Fishing Report

With Friends Like These…

December 5, 2011, by Tom Chandler 6 comments

While I’m locked in desperate combat with the keyboard, some of my friends (for brevity’s sake, let’s refer to them as “slackers with evil, swine-like tendencies”) are deeply concerned for my well-being.

Which is why they send me photographs like this from their smartphones:

Upper Sac Rainbow Trout

This still-warm, dying-October-Caddis-driven photo comes courtesy Chris Raine, the bamboo fly rod builder who clearly knows what it’s like to have bamboo slivers driven up under his fingernails (how else do you explain this photo, which — not to belabor the point — isn’t the only one he sent).

Important Announcement

Starting next week, the Underground will be taking applications for the position of “New Best Friend.”

No health benefits, but you get to walk Wally the Wonderdog.

See you anywhere but the river, Tom Chandler.

Holy Crap, That’s Some Cold Shit (or, Fly Fishing The Upper Sac In Winter)

November 20, 2011, by Tom Chandler 19 comments

Things got stickyÂ after the #22 Quigley Cripple disappeared in a swirl and I lifted the fly rod.

I got a pair of those ponderous head shakes that tell you the fish is big (or he’s foul hooked), and then the reel went from zero to ohmigod speeds in a fraction of a second.

That’s thrilling stuff, but hardly Jack London-esque — unless the fast-moving trout decides to run under the only laydown on the whole run.

Well played, Mr. Trout.

It was cold and I was wet and trout were going everywhere, so this is the only pic I got (it's the smaller of the two)

I waded over and sized up the situation. The trout was still on, apparently hanging around just downstream trying to figure out what was going on.

The fly line dove under the tree and made a right-angle exit downriver.

I remember thinking “I can fix this. This won’t be too bad at all.”

Which is when things started to go sideways.

Hey, This Clear Liquid Is Cold

Sometimes — for brief moments — I fancy myself a Man of Action, though at my age, you’d think I’d connect those moments with what inevitably follows.

Which is generally humiliation.

I waded up to the downed tree, put the rod in my left hand, reached down into the water with my right (a lot farther down than I originally thought, which should have been a clue), and lifted the tree.

So far, so good.

But sliding the rod under the tree took me a little deeper than I anticipated, and that extra couple inches meant the top of my waders (and the side of my head, and the neck opening of my jacket) got… submerged.

At the time it happened I realized it was trouble, but I’d started and you know how it is — you’re already there so you decide to brazen it out.

I distinctly remember straightening up — a huge wad of wet, decomposing leaves clutched in my hand along with my still-attached-to-the-trout fly rod — thinking I had the fish and I was still dry.

Which is when the 39 degree water hit my skin.

It kinda takes your breath away.

Shrinkage was body-wide and immediate.

I managed to land that trout — the second of the day. It went between 18 and 19 inches (Raine put measuring wraps on my rod at 16″ and 18″, suggesting a distinct lack of faith in my ability to catch 20″ trout).

The other trout fell just short of the 18″ mark.

I was wet enough that I squished when I walked, though — thank god for the Nano Puff jacket — I warmed up a bit after I got past the shock, though my feet never really enjoyed the trip.

Taken as a whole, that’s still not a bad day.

The Nitty Gritty Details

The air was around 40 degrees, the BWO hatch was light and only lasted an hour, but I still managed to get seven rising fish to eat the bug.

At just under one grab every eight minutes, that’s Happy Hour as far as I’m concerned.

The hook popped out of three with only slight resistance (it’s a #22 cripple after all), and I landed two of the four I hooked.

That’s not a stirring percentage — and I sometimes catch myself wondering WWGD (What Would Gierach Do) — but the fish are big and the hook gape is probably best measured with an electron microscope, so I’ve largely done away with fly fisherman’s remorse.

The 8’3″ 5wt Raine hollowbuilt has confirmed its status as a killer BWO rod — you need to make longer casts than you think on this stretch because wading any closer means the trout simply stop rising.

Thirty feet is a gift. Forty is common, and casting at an upstream or downstream angle can leave you with surprisingly little fly line on your reel.

