Current River September, 2012

I arrived at the Baptist access before daylight.  The air temperature was around 50 degrees and a patchy fog hung in the air.  After finishing the last swig of a cup of coffee which had grown cold during the drive, I stepped out into the dark toward the sound of rushing water.  I started fishing over a large pool using a big black streamer.  I could hear an occasional splash as night feeders were smashing at something on the surface.  Once the faintest light appeared, I could see what they were feeding on.  Clouds of tricos filled the air and the trout were grouped into feeding lanes casually sipping them off the water with some indecipherable cadence.  With no trico patterns on hand I tied on the closest thing I had: a #14 white fly on 7x tippet, hoping to entice some confused trout.

  

After several dozen drifts over the feeding lane, one errant cast landed right on top of the feeding fish.  To my surprise a fish darted up and swiped at my fly, sadly the no hookset, but an interesting behavior to note.  I would have made nothing of it, but it happened again further upstream when casting at a different feeding lane I set the hook but it slipped out and spooked the fish.  Around this time the hatch had tapered off, so I switched to a #12 soft hackle and landed my first fish (a nice brown trout) casting this upstream and letting it drift back with no indicator, watching the end of my fly line for a pause in the drift.  I caught three more brownies using the same technique, 1 on the soft hackle and 2 on a #12 olive streamer, similar to a wooly bugger but with a yellow pheasant rump collar instead of a hackled body.

It was about time to turn around and head back downstream, and a good steady rain had started to fall.  I switched over to a #12 black wooly bugger with a bead head.  As I worked my way back downstream, I cast toward the bank angled downstream and left my fly swing across the current and dangle for a bit before moving downstream a few more steps and repeating.  I caught 3 more fish using this technique, all rainbow trout, one was nice sized.  Most fish were taken during the swing and I had two missed strikes, one on the swing and one on the dangle.  I will come back to the Current river some day, and when I do, I won't forget the #26 tricos.

Carping by Numbers

Well, the conditions were not the best to sight fish for carp but I had a personal best day on the water at least in terms of quantity.  It was partly cloudy and extremely windy with gusts up to 25 mph.  I took my canoe out to a lake I have been scouting recently and fished once for bass with no success.  The last time I was there, I noticed some serious activity on the back side of the lake.  Lots of cloopers and some real monsters tailing with reckless abandonment in about 8 inches of water ( is it still called tailing if more than half of the fish's body is sticking out of the water?).

I got on the water early and went straight to the back side of the lake.  The water was so turbid I could only see about six inches deep and I did not see any tailers near the shore so I resorted to casting to the bubbles, which indicate a potential carp rooting the bottom.  I started out with a #6 black back stabber with rubber legs and didn't get any takers for some time.  So, I switched to a #6 carp carrot with a bead head and that was the ticket.  The next set of bubbles had a hungry common that took my carrot and once boated, was a welcome sight.  After this fish the wind really picked up and the fish seemed to become more active .. maybe they felt safer with some disturbance on the water.  I noticed more fish tailing near the shore so I stalked into place as best I could with the wind pushing me around.  I managed to get a clear shot at a fish that was alternating between tailing and cruising and made a leading cast about 2' ahead of the slow cruising fish.  After the fly settled and gave it a short strip.  I felt the take before I could see it due to the water being so muddy and a great fight ensued.  

All in all I had 7 solid hookups and boated 3 common carp, which is a personal best for me in terms of numbers.  This trip was also the first time I have caught a carp while fishing from a canoe.  Stalking carp from a canoe I feel has several advantages over wading including: stealth, better positioning and no fear of sinking mud.  On the flip side, as steep as the learning curve is for fly fishing for carp, doing it from a canoe is even steeper.  I have found that instead of sitting down or standing up in the canoe that standing on my knees in the middle of the boat is a good compromise to both maximize both my ability to see the fish and cast to it and quickly alternate between maneuvering and casting.

