As Singlebarbed (the Underground’s brownlining equivalent) points out in his latest post, maybe it’s time someone spoke out for those waters considered too far gone by most to warrant a word:

Take a water district operating with complete autonomy; no CalTrout, no Trout Unlimited, no passionate enviro-lobby, as there’s little glamour in little brown rivulets, couple that with a week long promise of heavy rain, and you get Scarface and more like him as progeny.

140 CFS is the normal flow, yet for 12 hours during the storm the dam release was 14000 CFS – enough to take the face off what few fish could hide, and blew the rest of the fish into the Delta accompanied by Dodge Escorts and rusty shopping carts.

Scarred by massive flows? Singlebarbed thinks so.

I’m wandering an empty creek, barren of Bass – and what few fish remain show scrapes, scratches, and assorted wounds compliments of the “Zero Sum” water policy on the lake above.

You’re tired of hearing it, and I’m tired of saying it, “.. rather than spend those precious dollars on restoring the pristine, which we quickly despoil, perhaps we should be focused on restoring the balance of Nature.”

In each of the last two years the release from the lake coincided with the wettest storm, suggesting the water district management blew open the gates in response to what runoff was anticipated. Swelling any river 100 times its normal size in an instant makes a killing machine; it destroys the insect population, kills or removes all the fish, and probably wipes a goodly portion of indigenous reptiles, amphibians, and anything else that calls the streambed home.

Both years would have scrubbed the creek at the height of the salmon spawn.

Beavers are great swimmers, but not when the river is a torrent. Likely it kills most in their burrow – and those that make it into the water are battered into pieces. At right is one of three dead beaver encountered at the high water mark. A little far-gone to determine cause of death, but it’s possibly additional evidence of an abusive water policy.

If fly fishing really is experiencing a “fish where you are, not where you aren’t” movement, then maybe there really will exist the political will to make some of the simple water management changes. Then again, maybe not.

See you at Browline Unlimited’s Fundraiser, Tom Chandler.

Then Moldy Chum posted 61 photographs of a big steelie being manhandled, taped, and generally beat to hell before release (it ended up on the cover of Fly Fishermen magazine). With its chances of survival about as remote as your chances of inheriting $23 million from a Nigerian Prince, we’re forced ask the obvious question:

What the hell?

Perhaps the world’s steelhead fishermen should to take a lesson from our own glow-in-the-dark Singlebarbed:

A couple dozen large Pikeminnow and the occasional smallmouth were browsing in deep water – and without any vegetation available to hold insects, and with the catastrophic upheaval of the runoff, I guessed these might be hungry and desperate fish.

I had a fistful of the “Ellis Island” reject flies I needed to expend and plopped an Olive unknown into the water above them. With a 4mm bead and 25 turns of fuse wire there was a corresponding mushroom cloud and crater in the river bottom – and most of the fish scattered.

I gave it a quick tug to free the fly and all hell broke loose, some silver flash comes out of the water and does its best Salmonid imitation, screams off downstream and returns to sulk.

I’m long past caring what it is – and from its profile it appears to be a trophy Pikeminnow – but thick and fat like a bass, not skinny and cylindrical like usual.

It’s laying in the slack water at the bank, and I realize it’s the new IGFA world record for Sacramento Pikeminnow. The old version was merely 6.25 pounds – and “Mr. Chunk Monster”, the genetically blessed fatty was likely to tip them scales closer to seven.

Did our heavy-metals-rich friend rush to the nearest certified scales to claim his spot in the record books – and the adulation sure to follow?

Hell no. (That’s why we like him. Well, that and the fact he’s usually good to bum flies off.)

Our take? They’re fish, for godssakes – not magical beings capable of validating our sorry, quietly desperate existences.

See you on the river, Tom Chandler.

fly fishing, steelhead, fly fishing for steelhead, world record fish, pikeminnow

Sure, you could become a guide and get paid, but everyone knows you’re not fly fishing when you’re guiding – you’re simply holding the hands of people who can’t fish, but have more money than you.

Besides, guiding’s a one-way ticket to an advanced degree in body piercing, courtesy clients who can’t cast.

No, my little Undergrounders – your path to professional status comes via the Pikeminnow Sport Reward Fishery, a power-company funded attempt to preserve Salmon and Steelhead in the Columbia and Snake rivers.

Sure, a few nattering nabobs will say that controlling predators across an entire ecosystem in an attempt to bolster a fading species is a one-way ticket to the environmental equivalent of the fiery abyss, but I’m pretty sure they’re just jealous eggheads who couldn’t catch a Pikeminnow if it jumped into their hands.