It’s cold up here (we’ve got two inches of snow on the ground as I write this), but we’ve reached the Bonus Portion of the year; the “real” Upper Sac winter when the little fish go into hiding and the big fish start eating BWOs — provided the hatches come, the sun stays behind a cloud, you’re on the right piece of river, and the fly fishermen don’t wade too close.

See you on the river (literally), Tom Chandler

The Joys Of BWOs (When The BWOs Show)

November 4, 2011, by Tom Chandler 7 comments

I’d been sitting on a cold rock on the bank of a cold river for the last 1.5 hours, and when that first blue winged olive tumbled by on the surface currents, I didn’t feel as stupid as I had only a minute before.

Funny what a size 22 insect can do for a fly fisherman.

Thanks. I needed that.

The Upper Sacramento’s hatches are maddening; one day they’re gratifying. The next — despite perfect conditions — they’re nonexistent.

And yesterday’s conditions were were damned near perfect.

So I was prepared to get wet for no good reason at all.

Happily, at 1:15, enough BWOs showed to pull a few trout to the surface, a handful of which I tricked into eating my Quigley Cripple.

It’s a simple enough sentence, but fly fishermen read it and their pulse quickens.

Especially when the trout are, well… stunning:

In just the right light, they're stunning (better looking than your angry fingers)

Fall in the Upper Sacramento River canyon is easy on the eyes; half the trees are evergreens, yet the other half are turning red and yellow and orange, and those isolated riots of color stand out more than if they consumed the entire hillside.

The water is low and so clear it’s as if the river bottom is encased in Lucite.

It’s also a time when your hands sting every time you (foolishly) dip them in the water, and when the average size fish throw the hook before you can land them, you’re secretly relieved. Later, when you look at the photos involving fingers, they’ll be an almost angry red.

Our digits apparently are less enamored of fall than we are.

The Details

By the numbers? I had seven grabs, three of which turned into those “life the rod and feel them for a millisecond before the hook pops out” endeavors.

That leaves us with four hookups and three landed fish, all of which were in the 11″-12″ range.

All that happened on a #22 Quigley Cripple (the scaled-down Ed Engle version), the trout having already ignored the #20 Adams Parachute I’d started with.

I was fishing the Raine 8’3″ 5wt hollowbuilt I mentioned here, and as you’d guess, I kept pretty close tabs on its performance — right up until the first good drift over a trout was ignored and I switched to vengeful angler mode.

The verdict? It’s looking good, Undergrounders.

But more testing is needed. Lots more.

See you on the river, Tom Chandler.

Today’s Fishing Report? “Green”

August 24, 2011, by Tom Chandler 12 comments

This was one of those alpine meadow streams that’s loaded with Brook trout and surrounded by a sea of grass, which — whenever the wind picked up — rolled convincingly like swells in the ocean.

The cold spring meant the wildflowers were firing on all cylinders (they should have been done a month ago), and everything that wasn’t a flower wore the hard-working green of summer leaves.

[nggallery id=1]
(click the images to see full-size versions)

Older Bro and I hiked into this tiny alpine meadow stream based on his recommendation; “You’ll love it, though don’t get too excited about the size of the fish.”

I knew exactly what he meant.

And frankly, I was proud of him. He’s a relatively new fly fisherman, but aside from the casting and the knots and drag-free drifts, he’s already mastered the art of couching his recommendations in case the weather’s bad or the trout are sulking or the other guy’s a headhunter.

I’ll be blunt; I think a lot more people say they love these little streams than actually fishes them; they’re pretty, but for a lot of fly fishermen, fish that seem to top out at 9 inches (we got one 13″ and one 10″ fish on this trip) add a little glitter to that other, bigger water.

Still, we hiked the length of the meadow and fished our way back up, and before we even strung up our fly rods my heart rate was picking up.

I even tried a couple of the standard gambits on him (“Didn’t you notice the special reg poster at the ranger station? This stretch is bamboo fly rods only…”).

Sadly, he didn’t fall for any of them, but then, he’d probably been disappointed if I didn’t try.