Salmon fishing at Ballynahinch

While in Ireland recently with family, several of us spent a day of fishing on the Ballynahinch River in Galway.  The river is owned by the Ballynahinch castle estate which has catered to salmon anglers for generations. They take their salmon very seriously as evidenced by this notice posted in the castle pub.

The scenery was gorgeous and the river was the cleanest I have ever seen in my life, but we had not seen any evidence of salmon all day.  It was sunny that day which generally makes for poor salmon fishing. As we were talking to the guide with our backs to the water we heard a noise behind us which sounded like a cannonball being thrown into the water.  The guide got very excited and said it was a salmon.  I moved upstream of the pool where we believed the salmon to be and cast to the far side of the river, letting my silver badger fly swing downstream across the current.  After about ten swings over the same spot, my line tightened and I saw a long gleam of silver flash in the water.  I slowly worked the fish toward the bank but 30 seconds into the fight my line popped right back at me, hook and all and stuck me cleanly in the nose.  It was a bittersweet moment.  I sure would have loved to land that beautiful fish, but to simply dance with it for a moment in time was mysteriously satisfying.

Long Live the Leader

There is something about how a smoothly tapered commercial leader turns over a fly that cannot be mimicked with a home-brewed leader.  A 9' leader will typically have 24" of tippet at its end.  To extend the life of the leader, additional tippet material is generally added to the leader's end; the amount varies depending on the fishing circumstances.  In the past, I have always joined the tippet material to the leader using a Bloodknot ( or a Surgeon's knot if the two line diameters are different ).  Eventually the added tippet material will be consumed by changing flies, and I have to re-extend the leader with more tippet. After several re-extensions, I will have eaten through the original 24" of tippet and begin entering the tapered section of the leader.  This is bad for two reasons: 1) Joining lines of different diameter yields inherently weaker knots (at least for Surgeon's and Blood knots).  2) The leader will be shorter and less tapered causing poor loop turnover.  Eventually, it will have to be replaced.

An alternative approach is described in "Lefty Kreh's Ultimate Guide to Fly Fishing: Everything Anglers Need to Know by the World's Foremost Fly-Fishing Expert".  In this book, Lefty suggests joining the leader and tippet using a square knot formed by two non slip mono loops (Kreh knots), one in the leader and one in the tippet.  Using this approach, tippet material can be added (or removed) from the leader without shortening it.  In addition to extending the life of the leader this has several advantages: 1) The non slip mono loop is an incredibly strong knot, testing at nearly 100% line strength. 2) It is much easier to swap out tippets for a particular fly or fishing situation. 3)  Non slip mono loops can be pre-tied on tippet spools which allows tippet to be rapidly attached in the field with no additional knot tying.  The only downside I have thought of with this approach is if there is heavy vegetation the loop to loop connection may be more prone to snag or collect plant material; however, my initial tests of fishing with this connection on water with vegetation suggests this is not a problem.

First Slab of 2012

I caught this 20" rainbow trout out of Jefferson Lake in Forest Park, St. Louis.  Every winter, the Missouri department of conservation stocks rainbow trout as part of the urban winter stocking program.  

 

The fishing has been exceptionally good here lately, with a warm front that moved in late last week.  The day after I landed this lunker I caught 7 more bows all over 12".  This was caught with a #12 jig, with a bead head and black marabou body, very easy to tie: a simple but proven fish catcher for trout, crappie and bluegill.  For stillwater trout I fish this fly with no indicator, just after sunset.  I start out with slow 4-6" strips followed by a 1-2 second pause.  If that doesn't produce I increase the pause all the way up to 15 seconds.  Sometimes I will just cast it out and deadstick for a whole minute before I start working it back.

As one who originally spent a great deal of time fishing for largemouth bass, I have found that one of the most critical (and difficult) modifications I had to make for trout was to slow down the presentation.

