Many, many small brown trout fell to our flashing fly rods on Tuesday.
Stream X? No. Stream Y.
See? Small streams can be hard work (let the pity flow, Undergrounders).
More coming soon, though I’m out of here at midday to talk to another film crew about the Official Sleazy Mega-Corporation of the Trout Underground: Nestle Waters of North America.
See you on TV, Tom Chandler.
My last small-stream fly fishing trip unfolded without a camera, so this, time I’m doubling up on the photographs. (See? The Underground takes care of its readers.)
The catch? I’m too busy to write a lengthy report (like last time I skipped out and ran to Stream X). Instead, I’ll hit the highlights in between the pictures.
Spring Creek? Brown Trout? Dry Flies? Sign me up.
Stream X is a small, alpine spring creek, and it’s the kind of place the enforces a certain intimacy between the fly fisherman and the trout.
It’s nicely populated with wild brown trout (and the odd rainbow & Brookie), but features rough roads and enough mosquitoes to suggest the existence of a vengeful god.
Like all small streams, the trout aren’t particularly selective, but they are damned spooky, and this – simply put – is not the best stream for a novice, but I brought my relatively new-to-fly-fishing brother there anyway (suggesting the existence of a vengeful brother, bent on payback for the emotionally scarring cherry incident of my childhood).
Think sneaky. Sneaky is good.
Unlike my last visit, the stream was running at normal levels, but the weather was eerily similar; it started raining the minute we arrived (after a lot of bouncing around on some auto-unfriendly roads), and alternated rain and sun all day.
It was also colder than I would have guessed, and once again, the Patagonia soft shell jacket proved the perfect jacket for the gig – a good lesson in packing, since I’d almost left it behind (it’s summer after all).
In fact, fingerless gloves wouldn’t have been out of place.
Welcome to the mountains.
Predictably, the early bite was slow. Equally predictably, the early scenery was stunning.
Even when the trout aren't eating, the scenery's working.
Later – as it warmed a bit – the bite got a little better. In the afternoon, there was even the hint of a small mayfly hatch, and (gasp) rising trout.
Almost everything you catch is a brown trout, which range wildly in coloration. Some are a burnt-butter brown while others feature a lighter, milky yellow color, and still others offer a golden metallic sheen.
Some brown trout look like golden butter - their scales would look perfect on a stack of pancakes.
Some feature slightly washed colors, others offer up bright red dotted flanks that – if found on a painting – would lead a non-fisherman to accuse the artist of artistic license.
"I'm ready for my closeup now."
Is he giving me the fin?
Every once in a while, you also come across a Brook trout (the Official Char of the Trout Underground), and yes, the Underground’s veins fill with naturally produced chemical pleasure at the sight of the Brookie, and I’m not even sure why. Maybe it’s the colors.
Underground Fave Char: the happy pappa shows off his Brookie
Why so many colors? The Brook trout continues to impress.
The first couple hours found us catching one trout each (it picked up later, and we ended up with 10 between us). Which means we had plenty of time to marvel at other things, including a couple close encounters with deer, and even a very low flying eagle.
Then there was the stuff that wouldn’t run away when you found it, including:
My brother identified this as Columbine. It's pretty.
Proof of rain?
He's hairy, and he's cool.
We found one of these- an olive stonefly
The fishing itself wasn’t what most would call “technical,” though when you find yourself crawling towards a ten inch fish on your hands and knees – and trying to thread a backcast through a narrow hole behind you – the fishing’s plenty technical enough.
These aren’t world-weary tailwater trout, habituated to the presence of humans or sophisticated flies.
Instead, these are trout as god intended – hungry, aggressive, but wholly intolerant of a sloppy, lazy predator. Trout darting to safety from under your feet is a common sight, yet despite a fair number of fly changes, I settled on a simple Beetle Bug attractor for most of the day.
This time, I also toted along a rod nicely suited to the fish and the waters – an 8′ 5wt Phillipson Peerless bamboo fly rod.
Underground Fave: The reddish-brown impregnated Phillipsons look stunning against spring green.
