Gorge Fly Shop Blog: river tales

Showing posts with label river tales. Show all posts

Feb 17, 2013

Hurts So Good

Hurts so good

...in the miserable annals of the Earth, you will be duly enshrined.
- Lord John Whorfin from "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension."

I’m at the age where I feel like a comedian doing the same routine every day. Meaning, certain questions are met with regular, practiced answers. This approach to what often feels like an endless stream of queries, applies as well to my fishing. If you ask me about how my day of fishing went despite being handed a brutal steelhead beat down, I’ll reply, “Well, it could have been worse... I could’ve been working”. For being educated by several higher institutions of learning, I can sure be prone to ignorant utterances.

One Guide Tip to Reign Them All

Slow down, you movin' too fast You gotta make the MORNING last Just kickin' down the cobblestones Lookin' for fun and Feelin' groovy. -Paul Simon

Originally this article was going to list my top 5 guide tips. The plan was for a distillation of wisdom that I have received from ﬂy ﬁshing guides the world over. After all, this is the time of year that our existence seems to be whittled down to a parade of top ten lists so we can reﬂect on the year gone by. I've been keeping a list of tips on my smarter-than-me phone to help determine the ﬁnalists. But the basic tenet of each tip seemed to hinge on one core philosophy, SLOW DOWN!

Cheers

The Fever

My steelhead initiation back in the day was punishing. Like a punch to the gut or a kick to the – well, you know where. I showed up on Idaho’s Clearwater River with a good pal who had some friends that were into camping along the river bank and chasing these fish around. I still remember pulling into camp, wandering over to the assemblage and not knowing a single face around the campfire glow.

It was a motley bunch- humorous, sometimes boisterous-but very welcoming to any newcomer wishing to share their passion; specifically, spending entire days searching for steelhead with fly rod and fly. They took me in right away and made me a part of their scene and ponderings. The fire ring was the centerpiece, like a roundtable where fine grub, laughs, cold beer and whiskey were passed between all camp chair occupants. Not to mention the musings and theories as to why things happened or didn’t happen on the river that day.

Fishing With Gabe

Gabe doing what he does best.

As a fishing guide you meet many interesting folks along the way. Many are retired or have demanding careers or just everyday people who are willing to try something new. We share some stories, catch some fish, enjoy a day on the water and sometimes you’ll see them next year or maybe never again and so goes the life cycle of a fishing guide.

But every once in a great while, someone comes along that reminds you why you started fishing in the first place. Someone who takes you back to the excitement that hooked you so many years ago; someone that not only wants to be a good angler but also lives to fish. Someone with a free-spirited, pure passion for the sport and a willingness to push boundaries and break though that secret unwritten code of what an angler is supposed to be. Someone that takes you all the way back to the beginning, so many years ago - that first spark, the first fish, the first memory of what would become a lifelong quest.

Someone that…Well, I could go on and on.

Few things in my fishing career are as rewarding as sharing a day on the water with 13 year old Gabe. I first met Gabe about 5 years ago while working the counter at Gorge Fly Shop. You could feel the energy radiating from him like a solar eclipse that could only be handled in short bursts. Then, fishing questions shot at you faster than the gossip from a teenage girl, and five minutes later, your brain is swirling and you are wondering what just happened. But you dare not try to soften the energy because you know that inside lives a dream that you recognize.

Bighorn River - Should Have Been Here Yesterday

Bighorn Brown

I Shut the lid on the Dell Intel inside for a few days. Once again, I found myself in the Red Headed Step Child’s F-150 – this time heading east. The day was perfect: warm and calm, but three and a half hours had left me with a sore neck and left butt cheek that had dozed off about 150 miles back on I-90. We pulled into Hale Harris’s Bighorn Trout Shop. We said hello. Hale’s face said it all, but he reaffirmed it by asking us,

“Have you guy’s ever heard the term, should of been here yesterday?”