I admit I was disappointed by the state of my lower body after we got back to the car; if we went farther than six miles I’ll eat my government surplus Boonie hat, yet I felt like I’d been crossed the continental divide, and with a heavy pack.

The late, great Jim Gade once told me that the way to avoid geezerhood was to not start thinking like you were an old man. “Once you start thinking you’re a geezer, you’ll start feeling like one.”

Tomorrow — if I can drive a stake through a couple projects — I’m going for a walk.

The Fishing Details

I fished a (probably) 60 year-old Phillipson Peerless 8′ 5wt, and I was reminded that although the rod wasn’t necessarily designed to cast a leader, the mass of the bamboo in the tip does tend to load the rod when there isn’t enough line to do so.

And if you’ve worked your way through the pictures, you can imagine how rarely we cast more than a foot or two of line.

As you might imagine, fly selection wasn’t exactly critical, though given the sheer tonnage of grass and insect life living around the stream, I wasn’t surprised when the Arizona Mini-Hopper worked slightly better (OK, it’s hard to know for sure) than anything else I tried.

After all, it’s as much a beetle or caddis as it is a hopper, which seems like a pretty ideal combination for a stream so often visited by terrestrial bugs.

See you somewhere green and wavy and Brookie-filled and beautiful, Tom Chandler.

Again, Why Do You Fly Fish Small Streams For Puny Fish?

August 22, 2011, by Tom Chandler 7 comments

You don’t fly fish small streams for the big trout or the chance that a raft full of drunk college coeds will float by, but you do fish them for scenes like this:

Fly fishing a small brook trout stream

Today is launch day for a client website, so instead of writing about the weekend’s fly fishing trip, I’m throwing a teaser photo at my readers. Tomorrow we’ll get to the real thing.

The Maine Wrapup (or, “Nobody Going’s To Believe This.”)

August 11, 2011, by Tom Chandler 18 comments

This part of Maine feels timeless, as if it’s looked, smelled and fished exactly like this forever, and plans to continue doing so until the planet finally spins off its axis.

West Grand Lake, Maine

That’s a stark contrast to my neck of the world, where everything looks raw and new, and — geologically speaking — actually is.

West Grand Lake’s water level doesn’t vary more than a foot or so over the course of the year, and granite rocks that ring the lake offer a sense of absolute permanence.

Fueling that perception are the cabins in the camp; most of the half-dozen buildings feature roots going back at least half a century and they’re decorated with the kind of “rustic kitch” you simply can’t fake (pictures cut from 1950s outdoor magazines, deer-antler coat hooks, etc).

There’s even the pennant flag from a steam-powered boat that plied the area’s lakes way back when steam-powered boats were considered high tech.

In one building I found a B&W photograph of the L&T’s remarkable mother sitting in a Grand Laker canoe and reading a magazine — somewhere around the age of eight.

The world has changed around the camp and the place is hardly frozen in time (they’ve now got running water, electricity and even wi-fi), but the atmosphere runs at a rural, turn-of-the-century pace, which can find you sitting on a rock-strewn shore, napping and tossing pebbles into the water without noticing a couple hours have passed.

Exactly the kind of thing, it seems, that could go on forever.

West Grand swimming hole...

The Fishing Report

I already related my first-cast heroics in another post, but did manage to get two full days in on the water.

This is the trip where — hearing the stream was dead — I didn’t bother with the fly fishing gear, so naturally, there were fish rising in the evenings, and few fishermen around to hound the fish.

It’s too bad (or par for the course when you rely on the Internet to shape your reality), but only a wretched ass would have regrets about catching smallies with lightweight spinning and casting gear.

My first day on the water was with Registered Maine Guide Steve Schaefer (note the caps). We fished Big Lake, and while we got hammered by one rain squall after another (Steve’s canoe-borne rain gage showed 1.5″ of rain for the day), the fishing was steady.

One of several squalls that hit us like the water was being dumped from a bucket

At times the rain hit us like sheets, as if there simply wasn’t room between the raindrops, so the whole mess fell at once.

Want to test rain gear? I’ve got the place.

