That Awful Skunk Smell
By Tom Chandler on Oct 17, 2006 in Fishing Report, Fly Fishing, Upper Sacramento
With clouds appearing on the Western horizon and light rain forecast for the late afternoon, I was getting revved up by the thought of clouds of blue-winged olives pouring off the water.
It only took a few seconds to convince Chris Raine to abandon his adult responsibilities, and in the early afternoon, downriver we went.
My biot-bodied soft hackle emerger. That’s a #22.
Sadly, the clouds rolled in… about two hours too late. We fished a very flat, very clear stretch of water where the fish simply disappeared like UFOs if you got a little too close, which didn’t seem very close at all.
This is the time of the year when long leaders are needed along with a healthy dose of sneakiness and a little luck, and the flies - outside of the hummingbird-sized October Caddis - are tiny.
When a patch of clouds obscured the sun, the trout would rise sporadically, but as soon as the sun shone brightly, the fish would simply stop, unwilling to hang around in water so painfully clear that to an osprey, the trout would look like they were suspended in mid-air.
Fishing was tough, but the eatin’ was OK.
Several different bugs were flying, including a small BWO, a very tiny greenish mayfly, the odd #16 PMD, and what looked like a few #18 rusty spinners. And that’s ignoring the midges, errant small caddis, even some small stoneflies.
I fished a pair of BWO patterns and had four grabs. One was a zero, one was pricked, and I turned two, but hooked none. Chris did about the same, and while not landing anything is humbling, I was frankly pretty happy with the four bites I got.
We weren’t fishing to rising fish as much as hunting the potential for them; a fish would rise once or twice and then disappear for ten minutes, so hunting them became a game of marking risers, wading ever so sloooooowly into position, and then hoping they’d come up again.
Raine sneaking up on ‘em. Slowly.
It’s easy to walk away from an afternoon like that and wonder why I didn’t simply go fish the less-demanding faster water somewhere else, but in truth, this is what Fall and Winter mean to some of us - the chance to have our asses handed to us by picky, spooky fish under difficult circumstances.
This doesn’t mean I won’t go fish the faster water next time (given the generally sunny forecasts, I probably will), and I don’t disdain the rare trip when I catch big fish and lots of them, but I’m in the process of writing a post about the idea of “fair chase” among sportsmen, and by definition the concept includes the odd beating - the day when the prey simply outsmarts the predator (even a largely symbolic predator).
See you on the river, Tom Chandler.
Technorati Tags: fair chase, BWO, predator, Upper Sac
rriver | Oct 17, 2006 | Reply
That fly looks pretty good. Biot bodies are great. Try a small amount of either white or light gray antron as the tail sometime (5 fibers or so), but with the Sac being so clear, maybe not. Just enough to look like a fading shuck. Or, light gold Krystal Flash like on the John Goddard Super Grizzly emerger.
- rriver
Tom Chandler | Oct 17, 2006 | Reply
I tend to prefer the woodduck as a trailing shuck. Looks nice and translucent in the water, and the very fine markings mimic the segments of the shuck.
At least that’s my rationalization.
Not very durable tho, and I don’t have a religious-level conviction about it, so it’s not as if you’re an infidel bastard for suggesting antron… :-)
Bamboo Addict | Oct 18, 2006 | Reply
Is the purple hackle that inportant? I thought we used dun hen. great shots and great story as always see you in 8 days.
David
Tom Chandler | Oct 18, 2006 | Reply
I *do* use dun hen, but I’m guessing your monitor is set on its “punk rock” color setting. 8-)
But stick around for my upcoming expose on hen hackle…
Doug Lyons | Oct 18, 2006 | Reply
I had a similar experience this pat weekend on the Battenkill. Saturday was sunny for the most part and risers were hard to come by. Sunday was cool (cold some might say) and cloudy. The river was peppered with little olives and the fish responded accordingly. Great way to spend a miserable fall day!!! Can’t wait to do it again.
Tom Chandler | Oct 18, 2006 | Reply
@Doug: we’re only a few days away from the fateful “stock or no-stock” decision on the Batten Kill. Can we assume that the prognosis remains good for not stocking?
rriver | Oct 18, 2006 | Reply
I just got the two A.K. best DVD’s “Tying Nymphs” and “Tying Dry Flies”, this one being a DVD version of the book “Production Fly Tying”. He uses what he calls a “POV” camera so you can watch his hand techiques. I don’t know how long these have been out, put they are really good. He uses poly yarn on some flies.
- rriver
Tom Chandler | Oct 19, 2006 | Reply
Thanks for the mini-review. Just don’t let Raine know you bought anything titled “Tying Nymphs” or you’ll never be allowed in his shop again without de-lousing.
rriver | Oct 19, 2006 | Reply
Most of his nymphs are “in the film” types, but he does tie a couple of rocks.
The nymph that most intrigued me was his tri-color nymph. This goes against the brooks stone argument of maintaining a single color/view but it sure looks good.
His dries give me dry fly envy. With a DVD though, I have hopes of approaching his mastery.
- rriver
HH | Oct 19, 2006 | Reply
Tom, I had to laugh when I read this post. I was in Dunsmuir Friday afternoon, Saturday and Sunday. I fished the Sac all three days and did well Friday and Saturday. I didn’t catch a thing Sunday morning and dropped by Chris Raines’ shop early Sunday afternoon for flies and conversation. While he was ringing up my purchases, I asked Chris if any section of the river was fishing better than the rest. His replied that the entire river was fishing well and went on to say that “a guy would have to work at it to find a spot where he couldn’t catch fish.” I laughed and said ‘If anyone can do that, it would be me”. Thus the curse of the over confident fisherman raised its ugly head. I went up river and by late afternoon, Chris’ words were ringing in my ears and the strong odor of skunk rested heavily in the air. His prediction that the BWO hatch would peak around 3:00 was right on. There must have been four of them in the air, the most I’d seen at one time all afternoon. So, when I read your post, I was cheered to know at least two others were willing to work almost as hard as I to find a spot where you couldn’t catch fish.