With only a few hours left in 2009, it’s probably time I actually started writing my “The Underground Looks Back at 2009: The Year in Mirth & Pictures” post.

And while the Underground’s fly fishing-related theme for 2009 has to be that smaller is better (I was on an extended small stream jag most of 2009), not everything that found its way to the Underground was about the little stuff.

A recurring theme in 2009 was our obsession with small streams...

First, the Underground threw a brick through his own plate glass window and became a father.

That’s the kind of statement that requires a little pause, and maybe a few deep breaths (or even panic).

I won’t lie; daddy-hood requires an adjustment – one not made easier by the presence of Zombie Terrorist Contractors – but it’s something that’s already added a dimension to my life (and no, that dimension isn’t soiled diapers).

Still, life moves on, though sometimes in odd, erratic ways – like when I found Wally the Wonderdog contentedly munching a still-wet brown trout in my backyard, despite the fact we live miles from the nearest trout water.

I later figured an Osprey – returning from the Mt. Shasta Hatchery – dropped the brown trout on a flyover, but to say the whole event took on a surreal cast qualifies for “Understatement of the Year.”

In the same vein, I believe the Underground laid claim to “Best Fly Fishing April Fools Post of 2009” when I fired up my “Fly Fish From Home” faux business which eliminates messy fly fishing trips, instead offering fly fishermen what they really want: A Hero Picture.

My brilliant FlyFishFromHome.com concept never received the billions in funding it deserved...

It remains a brilliant concept and an excellent example of the following: The Underground’s A Decade Ahead of the Rest of the World.

My “Dozen Best Fly Rods of All Time” post continues to draw visits (and comments), and it’s successful enough that I probably should create a followup, though I’m not all that clear what that will be.

Time passes, and these decisions are sometimes made for us.

The Underground even found itself on national television courtesy of Trout Unlimited (the other, less-famous TU).

Naturally, I caught exactly one, small fish (and looked foolish doing it), so it appears my future in television is on a par with my future with supermodels.

The Fly Fishing Stories

Naturally, we let a little fly fishing creep into the blog, including one essay on Home Waters which seemed to hit home with a lot of readers (it was one of the most linked-to posts of the year).

Fly fishing is something we engage in for reasons of fun or sanity instead of revenue or food gathering, so in other words, it’s an emotional thing, which allows us significant latitude when we talk about it.

Home waters are a state of mind – not GPS coordinates.

For example, the concept of “home water” clearly isn’t geographic in nature, but a matter of the heart.

One fly fisherman can tell another his “home waters” are literally halfway around the globe, and the second fly fisherman won’t bat an eye.

That’s because his “home waters” are a five hour drive to the north (the last ten miles on dirt roads), and while humanity is generally poor at accepting alien perspectives, fly fishermen do sometimes make worthwhile exceptions.

That’s why I tend to seek out smaller, wilder waters even though I live on a beautiful freestoner. It’s not because blueline fishing is “easy” (for the record, nothing’s easy when you’re fishing from your knees or crawling through bushes).

It’s because the fishing is – to leverage a pair of overused words – intimate and predatory at the same time, a combination I find irresistible.

In the same vein, a few other small-stream fishing reports remain my favorites of the year, including this picture-heavy fly fishing affair from early in the season.

This beautiful little stream yielded a grand slam to me - and provided a resting place for a few of dad's ashes.

Then there was the small stream trip in Montana where I caught a trout grand slam on a tiny meadow stream which was – oddly enough – populated with 100 year-old freshwater mussels.

I’ve been there twice and It’s already become one of my favorite places, and because I embrace symmetry and symbolism equally, this time I left a few of my father’s ashes behind to hang out with the slow, patient mussels. It’s a perfect fit for him.

Later – as the season wound down (well, it never really winds down; the Upper Sacramento is open year-round, and in fact, I fished it yesterday), I found myself hitting a pair of local small streams, discovering the unhappy reality that trout which hurl themselves at dries in the summer don’t have much interest in doing so while winter tightens its grip.

First, on a remote water:

Lucky To Be Here

That said, I felt lucky to get what I got. In one sense, I was lucky to be there; it was sleeting when I arrived, but by noon it had grown colder, and by two, it was snowing.

When I finally left, I wondered if this was the storm that would close the road.

Even if it doesn’t, the next one might.

On the drive out, the truck skidded and slipped on dirt road, and I figured I might be the last fly fisherman to spook those trout until June or even July of next year.

Once, I entertained thoughts of skiing into this stream and fishing it long before others could get there, but the distances are daunting. And hell, I’m not even sure if the roads to the road are plowed.

Soon (very soon), the meadows will fill with snow, and they’ll stay that way for better than half the year, and the trout will go on about their lives largely untroubled – until one day the snow melts and a strange shape looms above them, waving a long, skinny stick.

If the romance of that escapes you, then check for a pulse.

Then, on the last day you actually can fish most of the small streams in my neck of the woods, I visited something nearby, and found the catching was great only if I was interested in ice-related photographs:

The last small stream trip of the year? Almost certainly...

In other words, small streams are reviving when you want a “pure” fly fishing/predatory/wild experience, but they’re not above kicking your ass, then freezing it, then sending you home empty handed.

Good for them. Us fly fishermen are a ragged lot, prone to ego and willing to forget those moments in time when we’re not skilled or heroic, and if it takes a dumb trout living in a tiny stream to remind us, all the better.

At least we’re learning our lesson in a pretty place.

The Humor/Satire End of Things

One of the Underground’s most-viral posts was my story about the vicious, man-eating chipmunk brought into our house by a cat – a wild animal that hid under a blanket until I promptly grabbed him, thinking it was the cat, proving once again that the Underground can scream with the best of the little girls when he’s surprised.

In a less-startling vein, a couple of less-than-optimal (euphemism alert) experiences on the river left me ruminating about the kind of people you run into on a river, and why you wouldn’t necessarily want to hang out with all of them: The Top Ten Signs You Don’t Want to Fish With That Guy You Just Met

Late in the year, an Onion story got me thinking that the sport would acquire a whole new urgency if death was the result of failure (instead of a ribbing at the hands of friends).

Along the way, I managed to alienate the fly fishing industry on several fronts, including the ongoing trade show spat that’s served as one of fly fishing’s longest-running soap operas.

The Year in Pictures

It was a tough year on the picture front; my trusty Pentax Optio camera continued its slow decline, and yes, I managed to forget the thing often enough that it’s become a running joke with the L&T.

Still, I managed to scrape together a few nice pics for use on this post, and here – in no particular order – are the better pics from the Underground’s 2009 season.

I hope you enjoy them – and also hope you and yours experience a 2010 that is memorable for all the right reasons.

Big winter trout, last light.

The next two pictures were taken on my best ski-and-fly-fish trip.