It’s a rod that gets fished, and fished hard (as Bill Phillipson intended), and yes, I think little’s harder on a fly rod than a wet, brush & tree-choked environment
Somebody out there is wincing, but this remained after I released a nice brown.
The fishing was slow at first, then gradually built over the day to the point where about half the really good looking spots seemed to hold a trout.
Nicely illustrating the concept of good and evil, the mosquitoes also built as the day progressed, and while I didn’t do for the garment what the Buff Babe did, I wore a Buff like a balaclava, protecting my neck and cheeks from the evil, bloodsucking Nestle bugs mosquitoes.
I may be back later this week.
Hint: There's a decent brown trout in the middle.
See you on a small stream, Tom Chandler.
The last couple seasons I’ve been on a small stream jag; given the choice between big water and small water, the trickles have won out over the torrents. And why not?
Odds are you’ll bump into fewer fly fishermen, see more wild stuff, and – without anyone watching except the wildlife – get to stalk and cast (it better be accurately) at fish that may not have seen a fly this season.
On the flip, the trout are smaller, the mosquitoes more aggressive, hero-pic opportunities largely absent, the travel longer, the roads worse, and the odds of being stranded where no one will find you much, much higher.
Naturally, that adds to the romance. Read more →
I feel like I’ve been hit (and then dragged) by a bus, and while I won’t plumb the depths of my personal depravity over the last couple weeks, I will say this:
I’m going fly fishing today.
On a small stream.
That looks something like this:
It looks like a small stream, but to a beat-up fly fisher, it's Intensive Care.
In yet another sign of Just How Bad Things Have Gotten, I even lack the energy needed to taunt my readership over my good fortune.
You know the situation’s become critical when there’s no pre-trip end-zone dance broadcasting from Underground/Man Cave World Headquarters, and yes, it probably is time to wheel me into the ER and connect me to the machines that go “beep” and “ping.”
Of course, for a fly fisherman, it’s not so much “beep” and “ping” as it is “splash” and “chirp,” and instead of disinfected tile floors, we’re looking at spring-green meadow grass surrounding a winding stream.
Yes my furry band of Undergrounders, the only good news is that beating the debilitating disease called “civilization” doesn’t involve reclining in a hospital bed as much as knee-crawling your way behind a tuft of grass and sidearm casting a dry fly to the far bank.
And instead of “nurse, I have to go to the bathroom now” you say “whaddya think – a #16 Adams or an Elk Hair Caddis?”
See you on the stream, Tom Chandler.
p.s. – To any clients who were expecting me to stay home and work on their projects today, rest assured I’ll be working all weekend long on your stuff. Really.
There are times when I suit up for a daylong fly fishing trip and start to suspect I’m carrying more gear than your average Navy Seal.
That makes more sense if I’m planning to invade Canada and secure strategically important bacon supplies than it does if I’m trying to outwit a particularly dumb animal. Still, it’s clear that no one actually forces me to carry more than a fly rod, reel, tippet, nippers, floatant and an Altoids tin of flies to a small stream.
But mostly, I do. Is it time to streamline things?
Gearheads probably won't find Tenkara that interesting - it seems pretty simple.
Tenkara is apparently a centuries-old Japanese style of fly fishing that sounds suspiciously like a high-tech version of the overlong cane pole and mono rig many of us used as kids (and I’m just going to say it: anyone belittling that kind of fishing may have lost the ability to have fun).
Frankly, the aesthetic of it all sounds so very zen – and it’s therefore interesting (from the Schenectady Daily Gazette) Fly-Fishing: Tenkara interest growing:
Tenkara, a centuries-old Japanese style of fly-fishing that uses a telescoping carbon fiber rod, 10-foot line, tippet and fly — no reel — is beginning to show up on trout creeks and Web sites across the country.
The first American tenkara tackle company opened for business in San Francisco last month, and a Japanese authority on the method will give a talk and demonstration at the Catskill Fly Fishing Center and Museum one week from Saturday.
Paradoxically, this style of fishing, designed for the smallest streams, employs 12-foot rods. The line, made of supple, furled (braided) monofilament, attaches to a short length of braided mono permanently fixed to the tip of the rod.
