Lake fishing

Work vs Fly Fishing: The Eternal Battle Rages On

March 17, 2009, by 5 comments

There’s still hope. If I can resolve a few scheduling issues (and with a little luck), this afternoon could find mye bobbing around in a float tube, half-submerged in near-frozen water while more near-frozen water falls from the sky.

Cross your fingers for me.

The Wonderdog during yesterday's scouting trip

The Wonderdog during yesterday's scouting trip

The results of yesterday’s walk/scouting trip to the lake with Wally the Wonderdog weren’t compelling, but they were interesting; the lake was murky but not muddy, and yes, the inlets were moving a lot of water (where fish tend to gather).

It’s too early for smallies, but it’s just right for trout. And there are these fancy-schmancy streamers that need a little field testing to see if they really “drive big fish crazy” like the maker says. (I don’t know if it’s true, but I like the sound of it.)

See you on the lake (maybe), Tom Chandler.

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Fly Fishing With Style: The Upper Sacramento’s Joe Kimsey

June 3, 2008, by 10 comments

When I first met Dunsmuir legend Joe Kimsey, I was standing outside the Ted Fay Fly Shop (at its old location).

He returned from lunch, and as he unlocked the door, I asked him if he was Ted Fay.

He looked at me and said “Boy, I sure hope not. He’s been dead better than ten years.”

An Upper Sacramento Original

Sunday found myself, Steve Bertrand and the legendary Joe Kimsey fishing Trout Lake — a manmade reservoir on the Shasta Wildlife Refuge. (And no, I don’t know why they call it Trout Lake — it’s home to damn few trout, housing mostly largemouth bass and bluegill.)

It’s not the world’s prettiest lake, but it holds the potential for some decent largemouth bass, a fish not often found in this area.

And frankly, the lake wasn’t the main attraction; it was a chance to fish with Joe — a local legend who remembers the Upper Sacramento and McCloud Rivers when they ran thick with salmon and steelhead.

Joe Kimsey and largemouth bass
Joe Kimsey and a good-sized Trout Lake largemouth bass

You ignore access to that kind of history at your own peril, and I never get tired of soaking up Joe’s stories — like the origins of the battered red canteen he brought on the trip.

“Some guy left this in my truck more than 30 years ago, and I guess he isn’t going to want it back now.”

On the sometimes-windy lake, we fished poppers and streamers (the streamers we fished on slow-sinking lines — fast sinking lines tend to foul in the weeds).

In the end, hanging out with Joe eclipsed the fishing by a fair amount; we landed two bass, lost three others, and — embarrassingly — didn’t get a single rush from a bluegill.

Trout Lake, California
Trout Lake is an unremarkable lake where the winds blow in the afternoon.

Still, when you get to hear stories about what this county was like before Shasta Dam went in — and also learn where a guy looking to shoot a deer might want to hang out this fall — then the day simply isn’t wasted.

For those of you who haven’t met Joe, he holds court at the Ted Fay Fly Shop, and though he sold it to Bob Grace many years ago, he still works there because — as he famously told me right after his 70th birthday — “that’s where all the girls are.”

He might be wrong about that, but the right attitude garners him all kinds of style points.

Joe’s a little bent from age and he doesn’t hear as well as he used to, but his cast remains fluid, smooth and straight.

A few years ago – in the middle of an alpine meadow – I stared enviously while he peppered a small stream’s undercut bank with casts.

Each time, the fly landed on the edge of the current, and he deftly drifted it down the seam, using imperceptible flicks of the rod tip to keep the dry bouncing off the blades of grass lining the bank

It was an impressive demonstration; one I’ve neither forgotten – nor successfully imitated. (Though I’ll keep trying.)

Joe rarely fly fishes the Upper Sacramento any more, preferring calmer waters, though he still ties the famous Ted Fay Bomber nymphs by the dozen.

He also still tries to shoot a deer every fall, and at times, it seems like he knows every logging road, campsite and small stream in the surrounding mountains.

Plus, he’s got a wicked sense of humor, and that’s why — despite landing exactly one largemouth bass and losing two others — the day’s fishing was far from pointless.

lakejoeboat
Joe Kimsey, waiting for the trailer to arrive.

See you on the lake, Tom Chandler.

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A Nice, Quiet, Calm (FRUSTRATING) Day Spent Fly Fishing Lake Siskiyou

May 18, 2008, by 7 comments

With all the weirdness lately, I wasn’t looking for a Punishing, Bruising Fly Fishing Trip Into the Bowels of Hell Itself.