If you were a trout, would you eat these?

One of my favorite pictures of 2009

Another big trout caught at last light.

"On The Rise" TV host Frank Smethurst on the Lower McCloud - when flows rendered it almost unfishable.

Winter fly fishing on the Upper Sac isn't all BWOs; Wayne Eng nymphs up a trout

Wayne Eng caught a trout on this very drift...

The local scenery isn't bad either...

The Wonderdog remained a fan favorite, and why not?

Sometimes snow falls in black & white instead of color...

When the fly fishing's slow, the napping can be good.

Wayne Eng again, this time on Burney Creek.

An early season stonefly.

Stephen Betrand and I paid a spring visit to a small, meadow stream.

This brown trout's giving me the fin.

Sasquatch siting on a small stream.

Does he feel like a putz, or what?

Do we know all the best spots, or what?

Sometimes it's not just the trout that are pretty.

Without the hike, you're missing half the good stuff.

Weird, but we like it that way.

Mount Shasta's almost always visible around here. Lucky us...

See-through beauty...

This is what happens when the fly fishing's slow.

IMPORTANT NEWS UPDATE: One important 2009-related fact went unreported in my Year in Review post, and I wanted to correct it here: The Underground is proud to announce that we were one of the few organizations who did not sleep with Tiger Woods.

You may resume your normal lives.

Technorati Tags: Fly Fishing, fly fishing small streams, fly fishing the upper sacramento, the year in pictures, the year in review

At some points in your life, a little reflection is needed. Here’s why it should happen on a river.

The next step's a doozie.

The day before trout season opened in 1999, I ditched the Silicon Valley and moved to a tiny mountain town with its own trout river. I spent a chunk of that trout opener just sitting on the bank and watching the river go by, wondering just what the hell I’d gotten myself into.

Then, on the first day of the new millenium (1/1/2000), I fly fished Baum Lake (not much was open in the winter back then) – despite doing some things the prior evening that I did not discuss with local religious leaders.

Due to the hangover, I don’t remember a lot about that trip, but I do remember catching a fair number of Baum’s stockies on a BWO dry, which is a pretty good way to start your next 1000 years. At that point, I had no idea just what the hell I was getting myself into.

Today, I’m packing for Ethiopia, making yesterday’s trip to a small, never-fished-by-me stream – my last as a childless angler.

A couple times after I moved to Dunsmuir, I toyed with the idea of becoming a trout bum/writer/largely single guy, but never did quite pull the trigger. And frankly, I’m happy about that.

I greatly admire people like John Gierach, a man who decided to fly fish for a living and then made it happen (and does so without the posturing, false bravado, and suspiciously compensatory behavior that marks so many who take that route).

Still, admiring someone doesn’t necessarily mean following in their footsteps, and while I’m aware my new adventure represents a right turn from an earlier, more carefree existence, it’s not The End of An Era or anything remotely that dramatic.

Still, it is a moment that demands a little bank sitting, wondering just what the hell I’m getting myself into this time.

Fly fishing trips will do that to you. They force the rest of the world to recede, yet still invite you to ponder the imponderables – a neat trick for any sport.

I’m also aware that when I start thinking too deeply in the above vein, maybe it’s time to simply go fishing.

Which I did.

The Schedule = The Fishery

Due to the madness that has become life, I haven’t fished much lately, and yes, I badly needed to go despite a schedule suggesting zero tolerance for fun.

That’s why – the day before I left to start my pretty-much-around-the-world trip – I ran to a nearby small stream I’d found by accident earlier in the year, but hadn’t fly fished.

Small, pretty and almost certainly unfished.

The Wonderdog sure remembered our previous trip, and his first act – after marking every tree near the truck – was to spot the rings of a rising trout in a pool at the bottom of a small gorge.

I’d seen those rings too, but I didn’t gallump down the hill at speed and plunge headlong into the pool after the trout.

Naturally, he caught nothing, but quickly got over the disappointment after finding the bones of a recently deceased deer.

Thus, the key differences between fly fishermen and retrievers are revealed (stealth and a gag reflex).

Sure he's happy - he smells like dead deer.

I knew in advance there would be no big trout, and there was a chance there would be no trout at all.

That’s inherent in any fly fishing trip (especially one already severely constrained by distance and time), but the thought was a little punishing this time.

I hadn’t fished recently, and because this was something of a turning point in my life, I needed a trout to make the occasion. Any sized trout.

Needed one.

Just one…

Thanks. I needed that.

Deep breath.

With all the uncertainty ahead, it’s nice to know that dogs still roll in dead things, undiverted streams still flow during droughts, trout still eat dries, and fly fishermen can get their heads screwed on straight through the simple act of catching fish.

A portrait of the fly fisher as a newly young man

Working my way upstream was a challenge in stealth, casting, and yes, Wonderdog management, but I managed to land another half-dozen little trout, the biggest of which might have gone seven inches.

I didn’t care of course – this year I’ve been on a small stream jag which pretty much guarantees a dearth of “Slab of the Month” entries.

It also guarantees a slower-paced fishing experience, one which invites some odd photographic experiments, including those which find your tiny point-and-shoot camera half submerged in the water:

Why not experiment with your camera?

Or even fully submerged and looking up, trying to approximate what a handsome, local, small-stream fly fisherman might look to a trout:

Is this what trout see right before they're unhooked and released?

An hour after I started, I was finished.

Deadlines called, bags needed to be packed, people needed to be met, and I ended my last outing as a childless fly fisherman wondering if my daughter would find the same peace on small streams filled with tiny, largely ignored trout.

She’ll see plenty of running water (I’ll see to that), but will she ever find her way to a stream in the middle of a busy day, turning over stones, watching for telltale shadows on the stream bottom, rolling her eyes as her dog plunges into a fishy looking pool, and desperately wanting just one single trout – confirmation the world isn’t tilting wholly off its axis?

Cleary, the future is filled with little certainty. And a lot of possibility.

What trout see?

See you on the Stream, Tom Chandler.

Technorati Tags: fishing, Fly Fishing, fly fishing small streams, i need a trout, the restorative powers of small streams

You can probably count the number of truly life-changing decisions you’ve made on the fingers of one hand.

And no, I’m not talking about the moment you realized double-taper fly lines simply made more sense than weight forwards.

I’m talking about the lifestyle equivalent of picking up a brick and tossing it through the plate glass window that defines the limits of your neat, orderly life.

As in smashing it.

Something like that day in college when you realized words were cool things, and that perhaps you could make a living arranging them.

Or the decades-later realization that your clients had email addresses, so maybe you could hunker down near a good trout stream instead of living in the alternate universe known as the Silicon Valley.

Then there was the afternoon you realized life without a certain woman looked a lot less appealing than life with her, and maybe it was time to make this whole thing permanent.