Tenkara rods collapse to 20 inches long, ideal for backpacking along small mountain streams. They are feather light (three ounces), elegant and sophisticated. There is even a nomenclature for the way they flex: a 5:5 is soft, while an 8:2 has a fast action. This is no cheapo crappie rod, so you don’t “swing†it open, but rather extend the sections, one at a time.
And while you can simply dap your fly if you want, you can also cast the tapered line, and even learn what tenkara USA calls “a large repertoire of casting techniques that may come in handy at different fishing situations.â€
I’m not at all sure this would be suited to fishing a brawling western river jammed full of big fish (or a lake), but it could be a hit with backcountry hiking types, who already drill the handles of their toothbrushes to reduce weight.
The full fly fishing catastrophe (waders, rod, reel, flies, junk we’re afraid to live without) weighs the backpacker’s equivalent of several metric tons (ounces = pounds, and pounds = pain), yet a three ounce rod, some tippet, and a handful of flies might just fall under the radar.
The length of the rod would keep you out of most streams, and when’s the last time you cast more than 10′ of line on that small stream anyway?
The Retail Solution
A few seconds with Google found me staring face to face with the Tenkara USA Web site, where the sight of new, untried fly fishing gear (predictably) made my palms itch. (I also found a discussion about Tenakara on the Field & Stream fly blog.)
Since this is the Internet, I’m going to exercise my inalienable right to Make Bold Assumptions Based On Absolutely No Personal Knowledge Or Even A Grasp of the Basic Facts and suggest that:
Without getting too awfully zen about the whole thing, I admit the idea holds a certain appeal, in part because it feels like a simpler approach to a sport that’s famous for self-inflicting a lot of complications on itself.
Undergrounders? Thoughts? The floor is yours.
Early in the year, small stream trout exhibit the kind of easygoing eating habits fly fishermen tend to attribute to dumb, rural fish. Later in the year, those same trout get picky (fast), and they become immensely unhappy when fly rods and body parts intrude on their view.
He’s either hiding from trout or praying for a clear backcast.
Still, with clouds and drizzle in the forecast, I decided – despite a great big steaming pile of unfinished work – that I needed to fish a small alpine stream I’d somehow bypassed all year long.
I call it “Stream X” (and no, don’t bother writing to ask), and while it’s hardly a secret, it’s also not particularly well known, and given the paucity of truly good small streams around here, I’m sorta hoping it stays that way.
Off he goes, but not before I get a picture of those gorgeous colors.
With any luck, it might stay a little-fished stream. Finding it amidst a labyrinth of dirt roads is never easy (and I supposedly “know” where it is), but what’s most important is that it’s challenging fishing – especially when the water is low, and the fish spooky.
At the best of times, you need to sneak up on ‘em – and while the abundant snags and bushes provide some cover, they also make casting nearly impossible when you’re sneaking around like a frat boy outside a sorority house window.
The result is a daylong circus of snagged flies, improvised-on-the-spot casts, muffled obscenities, and yes – a handful of embarrassed brown trout.
That’s an embarrassed brown trout if I’ve ever seen one.
Helping matters a little was the drizzle, which at times turned to rain. Helping a lot less was the wind, which happily gusted pretty much every time something delicate was going on streamside. Or maybe it just seemed like it.
I fished Chris Raine’s 8’3″ 4wt hollowbuilt bamboo rod – a hair on the strong side for this stream, but useful when the wind blew. Raine was waving his new 8’3″ 5wt staggered ferrule design around, and after testing it for a bit, the only knock I had was that the rod didn’t display the native intelligence needed to avoid backcasts into trees (someday they’ll build one, trust me).
The 8’3″ 4wt and reel (manufacturers should pay me for this kind of photo placement).
Flies didn’t seem to matter (as long as they floated). I concluded the fly needed to bounce off overhanging grass in the stream or even scoot long the undercut banks themselves; not one of my six trout came out of a riffle or the middle of anywhere.
Most the browns we catch around here lack the bright red spots, but not these.