Instead, calm and serene sounded pretty damned good — and the Upper Sac and its tributaries were moving some serious water — so in a classic example of finding what I thought I was looking for, ended up on Lake Siskiyou.

Steven Bertrand provided the transportation (boat), and we basically didn’t catch fish when we visited the "usual" uplake spots, though I have to say I still looked pretty good doing it.

Lake Siskiyou 
Siskiyou is calm place (OK, not so much on weekends).

Later, we motored to our best smallie/bluegill water, where apparently fish and frustration waited for us in equal doses.

On one brushy stretch, I did manage four grabs on a popper in a matter of minutes, though in ample testament to my laid-back state and the lack of any predatory edge, I only boated one smallie.

Orvis Zero Gravity
Shameless tupperware plug: the 9′ 6wt Zero Gravity is a nice streamer rod.

Soon, the open-water rises started, and we spent a couple hours chasing trout eating… well, we’re still not sure what they were eating.

The surface film was littered with flying ants, and we pounded up a few grabs from very spooky trout on ant patterns, but we didn’t get bit far more often than we did, creating a suspicion that we didn’t quite get it right.

Midges? Mayfly nymphs? Who knows.

Trout rise rings
This is what we were chasing later; rise rings, usually coming in groups of 3-4. 

Ultimately, we both missed a handful of takes on ant patterns, and the trout were typically spooky.

They’d create two to three barrel-sized boils before disappearing again, so catching them involved leading them — difficult when you’re never entirely sure which direction they were headed.

I finally hooked and fought a nice trout for several minutes (he just took off every time he saw the boat), and then — like so many unexplained moments in life — the hook just came out.

wormtracks 
And, as the sun sets slowly in the West…

The Gear Guy

I fished poppers and dry flies using Chris Raine’s 8.5′ 5/6wt hollowbuilt quad prototype, and while it throws a popper nicely with a DT6 line, Next time I’ll try it with a DT 5.

When fishing the wide-open expanses of a lake, I can quickly find myself casting 70 feet while thinking I’m throwing 45 feet, leading me to wonder what the hell happened to my backcast.

I also fished a Corltand Clear Camo sinking line on a 9′ 6wt Orvis Zero Gravity, and while people who fish streamers a lot suggest throwing the fastest tapered rod you can get your hands on, I’m happier throwing a mid-flex rod.

That could mean I’ve stumbled on an essential truth overlooked by the rest of fly fishing, but it’s more likely I’m a little hardheaded about my gear.

So be it.

The Weather

Damn, it’s hot up here. With many of the local rivers absolutely blown out by snow melting (fast) in near 100-degree temperatures, I’ll likely be back on Siskiyou sometime this week, this time trying a little harder to crack the code.

Naturally, you’ll be among the first to hear about it.

See you on the lake, Tom Chandler.

The Annual Underground Pickerel Post

July 24, 2007, by 5 comments

Fly fishermen often don’t get excited about fish other than trout, but they should. On Maine’s Big Lake, twenty minutes of fishing found us putting a 20″ pickerel, a 14″ catfish, and a dozen smallmouth bass into the boat.

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Being Broken: A Fly Fishing Trip Interrupted

July 20, 2007, by 4 comments

Fly fishing East Grand Lake from a Grand Lake canoe — on a grey, overcast day — should be cosmic. And it was, at least until I got greedy and the outboard motor died.

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Cloudy Day = Stillwater Heaven: Fly Fishing the Gray Stuff

July 20, 2007, by 1 comment

Fly fishing in overcast conditions — fishing the gray stuff — can lead to cosmic fishing. The fish don’t hold as tightly to cover, and that spells “fun” for stillwater fly fishers.

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Fly Fishing to Extend Your Lifespan: An Underground Primer

June 1, 2007, by 4 comments

The old saw is that time spent fly fishing isn’t deducted from your lifespan. It’s a lie, of course.

Recently conducted studies (I wrote numbers on a piece of paper until I got one I liked) confirm that fishing extends your life 2.47 times the original fishing investment.

That means some of us should live to be 174 years old, which explains why the Social Security Administration has been secretly working with Donny Beaver to halt the growth of fly fishing among the general populace (yes you bastards, I see the black helicopters hovering over the Upper Sacramento).