Brownlining in the River des Peres

Back in 1876 the river des Peres was a gently flowing tributary of the Mississippi river brimming with wildlife. In the early days of urban development, the city of St. Louis commandeered the river as a channel for human waste.  After realizing that dumping raw sewage into a river is a bad idea, attempts were made to separate the flow of sewage from the flow of "natural" runoff and the river is now a channelized ditch that during dry weather carries runoff and in wet weather carries a mixture of storm water and raw sewage out to the Mississippi river.

Naturally this sounds like a great place to fish, so this past weekend, Justin and I suited up and headed to south city in the hopes of finding carp.  After parking the car in a park between Gravios Avenue and Morgan Ford Road, as we were setting up our rods we overheard two kids that were watching us, debate as to whether we were actually going down into that "ditch" to fish. Their parents probably warned them the only thing you will catch in that water is dysentery or an occasional corpse.  Yes, this is urban angling at its finest.

As we made our descent, we could see signs of aquatic activity with swirls and splashes decorating the turbid water. Something was clearly thriving down there. As we got closer to the water we noticed a definite carp presence with several cruising and tailing fish.  We sight casted to the carp and within 15 minutes Justin had already hooked into his first fish, a nice grass carp.  We worked our way down the river and near an inlet, we spotted a pool full of gar chasing smaller minnows.  One gar even had a bluegill locked in its jaws that it couldn't possibly swallow whole, but clearly he wasn't letting go of his prize for a moment with the competition cruising around him.

We casted to these gar for a while hooking several.  Justin was using a carp carrot and I was using a #12 black Wooly Bugger with a bead head.  We were catching the gar best by making a leading cast to gar cruising near the surface and then retrieving the fly with a continuous jigging motion at a medium speed. After several gar my bugger was badly shredded.

Next, I made a cast out into the pool and let the fly sink deep before making a slow hand twist retrieve. I got a solid pull and had my first carp of the day hooked up.  Luckily, Justin was close by with his net to help me land this grass carp.  I am not good at lipping them with the bogas as history has proven.


After Justin netted the fish, chaos ensued: I pulled my bogas out of my pocket to hold the fish for a photo op and my phone fell out onto the bank and slid into the river.  Instinctively I went after it into the dirty water in the hopes of saving it. 

We fished the river until the sun started to set, catching several more grass carp having one of the best outings yet and adding a new spot to our list of urban carp fisheries.  Who would have guessed this neglected and abused river would hold such a thriving carp population.  Hope to see more brownliners out there some day soon. Don't be scared, the water is waiting, just give your fly line a good cleaning after your done and use barbless (its easier to unhook unmentionables that way).

P.S. I checked my phone the next day and amazingly, it still works!

Carped between the legs

This past Sunday I had a chance to go out to some secret carp flats with my buddy Justin.  The water level had dropped about two feet since my last trip out there, and this might be our last trip to these flats for the year unless there is a good rain.  The most productive section of the flats that we found was right next to a small channel that connects the flats to a deeper slough.  Within the first 30 minutes, Justin had his first fish hooked, and after a good long fight on his 5 wt. he netted a 4 lb common.

We were both wet wading and shortly after his catch, Justin's sandal came apart, so he went back to the car to get his hip waders.  Meanwhile, I stood heron-like still in the knee deep water, my eyes fixed toward the slough as three fat tails swaggered through the channel towards me.  As they entered the flats they separated and cruised the opening of the channel.  I made a leading cast to one fish with no acknowledgement.  Then another fish started cruising directly at me.  There was no way I would have time to set up for another cast to this fish, and my fly was about 6 feet behind the fish at that time, so I slowly swept the rod tip out to my side as if setting up for a roll cast.  As the fly drifted past the fish I let it settle and the fish casually turned its head down and toward the fly telegraphing the take.  I then made the roll cast to set the hook and the water churned about 4 feet in front of me as the fish bolted, fly in mouth.