Every one of those decisions seemed huge at the time – and each created its fair share of anxiety – but all worked out beautifully.

It appears the L&T and I have just thrown another brick.

In about two weeks, we’re saddling up a Boeing 777 jet and flying literally halfway around the world to meet our little daughter.

Our new little daughter.

Holy shit.

I’m about to become a parent.

The New Reality

I’m going to be right up front here; in the past, I have had doubts about my fitness as a parent.

And yes, since this process started a year ago, I have often huddled in bed at 3:30 in the morning, eyes wide open, mentally bulleting the ways I could emotionally (and physically) scar a kid already facing the challenges of adoption.

The good news? While adoption rules forbid me from posting her picture or name here, the pictures we’ve seen clearly indicate Little M (my clever code name) is cuter, smarter and just plain better than all the other kids on the planet.

In fact, it’s likely she’s a world-class athlete and natural-born fly caster.

I just know it.

You can tell by looking.

Plain as day.

(And yes – I already have the whole Proud Poppa thing down pat.)

Allow Me To Brag

The L&T has cleverly bypassed the “no public displays of photographs” rule by emailing Little M’s picture to approximately 80% of the planet’s working email addresses.

The overwhelming consensus is that she’s gorgeous beyond belief.

I believe they’re right.

Little M will be just over 11 months old when we bring her back home to the mountains of Northern California, where she will no doubt adapt immediately to her surroundings, sleep through the night, eat whatever she’s given, and spontaneously toilet train herself a good 12 months early.

And if she doesn’t do all those things, well, she’s still got that seriously cute thing working.

The Parent Trap

I suspect I’m not entirely alone in this, but as parent-to-be, I’m already excelling at the bit where you cycle hourly between excitement and sheer terror.

One minute I’m convinced I’m going to be a great dad, teaching my daughter all the really cool, important stuff while driving her to her next athletic triumph (track/tennis/soccer/etc – I’m easy).

The next minute I imagine falling prey to one of my absent-minded fogs, forgetting to feed my daughter, wandering off, then coming home to find her swilling drain cleaner from the bottle I left on the floor next to the gasoline-soaked rags piled on the accidentally left-on stove.

Clearly, anticipation is a two-edged sword.

Even Wally the Wonderdog knows something’s up – alerted by the steadily growing piles of kid stuff now taking over the house.

The Wonderdog’s not brilliant, but he clearly possesses an animal cunning, and he knows that diapers and brightly colored plastic toys can only mean one thing: A new source of dropped or spilled food is about to enter his life.

I have a feeling that the Wonderdog will become extraordinarily protective of Little M.

I already have.

Of course, stepping beyond the glass window that defines the limits of your “normal” life means picking up a brick and creating a little chaos.

Life changes, you sweep up the broken bits, your view is clearer and your range is expanded, and you can’t really complain.

I mean, it’s what you asked for when you picked up the brick in the first place.

See you at the glass shop, Tom Chandler.

Technorati Tags: bricks through windows, international adoption. holy shit

Fly fishing a river tunes you into its water, bugs, and trout.

You gain a sense of the moment, hopefully catch a few trout, and walk away with what amounts to a frozen snapshot of what you think the river is all about, though most of the time we’re wrong about that.

Hazel Creek through the trees. Pretty, pretty stuff.

If fishing a river delivers a snapshot, living alongside one for a few days tunes you into much more; the animals, the weather, the river’s moods, history — even how it reacts to sun and rain.

That’s why — when Ian and Charity offered me a chance to piggyback a backpacking trip onto their outfitted trip to Hazel Creek, I jumped at it.

They (and their outfitter) ferried a group of nine anglers across Fontana Lake, where they set up camp.

Light action 8′ 5wt and a few flies — all that’s needed on Hazel.

Calling it a “camp” is a little misleading; they slept like royalty (cots and big tents), ate like kings (fresh-made Blackberry Cobbler, steak, shrimp kabobs, pancakes, margaritas — the list goes on), and fished like demons.

It was a lavish production, and judging by the the number of anglers who said they were ready to sign up for the next trip, the whole enterprise is bound to be repeated.

The hike up Hazel Creek was flat, easy, and carpeted with wildflowers.

Because I’m prone to fits of isolation and self-denial, I packed my backpack with instant oatmeal and Top Ramen, and hiked five miles up the drainage.

I enjoyed being alone on Hazel Creek, but admit that being served great food while you focus on fly fishing isn’t the kind of thing I should reject out of hand.

Still, I think I made the right decision. I was hoping to lose weight, not gain it.

More Hazel Creek, farther up. Beauty, eh?

Still, there I was, five miles from the lake and setting up my ultra-lightweight “one-man” tent, which frankly felt more like a coffin.

Naturally, it started raining almost right away, and the Coffin Tent became less an abstract thought and more a temporary home.

For the next 11 hours, this is home; the inside of the Coffin Tent.

Still, the next day (Friday) dawned wonderfully clear, so I hiked up the Bone Valley — so named because an April blizzard trapped 100 cattle in the tiny valley and killed them, leaving bones strewn everywhere.

That was in the late 1800s, so the bones are gone. What remains is a perfect little valley, complete with historic cabin (built in 1880).

The cabin in Bone Valley, which is bigger than a coffin.

The fishing was slow until 11:00, when the rainbows started hitting my dry. I don’t think fly selection was particularly important, though I believe a yellow fly improved the odds a bit (there were many yellow stoneflies flitting about).

Not unlike the trout back home, except he fought with an accent.

All the fish were small, and after a couple hours, I hiked back to camp, made a late lunch, contemplated the river, and eventually headed a short ways down Hazel Creek.

It was a beautiful evening, and I was getting lots of eats on the small stimulator dry (lots of yellow stones in the air).

The fish included a couple of nice brown trout, the Tennessee version of which are so brightly colored that I marvel each time I catch one.

The red dots are bright, and the fins are orange. Gorgeous.

Later, I came to a large pool and didn’t get a single bite. I thought it was strange until I discovered one of Ian’s group had stuck a 26″ brown trout there only minutes before.

Oy.

Later in the evening, I stumbled on a Sulphur hatch (with spinner fall) and managed a few more fish.

A good day. A very good day.

I also stumbled across a snake that Ian later said was harmless, though I reminded him that I could have jumped back in fear, fallen and hit my head.

Harmless my ass.

That night, it started raining again (more hours in the coffin), and the next morning the creek picked up considerable color.

Still, it was falling and clearing, and reasoning that the rain might wash the yellow stones off the leaves and into the water, I threw a small yellow stimulator.

And yes, score one for intuition.

A frog (or toad, I can never tell which) overlooking Hazel Creek.

For a while I hammered fish — until it started raining hard. The water rose, it muddied, and the bite shut off.