It doesn’t even matter what kind of fishing you do. Some days you embrace the struggle of a 7x-only spinner fall, and others you’re looking for little more than lawn furniture and cold beer.

Smallmouth bass from Lake Siskiyou
The battling smallmouth – still the best high school mascot name.

Yesterday was more the latter than the former, so Steve Bertrand and I rolled out to Lake Siskiyou for an afternoon and evening of pitching poppers. Ahh, the joys of smallmouth.

Also on the bill were a few bluegill — who always acquit themselves with honor despite their small size — and though we chased what appeared to be a few midge-eating trout, we only hooked one, which we didn’t land. Damn.

Bluegill

Of course, one of the reasons I fly fish is for the places it takes me, and one of the reasons I moved here is that even the local lake — often overrun by tourists and locals alike — is still pretty stunning.

Clouds, Lake Siskiyou
Clouds over Lake Siskiyou.

The tourists of Memorial weekend were largely gone, so the Ospreys and eagles were back in numbers.

In fact, enough ospreys were wheeling and diving for fish that the evening became one long episode of Nature Theater; at one point an eagle fought an osprey for the osprey’s fish, taking it away from him in mid-air.

Can’t get that at the mall.

Osprey at Lake Siskiyou
An osprey hunting for dinner at Lake Siskiyou.

A lot is written about why we fish, and what a fishing trip ultimately delivers. In this case — after a hectic week — it delivered exactly what I needed.

I love fishing lakes, and it seems that lakes are gaining a little in popularity among the fly fishing set; Steve Bertrand has already guided the McCloud Reservoir several times this year, with more on tap.

Steve Bertrand on Lake Siskiyou
Bertrand doing his Captain thing. Chicks dig it.

I think that’s healthy; fly fishing’s widened its focus the last decade. It’s something practiced by individuals for the benefit of individuals, so loosening the piscatorial straight jacket a little bit can only be a good thing.

Hell, I’m even seeing recipes for carp online. Thanks to everyone who voted in our “where to fish” poll. Sure, I didn’t listem so much, but that’s just what you were expecting me to do.

See how it works? You expect me to zig, so I zag. See you at the polling place, Tom Chandler.

[tags]fly fishing, fishing, fishing lakes, smallmouth bass[/tags]

The “Doh!” Files: Rough Water Testing the Grand Lake Canoe

September 10, 2006, by 7 comments

Given that Friday’s post was largely a paean to the big water capabilities of the Grand Laker, I should have predicted what happened Saturday; a clear, bluebird day turned dark and violent in a matter of minutes, and instead of a light breeze, we faced a wicked wind and big swells that grew in size every minute.

The L&T Nancy at the start of a Grand Lake Stream storm
Forty-five minutes from the boathouse. Don’t believe what I wrote about the seaworthiness of the Grand Lake Canoe? This is the start of our run home. It got much, much worse. (Brought to you via a waterproof camera set to “Winslow Homer “mode.)

Then it started raining very, very hard. The wind whistled. I saw lightning in the dark clouds that were overrunning us.

Which is when things got bad.

Happy, Sunny Day…

The day started peacefully enough. Bluebird even. We fished mostly poppers until early afternoon, caught some nice, hard-fighting smallmouth, had lunch, and largely enjoyed the warm weather.

Fly fishing West Grand Lake
Early in the day. Stripping a Sneaky Pete in bluebird weather. I’m only seconds away from the trip’s first (and hopefully last) pickerel. (L&T Nancy photo)

With darker clouds looming to the Northwest, we raced to rocky structure in the hopes of catching big, aggressive smallmouth in the dead calm that precedes a cold front. Fish are often unbelievably aggressive at the edge of a front, and because I’m greedy, I wanted a few of them.

And, true to form, I quickly hooked four smallmouth, including a 12” fish and another slightly smaller fish that chased the popper right to the boat. But – despite the years I’ve spent fishing lakes – I wasn’t prepared for what happened next.

I heard a faint hissing noise that kept growing louder – a thousand “snakes on a plane” heading our way. I looked to the Northwest and saw what I can only describe as a solid line of wind on the water.

On one side of the line, the water was dead calm, and on the other, swells were already building.

The “line” washed over us (I’m guessing 30 miles an hour), and the air went from warm and humid to cold and dry in literally a heartbeat.

It wasn’t an isolated gust of wind; it was the leading edge of the cold front that dropped our overnight temperatures 20+ degrees. I’ve seen fronts move in over the course of half an hour, but never one so clearly defined that I could pinpoint its passage to within a couple seconds.