Chris did about the same, and after a bunch of hours spent skulking, knee walking, hunching, climbing over downed trees, and (yes), catching the odd trout, we were both pretty bushed.
Fall color was definitely on display up there.
Fortunately, we had less trouble finding the way out than the way in, and I drove away pretty pleased with the day – it was challenging fall dry fly fishing and I’d enjoyed modest success – but I wondered why I’d waited all year to get here, and if I’d make it back before the first snow closed the roads.
See you in the mountains, Tom Chandler.
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Ok, so fly fishing the small meadow stream in my last post was stellar: the trout were bigger than expected, the surroundings prettier than anyone could want, and reclining in the warm, tall grass (“resting our casting arms†as I recall) might have become the highlight of the trip.
Could our next fly fishing adventure possibly measure up to this one?
Later, we discovered we’d walked right by a bed of peculiar, high-altitude freshwater mussels that live upwards of 100 years, and that a small pack of wolves had taken up residence in the area.
Frankly, I wish I’d seen both (the wolves from a greater distance than the mussels), but both get filed under the heading of “things I didn’t know about, but wish I had when it would have mattered†(yes, I do regret too).
After we’d walked around the meadow back to our ridgeline camp site (no mosquitoes), we sat and watched the sun go down.
The Underground goes all artsy on you.
Because [name redacted] and I aren’t exactly shy about sharing opinions, we dissected the state of fly fishing, the world, the environment and even fly rods (perhaps the most contentious subject).
The discussion was as lively as the day’s fly fishing.
Then the day ended, we went to sleep, and dawn broke, and on a whim, we headed back to the creek we fished a couple days before, reasoning the waters would have fallen, and – yes – the fishing would be even better (apparently I do greed well too).
We expected a triumphant return to the site of our earlier small stream adventure, and on one count, we were rewarded.
Sadly, that count didn’t include as many big trout.
We did catch plenty of Westslope Cutthroats, but the stream had fallen farther than expected, and while the trout weren’t really along the banks, they weren’t all that aggressive in the seams either.
A rare image of the Underground (courtesy [name redacted])
[Name redacted] suggested it had something to do with the trout repositioning themselves in the falling water, taking a day off to fight it out for the better lies, but I cared little.
The fly fishing was still damned good, and the only event marring the adventure was [name redacted]‘s plunge into the river after a rock shifted under him, banging both his knee and his reel.
As he fell, I could tell it was going to hurt a lot, but I’d also just hooked a small trout, which meant I had a difficult decision to make: do I help my friend so he lives another day (live, damnit live!), or do I land the trout?
Given that my heart is pure – so I have the strength of ten men – I managed to do both.
The Gimp Laughs Last
Of course, the lord giveth, and the lord taketh away, and in the “giveth†column, [name redacted] chose to sit on the bank and let his knee recover a bit, and promptly caught 12 trout from one seam (two of which went 12†or so) without so much as moving his ass an inch.
A Nettrout – my favorite.
If you’re like me, you can’t abide showoffs on the river (except when it’s me), so I fished my way upriver. Today’s rod of choice was an 8′ 5wt Diamondglass rod that’s very sweet to cast (though it grows a little less so when it becomes windy).
It was built for me by good friend (Rich Margiotta), a fact which adds considerably to the rod’s already-considerable charms.
I was more than nine days into the Montana Road Trip, and I think my hyper-web-accelerated internal time clock was finally adjusting to the more human pace the outdoors tends to impose on you if given half a chance.
The casts were falling pretty much where I wanted, the fish were eating the dry (not quite as often as I wanted, but that’s almost always the case), and the whole event had acquired a bit of a dreamlike quality.
That’s me. That’s beautiful. (courtesy [name redacted])
It’s in those rare moments of fly fishing grace that you realize that this sport is actually pretty damned cool, and while many define the sport by what’s happening on the waters that see a couple dozen drift boats every day, that might be more a commercial perspective than a sporting one.
I sat on that for a bit, and [name redacted] walked up and asked to borrow the camera.