Damn. I sloshed my way back to camp, and was confronted by the fact that I had nothing to do for the next 20 hours — and no dry place to do it.

By that point, the Coffin tent smelled like wet feet, which wasn’t all bad as I needed something to distract me from the wetness (and yes, next time I’m bringing a book).

One of the true joys of backpacking is when things get wet, there’s no way to make them dry until it stops raining.

And typically, everything gets wet.

The next morning, the sun came out, so rather than pack a bunch of water down the trail, I spent an hour trying to dry my gear.

Everything was wet, so it looks like I’m holding a wilderness garage sale.

Somehow, all the gear in the picture above fit into the pack below. (Never underestimate man’s ability stuff.)

It only looks light. It’s heavy.

I hiked down the trail back to the lake — going fast and losing elevation all along the way — and encountered members of Ian’s group.

First came Charity and her client, then I stumbled on Ian fishing alone.

Ian Rutter pottering about on Hazel Creek.

Finally, I was at the lake, and for all intents and purposes, the trip was over.

Of course, I’m leaving out a ton of stuff, including the contents of eight pages of notes I made in a small notebook.

Rather than fall too far behind my blog posts, I’ll cover the basics here and try to write an “end of the trip” wrap-up post that will be fraught with meaning and laden with deep thoughts.

Otherwise, you’d be reading this in October.

Hazel Creek Trip Fun Fact #1

On the trip over I drank a large soft drink, then drove over “The Dragon” — a stretch of road so twisty and curvy (330+ turns in 11 miles) that motorcyclists come from miles around so they can test themselves against it. I lost the test. Even though though I was driving, I attained a state of advanced motion sickness, pulled over, and barfed on my own shoes. Nobody was more surprised than Ian.

Hazel Creek Trip Fun Fact #2

The first night in the campground I met Larry K — who owns property on the Holston River, which Ian, myself, and some Nameless Guy had floated the day before. Amazingly, he saw us go by, correctly identifying Ian’s boat, Ian, and the fact that I lost a fish right in front of his house. Ahh, Lost Fish — the ties that bind.

Larry the boat watcher.

Hazel Creek Trip Fun Fact #3

Thought I took a couple of rods, I mostly fished my 8′ 5wt Diamondglass rod — a fairly flexible, slow tapered rod that was largely perfect for Upper Hazel Creek and its tribs. You want a rod able to throw big flies if needed, but soft enough to work at leader-only ranges.

Hazel Creek Trip Fun Fact #4

Hazel Creek is a fascinating area, home to a truckload of history, including logging operations that largely leveled the area, the eventual loss of those jobs, the reversion to a rural society — all of which was displaced when Fontana Lake was built and cut the area off from the rest of the world.

Some remnants remain: cabins, cemeteries, and even a rusting old iron headboard at my campsite.

Though I was ready to get dried out (and yeah, a warm shower wasn’t entirely outside my realm of thought), it was hard to leave Hazel, knowing it’s entirely possible I won’t make it back there again.

Look for a wrap-up post on my Tennessee trip (I’ve got two days of fishing yet to blog), where I plan to write more about Hazel Creek. It’s worth a few more words.

See you up the creek, Tom Chandler.

[tags]fly fishing, fishing, hazel creek, bone valley, tennessee, smokies, great smoky mountains, gsmnp, backpacking[/tags]

Lately I’ve been looking hard at all the bamboo fly rods in my rod closet, trying to mentally define why I fish them and how I apply value to them–values that often differ markedly from the marketplace.

Then that crafty bunch over at MidCurrent went and excerpted a chapter from Casting a Spell by George Black, a book about craftsmanship and its survival in the face of the industrial revolution.

I found it interest because it paralleled my thoughts about Bill Phillipson’s fly rod company, which tells a similar story about craftsmanship in the face of growing corporatism.

From MidCurrent:

George Black’s fascination with bamboo rod-craft pivots on Eustis Edwards, whose personal history speaks volumes about the survival of craftsmanship in American culture. This excerpt looks at the final disillusioning and yet productive years of Edwards’s life, and at the rods which exemplified his obsession with perfection.

Black focuses on Edwards rods, using the rods and their makers to illustrate the changes rapidly overtaking society post WWI.

I place Bill Phillipson’s rod company in a similar context; his small, individually owned company thrived for years before it was bought in 1972 by a large corporation which–immediately and somewhat inexplicably–folded the company.

His bamboo trade–like most others–had foundered with the appearance of fiberglass and the bamboo embargo of the cold war years, but unlike so many other production companies, he was innovating and building what were probably the best fiberglass rods available.

I’m sure there’s an answer to be found at the bottom of a spreadsheet in a file cabinet somewhere, but it’s hardly possible to overlook the larger trend at work: the corporatization of business in the USA.

That’s why the George Black excerpt at MidCurrent dovetails so nicely with the post I was already writing in my head.

I love it when the Universe writes my lead for me.

What’s Desirable in Bamboo?

In the weird, overlapping hierarchy that defines “desirability” in modern bamboo fly rod collecting, it’s possible that the Edwards rods were among the best, least-appreciated models–at least until Black’s book was released.

Longtime bamboo rod collectors will be reminded of the release of Michael Sinclair’s “Heddon: The Rod With The Fighting Heart” book.

It had an immediate (and galvanizing) effect on the price of used Heddon rods, which–until the book’s release–crowded the used rod lists at relatively low prices.

Still, the Edwards rods were never as plentiful as the Heddons, and I know I ignored the Edwards creations simply because there weren’t enough of them available to interest me.

Yet, equally true is the fact that the rods I owned and fished weren’t really considered desirable among the majority of collectors.

If I could have afforded it, I might have made an exception for the fishable, consistently excellent Paynes, but the Garrisons, Gillums and others were too rare (and expensive) to even contemplate buying, and the time I spent with their tapers (as represented by modern builders) was underwhelming.

In my case at least, the need to “collect” simply didn’t exist, at least not in the sense that I was looking to assemble (or could afford) a quiver of rods whose makers and tapers would impress when casually dropped in bamboo-savvy company.

Bill Phillipson & His Fly Rods

When I first grew interested in older bamboo rods, I focused on the Western rods, and soon fixated on Bill Phillipson’s creations.

Phillipson was foreman of the Granger shop starting in the mid 1930s and owner the “Phillipson Rod Company” until the early 70s.

It’s likely my interest was fostered by what I learned about Phillipson himself; a sometimes gruff man, he valued function over form, and his goal was to build rods that cast and fished as well as the most expensive models, yet at a price anyone could afford.

It’s likely that tapped into the populist vein that runs through me, and clearly, Phillipson was no huckster.

He was, in fact, an expert caster and a fine fisherman, who right up until his death could be found fishing Colorado’s waters, including the South Platte.

