A Change of Pace

My buddy Russ gave me a hot fishing tip to a good bass pond so the first chance I got I skipped down there to temp a few bass.  The pond was very shallow so I was able to use a floating line and bass poppers all day and the fish were very very receptive. When I made it to the shoreline and saw bass working in tight to the bank I could tell it was going to be a good day. 

Fishing for bass is a definitely change of pace when compared to trout fishing.  Trout, at least while feeding, tend to move a lot so their fishing tactics revolve around intercepting them while they are prowling for food.  Bass on the other hand are ambush predators waiting for the meals to come to them.  Just visually inspecting the fish suggest their differences.  Trout are slime covered torpedos sculped for swimming long distances with minimal effort, while bass are built like a short roided-out line backer primed to crush anything that comes within sight.

I plopped my popper near the first bass I saw and no sooner had it hit the surface then water erupted as the bucket mouth swallowed my popper.  I continued working down the shoreline tossing my bug beneath the shoreline vegetation.  Some of the strikes I had were simply epic.  The water would swell in a wake toward my popper then the water would erupt....Fish ON!  Others would come and sip the popper off the surface like a trout taking a dry fly.  Others yet wouldn't even break the surface, they would just hover beneath the fly and suck it under the surface and into their large mouths (no pun intended).  Left: definitely a large mouth!

The sight fishing was fun because you could see the bass come up to the fly, inspect it ,and ultimately take it down, but getting bit by unseen bass was even cooler.  If you didn't watch that popper like a hawk, it would disappear and you would miss the strike.  The problem with watching the fly with undivided attention is that sometimes the bass unloads on the fly and scares the shit out of you because you are expecting a subtle take.  You can never tell when the water is going explode with an angry bass tied on the end of your line!  Right: Bass, Bass where are you?

Another difference between trout and bass fishing is the complexity of the flies.  Trout can be fussy at times for fly size, color, profile, action, et cetera.  Conversely, bass just require something to look big and alive even if it is colored like a carnival ride.  Not having to worry about pattern selection, and just covering water makes bass fishing a nice change of pace from trout fishing. Left: One downside to bass fishing is that it wrangling the fish can chew up your digits a little bit....

I had never spent a lot of time bass fishing, which is way my largest bass until fishing this pond was just a bit under 12".  At this pond I caught a number of fish in the 16-20" range, which were big strong toads.  In pressured public waters there are fewer of these large fish and the ones that are there are highly suspicious.  This pond had lots of big dumb fish, my favorite combination!  Places like this really let you know how good fishing could be with catch and release and good management.  Thanks again for the hot spot, buddy!  Right: A nice bass taken from my tube.








OK, maybe just a little more fish porn!  Left: This guy left a wake as he crushed my popper.

A Big Fish Story

I caught a monster fish this last weekend. I'd like to say that the act of sticking this toad was due to sheer talent or skill, but I know that isn't entirely true. I could also say that I was simply lucky, which I was to some extent, but that wasn't entirely true either. I think what it boiled down to was a combination of being at the right place and time (luck) and having an adequate fly presentation acceptable for old uncle Walter (skill).  Personally, I believe that luck favors the prepared. 

It had already been a fantastic fishing trip because earlier that afternoon the bite had turned on in a BIG BIG way. It was quite possibly the best afternoon of trout fishing I have ever had as every 5th or 6th cast produced a slam on the end of my flyline. Each fish was not just the average fish, which for this lake is big in its own right, but the were big chunky trout. The afternoon produced 6 fish between 7 and 10 lbs. Unbelievable fishing. When the action finally died, we celebrated with numerous cheeseburgers and beers while lauding our afternoon's piscatorial conquests.

Even then with a full belly, a beer buzz, and the knowledge that I should be satisfied with the days fishing I found that I was still unsatisfied. The urge inside of me beckoned me back to the water to continue fishing.  As the sun began it's evening decent into the horizon so did I launch from shore in my pontoon boat.



By this point in the trip my path around the lake was well grooved. I had made the same casts over the same water dozens of times over the weekend. As my attention was diverted to the next positioning of my boat, my line went tight. This wasn't the same slam I had gotten all afternoon, but rather a more delicate pull on the line. The fish's initial response wasn't typical for a big fish as I was given a few quick head shakes usually indicative of a smaller fish. The secondary response of a blistering run into my backing and towards the nearest weed patch slapped the beer buzz away with a new found focus on this particular fish.