Grand Laker Canoe (they fill up fast)

Two fish in the 16″-17″ range came to the boat, and because Big Lake is weedy and shallow and rich, a steady stream of 12″-14″ smallies ate my plastic jerkbait and drop shot rig, and because we’re talking about smallmouth, I was never really sure how big the fish were until they were in the net.

One of the rare sunny moments -- so we went for a shore lunch.

Catch a smallmouth and he’ll run you around the canoe a half-dozen times, and unlike trout or largemouth bass — which kind of give up after a while and flop over on their side — smallmouth bass fight to the net, and then glare at you out of those demonic red eyes, as if to say “I’ll see you in hell.”

Day Two (or, Really?!)

Day Two dawned clear, and the morning’s fishing on West Grand Lake was tough; one here, one there — even getting enough for a shore lunch was a challenge.

You can almost taste it (I actually did)

After The Big Shore Lunch (something created by guides to make clients sleepy and compliant so they go home earlier), Steve Schaefer and I pulled up on an island that looked like all the other islands, and Steve said “I’ve always wanted to try this, but never have.”

First cast = 14″ smallmouth
Second cast = 13″ smallmouth
Third cast = 14″ smallmouth
(repeat for the next twenty minutes)

It was — literally — a fish every cast.

After 20 minutes we started to feel guilty and slowly moved around to the other side of this tiny island (we’d been anchored), and the action slowed immediately to a fish… every third or fourth cast.

As near as we could figure, a school of smelt had been backed up against a steep dropoff bordered by two cabin-sized boulders, and every smallmouth bass within cellphone range (who knew?) had hurried over for lunch.

By the time we’d circled the tiny island, we were back in the fish-every-cast routine, and I was out of (apparently) smelt-colored baits.

I even told Steve that nobody at camp was going to believe what sounded a hell of a lot like a fish story. They were, I said, all going to say ‘Really??’ with that disbelieving roll of their eyes.

You don’t try to top a performance like that, so with the sun still bright, we headed back to camp.

Where, it turns out… everyone said “Really??” — even the L&T.

Et, Tu, L&T?

Fishermen are portrayed as a shifty lot; we lie to other fishermen about the number of fish we catch (we say we caught more if we caught fewer, and less if we caught a lot), the places we fish, and the kind of day we had (“It was just great to be out there“), but when we stumble onto the kind of fishing that most people don’t believe actually exists — a fish every cast — then we pay the price for all the prevarication.

The Wrapup

It’s hard to summarize an experience like Maine; the cloudscapes and landscapes differ so much from this part of the world that my mind gets stuck in reset mode; the experience isn’t quite alien, but it’s different.

I fished a pair of days from a Grand Laker canoe that turned out to be the last built by Pop Moore, and if you’re into Grand Lakers, that name drops very loudly indeed.

The sum total of the experience outweighs the hassles getting from the middle of nowhere to the middle of nowhere, though that may not be true in coming years.

See you back in the mountains, Tom Chandler.

And so, as sun sets slowly in the west...

We’re Back (But Our Brains Aren’t)

August 1, 2011, by Tom Chandler 3 comments

After twenty-one hours of travel — made all the more glamorous by a food-poisoned kid (tuna fish is no longer welcome at the Trout Underground) — we staggered across our doorstep late last night.

Actual pocket lint from a 21 hour travel day (think there's a reality show in this?)

Facing mounds of “Deal With Me” messages, I’m tempted to simply declare email/online bankruptcy, starting over with a clean slate and a guilt-free mind, but when you’re self-employed, that’s not how it works.

I did manage to download the trip’s photographs, which aren’t exactly art, but do nicely punctuate the stories stored in the Underground’s ‘dazed by too little sleep and too much travel’ brain.

This afternoon, you’ll see a post. I promise.

I’ve got a lot of notes.

And a Big News Post soon.

See you trying to remember where the kitchen is, Tom Chandler.

Quick, Before the Mosquitoes Get All My Blood…

July 28, 2011, by Tom Chandler 7 comments

The days have been long, but that’s due in large part to the fishing, which has been rejuvenating.

