When I left for the Fly Fishing Retailer show, fall was merely a threat on the horizon. When I arrived home, I discovered it was here waiting for me.

Wednesday was cold and windy — the prototype of the gray fall day — and the heater fired itself up for the first time this year as the outside temperature hit a chilly 38 degrees.

Thursday warmed, and while I got lost in the mountains around Trout Creek with Curtis Knight and Drew Simmons of CalTrout (taking in the McCloud Redband Trout habitat restoration projects), the weather turned beautiful again.

Sure, fall means the short, dark days of winter are coming, but it also means the river will wake up from its summer doldrums. That ain’t bad.

The October Caddis Effect

Soon, the October Caddis will leave the bottom of the river and — on some nights — fill the air with pumpkin-colored bugs the size of small hummingbirds.

Naturally, the big bugs draw big crowds, and in October, the river’s often overrun by fly fishers. Clubs flock here en masse, yet it’s impressive how rarely the hatch pays off for most fly fishers.

It’s common to catch trout on #18 PMD dries while clouds of October Caddis obscure the sky, and the dirty little secret is that the best October Caddis dry fly fishing usually comes much later in the year — when the caddis adults are dying, the fish are watching for dead drifted specimens, and the river is empty.

Meanwhile, BWO hatches start popping up in some surprising places, and the river’s normally as low and clear as it gets. Oddly, the late Fall BWOs are smaller than those that typically hatch in winter (#20 or #22 vs an #18), and I wish it was the opposite so I could ease into the tiny bug fishing a little bit easier.

At this point in the year, the trout in the flatter, more technical water get pretty damned spooky — many simply stop rising when you false cast anywhere near them — and your margin for error on the cast dwindles. That’s when I turn to Sully’s Extraterrestrial Leader — the 16.5′ product of an alien civilization.

Don’t try to fish an October Caddis dry with the thing, but

The Gear

Gear choices in the fall are never easy; one minute you’re nymphing a big, heavy October Caddis pupae, and the next you’re fishing 7x tippet with #20 BWOs on flat water. In between, you could end up slapping a big, bushy October Caddis dry in pocket water seams.

In other words, when you walk away from the truck at the start of the day, you better not be holding a one-trick pony fly rod.

My old solution was a reasonably tapered, very smooth bamboo 6wt. It had the line mass to boss a bigger fly, but the flex to protect extremely light tippets.

Sadly, three winters ago, an icy boulder shifted underneath me and tossed me hard onto the ground (with my beloved 8′ 6wt quad beneath me), so that’s not the option it used to be. (Actually, it’s not an option at all. It’s kindling.

Since then, I’ve run through a series of 8.5′ and 8′ 5wt bamboo and fiberglass rods looking for the Universal Fall Fishing Replacement Rod, but now I realize that I’m pretty much going to fish whatever strikes me that day anyway, so why agonize?

I have committed to a pair of rods for technical BWO fishing: Raine’s 8′3″ 4wt hollowbuilt cane rod and a Diamondglass 8.5′ 4wt glass rod. Both rods are so sweet and effective that I’m pretty sure I don’t have to show up to catch fish.

(Sure, love is blind — remember when you thought your high school girlfriend’s awful laugh was cute??)

Whatever your choice, it helps to if you can change leaders relatively quickly, and while I don’t much like braided line loops, it’s one time of the year they might be worth the hassle.

The Flies

Flies, of course, are wildly personal things, and my suggestions are limited to the broadest strokes. You need some kind of big October Caddis pupae, including a heavily weighted version. Something as simple as an amber-ish Hare’s Ear Soft hackle in size 6 or 8 will do, but certainly, more sophisticated versions exist.

Stimulators are the workhorse October Caddis dries, but I prefer something that sits lower in the water, and hooks more of the fish that eat it.

I eventually came up with a fly that included a bouyant elk hair body lashed to the hook, overdubbed with a pumpkin/amber dubbing mix, a mylar rib, an elk hair wing, and a hackle collar.

Of course, if you show up without the requisite PEDs and BWO imitations, you could very well be stuck in neutral, and since no fly fisher goes anywhere without a bunch of Pheasant Tails, midges, Adams, Stimmies, Elk Hair Caddis, etc, I won’t even mention them.

You might realize I’m not what you call a stickler about fly patterns. That’s either because I’m a presentationist at heart, or I’m unbelievably lazy about getting flies tied, and to tell you the truth, I’m not sure which tendency helped create the other.

It’s just another mystery of the universe.

The Weather

Fall weather varies widely, and the fly fishermen who shows up without fleece jackets, rain gear and fleece pants is in trouble. Of course, you’ll also be in trouble if you show up without shorts and tropical fishing clothes.

Remember, this is the mountains, and the weather up here changes more often than a teenager’s mind, and the trick isn’t so much to rue what’s about to happen as adapt to it.