I had to pull my anchor up with my non casting hand (an awkward process at best let alone with only one hand) and then I was able to give chase. Paddling after the fish, I had to get my backing back and get some fly line on the reel so that I could put some semblance of side pressure on the fish and steer him out of the weeds. The fish still made it into the weed bed, but (luckily or purposefully?) I had been fishing heavier tippet all weekend and it held the fish as it shook through the vegetation. After a lengthy tug of war, the fish was finally tired enough to come to the net and I had a new personal record. A 31" and 16lbs rainbow trout.  Now, I was completely satisfied.

Pyramid Lake Fishing Blog

My Dad (Ted) and I made it to Pyramid Lake around 2pm PST Friday (March 29th) night to find buddy Steve already fishing and doing pretty well.  We also hooked up with Bruce who was for all intents and purposes our guide and a rockstar stillwater fisherman to boot.   Bruce had already been fishing most of the week so he already had things figured out for us.  Just had to throw our ladders in the water and start catching fish (yeah, right).  Surprisingly, this was almost how it worked out.  It didn't take very long for me to get a few dips on my indicator and the skunk was off.  Steve was on a mission to set the IGFA record for a cutthroat on 3kg test line, which was 7lbs 4oz.  He came very close with the near 7lb fish (above) on the first evening.

Later in the afternoon/evening the wind picked up and started pushing larger 2-3' rolling waves into our ladders.  More than a few times I had a roller knock me off the top step of my ladder and had to frantically grab the handle just to hang on.  Extreme fishing if I have ever seen it!  The coolest part was the fish were still biting!  The problem was that a netted fish would divert your attention from the incoming waves.  Ted learned this the hard way and took a wave about shoulder height while fighting with a netted fish.  He was less than thrilled to have the 40F water go down his waders!   I had good bite the rest of the night when it was just me and another fisherman (Ernie) sticking out the rollers. 

After tent camping on the beach we had a decent morning bite at the same spot the next day.  The fishing was considerably slower than it was on Friday, but there was a good morning bite for about 2 hours follow by a spotty action the rest of the day and evening.  Ted managed to nail a nice 7lb fish with an indicator and a black midge. Later that evening there were pockets of decent fishing, but none were as good as the previous night.

Later that evening I tied into a better than average fish.  I learned this trip that an average fish is affectionately called a "shaker" because that is about all they do on the end of your line once hooked.  







Through out the trip we found ourselves having to lend a hand a critical times to each other.

Reaching out and netting someones fish was not an uncommon occurrence. 









 
Sunday morning continued even slower than Saturday night so we decided to pickup and move around a bit.  I had a good time doing this because we got to learn more of the lake and in the afternoon we found a deserted beach that had some BIG fish cruising up and down it.  I got a couple small bumps right away, but didn't hook up.  Soon thereafter, however, I was in mid strip when I noticed a small pod of fish cruising about 20' in front of me.  I tried to strip in to get my Wolley Worm in front of them, but it ran into an immovable object in the form of a large cutt.  The beast turned out to be an 8lb fish, my biggest fish ever on public water! 

About an hour after landing this toad, I was yet again mindlessly pulling my bugs through the water, when I noticed a large dark brown silhouette following my fly.  As I lifted my fly to recast (it still hadn't sunk into my brain yet that my fly had caught the attention of a lake monster), the fish turned his profile toward me and I could see his considerable size.  He was easily bigger than my previous fish.  Alas, he realized he was chasing some funny, not to mention there was a funny looking guy standing on a ladder right in front of him, and he peeled off back into the depths.  As if I already needed another reason to comeback, I now have the image of this gator burned into my memory.  I shall be back to catch you! 

The rest of the day and night were fairly slow.  We had good action on the deserted beach for a couple hours and then nothing.  We hit another hole or two and got a couple more bites, but that's about it.  That night we converged at the local watering hole (Crosby's Bar) to chat with some buddies.  It turns out they had pretty slow fishing as well, but there were still quiet a few big fish stuck including at least one 15 pounder.


Monday morning was our last day on the water and the wind was blowing like crazy.  Steve decide to forego the wind and just head for home.  Ted decided not to fish, and I figured I might as well take another shot at that 10lb fish.  Bruce and I got a couple more shakers, but that was about it.  Tough end to a tough trip, but one that had pockets of sucess and plenty of big fish.  What else could you ask for in a fishing trip?

