the right conditions for dry flies.

I tied on a cahill or something like a pale morning dunn. Without even trying very hard I had an 8 inch cutt. The fish in this river, no matter their size, will fight like nobody's business due in large part to the cold water and good oxygenated flows. I cast a few more times in the same area and brought in some larger cutts, maybe 10 inches.

I began to notice good rises in the middle of the river so I cast out there, mending my line in the air so that the fly got a nice long drift with the flyline behind the fly thus avoiding the drag of the current.

The fish were clearly hungry, rising for my fly on nearly every cast. Within a few minutes I had a hard strike and a good sized rainbow on the line. I have stopped stripping in line for every fish I catch and have gone to reeling them in, which is more fun and has the added advantage of not having flyline all over the water once they're netted.

The 11-12 inchers are not fat but they are meaty and colorful. Whereas I failed time and again to set the hook on dry flies earlier this summer, this time my timing and technique seemed to work. I used smaller hooks (size 18) and I waited a little longer to raise the rod. The result was 4 rainbows caught, each about 30 feet out in the stream on rises to my dry fly. I used both the cahill and an Elk Hair Caddis.

Walking back to the car in the near-darkness, I talked with a couple of other fly fishermen who were also loading up to head home. They had not done so well using streamers. The habits of sub-surface fishing die hard, even in the blaze of summer.

The first photo below is a cutt in the net. The second is very dark but you can make out one of hte 12-inch rainbows.

Lessons learned

It is mid-July and I am just a month away from completing my first year of intensive fly fishing. This weekend I discovered a few things about my education.

I fished Lake Sammamish, Snoqualmie and Cedar River this weekend -- each just for a few hours. What I have discovered is that I now know how to catch fish, mostly small but beautiful trout in moving water. Catching bigger fish requires more strategic thinking and technical skill, which clearly I am still developing.

Take Sunday evening for example. I was on the Cedar River which has fallen to below 400 cfs. I entered the water having already tied a dry fly and a nymph tandem. I immediately noticed fish rising and cast toward them. Nothing.

I switched to a Stimulator-type pattern and got trout to attack the fly. I had not seen this kind of action before on a river. What I discovered was that I was acting like a spectator, observing the fish rise and attack the fly but failing to set the hook. It was just so fun to watch them come from no where and boil up around the fly. After a dozen casts I finally set the hook and caught a nice little cutthroat which I quickly returned to the cold waters.

I fished for a couple of hours and just enjoyed watching the rises without ever setting the hook. I did have a larger one on but he got loose and I saw a considerable silver flash flee from my fly to deeper water. I have some work to do.

On Saturday night I caught 4-5 small cutthroat on the Snoqualmie near the Fall City bridge. I also brought my 6-weight which I had rigged with a steelhead streamer. I cast far and wide but never had a strong strike.

Looking back over my biggest successes, there are two lessons I need to heed.  The first is to do a little more homework. Talk with fly shops, get local knowledge. The other is to get some polarized glasses so I can see and anticipate rises more promptly. It's almost too late once you see the rise.

Another lesson is to be more open to conversation with people while gearing up or down at the car. I have tended to be pretty guarded but very often friendly people are eager not just to ask questions but to share information. Yesterday a young fisherman stopped by the car to ask me how things had gone. I shared with him where I had fished, what I had used and what techniques were (and were not) working. He reciprocated by sharing with me a secret pool a mile downstream from where I fished. He pulled out his cell phone and showed me a spectuacular rainbow trout he had landed just a few days prior.