An Hour In The Morning

When I was boy growing up in northwest Pennsylvania, my Dad used to have a saying about the comparative merits of different times of day for angling success. He’d tell my brother and me: “An hour in the morning is worth two at night”. At the time, I thought the sole merit of fishing early as opposed to late was that once the fishing was done, we would have time for all the usual weekend yard chores like pruning apple trees, mowing lawn and painting fences. I didn’t find this all that compelling to be truthful. Not to mention that rolling out to a buzzing alarm at 4:30AM was a lot more difficult for a sleepy, growing kid than say, already being awake for 10 hours or so and then going fishing in the evening.

But, a lifetime of fishing and related observation has convinced me of the truth of my Father’s maxim. While there are times that for one reason or another, like during major insect hatches or weather changes, that the best fishing was in the evening, time and time again I’ve learned that an hour in the morning is indeed worth two at night.

There are practical reasons for this to be true. In the heat of high summer when high water temperatures can make fish sluggish and tight-lipped, the water is almost always at its coolest at dawn. . In the evenings, while the temperatures may be down a bit from their daily peak, they still carry most of the impact of the heating of the day. On water that sees a fair bit of angling traffic with the attendant depressing effect all the banging and clattering of other fisherman can have on the fishing, you know that when you’re on the stream at the crack of dawn, you’re casting over fish that haven’t been bothered for a few hours at least.

But the main reason I believe an hour in the morning is worth two at night is the nature of early morning and first light itself. Dawn is by its nature a slow but steady unveiling. Morning mist surrounds you as you first step into the flow. In the dim light, the mist shrouds and occludes the far bank of the stream. You are alone in it with your thoughts, the fresh coolness of the air, the river and the fish. Gradually, the veil lifts and the world around you becomes more focused, sharper. The dark shape on the far bank becomes a sturdy tree; the pale stripes of lighter hue upstream become the tongues of the current as it glides around the sides of a small island. The world of the river comes to life before your eyes, a curtain slowly lifted in welcome, as if it is all happening just for you.

And in the cool of the runs and pools, below the surface of the moving sheet of water shrouded in the dissolving mist, the fish are renewed after their overnight respite and are coming to life and are on the hunt. They veer through the shallows, chasing minnows and they flash in the pockets behind the boulders, seizing a nymph dislodged from its home in the rubble bottom. Soon the sun will wax too strong, the light too stark and the fish will seek shelter from the heat and light. But for now, there is still mist on the water and the still wan light emboldens them. It feels like they too are there just for you.

My Dad was right about this as he was about so very many things that he took the time to teach me as a boy, not only about fishing, but about life. And I think of him and the things he taught me often. And even though he is gone, he is with me when I make that first step into the morning mist and wait for the unveiling to begin. An hour in the morning is worth two at night.

Tips, Part 1

Back a few weeks ago when I set off on this adventure in blogging, I promised in my introductory post that from time to time, I would post some common-sense tips guaranteed to help you catch more fish.

Let it never be said that I do not keep my promises..

So, without further ado, here is today’s tip:

To increase your hooking percentage, use an anesthetic on your nose - It has been thoroughly documented that the primary reason most fly anglers only hook about 40% of the fish who take their offering has nothing to do with slow reflexes, an inability to detect the strike or even fussy fish who strike tentatively. The primary reason we miss fish is itchy noses. That’s right, the same involuntary phenomenon that makes your nose immediately begin itching when you are helpless in the dentist’s chair and you’ve been commanded to hold still is also the reason we miss that instant in time when the fish strikes and we must set the hook. Think about it and you’ll see it is true.

So, to increase your hooking percentage, you must deaden your nose so that when the fish strikes, you’re ready and not caught scratching. Try applying a thin film of any sensation-deadening ointment or salve to your nose before you make the first cast of the day. You’ll see a marked improvement in your hooking percentage almost immediately.

Among the best nose-deadeners on the market are the toothache gels. They have a high benzocaine content and their consistency is sufficiently thick that a single application will often last several hours. You’re also ready if you develop a toothache miles from the car, and will avoid being driven from the water just as the fish become active.

A caution about alternate means of achieving this deadening effect. A friend who dislikes all salves and ointments tried to substitute the oral administration of several shots of high-proof bourbon before he began fishing. His nose became sufficiently deadened to increase his hooking percentage, but he became unable to tie the laces on his wading shoes and ended up going to sleep under a tree next to his car. While he slept, on the river not 100 feet away, great trout rose to the flies of others with properly deadened noses. He missed it all. Don’t let this happen to you.