John Gierach cops to sometimes fishing an 8.5′ Phillipson on the South Platte not just because he sometimes ran into Bill Phillipson there, but because the rod’s perfectly suited to fishing that river.

Fishing Rods, Not Toys.

If day-to-day fishability defined collectability, the Phillipsons would occupy a place on the food chain far above many more expensive rods, perhaps only one rung below the vaunted Paynes and one above the currently hot Grangers (most of which were also Bill Phillipson’s children).

Still, though I own an even dozen Phillipson rods, I never became what you’d call a “collector,” and because I like talking to rod builders, I’m wholly interested in what today’s bamboo rod craftsmen are doing in the now century-old bamboo rod trade.

Still, after years of use, a couple of my favorite Phillipsons require some ferrule work, so I need to ship them to a rod repairer (the true downside of bamboo rods).

I fish a couple of the rods often, and wonder if that means I value them so much as fishing tools that I overlook the fact that another Phillipson will never be made.

In fact, the rods fish so well, I could–in a fit of Thoreau-esque simplification–surplus all my other cane and end up a perfectly happy camper (for most trout situations anyway).

Still, let’s face it; I’m not going to do it.

What I am going to do is split this post over a couple days. So tomorrow, more on Phillipson fly rods–the models I actually like to fish.

Click to read Part II of “Bury Me With My Phillipsons.” 

See you at the rod closet, Tom Chandler.

[tags]bamboo, bamboo fly rods, phillipson, phillipson bamboo fly rods, phillipson fly rods, payne, george black, edwards bamboo fly rods, fly fishing, fly rod[/tags]

I don’t know at what point putting on waders and heading to the river ceases to be a fishing trip and becomes an excuse for getting out of the house – the walls of which grow a little closer every winter day – but it’s likely I passed that point today.

It was snowing, the Upper Sacramento flows were coming back up, and Wayne agreed on the phone that we wouldn’t fish long or go far, none of which mattered.

I was getting out; not writing, computing or blogging.

I might have driven to Dunsmuir a little too fast.

Snow falling on Eng. (click the image for the big Hollywood version.)

We found ourselves fishing right in town, sharing a fly rod and a camera.

I missed the only bite of the day on a dry and dropper, which is a factually accurate summation of the trip, though it misses the point entirely.

There’s something about fishing in the snow; it’s a separate experience from fishing in sun or rain.

It’s quiet, and – if you’re dressed warmly enough – there’s the sense of functioning as a self-contained, foul-weather, mobile fishing unit.

It’s freezing outside, warm inside, and you’re pretty sure you could do this most of the day.

Still, when the fishing is tough, a couple hours is plenty to prove you’re a smart, tough fly fisher who fishes when the weather’s bad and everyone else is holed up in front of a heater.

Some days you just need to get out and marvel at the concept of waterproofing.

As I’m writing this (the end of the day), it’s snowing softly and steadily outside, and tomorrow will find me shoveling several inches of the fluffy white stuff off the driveway.

Snow is forecast for the next couple of days – good news for the ski industry – and I’ve got enough writing to do that I’ll be back in my office.

Which, suddenly, is looking a little roomier.

[tags]fly fishing, upper sac, upper sacramento river, fishing[/tags]

Save money tying your own flies?

That’s the hilarious contention of John McCoy (staff writer for the Charleston Gazette), and I wonder if his employer shouldn’t immediately administer a drug test – lest John suffer another drug-induced flashback.

I gaze at the piles of expensive fly tying materials, expensive hackles, machined HMH vise, chemically sharpened hooks and several-lifetimes-supply of hen necks cluttering my office and wonder what our friend John has been smoking.

My HMH vise. Ticket to savings, or expensive tool of obsession?

He recounts the high price of flies – and his amusing solution:

A relatively inexpensive answer to this problem is to learn to tie flies. Thirty years ago, when I started fly fishing, I couldn’t afford to buy rods and reels and flies too, so I learned to tie. I’ve done it ever since.

It’s difficult to estimate how much money I’ve saved, but I’ll try.

Let me try for you. I’d have to tie flies from now until people started making dinner reservations for their 2999 New Year’s Eve celebration to recoup the investment I’ve made in tools and materials.

And frankly, I’m an underachiever compared to the likes of Noted Pack Rat Dave Roberts, who recently built a whole new extension onto his house so he could warehouse his er…. “extensive” collection of materials.

(When the apocalypse comes and fly tying materials disappear from our nuclear-ravaged landscape, I’m heading right for Dave’s house.)

And there are plenty of people who consider him an underachiever.

So how about it? Is anyone saving money tying their own flies. Or are we spending scads of money for the privilege of getting them exactly the way we want ‘em…?

[tags]fly tying, hmh, flies, fly fishing[/tags]

A few years ago, I was lucky enough to stumble across a copy of Muriel Foster’s Diary, and bought it faster than your average fly fisher buys a big fish story.

If you’re not familiar with Muriel Foster or her diary, she was an upper-class Englishwoman who lived from 1884 to 1963. In addition to fly fishing, she loved to paint, and the heavily illustrated private fishing diary she kept is an engrossing record of one woman’s love for the sport.

She kept meticulous records of the fish she caught (including measurements and weight) as well as the flies she used.

Most pages were decorated with illustrations or poems, and the total effect is as much a portrait of the artist herself as it is a record of fishing in the early-to-mid 1900s.

Her diary spans a remarkable 35 years, though her latter years found her fishing (and writing) less due to the ravages of arthritis.

In fact, the final entry ends with “Finis Arthritis!” – but only after she describes fishing “a very deep, black little lake, surrounded by trees or cliff. difficult to fish.”

Like a true Undergrounder, she added “A most beautiful lake…”

There are days when I could tell you what the Trout Underground was all about, and others when I don’t have a clue, but I do know it’s at least partially an online community of like-minded fly fishing fiends/slaw dog enthusiasts – and a personal record of one writer’s fly fishing life on a river he loves.

I’d never claim to be a trout bum (and I know a few, including one who works way too hard to qualify as any sort of bum, but leads a truly enviable fly fishing life), but I do know what the sport means to a lot of the fly fishers I meet.

Most don’t keep hand-illustrated fishing diaries or snarky fly fishing blogs, but you can learn a lot from the look in their eyes when they meet you on the water, or the edge in their voice when you mention the fishing over the phone.

I only hope that – when the time comes to stop doing this (either fly fishing or the Underground, it doesn’t matter which) that I go with the grace of Muriel Foster, who didn’t make a big deal about things, but allowed as to how she’d fished a beautiful, deep black little lake with a borrowed rod.