Without a word, I put away my rod and Nancy fired up the motor. “No problem” I thought, “We might get wet, but we’ll stay on the front edge of the storm.”

Duh. I thought wrong.

A West Grand Lake storm
Twenty minutes from the boathouse. It was raining hard and the thunder was loud, which was just as well – that way the L&T Nancy couldn’t hear me whimpering. (The camera lens dramatically flattens the waves. They were tall.)

It’s tempting to describe the long run home in heroic terms, emphasizing our triumph over the deadly, uncaring forces of nature, but the truth is it was a miserable run where a novice boater (which the L&T Nancy isn’t) could have easily gotten into some serious trouble.

The swells were big, the wind was whitecapping the waves which slapped the canoe, the rain made it hard to see, and – late in the run – the nearby lightning strikes rattled our teeth.

Swamping the canoe or motor in that situation can make a miserable situation dangerous, but even as she navigated the maze of islands and shoals on the way home, Nancy eased us through the worst of the waves with only the bare minimum of trouble.

West Grand Lake storm photo
Five minutes from the boathouse. We were chasing the front edge of the storm, but that white area kept shrinking, and we pretty easily lost the race. It’s hard to see, but we’re climbing the back side of a swell that – despite my elevated angle – obscures the land in front of it.

Competence in a situation like that isn’t so much demonstrated by heroic measures as it a measured calmness – an ability to navigate situations that could easily go from bad to much, much worse (but don’t).

We were fortunate that the last run to the boathouse was downwind, because the thunder and lightning started getting uncomfortably close. Figuring home was a close as any other shelter, Nancy opened the throttle and we rode the waves – arrowing the Grand Laker into the narrow boathouse slot perfectly.

Adventure over.

Tom Chandler during a West Grand Lake storm
Thirty seconds from the boathouse. I’m filing the whole affair under “Unintended Outdoor Adventures” and never assuming that a Maine cold front moves at the same speed as the California variety.

Today’s weather is very windy and though the swells are smaller than yesterday, it’s still whitecaps out there. Fishing is unlikely, but I’m going to take the chance to rest up and put together some of the spare pictures from the trip so far.

See you in the boathouse, Tom Chandler

The Grand Lake Canoe: An Essay with Images

September 8, 2006, by 113 comments

The Grand Lake Canoe still plys the waters of Grand Lake almost a century after its invention. Is there a better way to travel?

Grand Lake Canoe doing what it's designed to do
The Grand Lake Canoe doing what it does best…

Spend any time peering down driveways around the tiny town of Grand Lake Stream, and you’ll notice almost as many boats on trailers as cars, and that most of those boats are long, broad-beamed wooden canoes with an upswept bow.

But don’t make the mistake of simply calling it a canoe. You’re almost certainly looking at a Grand Lake Canoe (a “Grand Laker” if you’re into Maine guide slang), and suggesting that its roots run deep around the tiny town of Grand Lake Stream is to underestimate its connection to the area; the Grand Laker has big chunks of Grand Lake DNA directly wired into its genetic code.

The Guide’s Choice

Typically powered by a 9hp motor, it’s a craft that’s perfectly suited to guiding the lakes in the area, where the wind often blows and a lot of water needs to be covered, sometimes in a pretty mean chop.

Grand Lake Canoe looks graceful even at rest

Like most great tools, it’s a deceptively workable design, and while newer, high-tech boats might cover more water, there’s something irresistible about a wood canoe that’s so perfectly suited to its environment that it’s named for the lake upon which you’re currently fishing.

It even reflects Mainer frugality by fishing for several days on one small tank of gas.

And – unlike bigger boats – a Grand Lake canoe can successfully navigate the boulder-strewn shallows of the local lakes – where submerged boulders the size of houses rise eerily from the depths, often topping out at a keel-scraping inches from the surface.

(Watching a guide casually thread the big, broad-beamed canoe through a slot no wider than the boat itself is breathtaking stuff.)

Grand Lake Canoe

In addition to negotiating boulder-strewn shallows, it also trailers well, launches easily on unimproved boat ramps, and moves a guide and a couple clients at surprising speeds despite the use of small-displacement motors.

It’s tempting to say that fly fishing from a Grand Laker is like a trip back in time, but that statement belies the sheer fishability of the craft. Like Western drift boats, it’s not still used because a bunch of backward locals can’t give it up, but because it does the job it was intended to – in most cases better than anything that’s come after it.