A secondary caution. On sunny days or in stream situations where there is a good chance for an encounter with stinging insects such as yellow jackets and the like, be sure to check your deadened nose from time to time to ensure it has not been severely sunburned or become swollen to several times its normal size as the result of a bee sting you never felt.

Watch for our next posted tip when we will examine the advantages of carrying a potted shrub with you on the water to help shield your approach to wary trout in low stream flow situations….

The Muted World

One of my favorite things about being away from the world on a trout stream or a bass river is that it gives me a needed break from my day to day struggle to be able to hear and communicate. My hearing is very poor and even with two powerful hearing aids; it still takes a lot of work and continual staying on my sensory toes in order to get along.

Don’t get me wrong.. This is not a tale about “poor, poor me” or an exercise in self-pity. I’ve been living with severe hearing loss for a long time, over 30 years and truth be told, I do pretty well given the extent of my loss. Everybody says so from my audiologist to my long-suffering and patient wife who constantly has to repeat herself to me. It’s a point of pride with me. I work hard at being able to hear and for the most part, I am successful. I don’t want anybody’s pity. I am among the most fortunate of men in so many ways. I refuse the yoke of self-inflicted martyrdom.

Still, there’s no denying that a portion of the reason I so love being out on the water and away from the world is the absence of unbidden noise. On the water, there are no ringing phones to answer and then struggle to understand the sounds coming out of the earpiece. There are no televisions that suddenly pump out a dose of double volume into my already over-amplified ears when the ads come on. And there are no screaming kids, no accidentally activated car alarms and nobody is yelling; “customer service to housewares!” at 90 decibels out of a speaker directly over my head when all I want to do is find the 75 watt bulbs.

Out on the water, there are only the sounds of the stream sliding by and falling from rock to rock, the high whisper of the wind in the trees and the occasional angry chatter of the blackbird or kingfisher whose business I have interrupted with my presence. I do not feel ambushed by these sounds as I do by so many of the sounds in the busy world. I welcome them as a part of the natural world I love. They are soothing to me and a portion of the necessary recharging and restoration of serenity that allows me to return to the sounds of the busy world.

I have a “hearing hat” that I often wear when fishing. It isn’t a special hat designed for people with hearing loss. It’s simply a hat with a full 360 degree brim. I have one with a ventilated crown for hot weather and another of military surplus origin and sturdy cotton/poly construction. I spray this one with silicone so that it keeps rain away from my hearing aids, for a while anyway. This is important because fish will often become active when it starts to rain and I don’t want to have to quit just because my hearing aids are in danger of shorting out. Both these hats cup sound to my ears, enhancing my hearing and helping me to pick up noises of which I need to be aware. Noises like approaching thunder or the warning snort of a nearby bear. I’ve been unexpectedly soaked more than a few times and have also encountered a few bears when I didn’t have my hearing hat on. Pushing aside a streamside bush and seeing a bear at about 40 feet tends to concentrate the mind as well as weaken the knees. I always wear my hearing hat when I’m in bear country. I think it makes a difference and even if it really doesn’t, believing it does makes me feel better.

Despite my hearing problems, I don’t believe the things I seek or the reasons I seek them are really any different than most of you. We all desire refuge from time to time, a calm harbor where we can momentarily disengage from the things we grapple with on a daily basis. The act of being knee deep in the flow, working my way up a rushing trout stream, rod at the ready and looking for risers is my disengagement, my harbor and my restorative. The sounds of the water and wind in the trees are the music of my muted world. It is one of the most beautiful songs I know.

Too Many...

This morning, I was paging through a book of bass and panfish fly patterns. My next outing on the water is never far from my mind and I’m thinking it’s about time to uncase the nine foot, six weight and pay a visit to one of my favorite southern Wisconsin smallmouth rivers. If I’m going to do that, I have to tie more flies. Well, “have to” is perhaps not exactly right. I want to tie more flies. That’s more accurate, more honest to the true nature of my affliction.