Note: there are still used copies of Muriel Foster’s Fishing Diary floating around the Internet, including a few here at Amazon.com: Muriel Foster’s Fishing Diary (A Studio book)
[tags]muriel foster, diary, fly fishing[/tags]

When your back is sore from shoveling snow and your last walk with Wally the Wonderdog found you plowing through five inches of powder snow (the Wonderdog loves snow – he’s a powder pup for sure), then you can say that winter’s officially arrived.

A walk with the Wonderdog. Photo by Tom. Snow & sunset colors by God.

For many, it’s time to settle in and start tying flies, but ever since the Upper Sacramento was opened to year-round fishing, my fly boxes have slowly emptied.

It’s a busy week, but fishing is hardly out of the question. More snow coming today. More clouds later this week. And more to come on the Underground!

[tags]winter, upper sacramento river, mount shasta[/tags]

Given that 98% of the time you spend fly fishing could be technically classified as a failure, then having expectations for the remaining 2% seems pretty far fetched.

So it’s probably accurate to say that going fly fishing with a lot of expectations in place simply means you think you know what’s about to happen before something else does.

After today, I’m all for spontaneity.

Wayne Eng holding my 19″ brown. Big browns are our friends.

Surprise!

Earlier this year I scored an Upper Sacramento River Grand Slam; browns, brookies and rainbows in one evening.

I would have laid odds on it being the last time it would happen, but – based on the photographic evidence below – I was dead wrong.

Sometimes it’s good to be dead wrong.

Dazed and Confused.

Wayne Eng and I headed to a part of the river I swore I’d fished in the past, but now realize I hadn’t. It was long ago and my only excuse is that I was younger and generally more confused back then.

I’m glad I finally made it.

Waiting for me was a 19″ brown trout who ate a #16 dry. And a pair of 12″ Brookies who ate #16 dries. And several colorful rainbows who ate #16 dries.

The Grand Slam. And you get to read all about it for free.

A closeup of our friend the 19″ Brown trout. He’s Brown-a-licious.

I love Brookies. They’re Brook-a-licious.

The rainbows here are beacons. They’re Bow-a-licious.

It’s tempting to wax philosophical about the whole affair as if you and I were sitting in the study wearing smoking jackets and drinking $100-a-bottle liqueur.

Instead, it was just normal fishing, even down to the Keystone Cops moment that erupted when the 19″ brown – which I initially thought was small – took off for Lake Siskiyou.

I needed to scramble over a couple of car-sized rocks to land him, and while I’d like to think I did so with aplomb and grace, an honest appraisal would probably include words like “elephantine” and “clod.”

Fine. You hook a big brown and see how many octaves your voice goes up.

I landed the fish, and Wayne even stopped laughing long enough to help, the sign of a good friend or a fisherman with priorities.

Wayne Eng fishing a dry. It’s Sac-a-licious.

As for the death of expectation, not only was I wrong about fishing that stretch before, but we set out thinking we’d score heavy with the spent October Caddis dry.

Naturally, we did better with a #16 yellow stone and a similar-sized olive parachute.

I was fishing an 8′ 5wt Steffen Brothers glass rod that Rich Margiotta built for me, and it was lovely.

Wayne said it cast like it was on ball bearings – a better description than I would have written – and I’m slowly building a case for the concept that low-modulus materials fight fish better.

I’ll let you know after a couple more years of testing.

The L&T Nancy and I are heading south for Thanksgiving (to a place tragically devoid of trout) so there’s little hope for another fishing report for a week or so.

Of course, that won’t necessarily stop me from posting. Or wishing I was fishing. See you on I-5, Tom Chandler.

[tags]rainbow trout, brook trout, brown trout[/tags]

I got an e-mail alert from CalTrout, and while I’d rather do anything instead of getting all pissed off while sitting at my desk, I couldn’t avoid it in this case.

The key quote:

Despite what experts consider an ironclad case for the removal of the dams, FERC issued a draft environmental impact statement that recommends only modest changes to current dam operations. Ignoring the demands of the tribes and conservation groups for dam removal as well as agencies’ mandate for fish screens and ladders, FERC has proposed that PacifiCorp drive fish around the dams.

Heartwarming. Your tax-supported Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) – ever vigilant in protecting rolling-in-dough energy producers from profit-sapping environmental inconveniences like nearly extinct salmon – has ignored an enormous body of evidence suggesting that trucking salmon around the four dams on the Klamath simply won’t work.

Given the perilous state of the Klamath’s salmon population (fewer than 30,000 fish returned for the third year in a row), this decision makes me want to buy a deer rifle and fix the problem more directly.

But that’s the kind of talk that brings the feebs swooping down on you, and lord knows I don’t need that.

Got Foam? The Klamath last summer. Lovely, eh?

Instead, I’m doing the polite thing and sending a polite e-mail to FERC Secretary Magalie Salas explaining (politely) that FERC would do a better job of protecting the public if the agency staff had been fed to weasels.

You, however, should probably follow CalTrout’s instructions and send something reasonable. Here’s what I’m asking:

1. Go to this web address: http://ga3.org/campaign/klamath/wdnebx6295×5m5t?
2. Fill in your name and e-mail address
3. Click a button

That’s it! It takes seconds, and with any luck, we can get FERC to pull its collective head out of its ass and order PacifiCorp to pull its collective dams out of the Klamath’s ass.

This river has suffered so much at the hands of these dams, which generate huge water quality issues in addition to the loss of spawning habitat.

It’s time for them to go politely straight to hell.
[tags]klamath, klamath river, FERC, pacificorp, salmon, caltrout, heartless bastards[/tags]

Moldy Chum apparently never sleeps. That’s the only explanation I can find for his blog’s never ending stream of odd and unusual finds.

This time, Moldy struck the motherlode of fly fishing industry “journalism” and since I’m feeling a little hostile from my own lack of sleep, it’s time for a Trout Underground rant.

The omniscient Moldy uncovered a chunk of videos by Fish & Fly Magazine from the Denver Retailer show. You’d think these would be interesting, but (welcome to the fly fishing media) they’re mostly just nauseating.

Begin the Flaying

For starters, the interviewers displayed all the reserve of small children seeking candy, but then, what did you expect in an industry where the magazines seem wholly committed to kissing ass?

I’d tell you to avoid these video clips at all costs, but frankly, it’s easier to look away from a five-car pileup. Why?

You haven’t lived until you’ve seen an interviewer almost wet himself in his efforts to kiss the Sage honcho’s ass.

And when Winston’s Sam Drukman made a point of telling viewers that boron costs 10x more than carbon fiber, it lead me to wonder why their low-tech WT rods – made from a decades-old IM6 graphite – cost the same as Winston’s “high-tech” Boron models.

Gosh, I wonder.

And if you don’t cringe when Simms’ president casually mentions their new $700+ wader allows you to relieve yourself in the middle of the river, you haven’t envisioned seeing an angler doing exactly that one run upstream from where you’re fishing.