See you on the river, Tom Chandler.

Technorati Tags: fly fishing, upper sac, upper sacramento river, fishing, october caddis, bwo, blue winged olive

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Seven Secrets to Catching Bigger Fish.Ten Tips for Better Split Shot Management. The 20 Places You Must Visit if You Need Dumber, Bigger Fish Than You’ve Got at Home. And so on.

People apparently read the hell out of “Top Ten” articles, so naturally, I wanted to cash in too. But what could I write when all the obvious “Top Ten ” ideas are already taken?

With the help of Wally the Wonderdog (and a few of Mt. Shasta Brewery’s finest), I present:

The Six Fly Fishing Hints You Absolutely, Positively, Can’t Live Without — But Will Never Read about in the Fly Fishing Magazines.

(more…)

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Well damnit, we’ll comment. Drying or cleaning a fly line on the toilet roll is sheer genius.

And imagine how nicely it might work in a hotel room (assuming you stay in a hotel offering indoor plumping — never a sure thing on a fishing trip).

Sure, some will see this as a neat little time-saving technique. Visionaries like me? We see it as proof the voyage of discovery that is life never ends. Never.

Technorati Tags: fly fishing, fishing, fly line

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I haven’t had many problems with them up here, but fly fishermen are seriously at risk for the little bloodsucking critters like Nestle who burrow into your skin and transmit pretty debilitating diseases.

Blood suckers of the worst order. Remind you of Nestle anyone?

He’s posted a short article about ticks, and links to another site with more complete instructions, including this straightforward primer for tick removal:

Ticks should be removed promptly. The longer it is attached the higher the chance of disease transmission. Remove it carefully to prevent disease transmission:

1. Using fine pointed tweezers, grasp the tick as close to the skin as possible without squeezing the tick’s body.
2. Firmly pull it straight out (expect to feel some resistance). Save the tick for future testing by placing it in a plastic bag or in a small jar of alcohol. If a tick is to tested for spirochetes place it in a small jar or vial with a blade of grass to keep it alive. Be sure to note the date and site of the bite for future reference.
3. NEVER: squeeze the tick, burn it, or cover it with Vaseline or any other substance.
4. Remember to disinfect the site of the bite, wash your hands and disinfect your tweezers.
5. Contact your doctor.

Interestingly, I’ve heard that vaseline, heating and the others were the best way to remove Nestle a tick, but the Stopticks folks say don’t. Since it’s on the Internet, it’s gotta be true…

As for the Underground, I’m going to place a very high priority on group tick detection, where people pair off and search each other for ticks after an outdoor experience. (Obviously, I’m going to place an even higher priority on going into the outdoors with attractive folks from the opposite gender.)

See you in group, Tom Chandler.

Technorati Tags: fly fishing, fishing, ticks

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From the diver:

I’m in the middle of an experiment to find out what trout really do under the river surface. The only way to truly understand the fish, I figured, was to be the fish, so I got out my scuba gear and jumped in. Here’s what I learned.

Read the rest of the article at: Field & Stream - Photo Gallery - Going Deep In The Name Of Trout Research

Some of the “tips” were surprising; others less so. Many run counter to some of my own fishing experiences, and while the article is hugely interesting, it’s best to take it with a grain of salt.

We’re talking about the behavior of trout on the South Platte - one of the most pressured trout fisheries on the planet.

I’d expect those trout to develop behaviors less-pressured fish might not share.

What parts resonated?

• False casting spooks fish (true).
• Suspended fish are active fish (duh).
• Trout often hang out at the edges of different currents and structures (double duh).

What parts made me wince? The bit where the diver noted that indicator nymphers missed about the half their strikes.

His solution was for anglers to set the hook from time to time when a trout “could” be eating it.

He might call that smart. I call it snagging.

Still, a very interesting read. In fact, it’s today assignment; read the thing (it’s fairly short), and then let us know what you thought. See you behind the mask, Tom Chandler.

Technorati Tags: fly fishing, field and stream, trout, nymphing

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Fly fishing the surf isn’t perhaps the first thing that leaps to mind when you hear the words “fly fishing,” but saltwater’s the fastest-growing part of the sport, and if there’s something California has in abundance, it’s surf.

It’s pretty. It’s wet. And there are fish there. Why not?

The Underground’s Southern Cal Saltwater Correspondent Jim Troyer has become something of an expert on the genre, and frankly, his e-mails detailing his adventures sound like a hell of a lot of fun.

Sure there’s sand there (icky, scratchy stuff), and those of us in the Jaws generation will never look at the ocean without some level of suspicion, but there’s water, and big, strong fish in that water.

Someday I’ll trick Jim into writing a basic “how-to” article about it, but in the meantime, give Fly Fish Norcal’s article a try.