Nearly a Century of History

The first Grand Lake canoes were built just prior to the 1920s, and because there were no outboard motors, they were “double-enders” which were paddled by guides.

With the advent of the outboard motor came the square stern, and in the 1950s, the Grand Lake canoe underwent its final incarnation: the stern was strengthened (to accommodate bigger motors) and a fiberglass skin replaced the canvas exterior.

Grand Lake Canoe bow

The result is a 20′ canoe that handles superbly, even with a guide, two clients, and a lot of gear. And despite their light weight, Grand Lake canoes are famous for their longevity.

It’s common to learn you’re sitting in a canoe that’s several decades old (last visit out I enjoyed the singular experience of fishing from a Grand Laker that was almost as old as I am, and one of the canoes in these pictures was built 30+ years ago).

The reliability of the Grand Laker is so deeply ingrained into the local zeitgeist that when an aluminum skiff flipped a couple years ago (it was late Fall, and a man and his son were lucky to be seen and rescued before hypothermia set in), a couple of locals sniffed that it “wouldn’t have happened in a Grand Laker.”

True or not, it’s a measure of the faith the locals have in the craft – and these are people who are on the big lakes when sudden, violent storms whip up some sizable waves, and get home to tell of it.

Grand Lake Canoe interior

Clearly, Grand Lake canoe seems at home here because it is – and the same can be said for the guides who pilot them. You could say that they’re deeply sunk into the traditions of the area, but again, that’s an unnecessarily nostalgic view – unless your view of “fishing” necessarily means warp-drive boats, footlocker-sized tackle boxes, and a lot of yelling and screaming every time you land a fish.

Grand Lake Stream canoe overview

Instead, the Registered Maine Guides – and their Grand Lakers – still do things pretty much the way they were done 50 years ago because nobody’s invented a better way to do it.

Grand Lake Canoe closing image

[tags]Grand Lake Canoe, Grand Lake Stream, Maine [/tags]

The Lucky Anniversary Bass

September 5, 2006, by 5 comments

It’s a reminder of how lucky I am that – on the morning of my first wedding anniversary – I paddled out into the rain in a kayak and fished for smallmouth bass.

The L&T Nancy was still operating on West Coast time (sleeping), so just after dawn, I grabbed an ultralight spinning rod, shoved one of the camp’s short, stubby kayaks in the water, and paddled into the teeth of a gusting wind that occasionally whipped the rain horizontally.

The weather was courtesy Hurricane Ernesto, who frankly could have found a better time to pummel the East Coast. The Southeast wind made fishing from the tiny kayak an exercise in cast, paddle, retrieve, paddle, retrieve paddle, cast, paddle…

Kayaking on West Grand Lake Maine
During a brief lull in the wind and rain. To the left is a sunken rock wall…

Fishing’s fishing…

I can’t say with certainty where fly fishing becomes futile, but I correctly guessed that fishing 10′-20′ deep in rain and wind – from a kayak that scooted across the water with every gust – was probably past that point.

Still, fishing a gitzit (a small, squid-like plastic bait) on an ultralight spinning rod is a hell of a lot of fun, and in between gusts, I caught two 10” smallmouth and lost a bigger fish when he spit the gitzit at the kayak (note to self; fumble for the camera before the fish gets to the boat…).

After two hours of fighting the wind and rain, I was drawn ashore by the scent of blueberry/banana pancakes frying in the kitchen. Later, the wind calmed briefly, then switched direction and is now blowing up whitecaps from the northwest, battering the boats that headed uplake before the wind shifted.

Tomorrow

Of course, the primary benefit of being at the start of a long fishing trip is that time is one your side; you can wait on the next day’s weather before deciding what’s next, and it’s possible that more rainy weather will put me on the river, throwing a streamer at the few landlocked Atlantic Salmon still rumored to be there.

Tonight, Nancy and I are cooking maple-and-walnut-crusted pork tenderloin for our anniversary. Lucky food. Lucky guy… See you at the dinner table, Tom Chandler

p.s. – I’m experiencing lots of problems with the reliability (and slug-like speed) of the dial-up connection (been trying to get this post up for over a day). Hopefully better for tomorrow’s post as I’ve got some cool stuff coming…
[tags]Maine, Grand Lake Stream, smallmouth, kayak [/tags]