Unfortunately, the card reader’s not reading the photos from my camera and I’m writing this on the back porch in the dark, wearing a headlamp and getting eaten by mosquitoes, so here are the highlights:

On Wednesday a local guide and I endured a pummeling at the hands of several rainstorms (a measured 1.5″ of rain in the rain gauge at the canoe), but still managed to land a steady stream of Big Lake smallmouth.

I had a couple in the 16″-17″ range, and way more than a couple in the 13″-14″ range.

Not exactly world-beating stuff, but damned satisfying on a day when most of the fishermen seemed to be running for cover instead of hooking up.

Thursday (today) was clearer, warmer and windier — the kind of post-front bluebird day that would prompt me to say “we’ll have to work for ‘em today” in one of those statements meant to make me seem like a knowledgeable expert (which I’m not).

For the first half of the day, it was true; only a few bass were fooled, and the Big Shore Lunch was imperiled by our inability to boat fish in the 10″-12″ slot limit.

Luckily, one of the boats trolling leadcore got a couple to match our couple (this was a big family fishing day, with four Grand Laker canoes on the water), and lunch was saved.

Later, we split up, and my guide and I pulled up on an island (that looked like all the other islands) and he said “I’ve always meant to fish this, never have.”

First cast = 13″ smallmouth bass.
Second cast = 14″ smallmouth bass.
The next 20 casts = nice-sized smallmouth bass.

This went on for a good half hour — right up until we started circling the island (we hadn’t moved) because we were feeling guilty about beating up that one spot.

Two hours later we simply gave up and went home, the bite having “slowed” from every-cast to every-fourth-or-fifth cast.

Even gluttony, it seems, is relative.

There’s plenty more to come — but only when the mosquitoes are having dinner somewhere else. (Expect Grand Laker canoe pics and “A Knowledgeable Expert Tells You How to Catch a Smallmouth Bass On Every Cast”

See you on the lake, Tom Chandler.

A Visit to Stream XXX (or, Small Stream Porn)

July 13, 2011, by Tom Chandler 18 comments

Our winter blended seamlessly into spring, which is to say they both kinda sucked for a particular fly fisherman jonesing for a small stream fix.

That ended last weekend, when Wayne Eng and I hit a piece of little-fished small stream. The brown trout weren’t anywhere near as abundant as the mosquitoes (nor as aggressive), but they would eat a dry fly in a way that was recognizably my kind of fly fishing, and suddenly, winter and our long, cold, high-water spring simply fell away.

And did so in what amounts to a rampantly beautiful… spot.

How's that for a great fishing spot?

Regulars know I refer to my local small streams with highly unoriginal aliases like “Stream X” and “Stream Y.”

In a fit of creativity, I’m naming this stretch Stream XXX, because while the brown trout aren’t fish-porn worthy, I’d suggest the location itself qualifies as Small Stream Porn.

Of the Triple-X variety. I mean, look at it:

Wayne Eng, small stream style

No, don't even ask me (or him) where it is...

If you’re a fly fisherman, that’s major wood action (I’m referring of course to all the downed timber, which provides exceptional trout habitat).

Stream XXX was running high — higher than I’d ever seen — but it was still wholly fishable. High water tends to discourage trout from taking dries (they’ve got a lot more water to move through), but thankfully, enough trout made the trip to keep it interesting.

I started the day throwing the vaunted new Mini-Hopper, which accounted for four trout (and several other grabs).

Then I found this #10-sized penny from heaven on bankside brush:

That's #10 Bug Porn

That prompted a switch to a #10 March Brown (Catskill style), which went to a watery grave a few fish later, precipitating a move to an Old Joe Kimsey Favorite — the orange Skinny Humpy.

The beauty of a Humpy is that each fish frays it towards a state of grace; the more chewed it gets, the better it seems to catch trout (short of total dissolution).

The Humpy achieves a state of grace...

That, my friends, worked like stink, proving that Joe Kimsey probably still knows more than we do, and we buried him a while ago.

It’s gratifying to stumble on the fly of the day, but more importantly, I was fishing and casting and hooking trout instead of lobbing who knows what who knows where, and the sensation was, well… triple-X pleasurable.