Any surf fishers out there? Let us know how you like it. And if you’ve ever seen Jaws.

Technorati Tags: fly fishing, fly fishing the surf, surf fishing, jaws

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And when the Underground talks leaders, it talks to Underground Montana Correspondent Sully, who has spent a lifetime testing leader formulas to a state of perfection. (Well, not a whole lifetime. He’s not dead.)

This is perhaps the most unusual of all the Sully recommended leaders - a 16.5′ specimen that always turns over.

When asked about its origins, Sully simply said the original formula was found on twisted fragments of an alien-looking metal during a recent visit to Area 51. Then he pulled out an odd penlight, flashed it in my eyes, and… wait, where am I?

The low, clear flows of fall and winter mean BWOs - and long leaders.

Huh. Lost my train of thought.

Anyway, I see I’ve already pasted the leader formula below. Nobody knows where the formula comes from, though it’s easily the most extra-terrestrial of the Sully leaders, two of which we already passed along (links to those at the end of this post).

I use this leader extensively fishing small flies in the low, clear water of Fall and Winter. The turnover on this is truly amazing, and the drifts are spectacular.

It responds well to caster inputs, so pile and reach casts actually work like they’re supposed to.

Like any long leader, there’s little joy to be found fishing it in the wind. There is, however, a lot of joy in hooking tough fish.

Dia. Length
.025 4′ Rio Powerflex Butt Material (start with 4 feet but trim down length if leader doesn’t turn over well)
.022 3′ Rio Powerflex Butt Material
.017 8″ Rio Powerflex
.015 7″
.013 6″
.011 10″
.010 20″
.011 11″
.009 15″
.007 8″
.005 30″ (6x)

Sully’s pretty specific about materials, but this design will stand some tinkering.

He recently constructed a prototype using Orvis Hy-Flote butt material, which is smaller than the listed sizes and very flexible. It’s a perfect match for my more flexible fly lines (Cortland Sylk and 444 Peach).

I would definitely try a smaller butt diameter if I was trying this leader with a 4wt line.

Other Sully Leader Designs

Sully’s Big Bug Leader design: 10.5′ long and it turns over big dries beautifully. My favorite all-around leader spring and summer.

Sully’s short-range accuracy leader: 7.5′ long, but a small stream killer.

Technorati Tags: fly fishing, leader, leader design, BWO

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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.

Technorati Tags: trout, stealth, rutter, fly rod, tennessee, upper sacramento

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Because I’m going to reveal one of my Secret Fall Patterns.

Bees. Those buzzy, stingy things.

Fishing in the Fall? Dieing bees might be your best “hatch”…

Once the cold weather sets in, the bees start dieing. The male honeybee drones die off after being evicted from the hive and worker bees also succumb to the weather - as do a lot of wasps and and the like, the communities of which typically disband in the fall.

The die-off begins first on the high alpine lakes, and as the cold temperatures work their way downhill, the die-off follows.

I’ve hit the “bee hatch” several times, and fishing a bee pattern can be wild. The trout will gently nudge the fly to see if it’s alive, and if you’ve got the nerves to let it sit, they’ll suck it down.

That’s fun on a stick.

What about the River?

I only rarely fish bee patterns on the Upper Sac in the Fall (typically preferring the PED, BWO and caddis hatches), but the pattern has worked during the late spring and summer, and I’m batting 50% in the fall (OK, that’s writer obfuscation for “I’ve tried it twice and caught fish once”).

Still, last winter I saw dozens of dead bees in the bankside snow, and some of their friends must have ended up in the river.

It’s also worth noting that one of the original Ted Fay “Bomber” nymph patterns replicates a drowned bee, and that several big, big fish have been caught on the bug.

The moral?

Despite its “for kids only” reputation, it’s time to lay your hands on a few bees - a bug I’ve used to catch a lot of fish, especially once they start dieing in the fall. It’s a killer on the lakes, and can work on the river, though success on moving water seems less assured.

See you in the hive, Tom Chandler.

Technorati Tags: bees

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Under these conditions, even setting the hook is difficult - but you won’t get the chance until you get the drift right. And the odds of that are pretty slim if you can’t see your fly.

Like a lot of others, I use Frog’s Fanny (a white dessicant powder) to revive soaked flies, but it’s also a great “highlighter.”

Frogs Fanny normally works best when used sparingly. Under normal conditions, I blow away excess dust, returning the fly to its normal color. But when I’m after one more fish at dark, I go a different route.

I apply a small amount, work it in, and then apply an extra coat to the top of the fly. It typically won’t float long (AK Best suggests leftover dessicant absorbs water and actually sinks the fly), but for a couple casts, the whitened top of the fly stands out like a beacon.

Cast, drift, bingo. See you at dark, Tom Chandler.

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