I have way too many flies. Trout flies, bass flies, pike flies, steelhead flies. Flies that are specific to one river on the other side of the country or meant to imitate one particular insect emergence on that same river. Places I’ve visited once and may never see again. Flies that are used or fish-chewed beyond utility and I have kept so that eventually (virtually all roads to ruin begin when we first use the word “eventually” to describe our intentions..), I may shave them with a disposable razor and reclaim the hook in order to, well, make more flies. Flies that I only need or use in August. Or April. Or only between Memorial Day and Flag Day, in the afternoon, if it’s cloudy, but not too warm.-. Too many. I have little Tupperware containers of them laying all over the house, in forgotten corners of closets and holding the cobwebs together on seldom-visited shelves in the back of the basement, somewhere past the place where the boxes of wrenches and cans of spare nuts and bolts end and no-man’s land begins.

Every once in a while, I take a notion to change my ways and get this demon under control. I go through all my flies, or at least as many as I can find at the time, and send hundreds of them to my brother in Pennsylvania. Other times, I make myself throw some of them away. That’s painful. What if I need them some day? Never mind that I’ve gotten along perfectly fine without them for nearly decade. None of it ever seems to make more than a minor dent in the overall number of flies, though. There’s always more hiding somewhere on the remote shelves and in the forgotten nooks of our home.

I know how it happens. I know how it comes to be that I have all these flies. And well I should know, because I’m the guy who makes them all. I do it with deliberate intent and in full recognition of the consequences. But here’s the thing: I don’t care. I’ve decided it’s a non-problem. I tie flies in part because it is the on-ramp to the road to being on the water. It’s the drum roll that precedes the unveiling of the Grand Prize and the fuel that stokes ever higher the fires of my anticipation of the moment when I’ll actually be fishing.

So, whether I really need them or not, I’ll keep tying lots of flies. Flies for Wisconsin Spring Creeks and flies for brook trout in the UP of Michigan and flies for smallmouth bass in sparkling, boulder-studded rivers and high clay-banked creeks. Flies I might not always need and flies that I probably don’t need, but cannot risk being without and flies I flat out do not need, but want anyway.

I have to. It’s the closest thing to fishing I know of without actually crawling into my waders.

Maybe I should put up some more shelves in the basement..

Humility..

What’s the toughest trout stream you’ve ever fished? And what makes it that way? Is it tough because the fish are all but impossible to approach without spooking? Or are they so heavily fished over that they become jaded and technically difficult? Or maybe the type of cover and holding lies the fish favor in your toughest steam are such that a decent cast and float is all but impossible. Or perhaps a composite of some or all these things and some others to boot.

I’ve fished some streams over the years that have given me fits with their refusal to surrender a single fish. Often, I’ll happen to fish them after having a pretty good run of luck elsewhere on other waters, as if the Great Leveler of Angling Self Esteem in the sky decided I was getting too big for my waders and needed a little right-sizing and a reintroduction to humility.

I’ve had very difficult fishing on Oregon’s Metolius River in the shadow of the Cascades, where pods of wild rainbows rose again and again in a maddening rhythm while ignoring my every offering. There are few tougher fish than the browns of Pennsylvania’s Cedar Run when the heat of July has shrunk the pools to mere shadows of their size in April. Likewise the chutes and runs of Lost Cove Creek in the North Carolina Blue Ridge in the low flows of autumn when the stream banks are wreathed in fallen leaves and the trout are skittery and flee their own shadows. And the picky, over-exercised browns of Fisherman’s Paradise on Spring Creek in Pennsylvania and Black Earth Creek in Wisconsin have more than once sent me back to the car mumbling to myself, hat in hand.

I believe though that the most difficult trout stream I’ve ever fished is not any of these fairly well known places. It is rather, a tiny ribbon of water that flows only a few miles from the place in the northwest Pennsylvania dairy country where I spent my boyhood. It wends its way through shaded meadows dotted with grazing cattle and through short stretches of hardwood-shaded fast water. Its blue clay undercut banks and criss-crossed log jams are alive with wild brown trout. But, for me at least, they might as well be tarpon, turtles or potted flowers for all the good their being there does me in terms of being able to catch them. I gingerly approach the tiny pools they live in with the fish stalking methods developed over 40 years of fly fishing. At best, I get to see the tail of the slowest of them disappear into a muskrat hole in the clay bank. At other times, I raise my rod to cast and can see the wakes of panicked trout fleeing two and sometimes three pools ahead. When I come here, I’m lucky if I catch a fish. No, strike that.. When I come here, I’m lucky if I actually see a fish. I mean not just a tail or a wake hurrying away from me, but an actual fish.