Pyramid Monotony

Cast, wait, strip.  Cast, wait, strip.  Cast, wait, strip.  After monotonously casting continuously from sunrise to sunset while standing on a ladder casting becomes more of a compulsion than a conscious activity.  The corresponding obsession is the potential for the next cast to produce the fish of a lifetime in the form of a double digit pound Lahontan cutthroat trout (LCT) from Pyramid lake.

The most commonly accepted technique for fishing Pyramid lake is through the use of a step ladder [see photo to the upper left] which is carried out into chest deep water and planted in the sand.  This allows the caster to extend his cast further into the lake and ideally over a drop-off, which these predacious LCT's are well known to cruise along.   The idea is to let the fish come to your fly.  This is completely bass-ackwards from normal fishing conditions where the fisherman stalks the fish in its territory.  The mental strain of have to wait for the fish can sometime be unbearable.  You start to question your pattern, leader, ladder position, presentation, sexual orientation, OK may not the last one, but if there is too much time between bites you never know.

When the bite does finally come it is usually anything but obvious.  When Mr LCT inhales the fly and keeps swimming there isn't a sharp "bite" to feel on the line, just an increased tension and when the next strip comes it catches on the inside of the fish's mouth.  A bite on the line feels just like a snag.  Because Pyramid consists primarily of a sand based substrate (utterly devoid of obstacles) the odds are that you would have hooked that snag a dozen times before now on one of the preceding thousand casts. The coolest sensation is to set steel into a "snag" and feel the rod come alive with spirited fish.  The real difficulty is keeping the mental acuity after thousands of casts to realize that a snag is really a fish and to set the hook immediately. 

The fight is generally anti-climatic unless the fish is above the average size in which case things can get very interesting.  The full body flop of an average fish is evidence that the fish is just a "little" guy (little here is a respectable 18-20" though).  The bigger guys [like the hog to the right] pull much harder and give a lot of shoulder into the fight drawing it out.  I have yet to hook one of the true double digit monsters of the lake,which is the sole reason for which I will continue to return for some boring ladder fishing.

Fish on Every Cast

"I must have got a fish on every cast!" A statement that almost every fisherman has used at one time or another to describe a good day of fishing. A fisherman's honesty can be dubious at best when it comes to the subject of fish size and numbers, but a statement suggesting that every cast resulted in fish, seriously? To quote my favorite line from Super Troopers, "I'll believe that when me shit turns purple and smells like rainbow sherbet."

Now let me tell you how I had my day where I nearly caught a fish on every cast. First off, this was on public waters not private so I wasn't fishing in a private puddle of water over-loaded with big-dumb fish (not that I am against big-dumb fish). I was fishing on a 400 acre lake during a strong chironomid (midge) hatch.

Midges have 3 stages of life-cycle that trout care about: larval, pupal, and adult stages. When they are hatching the emerging midges are in the pupal stage. In the pupal stage the midges suspend just off the mud bottom of the lake gathering air bubbles for their vertical ascent. They remain suspended for an appreciable amount of time, which is a behavior that trout key into because the trout can leisurely swim along the bottom slipping in midges by the thousands. (The photo to the right is a few midge pupa retrieved with the use of a throat pump from a trout's mouth.  Notice the silvery luminescence of the body due to trapped air bubbles.)  I have caught fish during an intense midge hatch that spewed black clouds of midge pupa from their mouth as they fought to be netted. Chironomids individually might be diminutive, but by en mass they present a good protein rich meal for the fish. Think about a kernel of popcorn; not much by when eaten by itself, but if you eat the entire jumbo bucket at the movies you will be full!

Midge pupa don't move very fast so presenting them with a fly can be challenging using traditional tactics. Tradition would suggest using a steady sinking line with a weighted fly and retrieving the fly horizontally with any number of retrieves. Just in the past few years fishing with a strike indicator has become popular in this situation (or at least in North America; the Brits apparently have been doing it for a while). The key setup includes a strike indicator with a weighted midge pupa pattern (or two) suspended at the depth of the water minus a few inches (to raise the fly off the bottom). The indicator is for all intents and purposes a bobber and any movement of it indicates an encounter of the piscatorial variety. (The photo to the up/left shows how fun indicator fishing can be when the fishing is good.)  The thing to fishing with an indicator is that a single cast and retrieve can take up to 5 minutes. It is slow fishing requiring spades of patience. However, when you are in the right place at the right time with the right rig then you can almost hook a fish on every cast. See where I am going with this?