It’s a great day for fly fishing journalism

The Gierach video could have been the star of the bunch, but Tom Pero couldn’t stop fawning long enough to ask a single intelligent question. Still, it’s worth viewing, if only for Gierach’s refusal to bask in the glow of his own press – the man seems amused at the attention he receives.

Kudos also to Patagonia’s Bill Klyn, who rose above the fray by discussing the environmental aspects of manufacturing outdoor products instead of endlessly repeating the marketing’s department’s product bullets. Good on ya.

You can’t blame the manufacturers for taking advantage of Free Marketing Service Disguised as Editorial Content an interview. But you can blame most of them for doing it so poorly.

It’s a Learning Experience. What Have We Learned?

First, marketing in the fly fishing industry is largely stone age.

Second, fly fishing media probably don’t have your best interests at heart.

And third, there’s a fine line between technological advance and marketing ho-ha, and many of the latest products crossed that line some time ago.

We also learned it’s time for the Trout Underground to gather up his low-tech bamboo/glass fly rods and go fishing before he starts writing biting e-mails to everyone who’s wronged him over the years.

I’ll let you know how it goes. See you at the Prozac counter, Tom Chandler.
[tags]fly fishing, retailer, fish & fly, fly rod, simms, sage, winston, rant[/tags]

It’s hardly unusual for someone to get up every morning and check the weather, much less an avid fly fisher waiting (largely in vain) for a cloudy, drizzly day.

I once wrote that I got all the daily news I needed from the weather report, and while it’s nowhere near true, it does indicate a set of priorities.

The local weather is a gimme, but I also check the weather forecast in places I’ve fished before, including Grand Lake (Maine), Townsend (TN), Ketchum, Medford and a few others.

It’s become so much a part of the routine that I don’t think twice about it.

Still, this morning I caught myself eying the 60 degree forecast for Townsend, and – knowing that the baetis hatches were running strong in the park – found myself standing behind a tree on the Little River, throwing a sidearm cast at a run filled with rising trout. (In my head anyway. No way I fly across the country without whining to my readers about it.)

I could wax about the power of the printed word and how someone else’s words can transport you to a place and time of your own experience, but it seems a little over the edge for two numbers and a “partly cloudy.” Still, every morning I check.

Between jobs, families and the general heading of “obligations,” we’re all more likely to put ourselves on a good trout stream in our heads than in reality.

All it really takes is a trigger, and the weather seems to be one of mine.

This morning Townsend’s forecast is 44/61 and partly cloudy, which puts me on the Little River, then sipping something warm and writing about it at all at the now-wireless coffeehouse frequented by the Internet-less Ian.

Ketchum’s at 13/35, which probably means icy guides, a baetis hatch on the Big Wood River, or maybe a red brassie fished in upstream in this shallow, rocky river that developers have sadly deprived of most of its woody, in-stream cover.

I can even pinpoint the run where I’d finish – the same place I landed a pair of very healthy rainbows the last time I fished there in February.

It’s the kind of idle mind game that a lot of us play, and it reminds me that I have strong recollections of fishing experiences dating back to the early 70s, but that I can’t remember most of the other crap that’s happened along the way.

(For example, most of those early trips involved riding bikes to places where we weren’t legally allowed to fish, but my mind’s forgotten the part where I’m breaking the law.)

I’m probably focused a little too much on the weather element of fly fishing. But that’s because I live near great fly fishing, yet can’t fish every day, and “decision by forecast” beats the flip of a coin.

Of course, if anyone actually uses a coin, I’d love to hear about it.
[tags]weather, fly fishing, trout, ketchum, maine, townsend[/tags]

Trout aren’t stupid. They might be brainless and lack creativity (a lot like the creators of Gilligan’s Island), but they’re survivors. And they didn’t get that way by offering themselves up as a meal for every predator that wanders by.

Which – if you stop to watch most fly fishers on the water – begs the obvious question. Why don’t more fly fishers act like predators?

Wayne Eng’s so skinny he probably doesn’t need to be sneaky, but he does it anyway.

In the past, there were times I’d have told you I was a pretty stealthy bastard on the water, and a lot more times when I knew I wasn’t (probably because I wasn’t making the effort). Still, nothing reveals your weaknesses like exposure to someone who really knows what he’s doing, a concept I rediscovered (again) last spring in Tennessee.

I was on a fishing trip, but sick enough that I was happy to watch someone else fish, which is why I spent hours watching Ian Rutter stealthily creeping along the banks of Tennessee’s Little River, catching fish after fish.

It was eerily similar to watching Wayne Eng creep along the banks of the Upper Sacramento (catching fish after fish), and even a hugely thickheaded writer would have to learn something from the process.

After all, Chandler’s First Law of Fly Fishing says the second best way to learn to catch fish is to watch people who are good at catching them. Simple, eh?

So after lots of watching and a little practice, I’ve gotten a lot sneakier. Which has lead me to develop the Underground’s Four Strategies for Being a Sneaky Bastard:

Rule #1 – Stay Out of the Water

Being far denser than air, water conducts sound very, very well. In simplest terms, when you’re in the water, fish can hear you. In a recent Internet post, John Wilson of the USA Fly Fishing team described watching fish bolt when an angler set foot in the water 40 feet away.

Ian Rutter skulking bankside on a run I was going to wade. He caught many, many trout.

In a freestone river – with its constantly moving water – you’d think the effect was lessened (it probably is), but face it, trout are highly attuned to their environment. Your average trout can pinpoint the sound of a fly fisher stomping along a riffle the same way a fly fisher can pinpoint the sound of a beer being opened in a crowded campground.

So while I’ve always been a “get in the river and flounder” guy, even I’ve come to see the light. Nowadays you’re a lot more likely to find me standing around behind trees and boulders, looking guilty and throwing more backcasts into bushes, but catching more fish.

More often than not, catching fish requires wading – but try stopping to think about it first.

Rule #2 – While You’re in the Water, Wade Smart

I recently waded into some “tough” technical water – expecting to throw hugely complicated slack-line casts in devilishly complex currents – and almost stepped on a 14″ trout. The lesson? Don’t charge into the water like a rampaging hippo. Hippos catch few trout. Want to avoid hippo-hood? Here’s how:

When you’re about to wade, don’t. Invest a few minutes looking for rising fish and likely holding spots (especially near your entry point). If you’re presenting to a specific fish, make sure you’re wading to the right spot. Arriving – and then realizing you can’t make the drift – means more wading and spooked fish.

Hide your underwater half. Fly fishers know they’re supposed to hide behind objects above the water, but inexplicably fail to do the same for underwater obstacles. The Upper Sac (like many rivers) is littered with subsurface boulders, rocks, trenches, weeds…. Keep these between you and fish, and you’ll sleep better at night.