All the same, the stream never disappoints me. Frustrates, enrages, humiliates, sure. All of these. But it never disappoints. Because in an odd sort of way, I think it is good to get right-sized and bested in this manner from time to time by a living thing with a brain the size of a large lima bean. It serves to help maintain a proper balance between my occasionally overblown sense of my own prowess as an angler and a natural world whose beauty and allure are so often about its inherent mystery and refusal to be mastered. It is, in my view, allegorical to the mistakes of arrogance we have made as a species in dealing with the natural world. The free-flowing rivers we have shackled with dams, the mountain tops we have destroyed in our search for energy and the marshes we have callously filled so we can put up a hundred houses that all look the same. All because we can and because we are top dog on the chain of life. It does us good to be bested now and then.

So, I’ll always be in favor of tough trout streams. At least so long as there are also a few easy ones around where I can go and salve my wounds. The awe and humility I feel in God’s creation are too much a part of the beauty of the natural world to ever want it otherwise..

Again..

In August of 2007, torrential rainstorms staged one after another marched across the Driftless Region of Southwest Wisconsin and Southeast Minnesota, the area where I do most of my trout fishing these days. The resulting floods took the lives of over a dozen people and did millions of dollars in damage to small towns and infrastructure all through the region. I did not return to fish the area again in 2007 after the flood water receded. Life was full and busy and back home in Pennsylvania, my Dad's health had taken a serious turn for the worse. It was better, for the time being to stay close to home.

Early this past April, I went up for my first outing of 2008 and to survey the damage to the streams I love. To say it was surreal is very near to an understatement. On one stream, I saw a leaf-covered deer skull wedged in the crook of tree 50 feet back from the stream bank and five feet in the air. The little creek, in normal flows seldom more than 20 feet wide and three feet deep had deposited the skull with its wreath of leaves there during the height of the flooding. Many of the streams I visited on this and subsequent trips looked like The Almighty had taken a hundred bulldozers, linked them in tandem and turned them loose. There were SUV-size piles of stream gravel out in the middle of cornfields and entire near-stream groves of poplar and oak with much of the bark stripped from them eight, 10, 12 feet in the air. It was an awesome testimony to the power of moving water.

Still, the fishing virtually everywhere I went, even in the most apparently devastated of stream valleys, was fine. As good as it was before the floods last year and as good as it's ever been in my 10 years of experience out here. Another awesome testimony, this time to the resilience of wild trout.

Every year, a good friend comes out from Pennsylvania and we spend a week hopping around on the spring creeks of SW Wisconsin and NE Iowa. We drive from creek to creek, catching too many fish (if that's possible), eating too many cheap cookies and drinking too much Mountain Dew and Diet Coke. Just generally exulting in the great fishing and having a grand time. This year's trip took place the first week in June. All week long, the weather forecasts warned of impending severe storms with heavy rains and all the rest. Yet, despite the ominous forecasts and no shortage of equally ominous skies, we saw perhaps a half-inch of rain all week. This changed as were pulling stakes from the last stop of the trip on a little Grant County Wisconsin spring creek. Dark clouds churned behind us and the sparse but big raindrops that often form the lead edge of a summer thunderstorm splattered against our windshield. By the time we had driven the 200+ miles home to my place, we had gone through several major storms and the skies promised more. We didn't think that much of it. We were tired and ready to go home. Relieved to stop eating cookies and convenience store sandwiches and start eating real food again.

Rising the next morning and picking up the newspaper, we learned that it was Deja Vu all over again and not in a good way. The entire region we fished was being pounded by storms that were in the process of dropping anywhere from 5-11 inches of rain in just a couple days and every river in the region was in serious spate. It was August of 2007 all over again, only perhaps worse. The little NE Iowa streamside parking lot where I picked my buddy up on Wednesday evening of our trip giddy and exhausted from catching trout was now beneath 8 feet of water. The neat and tidy small municipal campground, hard by the banks of the usually placid Kickapoo, a place where I often hang my hat on my solo trips to the area was under at least 10 feet of water.

As I write this and think about it, the foremost thing on my mind isn't how we escaped the worst of it and had a productive trip. It is rather, about the twice-innudated folks of the region who will now to begin all over again so soon after the floods of 2007. Our hearts and our prayers go out to them. They're a fine people and did not deserve this heartbreak again. Let's hope they have the resilience of the wild trout in the streams of their beautiful region. I'm pretty confident they do..