Bastard. Of course I heard that one. But I like to be the one to say it… Was that the sympathetic way of saying it? Or was that Hale just being creative. Either way his message was no joke. They were ramping up the flows out of the dam from 3000 cfs to 7000 cfs over the following two days. What a crock. What were the chances? Under ordinary circumstances, The Bighorn River should be one of the finest trout fishing streams on the planet, but this guy was telling us otherwise. Alright, we’ll see about that…

The drift started out well. New water, drifting, casting moving some fish. Most of the guides were pulled over nymphing the various riffles and shelf drops. We floated on by. Jed hooked a couple fine fish before he took over on the sticks. The water was clear providing a windexed window to the bottom and the hordes of trout lazily spooking off the bow. We drifted along a shallow, graveled bank where I began an all out streamer assault. Immediately the shadows lit up, came alive. The browns were everywhere in there, jetting out with gumption from their holds but then throwing it out the window when the time came to fully commit. I rubbed some river salad on the bug to cover any bad aromas, but still only managed to sting a few. It was a wonderful few minutes of fishing – to be able to witness these fish shooting out of their holds like bottle rockets.

After a couple of hours and a few fish later, the river turned into a real mess. It was like all the vegetation in the river had been put in a blender and whipped up into a frothy goo. Like a crouton in the heart of a giant salad, we continued on down the additional 8 miles to the take-out.

Yup, “Should have been here yesterday.”

Spring in The Valleys of The Beaverhead and Big Hole

Beaverhead Gold

Jed, my scraggly, red-headed angler buddy from way back suggested that we give the Yellowstone a rest and head east to the valley of the Big Hole and the Beaverhead Rivers. Having yet to be acquainted with this little corner of Montana, I was all too happy to oblige. Reports from this neck of the woods were non-descript, non-committal but ripe with an open-endedness that could not be ignored. Like many, I have played the victim to pages of fish-porn in many fly rags over the years depicting trout from these fabled waters. So hell ya, I wanted to go. Who’s drivin?

Jed’s aging F-150 pulled into The Flying J in Bozeman. At the urinal I noticed that mini DVD players were on sale, among other tough to live without items. The puck-sized mint couldn’t cover up the raw scent of piles of deposits made by traveling strangers. I walked out and Jed handed me breakfast. I’d have to work up the courage for this one, but once I got started the rubber-like bacon egg and cheese muffin seemed to disappear without too much protest.

Heading west on I-90 you do your best to fight the gravity of some other rather well-known Montana trout streams. Near the town of Three Forks, the Madison, the Gallatin and the Jefferson taunt as they join to create the headwaters to the mighty Missouri and the historical, Lewis and Clark trail. In all directions, clumps of mountain ranges jut from the otherwise open, burger producing grassland. With so much vastness ahead, one can’t help but feel liberated – each breath taking air seasoned by mountains, rivers and prairie.

Tobacco Root Mountains

Two hours later, we were passing through the small town of Twin Bridges. Home of Winston Fly Rods, this little trout mecca seemed still asleep. Most of the drift boats we saw sat neglected; some covered as if in hibernation, waiting for the mercury to rise. Like Three Forks, Twin Bridges also marks a significant convergence. Here, the Ruby River from the east, the Big Hole from the west and the Beaverhead from the south offer themselves up to the Jefferson River which continues on north through farm country on its way to the Missouri . Witnessing this scene, this converging lifeblood, flow by in the shadow of the Ruby and Tobacco Root mountains made it clear that two days in this country would not be nearly enough. The Ruby pulled me upstream. The Jefferson tugged me down valley. But we continued on, leaving them free of us for this particular go-round.

After buying a few bugs and picking some local brains at the fly shop in Dillon I sat at the put-in on the Big Hole waiting for the “red-headed step child” to return from the take-out downriver. It wasn’t long before an elderly local lady took his thumb bait and toted him back up to the ramp in her Lincoln. But while that was happening, I managed a few casts and hooked a couple trout on an Idlyle Jimmy Legs nymph. One little rainbow came to hand but the other, a behemoth of a fish who could have been her Granddaddy, spit the hook before any sort of tussle ensued.