And don’t ignore current tongues (not every barrier to being seen is solid); that bubbly barrier between you and the fish inhibits their sensory abilities (some warships use a curtain of bubbles to foil sonar), and can spell the difference between success and that awful skunk smell.

Wayne Eng keeps a bubbly current between him and the fish.

Keep it quiet. Rene Harrop suggests that studded wading boots spook fish, but then again, he’s fishing the largely sedate Henry’s Fork, not the “greased cannonball” bed of the Upper Sacramento. Two-stepping your way through a run is likely to spook fish more than studs, but his premise is good – keep it quiet underwater.

A good friend once gave me a gorgeous aluminum wading staff that was stable and strong. Unfortunately, it rang like a gong, and I did away with it. Don’t get gonged.

And all that manly power-wading crap? If you truly feel the need to push a bow wave, trying fishing the beach, where presumably the fish respect manliness more than trout. I’ve managed to put down rising fish by wading carelessly and pushing even little pressure waves across shallow water. Don’t you do it too.

Rule #3 – Be a Hunter

OK, so you’re staying out of the water when possible and wading quietly when it’s not. It’s time to adopt the posture of a predator.

Hide. This isn’t exactly groundbreaking advice, but it’s also rarely followed. Casting from behind trees and bushes means you’ll experience more of those excruciating “Better go to my happy place” leader tangles, but once you’ve mastered the art of fishing while skulking, you’ll catch more fish – especially on small streams.

The value of this was brought home in Tennessee, where on my last day of fishing, I hiked the upper section of the Little River, and caught several fish from slots right on the bank.

I stayed hidden, poked the rod out, made a rotating “flip” cast, and the fish were there – in the kind of water I’d have said looked good, but never produced for me in my less-surreptitious past.

Camouflage. There are endless debates about the virtues of shiny rods vs. matte finish rods, light clothes vs. dark, bright fly lines vs. neutral, etc. Given my tendency to split the difference, I try to match my fishing shirt to the color of the background, stay away from light colored hats, and typically shun day-glo fly lines.

What should you do? Whatever feels appropriate – given that the best fly fishers I know blend into their surroundings a lot better than the worst fly fishers I know.

I have many pictures of Ian Rutter. In every one, he’s being a sneaky bastard.

Don’t Flail. Waving a rod over a fish is a manifestly bad idea, as is false casting over fish in shallow water. Fish are highly attuned to movement – and they’re definitely aware of objects flashing overhead.

Keep your false casting to a minimum (yes, this means you), and practice your change of direction cast. Come the low, clear waters of fall, you’ll need it.

Don’t Compound Mistakes. When you’re casting to a specific spot and miss, don’t pick it right up and slap it back down. Let the current pull it away and try again. Similarly, when you’re casting tight to cover, don’t throw right into the “zone of death” the first cast.

Instead, drop your fly at the outside edge – it gives you a chance to measure the distance, avoids a terrify-the-big-fish tangle with bankside brush, and offers the fish a chance to come out and eat the fly anyway. (Cuts down on the amount of swearing too.)

Stalk. If most fly fishers stalked fish half as hard as they stalk deals on the Internet, there’d be a lot more sore-mouthed trout in the rivers. For example, casting a long shadow is always a bad idea, yet I often see fishers casting with the sun at their backs.

To trout, shadows mean birds, and birds mean dinner (and not in a good way). Keep a low profile, stay aware of the sun, and fish with the sun at your back only when absolutely necessary.

#4 – When All is Lost

Finally, when there’s no cover, the water’s clear, and your casting choices are limited, there’s always the Waiting Gambit. Pick your best spot (the one that offers you the best shot at the most/best fish), wade in as quietly as possible, and if the trout stop rising, wait ‘em out.

If you stand still and make no threatening gestures, the fish might foolishly decide you’re not a risk and resume feeding. It often happens in as few as five or ten minutes, and while the wait is excruciating, it can be effective.

Sometimes – if you wade very, very quietly – the fish don’t even stop rising. Continuously working fish are sometimes happily oblivious to what’s going on around them, as evidenced by the time I slowly waded less than a rod’s length away from a pod of big, rising trout in very shallow water.

This is far more likely to happen on overcast days than bright ones; sneaking up on ‘em is just that much easier when the fireball in the sky is on vacation.

The Moral of this Article is…

Sneaking around brushy trout streams isn’t always easy – and you’re often left to perform the fly fishing calculus needed to choose between two bad options – but it costs a lot less than a new fly rod. And unlike a new rod, being sneaky will actually help you catch more fish.

So practice stealth. Fish like a sneaky bastard. And remember: the best bastards never stop getting better. After fishing with Ian Rutter last spring, I realized there was a lot of roll casting practice in my future. That recently paid off handomely – to the tune of a wad of 14”-19” fish.

[tags]trout, stealth, rutter, fly rod, tennessee, upper sacramento[/tags]

A leading Montana Fly Fishing Blogger recently posted a “suspicious” [ahem] October Caddis pattern suggestion on the Underground – the third such questionable pattern suggestion from a Montana-based Undergrounder in 18 months.

Clearly, it’s time someone in the outdoor media stood up and asked the question that others don’t have the guts to ask:

Are all Montana trout smoking crack?

One bad fly pattern could be an anomaly, but given the wholly unproductive “sure thing” patterns offered by other Montana-based Undergrounders, a larger picture begins to emerge.

And it’s an unpretty picture indeed – one of trout so stupid that they’ll eat October Caddis imitations other trout won’t touch. Or even hopper patterns more Dali-esque than duplicative.

Is this proof of excessive drug use among Montana’s trout?

It’s starting to look that way to this reporter.

I’m reminded of a local fly fisher’s quote upon his return from Montana; he was asked about the fishing, and replied “It was about what you’d expect from a place where they mostly fish flies made from foam.”

Revealing. And damming.

Foaming at the Mouth

Everything I’ve said so far could simply be the ramblings of a deranged fly fisher (not that there’s anything wrong with that – it works for most political pundits), but careful examination of the lyrics from Montana’s Official State Song offers incontrovertible proof:

Montana, Montana,
Glory of the West
Of all the states from coast to coast,
You’re easily the best, and your trout are as dumb as rocks.

It’s time to save the Montana trout. By getting them into rehab…

.

.

BREAKING NEWS UPDATE: It’s the expectation of any brilliant (nay, genius) journalist that breaking the big story could mean you’ll experience attacks by those desperate to preserve their dark, dark secrets. Fly Fishing in Yellowstone has launched the first, though his latest “can’t miss” pattern frankly tends to support my theory. (Either that, or Montana’s filled with a lot of fly fishing musicians.) Don’t miss the notes for what might be the funniest fly pattern of the year…

[tags]montana, October Caddis[/tags]