Down A Lazy River

June is almost half gone by and the new summer is settling in. The sun gets a little stronger every day, the afternoons more humid and the nights warm and still. Every year about this time, my thoughts begin to turn from the trout that have occupied them for the past few months and back towards one of my favorite angling pastimes back home in the rolling hills of Northwest Pennsylvania, float fishing from a canoe down a large creek or small river in search of smallmouth bass.

While I am by nature a mostly solitary angler, float fishing is custom made for sharing with a fishing buddy. One of you gets to sit in the bow and have first crack as the new pools and holding areas come into range. And the other maneuvers the canoe as you go; threading it through the rock gardens and using his paddle to pry it off the rocks and shoals and keeping it moving ever downstream. And then you switch positions and start all over. Very democratic.

Along the way, you pass the swimming kids and wading anglers clustered near the bridges and other access points. And then they’re behind you and ahead lays a piece of river where there is no one else but you, your buddy, the fish and the river hurrying along. No houses, no roads, no beer cans. The paths along the river banks grow fainter and eventually disappear. There is an anticipation that builds inside you, a feeling that you are entering a place where none have been before and are about to cast over fish that have never seen a fly or lure. Of course, it isn’t really true. But it feels that way. And in today’s crowded and bustling world where solitude is at an ever growing premium, the feeling is enough.

And when the bass are there and willing, all the better. While there are exceptions, these generally aren’t large fish. We’ve floated six, eight, ten miles of river in a single day and never caught a bass over 13”. But what they lack in size, they more than make up in attitude and pugnacity. They stop the fly in the lee of an instream boulder and catapult for the sky, angry and indignant at having been fooled. They bow the rod, run hard for cover and then leap again. You wear them down and eventually bring them to hand. They glare at you with eyes of red fire, unbowed and only beaten for the moment, their flanks of burnished olive/copper dripping and glistening in the light. You turn the hook out of their jaw and slide them back into the flow. On a good day on a good river, this is a scene that can repeat itself 50, 60 and even occasionally, 100 times or more.

And then, usually just about the time you begin to conclude that a canoe seat is not quite as comfortable a place to sit all day as what you had originally thought, your pullout point comes into view around the next bend. A few more casts and then you set the rod aside and paddle over to shore to step out and stretch on wobbly legs and begin the unloading. Time to go home. And suddenly, you don’t remember the canoe seat being that uncomfortable at all. It gets down inside you and takes root, this float fishing. You’ll be back, and soon.

I’ve float fished dozens of Pennsylvania’s larger streams and smaller rivers for smallmouth bass. Some with my brother and others with my brother-in-law. And occasionally, with somebody I’ve only met once before, usually the winner of a day’s float trip I would donate as a raffle prize to this or that TU or other club banquet. I’ll grab any excuse I can find to get on the water. It’s all good. From the high clay-banked pools and murky riffles of Northwest Pennsylvania’s French Creek to the sparkling, boulder-strewn runs of the Clarion River to the tight confines of upper Conneaut Creek and the clear waters of Pennsylvania’s Pine Creek Gorge, the fine scenery and the feisty bass provide an unbeatable combination.

Soon, I’ll leave the tight, serpentine trout streams of the Upper Midwest behind for a bit and head on home to Pennsylvania for a few days of float fishing for bass with my brother-in-law. We’ll ride the water, spook the wood ducks off the river in the morning mist and watch them circle and land behind us and we’ll catch a few bass and leave the hurried world behind.

It’s all good..

Hanging Out The Sign...

Welcome all! This blog will be a running set of observations, musings and pronouncements about fishing in flowing water (mostly with a fly rod ..) for trout, smallmouth bass, large stumps and other intractable objects. There will be essays on fishing as metaphor for the meaning of life, essays on fishing as the key to world peace and harmony between all and essays on fishing methodology, mythology and pathology.

Along the way, we will profile and discuss trout streams in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Oregon, Iowa and other equally exotic locales and we will explore flowing water smallmouth opportunities in Pennsylvania and the Upper Midwest. There will be tips on how to be a more successful angler and there will be protracted rants on the virtues (or lack of same) of various fly patterns, fly fishing equipment and accoutrements and various and sundry angling methods. And much, much more..

Most of all though, there will be an ongoing celebration of our streams and rivers and the fisheries they provide and the joy to be found in each and every one.

So, watch this space! There's lots more coming and soon...