The Clothing Angle

Firmly in the “unpleasant” column we find the mosquitoes, who attacked in force and got worse as the day progressed. They’re irritating to the point of distraction, and at one point, I found myself trying to re-tie my leader while stumbling around in circles; stopping and sitting on a log was an invitation to insanity.

Some deal with mosquitoes via chemical weapons, though I’ve largely given up on Deet. The stuff melts fly lines and bamboo rod varnish, and works (I believe) by altering your DNA to the point that mosquitoes no longer recognize you as a mammal.

Is that really something I want covering my body?

Better, I think, is to simply cover up:

The mostquito-proof fly fisherman

This looks odd, but it’s a damn bit better than constantly swatting your eyeglasses off your face.

Note the CalTrout-styled buff, which — when combined with a hat — leaves very little skin exposed, yet doesn’t run nearly as hot as you’d think.

And yes, that’s a long-sleeve, one-piece Patagonia Sun Hoody — a lightweight, cover-everything piece of clothing — the kind of which is currently found on a lot of flats fishermen, who are more concerned with sun exposure than bugs.

I’m trying it here in the decidedly flats-free Northern California mountains, and so far (that’s two trips), I like the hoody better than your typical long-sleeve fly fishing shirt, which isn’t nearly as snag-free.

Also in the ensemble (but not the pictures) were a pair of Glacier Glove sun gloves, which protected the back of my hands from mosquitoes and the sun, and if you’d ever seen them, you’d know that’s a good thing.

There is plenty more testing to come, but as someone who hates both bug repellent and sunscreen (and who has some serious skin issues), I may just be looking at my mosquito-driven future — a lightweight fishing rig that leaves only my eyes and fingers exposed.

The problem is that you look a little like you’re from outer space (or France), and I’m going to immediately write a letter to Patagonia asking for a camo version of the shirt, figuring that buys you more acceptance in rural areas than silver.

The Footwear Angle

After deciding they were failures on freestone streams, I wore the Patagonia Rock Grip wading boots, and they worked beautifully, but then, of course they would.

This stream was all mud, gravel, grass and trees — barely a slippery freestone-style rock in sight.

A long, downstream drift sometimes works...

They’re wonderful wading boots when they’re not filling the same niche as ice skates, but most rivers come equipped with rocks, and Tommy needs a pair of studded rubber soles for the tough stuff.

The search continues, though I might just opt for the studded Orvis boots in the right size. Sometimes searching’s overrated.

The Fly Rod Angle

This visit concluded my test of the Orvis Superfine Touch 8′ 4wt, a rod that has performed admirably, and I stand by my earlier thinking that it’s a modern interpretation of the classic 8′ 4wt small stream rod.

I’ll write a longer review soon, but will say it’s a nice, modern rod — one that is (somewhat atypically) designed to fish at reasonable small-stream ranges, and has all the heft of a toothpick in your hand.

Rods so light you almost don’t notice them are a manifestly marketable these days, though personally I’d probably still opt for my 8′ 5wt Phillipson — which has enough mass that you can feel it loading even when you’re only casting a leader.

I also recognize the personal nature of that reality, and we’ll explore that more in my review of the rod.

See you on a small stream, Tom Chandler.

Does he feel silly, or what?

Small, but pretty...

A Good Day Spent Fly Fishing A Small Stream (Except For The Mosquitoes)

July 9, 2011, by Tom Chandler 19 comments

I just walked into the house after a day on an alpine stream, and I’m drinking a beer and hammering a watermelon that was picked at exactly the right time. This, my friends, is living…

We're back from a place we might visit again...

The stream was high and the mosquitoes were so aggressive I was afraid that Wayne Eng — who’s so skinny he always looks to be in the midst of his own personal famine — might be drained of blood to the point he’d lose consciousness and I’d have to carry him back to the truck.

Fortunately, that didn’t happen.

What did happen was that many brown trout were caught on dry flies, making this the first wildly good day of the season for me.

I’m chalking it up as a victory.

More to come on this one.

See you receiving a blood transfusion, Tom Chandler.