Cloudy Day = Stillwater Heaven: Fly Fishing the Gray Stuff

A good fishing friend used to call fishing in overcast conditions “fishing the gray stuff” and when the damp, drizzly gray days came along, he went fishing.

The sky is gray, the water is dark gray, and the fish aren’t holding tight to cover like they usually do on sunny days. On gray days, the fish seem more willing to move for a bait — a happy day indeed for fly fishers.

And yes, Wednesday was a gray day at East Grand Lake. My heart soars…

Variety: a nice smallmouth and a Redear sunfish fell to the mighty bugger.

In simplest terms, it was a good day to be a fisherman, and as evidence, I kayaked my way to a truckload of smallmouth bass (plus the odd sunfish), who all seemed eager to snack on a black Wooly Bugger.

Fish came shallow. They came deep. They ate as the bait fell, and they ate on a fast strip. One even ate as the bugger dangled off the rod tip on a paddle to new water.

In other words, you should have been here Wednesday.

The Kayak Chronicles

Fly fishing from a small kayak can be a shoulder-wrenching exercise; even a slight wind turns you around, and I often find myself juggling a paddle, fly rod, and fish in an attempt to stay in the “fishy zone.”

The bites were coming fast enough that I often found myself holding a rod in one hand and the paddle in another, which was the signal for the bass to attack the lure.

Those are the times when I’m happy to get the bites and catch the fish, but I’m glad there aren’t any video cameras around to record the “show.”

Then again, no one records my glorious, got-it-all-perfect-and-caught-a-big-fish moments either, but in fairness to the videographers of the world, my ratio of “clown” moments to expert ones is probably in the neighborhood of 50 to 1.

Life — as I’ve noted before — is imperfect.

Float This

A slow-moving, “can’t go too far or my knees will explode” float tube is probably a better fly fishing platform, but a kayak offers you the freedom to roam, and besides, we don’t have any float tubes here.

Later in the day, I even managed to catch seven nice smallies right off the boathouse dock, an impressive number being as I’d never caught more than one off the dock before.

The kayak fish were caught on an intermediate “ghost” line, which was being cast by the 4-pc Orvis Zero Gravity 6wt I reviewed some time ago.

This trip became something of a luggage test for the L&T Nancy and I, so only 4-pc fly rods made the cut. This meant my bamboo rods stayed home, and (for once) made my fly rod choices didn’t involve much agonizing — I only have two 4-pc rods.

Thus, I’m either fishing a 9′ wt Zero Gravity, a wonderfully supple Steffen Brothers 8.5′ 5wt fiberglass rod, or — in the case of a crowded canoe or windy day — one of the local casting/spinning rods.

Simple, eh? More fishing to come from Grand Lake Stream, Maine. But first, a message from the local videographer’s association…

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