Trout Lake Report: Snake Eyes

A Trout Called Janne

A Trout Called Janne from Jazz & Fly Fishing on Vimeo.

"Above Pate Valley" by Gary Snyder

Pictographs, Pate Valley, Yosemite National Park

We finished clearing the last

Section of trail by noon,

High on the ridge-side

Two thousand feet above the creek

Reached the pass, went on

Beyond the white pine groves,

Granite shoulders, to a small

Green meadow watered by the snow,

Edged with Aspen-sun

Straight high and blazing

But the air was cool.

Ate a cold fried trout in the

Trembling shadows. I spied

A glitter, and found a flake

Black volcanic glass-obsidian-

By a flower. Hands and knees

Pushing the Bear grass, thousands

Of arrowhead leavings over a

Hundred yards. Not one good

Head, just razor flakes

On a hill snowed all but summer,

A land of fat summer deer,

They came to camp. On their

Own trails. I followed my own

Trail here. Picked up the cold-drill,

Pick, singlejack, and sack

Of dynamite.

Ten thousand years.

"Above Pate Valley" by Gary Snyder from Riprap and Cold Mountain. © Shoemaker & Hoard Publishers, 2003.

Desert Rises

Sushi, Anyone?

Trout Lake Report: A Better Day

Some days are all about the fishing. As someone has said, a day of fishing, regardless of whether you catch anything, makes you a better man.

You push through the many downed willows that choke the access and kick out into the channel with broken twigs covering the float tube and sticking down your neck. This is your first time at this part of the lake this season. You make a mental note to throw a saw into the back of the pickup the next time you come.

A strong wind is pushing out of the south-southeast.

You go with it north through the channel, and then turn west to follow the long shoreline to the far end where the Brown Drakes will soon hatch. The wind goes with you.

Some clouds begin to build over the mountains.

The wind picks up strength. The pines roar, and the lake rolls.

All this time you're throwing a muddler into the shoreline and stripping it out. You have the notion that this might be the best way to find a brown on such a day as this. And, indeed, you can remember a similar day when the float tube pitched on the swells and browns and rainbows alike came hungrily to the muddler as it sliced through the whitecaps.

You get all the way to the western end of the lake. You switch to a bead head streamer and troll your way on around the shoreline to a refuge you know about. You're in your shirtsleeves, you're wet from the spray and slapping waves, and you're cold. You put on your jacket and kick out again.

You got a single pull just as you were heading into the trees, so now you troll up and down along the waves. No more pulls. The wind blows and gusts, the trees thrash and roar, the lake pitches and heaves, you bob up and down, up and down, and think, what an amazing place to be!

Against all odds, the wind begins to abate. You kick back over to the little bay at the end of the shoreline you came down.

By now it's break time, and you push through the willows and find a good spot. That's when one, then two, then three fish rise not ten yards from you.

You rig up a dry fly and get out where the fish are. It's perfectly calm. As you drop the pheasant tail parachute onto the smooth surface a breeze kicks up. As happens here, the wind has shifted and is now beginning to blow out of the north. Its riffles quickly approach as you work your dry. A fish suddenly breaks the surface and rolls on the fly. You can see its red side reflected in the water. You raise the rod tip and come up on nothing.

Then the wind is up and the smooth water is gone, and so are the fish. Streamers of rain blow in, and cold drops sting your face.

You go back to a trolling rig, and start kicking back toward the channel. You count your blessings: the wind that blew you down to the west end has shifted and is now helping you get back.

You get one tentative pull on the long troll back into the channel. You go on through the channel into the south end. The wind has died down again, and you tie on another dry, a little Adams.

For what seems like a long time you work your dry, roving around following the few rises that materialize on the water and then disappear.

A swirling breeze comes up, then goes down, then comes back. Thin veils of rain pass over. You cast the dry, and cast it again.

Then you decide to troll one more time. You tie the bead-head streamer back on and begin a long loop. You complete the loop without a take. You decide that you're still a better man for the day's fishing, fish or no fish.

But you make one more loop. Halfway through, as you're turning for the take out, the line in the crook of your finger thrums, then tightens. A fish. Just barely.