A Healthy Big Hole Rainbow

We elected to float from Browns Bridge down to Glen which are two access points on the lower third of the river. Being that it was still March, we figured the fish were still trying to shrug off their winter laziness and we hoped that river temps would be higher in this section, heightening their enthusiasm. When Jed arrived, I took my turn on the sticks and we pushed out into a float of water, cobble and willows.

The Big Hole

Immediately we were taken by the structure along the outer banks. It looked as if there were little trout homes everywhere tucked into wads of roots, logs and eddy lines. We gravitated to these areas at the start but after many fruitless casts we began to shift our tactics. The outer banks held the brunt of the current and most portions were quite deep. After a while it became clear that if there were any fish on the outer banks, they were holding in the depths and thereby not interested in traveling up to take a fly that wasn’t placed at snout level. Trout do not want to fight the current in cold water temps – especially Brown Trout that actually prefer warmer temps than Rainbows. They will seek out slow flows and often live in the soft, non-descript looking water that doesn’t look as though it flows over much structure. During early spring and late fall, I find the majority of these fish in the same type of flow, regardless of what river I am on. It was the same old story this day on the Big Hole.

A Yellowstone Float

The day before, the valley had wind gusts up to 75 mph. We crossed our fingers that this day would be a little friendlier, especially since it would be our first trout float of the season. The start of the day felt nice enough – little bit of overcast, not quite chilly and just the slightest breeze could be felt meandering down the canyon. Got the boat in and started our float down the Yellowstone.

Felt good to have the 6 wt in hand again, but I soon found that my casting ability did not quite match my attitude. Yeah, I flailed a bit. I wasn’t quite hitting the spots I hoped for, but good times were had in spite of my fledging mediocrity. Was nice that it wasn’t yet blowing but I could have used it as an excuse. Needless to say, my buddy Jed on the oars made fine work of his pity…

Potty Break

After a hundred casts went by without any interest I offered:

“We might have to bust out a nymph at some point today.”

He looked at me, but all I saw was his profile.

“I left that box at home,” was Jed’s reply.

And so there it was… the commitment was spoken in a small, yet very potent chain of words. We were destined to spend the day chucking streamers to a seemingly non-existent community of trout. But that was Ok. That’s the process we chose.

Beneath the Absarokas

It’s just so damn fun. Yes, it’s true that Copper Johns or Pheasant tails may land more fish than Sculpins or your basic minnows, but evidently, that is beside the point. If you put your time in, chances are you will eventually be rewarded to some degree. Whether the reward has fins or not is up to the day at hand. But, if you commit yourself to the streamer there is always that chance that you just might hit the jackpot.

So we tried olive, we tried black, we tried tan and we offered yellow and we casted and drifted and stripped and dredged…

But it wasn’t until we tried one of Jed’s home grown patterns The…(I better not say for fear of offending folks) that we had our first take. In hand it’s rather messy with a lot of white crystal dubbing, black and olive barred marabou, white marabou and a rainbow array of crystal flash. In the water, this thing comes alive and looks real edible. And edible it was...

"Dinner"

At least this brown assumed so... Floating early season out here is a bit of a gamble. The weather can be raw and biting. The wind can howl and the feeding windows are typically much shorter in duration. At this time of year, cooler water temps can leave fish a bit more lethargic so using sink-tip lines and weighted flies is a good way to go. Keeping your sights on the slower flows will be most effective. Often times the outer banks are moving too fast. You might find a few here and there tucked into some little eddy lines, but if it looks like the current is ripping, look to the inside of the bend – on the broad slow seam. In fact, you should always look inside as you drift into a riffle and manage a few casts up into that little cleft – where the slack water meets the fast water. I like to throw back upstream into these areas and kind of troll it down along the softening seam-line.

On this particular day, there was about an hour (between 3:00 pm and 4:00pm) when they seemed most interested. We managed a few to hand, but missed a handful more. I hooked one beautiful brown that was probably in the 18 inch range, but he threw the hook after a nice tail-walking display.

I’m glad we dug the drifty out of the snow bank… Spring and all of her fickle charm has arrived in Paradise Valley. It’s time to get on the water as I can think of no better place to be.