The Image Maven
I’d taken damn few pictures so far, and was frankly relieved when I didn’t have to worry about stocking the thing with images.
Of course, that’s how we ended up with rare photographs of me in my own fly fishing blog, including a Gripping Series of Photographs So Graphic, That Small Children and the Weak of Heart May Want to Look Away.
Well. Sorta.
[Name redacted] did a nice job of shooting me while I cast at an inside seam (see “That’s Me” photo above), but he showed his Peckinpah-esque cinematic chops when he recorded me hooking and losing the Big Cutthroat Trout of the Day:
A 14″-15″ cutthroat eats, and I set. Hey, this is eas… uh oh…
The skid mark moment when the trout heads downstream and starts kicking my ass.
It’s all knee-deep riffles below; brilliantly, I try to steer the trout into a seam…
Which doesn’t work. He gets off, while I gaze longingly (with an empty net)
OK, maybe it wasn’t exactly Drama In Real Life stuff. Maybe it wasn’t even that exciting from a fishing perspective, but I’ll bet someone could add a soundtrack (Don’t Get Fooled Again by The Who) and give it a little vibration, eh?
Beginning of the End
I’ve got one more wrap-up post planned for the Underground’s Montana Fly Fishing Road Trip, including a few odds-and-ends photos that didn’t fit anywhere else.
Though I’ve written several long posts on the trip, it’s humbling to realize that so much went unsaid and un-photographed.
Then again, we are not video recorders with legs, and if you could experience the fullness of a fly fishing trip on the Internet, then you wouldn’t need all those expensive fly rods or waders.
More to come from Montana. See you on the river, Tom Chandler.
Bonus Graphic: a “Wordle” word cloud graphic of the report.
Small stream fly fishing practically forces you to experience the sport in its deconstructed state; modulus, marketing and industry hype simply fade away, and what’s left are wary trout, precise casts, damned little margin for error, and a fly fisherman who’s hunting instead of mining.
Sun, rain and dramatic skies were on tap — as were smaller waters.
The silver lining, of course, is that while small stream trout may be little and wary, they’re not particularly picky.
They flee at the sight of a looming biped waving a stick, yet still eat a #16 Adams wired to 4x when the water’s covered with #20 PMDs.
A small-stream Brown trout; our biggest might have stretched to 12″.
Steve Bertrand and I kicked around four different stretches of the same small stream on Friday afternoon, and while Steve classified it under the work-related heading of “intelligence gathering,” he eventually got into the spirit of the exercise as much as I did.
In fact, he borrowed my 8′ 5wt Steffen glass rod, reasoning the sometimes blustery wind demanded a 5wt but that smaller trout showed best on a relatively pliable rod.
A pair of small-stream 5wts: Diamondglass & Steffen 8′ glass rods.
The fishing itself required stealth (witness today’s sore knees) and some fast reaction times, and with my small-stream reflexes dulled a little by winter, I didn’t exactly distinguish myself.
Over the course of the day, I had better than two dozen grabs, but landed less than a dozen fish.
Most were in the 7″-10″ range, though my biggest topped 11″, and did the hard work of landing himself; he jumped at the sting of the hook, and ended up on the grass at my feet.
I fished (with little apparent difference between them) a #16 Red Humpy, a #14 Royal Coachman, and a #16 Adams.
You can’t step across it, but a long-jumper could clear it.
The Brown trout were typical small-stream browns; feisty and aggressive, yet they’d run when you walked right up to the pools instead of sneaking there on your knees.
The weather — cold and blowing hard at home — was considerably warmer and calmer at the stream (absolute proof you should always go fishing).
Periods of rain and wind alternated with sun and calm, and the fish didn’t care much either way, though when the wind blew a cast into the grass on the bank, the fly fishermen sure did.
It rained on and off. Fortunately, fly fishermen aren’t made of Alka-Seltzer.
It’s tempting to describe a day on a small stream in terms of its restorative powers, but in truth, it’s just plain fun with a fly rod — fly fishing stripped of all the things we’ve added, but maybe shouldn’t.
See you on the (small) water, Tom Chandler.
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