So back to my little 400 acre lake. Once the midge hatch got going around 10am until the time it finished around 2:30pm I nearly hooked a fish on every cast. I certainly did not land a fish on every cast, but over this time interval I did almost get a bite on every cast. So maybe my fish-on-every-cast claim had to be qualified with a few other factors (time interval and slow cast rate). I am a fisherman after all and as we established earlier am not to be trusted on matters of the fish unless...is that rainbow sherbet I smell?

Why Do I Fish?

As an electrical engineer I tend to see the world in two views: analog and digital. Digital electronics consists of sequences of only two voltages: 0's and 1's. Similarly, I consider a digital lifestyle as very predictable, redundant, and somewhat tiresome. For example, set the alarm for the same time every day, go to work, sit in on a few meetings, try to do some real work, go home, make dinner, do dishes and a few chores, go to bed, and then rinse an repeat tomorrow. Predictable. Redundant. Boring. Digital.

Conversely, analog electronics operate on a continuous spectrum of voltages not just two discreet values. I consider an analog lifestyle in a word as freedom. Freedom to live life on my terms not on terms dictated by an employer, spouse, or anyone else. This is the void in my life that fishing fills. Realistically, I can't live a gypsy lifestyle and still collect a paycheck to support my family and fishing addiction. Fishing is a prime opportunity for me to exist in the analog world at least for a few moments throughout my digital life.

Furthermore, stillwater fly fishing adds an element of mystique and intrigue to my fishing. Moving water fishing is also exciting, but the fish tend to be in fairly obviously holding lies which can begin to make fishing a river redundant. The mystique of stillwater fishing a lies beneath a vast featureless plane of water. Are there fish? If so where? And most importantly, how could I touch and marvel over one of these mysterious creatures, even if for just a few precious moments?

The intrigue comes when success is attained and a fish, against all odds, is hooked. Whether from the slight inflection of an indicator, a tiny amount of pressure on the line, or a full out Randy-The-Macho-Man body slam, once the fish is hooked the world comes into a singular focus. The Fish. The fight. The scream of a reel. The first view, oh that first sight of The Fish, how a single fish can be burned into memory for a lifetime! Finally, the landing and the quarry is restrained in our dry world for a few seconds before returning back to the unknown depths.

In a digital world, time is an unstoppable force that dictates the pace life. In my analog world, the only time that matters is the time between bites.

Fishervolution

The creed of the fisherman suggests that he will go through an evolution as a fisherman.  At first he will just be happy catching any fish at all.  Then he will want to catch large numbers of fish.  When catching lots of fish gets boring he will want to catch big fish.  When his evolution is complete it will not be necessary to catch big fish, lots of fish, or even any fish at all if the experience is good enough.  For the evolved angler, just fishing with his favorite method is enough to satisfy his fishing needs with the results being a secondary perk. 

For example, there is a sect of fly fisherman who only want to catch steelhead on a swung dry fly.  Catching a steelhead is a tough venture given their relatively low numbers with respect to the amount of fresh water within which they reside.  Catching them on a fly rod is even tougher.  Catching one on a swung fly is even a little more difficult.   Then getting steel on a swung dry fly is the ultimate challenge short only of pulling a steelhead out of the water with your bare hands.  While I can appreciate the challenge, I just don’t see the point. 

To me, fishing is about the act of trying to catch fish with the emphasis on catching fish.  While the act of fishing can be extremely cathartic and relaxing it soon turns into outright boredom if I am not catching anything.  Freud might suggest that I am fixated on my catching-large-numbers-of-fish stage, but he can go screw his cocaine-snorting self.  I might just be an un-evolved primate who uses a long stick to fish, but I want to catch fish when I go fishing, damn it!  That’s the whole point! 

Of the numerous fly fishing styles there are three main styles: dry fly, streamer, and nymphing.  Dry fly fishing is the most traditional method and garners more fanatical fisherman than any of the fly fishing styles.  It is definitely a cool experience seeing a trout or steelhead take a fly off of the surface.  When a hatch is flush and the fish are taking them, fishing dry flies can undoubtedly be the most effective tactic.  Unfortunately, flush hatches are more of the exception than the rule.  Streamer fishing is based on the imitation of forage fish and other larger crustaceans.  Streamer fishing usually results in much smaller numbers of fish caught, but this is how some of really big fish are caught.   Nymphing is the method of imitating the subsurface foods that a fish would consume typically using a weighted fly or weight on the line.  In the past few decades the use of strike indicators (aka bobbers to the bait fishing folk) has become a deadly tool for bite detection.  It has been estimated by the experts that 90% of a trout’s diet consists of subsurface food items, so nymphing is naturally an effective technique because it puts the fly where the trout is feeding most often. 