You aren't a better man because you caught a fish. But somehow the long day is complete in a way it would not have been without even this diminutive trout. The hard fishing may have made you a better man, but catching this little fish sure made it a better day.

A Breath of Fresh Air

What a breath of fresh air. If you're tired of BS gear reviews, check out this one by Jay Nicholas over on The Caddis Fly: Oregon Fly Fishing Blog.

These quotes will give you a good sense of where he's coming from:

If I really honestly understood some of the finer points of the gear I’ve used I would probably feel more comfortable using techno babble in these reviews.  Fact is, however, that I’m not smart enough or don’t have the interest in most of the technical details like ball bearing counts, the ratio of boron to titanium, to graphite, to fiberglass in our rods, and how many little bubbles of floatation per cubic inch there may be in our fly lines.
What I do care about, and have fun reporting, is when a new fish pole and string feel good in my hand and allow me to “huck” my fly way out onto the river/lake/estuary to lure a fish.  I like a fly reel that feels good, spins nicely, has a “decent” drag system, and holds up under my low maintenance philosophy of “fish it and forget it.” I do not throw perfect tight loops.  I fish.  I fish hard and long and cover the water, so any gear that allows me to fish more effectively, or with less effort – is a winner.

Thanks so much, Jay.

Click HERE for the full review.

The May Full Moon

The May full moon is...

...the Flower Moon.

Brookie Lake Report: Hello, May

You celebrate May Day with an evening trip to Brookie Lake. It's the best time of year to be here, before the weeds take over.

A spring breeze ruffles the water. You start with a little muddler but the expected hits don't come.

You tie on a deer hair caddis and give that a try as you work down to the far shoreline.

Nothing doing with that, so you try another deer hair fly with an orange head. By now you're at that far shoreline, and you notice something.

Hundreds of little brookies are jumping out of the water on a feeding spree, presumably working on bugs the wind has pushed to this end.

You strip the deer hair fly with vigor, and some fish take it the same way. They are fresh and cold and strong and beautiful.

You think you've found the brookie mother lode, but you glance back and see that the whole lake has little brookies popping out of it.

You would think you'd be catching fish on every cast, but you aren't. You switch to the small deer hair caddis and get a fish to take it on the strip.

The wind dies down, and you can see the clouds of minute midges swirling over the water. You try some tiny little dries to see if you can get some straight dry fly takes.

By now the brookies seem to have formed distinct pods, and they appear to be more skittish without the riffles. They're hitting and running, and you can't seem to get the fly at the right place at the right time. You have to admire these shifty little fish.

You decide to head in. Now you go counter-intuitive and tie on that muddler again. The frenetic feeding activity is tapering off, but you target rises as you can as you kick back.

Halfway back to the take out you come up on a very active little pod, many of them still coming straight out of the water. You drop the muddler into the middle of it and the fish of the day hits it before you can give it a strip.

You get one more the same way, and then that's it. The lake is quiet.

Until another beautiful May day dawns.

Zennnnnn: On the Chew

on the chew from Peter Broomhall on Vimeo.

"Things To Do In the Belly of the Whale" by Dan Albergotti

Verne Dawson, "Jonah and the Whale (In the Whale)" 2009

Measure the walls. Count the ribs. Notch the long days.

Look up for blue sky through the spout. Make small fires

with the broken hulls of fishing boats. Practice smoke signals.

Call old friends, and listen for echoes of distant voices.

Organize your calendar. Dream of the beach. Look each way

for the dim glow of light. Work on your reports. Review

each of your life’s ten million choices. Endure moments

of self-loathing. Find the evidence of those before you.

Destroy it. Try to be very quiet, and listen for the sound

of gears and moving water. Listen for the sound of your heart.

Be thankful that you are here, swallowed with all hope,

where you can rest and wait. Be nostalgic. Think of all

the things you did and could have done. Remember

treading water in the center of the still night sea, your toes

pointing again and again down, down into the black depths.

"Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale" by Dan Albergotti from The Boatloads. © BOA Editions, Ltd., 2008.