Trout Lake Report: Falling Leaves

Remembering Lawrence Levine and Those Who died With Him

Get to know this man. It could have been you or me.

Lawrence Levine, Family Photo

He was an assistant professor of English at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, and was teaching in the classroom where a man opened fire on October 1. He and eight students were killed. Nine others were wounded. He was also a "well-known and passionate fly fishing guide on the North Umpqua River."

Ross Purnell, editor of Fly Fisherman magazine, posted a tribute to him on the magazine's blog. Read it HERE.

Here's a thought: Why wouldn't hunters and sportsmen, who honor the best traditions of gun ownership and hunting, and who hold to the highest standards of firearm safety and ethical hunting practices, want to make damn sure that guns never end up in the hands of those unfit to use them? There has got to be a way. Maybe if more people began thinking for themselves we could find it.

Fin Chasers, Fall 2015

A chaser for your day. Get it HERE.

Tortflyfishing Promo

It's a commercial, but hey, I wish all commercials could be like this. Grayling that will swim through your dreams.

TORTFLYFISHING.COM PROMO HD from Tørt Fly Fishing on Vimeo.

DUN, Fall 2015

Be empowered. Go HERE.

Postcards From the Delaware

Photos by John Albright of a recent trip to the upper Delaware River.

Trout Lake Report: October Dragonfly

"The Sunday Swim, Comanche Trace" by Noel Crook

"Peaceful Canyon" by Roland Lee

The canyon ledge was steep and stark,

the pool below a patch of dark.

The canyon wrens careened our names

and from the narrow overhangs

the lupines leaned and clung, like us,

to any purchase they could muster.

We grappled down the frowning rock

then bolted for the swimming dock,

slowed to strip down to our skins,

the bullfrogs plopped to beat us in.

Other children, dark and bare,

had bathed and played and squatted there

and left us shining arrowheads

along the rocky water’s edge.

The velvet slime squeezed through our toes,

the water greened our feet and rose

around our hips and pulled us in,

filled our arms and cupped our chins.

Its coolness seeped into an ear.

The minnows threaded through our hair.

We floated there along with clouds,

clouds our ceiling, clouds our ground.

"The Sunday Swim, Comanche Trace" by Noel Crook from Salt Moon. © Southern Illinois University Press, 2015. 

Trout Lake Report: I Love These Guys

It was time once again to say goodbye to September on the lake. I will miss the golden afternoons and calm, cool evenings.

The fish were taking advantage of a heavy midge hatch. Several were rising in the weed mats up against the shoreline.

I laid a new orange-bodied muddler in there. A fish stopped what he was doing and came right over and sucked it in. Another brown. I love these guys.

I revived him in the net. As though he needed much reviving. The instant he realized he had a clear shot into deep water he exploded out of there. I love these guys.

I worked lazily down the shoreline heading to the back bay under the mountain.

I cast to a few rises, but they must have been rainbows. They went down until I was past.

The shoreline keeps changing. A big pine went down in the fire. Next year with the high water it will be prime fish-producing structure. Now it reminds me of a Japanese print.

This is the time of year that inspires reminiscing. As I passed the reeds, now high and dry, I fondly remembered when they have been the haunt of big, hungry fish cruising for Brown Drakes. I felt the pang of loss again as I looked at the willows in which one of the biggest trout I ever hooked broke himself off and was gone.

I let the fly drift behind me as I made a beeline for the far shore. One rainbow decided it couldn't resist that orange thing getting away.

Down at the end I searched for rises and continued to reminisce. I have taken some good fish out from under that big log in seasons past. This was one of my daughter Lidia's favorite spots when she was still fishing with me.

I cast the muddler out into open water where a few fish were coming up now and then. Nobody wanted it out here. The rises died down, and soon were few and far between. I saw more and more caddis mixed in with the midges, so I clipped the muddler off, tied on some 5X and finished it off with a little caddis dry. I figured I'd have to wait to find something to cast it to.

But no sooner had I greased it and flipped it out and turned around to get the lay of the water than a couple of risers came up nearby at the same time and started coming my way. These fish were eating with relish, sipping multiple bugs at a time. I knew there was a good chance they'd disappear as quickly as they had appeared.

I just had time for one quick cast. The fly landed two feet from the lead fish--and he snapped it up. No sip, this. It made a loud clop!, like a dog catching a doggie treat in midair. I was as surprised as he was to find him solidly hooked.

He did not want to be caught, and I had to remind myself that I was bringing him in on 5X instead of 4X, but I weathered some runs and a few lunges and got him into the net. What a fish.

That jaw deserved two photos.

I let him go and sat back and again started reminiscing. This time, though, it was about what had just happened. I savored the moment. It will be one of those moments, like all the others tucked away in my memory, that define this place for all time. And once again it was an awesome brown that made the moment.

I love these guys.