The fish made several good runs before tiring within an arm's reach. Not having a net on me, I reached out precariously with my bogas to catch the lip and that's when it got a second wind and took off through my legs, brutally jerking my rod tip down into the mud as I stood peering between my legs as the fish made wake behind me.  In that split second I thought the fish has broken off, or worse, broken my rod.  After an awkward leg over the line maneuver I discovered that the fish was still connected and so was my rod.  The next time it was close enough to lip, I kept my legs close together and pulled this beautiful golden bone out of the water (my first common carp, 2.5 lb, caught on a #6 olive backstabber).

After Justin got back from getting his waders, I told him about my misadventure to much amusement.  The rest of the day was spent sight casting to the carp as they cruised all around us.  I had a nice follow from one other cruiser, but didn't catch any more fish that day.  As the sun set, we trudged back to the car, covered in slime and mud, fly rods in hand and memories of time on the water etched in our minds.

Dog days and catfish

Lately it has been hot, almost too hot to fish if such a time could ever exist.  The bass have hunkered down, the bluegill are nowhere to be found (at least the larger ones), and the carp, well the carp are just plain outsmarting me.  Spring fed trout laden streams are over an hour's drive from where I live, making them out of reach for the casual fishing jaunt.

These dog days of summer leave the fly fisherman debating whether to take cover in some climate controlled environment and tie flies until the heat dome passes, or fish after dark. 

Fishing after dusk presents its own unique challenges most of which involve some form of bumbling around in the dark either tying knots, untying unintended knots, blindly casting or flailing at the incessant onslaught of mosquitoes.

Even at night the bass bite has been slow with only a few takers, usually small fish. One night I was fishing the water's surface using a cicada pattern (Lucky #13), with an occasional bite.  Standing far back from the shoreline I cast just 4' off the bank, instantly something hungry slammed the fly.  I could tell it was a decent sized fish just from the water it pushed during the take.  After a good fight and to my surprise, I pulled a catfish out of the water, yes a top-water catfish.

 

Later in the week I was back at it, fishing in the pitch black.  Fishing in the dark really teaches one to feel the cast and listen to the loop as it whistles overhead. The surface action was completely dead, so I went with a subsurface presentation ( #10 black wooly bugger).  I was fishing it deep with a slow and continuous retrieve.  I snagged a log or something ( great another lost fly ).  Then I felt a strong tug and my fly rod bent willingly as line was ripped off the reel.  Slowly I tired the fish and landed a nice 16" blue catfish.  After the fight I realized I had used a barbless hook to bring this one in, what a great fight.  Here's to catfish on the fly in the dog days of summer.

On a mission for carp

Yesterday I set out on a mission to catch carp on a fly.  I have only fished for carp once before with my friend Justin (see his blog here), and I came up empty.  That trip, he caught one Asian carp by hooking it in the back on a low back cast with a backstabber (coincidence?), but since then, he has been racking them up left and right with solid takes.  I was inspired by his persistence and decided to strike out on my own in search of carp.  The night before setting out, I methodically prepared my gear and tied up several carp flies including the Carp Carrot, Backstabber and a Rubber Leg Hare’s Ear.

The following day I drove out west to a slough that sits adjacent to the Missouri river.  This body of water had flooded into a neighboring field of soy crop, which made for a nice flat to wade fish in and sight cast to carp.  I rigged up my 6 weight outfit with floating line and put on a 15' fluorocarbon leader with 6 pound tippet.

I fished for several hours, sight casting to carp that were rooting, tailing and cruising, and sometimes just blindly casting out of frustration.  It was a blistering day with temperatures touching nearly 100 degrees and the water I was wading in felt like a hot tub.  

Cast number 528 (approximate), I pitched a carp carrot out to to a mud puff about 40' away and made a short strip ... resistance ... another longer strip and the water boiled, carp on.  Immediately he bolted, and my reel made a painful noise I have never heard before.  I applied continuous pressure by alternating between palming the spool and retrieving line , and intermittently the fish would make a powerful run.  This dance continued for several minutes until he was close enough to lip.  The beast clocked in at 4 pounds, what a fight, what a fish!