Like anything else indicator nymphing takes a bit of refinement to experience success.  Just tying on an indicator and a couple flies won’t “auto magically” result in fish on the line.  For a given stretch of water the depth and speed of the water must be taking into consideration when determining where on the leader the indicator needs to be placed and how much weight must be added to get the fly (or flies) down.  If the water is moving swiftly then more weight must be added to get the fly down more quickly.  The converse is true for slower water.  Once set in the correct position, the strike indicator not only acts to detect strikes, but also serves as a way to fix the effective length of the leader.  Most fish find the currents near the bottom of the river ideal for conserving energy and intercepting food (kind of like putting your recliner right next to the fridge).  Getting the fly near the bottom is critical to success.  This simple concept is the singular most important concept to effective nymphing. 

The most important purpose of the strike indicator is to detect when a fish has taken your nymph.  The indicator will usually move upstream or cross-stream and dip downwards into the water when a fish has firmly taken one of your nymphs.  The problem is that fish (especially trout) have eaten enough bugs to determine fairly quickly that a your funny looking nymph with a long brown pointy tail is a shenanigan.  Before it hooks them, the fish can spit the fly out so fast that there will almost no disturbance on the indicator.  I hate to speculate on a figure like this, but for every strike that is detected by the indicator there is at least that many that go unnoticed.  After seeing enough drifts (thousands and thousands of them) of the indicator the fisherman can develop a heightened sense for bite detection.  Even though the indicators appears to be drifting naturally impeded by neither the bottom nor fish the fisherman will set the hook for no perceptible reason and there will be a fish on the end of the line.  Dumb luck perhaps, but it begins to happen with enough regularity that it converges to something other than luck.  The best I can describe it is with The Force.  When Luke Skywalker was on the Millennium Falcon with the blast shield over his eyes and the floating laser droid was firing shots at him how did he know when to block the lasers?  The Force. 

While nymphing is arguably more effective than dry fly fishing, proponents of dry fly fishing claim that watching a bobber all day is boring and is nowhere near as visually stimulating as watching a fish slip, slurp, or crush a fly off the surface.  Okay they may have a point here, but, at least to me, the thing about dry fly fishing is that it is relatively easy.  In most dry fly scenarios, the fish’s position is already known by the observant angler.  Surface feeding fish are usually easy to see because the fish itself is visible or the fish’s rise form is definitely visible.  When fishing a nymph suspended beneath an indicator more often than not the fish is not visible.  This leads to some very exciting moments when the indicator dips or jumps upstream (indicating a strike) and hook is set into a fish of unknown species and size.  First comes the head shakes from a hooked fish, which can give away the size of the fish (fast short shakes usually means a small fish and big slow heavy shakes mean it could be a bigger fish).  The difference in headshakes between a 10” trout and a 40” king salmon are considerable.  The former is almost cute and the latter will damn near remove your shoulder from the socket.   Next comes that first sight of the fish, sometimes this is just a deep flash in the water, but other times it is a fish breaking the surface with an acrobatic aerial display.  

One spring while nymphing one of my favorite steelhead rivers, I had such a vivid first sight of the fish that it is burned into my memory to this very day (multiple years later).  I had gotten up early and had a prime run all to myself to nymph to my heart’s desire.  After a few drifts my indicator stopped and dipped and I struck.  At first nothing happened so I figured that I had hooked the bottom, which is a very common occurrence if you are nymphing properly.  A second later I watched my indicator start to surge upstream in a sound that can only be described by an out of tune violin as my leader was slicing upriver through the flowing water.  The fight was on!  As I continued the fight I got my first look at this juggernaut.  My first sight was a pale yellow torpedo shaped flash in the deeper portion of the run.  At the time I would have sworn that the flash must have been 6 feet in length; it really wasn’t but I was temporarily delusional from the fight of an epic fish.    (The picture above is the said fish.  Not 6 feet by any means, but truly a memorable fish.)   

I have handful of experiences that been just as vivid as this one was while nymphing.  I guess that my point is that nymphing can be every bit as visually exciting as seeing a fish take a dry fly.  And not only that, but the odds are that I am probably going to catch more fish too.  Sometimes just seeing the indicator dip, setting the hook, and getting that breathless first sight of a good fish is enough to make my day.  Maybe I have evolved a little bit after all.