From the Pikeminnow Sport Reward Site:

In the 2008 season, we will pay anglers for fish 9 inches and larger. The reward will remain the same at $4-$8 for each northern pikeminnow caught in the lower Columbia (mouth to Priest Rapids Dam) and Snake (mouth to Hells Canyon Dam) rivers. This year’s qualifying tagged fish will be worth $500.

Lemme see: if all the Internet stories we read are true, then most Internet Experts Who Couldn’t Catch a Non-Virtual Fish fly fishermen could clear a couple hundred a day.

For some, that only covers the daily cost of cigars hookers and booze, but for rugged individuals knowledgable in the ways of the wily Pikeminnow (like the grubstake-seeking Singlebarbed), it’s a plan for retirement in five years or less.

I say we quit our jobs en masse and establish a Pikeminnow Bum camp on the Columbia.

It’s Friday, most of you have started drinking already, so who’s with me? (Pumping fist in the air, fight-the-power style.)

I say we can’t miss.

See you at the Pikeminnow check-in station (and I’ll be rich), Tom Chandler.

pikeminnow, pikeminnow sport reward fishery, singlebarbed, fly fishing guide, fly fishing, fishing, professional fisherman, drinking on Friday

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Who are they? I’m talking about the the fast-growing mob of fly fishing’s “brownliners” – people happy to hammer the “rough” fish gone largely ignored in the trout-happy USA.

How’d you like to catch that on a 7wt?

Unlike trout, warmwater fish are everywhere (especially in urban settings), and in the face of disintegrating leisure time and high travel costs, America’s fly fishers may soon learn what the Euros have long known:

Carp are Cool.

Carp and Friends

Amusingly, carp have become the glamorous poster children for even more “extreme” gamefish like pikeminnows and suckers – an astonishing fact. Until recently, smallmouth fan Ian Rutter said even the kickass smallmouth bass was a hard sell to his fly fishing clients.

Now we’re looking hard at Pikeminnows and Redhorse suckers?

No less a figure than John “Trout Bum” Gierach lionized the Golden Ghost in an essay years ago, and European anglers have long had a love affair with the pouty-lipped wonder. And why not?

Carp are wily, they’re spooky, they’re strong, they feed in shallow waters, and they grow to impressive sizes in waters lethal to less-hardy fish.

When I moved away from the Silicon Valley – where I fished for carp in an apartment building pond – I found myself missing their selective natures and powerful ways, though I appreciated not having to run whenever an apartment manager hove into view.

Carp and Current Events

Fueling the carp frenzy are current events like skyrocketing fuel prices, which may do for brownlining what common sense couldn’t; turn close-to-home carp spots into jealously guarded secrets.

Carp-flavored Web sites, blogs and forums are popping up all over, and fly fishing’s well-trod essay book genre even saw the publication of an excellent book about fishing for odd fish in odd places (Offbeat Angling).

Naturally, fly tyers – bored with endless Atlantic Salmon patterns – are now applying their arcane fly tying talents to carp-specific patterns, with predictably interesting results.

Can the fly fishing industry – looking for its next big market – be far behind its fishermen? Carp Captains? Carp guides? Carp rods? (Will we see a resurgence of the reasonably tapered freshwater 7wt?)

It’s a Rough World – Or At Least It Will Be

After all, free enterprise – like nature – hates a vacuum, and while we may not see “Carp Glamping Trips” advertised for some time, we may see a bit more economic attention paid to fish that will thrive even as climate change sweeps over our coldwater fisheries.

The question is simple, Undergrounders – how long until Carp is King? Will the “rough fish” moniker – which is already losing its negative sting – ever simply refer to a class of warmwater fish?

And will other fly friendly “rough” fish – such as Singlebarbed’s beloved California Pikeminnows – ever see their names on a high-end fly rod (“The Pikeminnow Special”)?

A Pikeminnow (courtesty Singlebarbed)

Discuss.

See you on the brownlines, Tom Chandler.

A few online Carp resources (in no particular order):
Singlebarbed: The consumate brownliner
Carp on a Fly: John Montana and his Big Carp adventures
A Roughfisherman’s Journal: Exactly what it says
Angling for Carp: Central Texas fly fisher looking for rough fish

Forums & Groups
Non-Traditional Angling: Carp spoken there
Carp Anglers Group: Yes, really.
CarpNet: You knew it had to be…
Michigan Carp
American Carp Society: You read it right
OregonCarp: Can “CalCarp” be far behind?