Put a Trout In Your Pocket

There's another season around here that coincides with the trout season. It's the apple season.

The pruning started in January, and now, just as trout season opens up, the trees are ready for their summer journey from buds to leaves to blossoms to apples. The apples will be big and juicy and ready to pick just as the trout are in their prime and the trout season peaks in early Fall.

Next time you go fishing, put a Trout in your pocket. Just make sure it's an apple.

Catch and Release

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An early example of enlightened thinking. For its time. This is from a book published over a hundred years ago, and the author and a certain William T. Hornaday challenge the "too-liberal fish laws" of Washington.

Note, though, that Hornaday pronounces this catch as "three times too many for one rod." I count sixty-five fish hanging, and it looks like the creel is full, say, maybe another fifteen in there. That means a reasonable brace of trout for one rod would have been twenty-six or twenty-seven fish.

Those are all probably wild fish, too. If only someone had come up with catch and release about then. I'd love to be catching those trout's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren.


And I wouldn't mind catching twenty-seven of them in a morning. Or sixty-five or eighty of them, for that matter.

And then letting them go.

Harry Lemire Or April Vokey: Looking For Signs

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This is a great time of year for many reasons. One of those is that it's the time to be making those plans for future megatrips. My brother John and I have been kicking around some ideas.

We have some family connections in New Mexico that make a trip there attractive. Neither of us have ever fished that country, and we'd have a staging area in Las Cruces, a piece of land near Chama to camp on, and a plethora of water to explore, including the San Juan.

There's always the Henry's Fork to consider, and the Grande Ronde. We have some golden memories of those rivers, and their call is strong.

Then there's the Olympic Peninsula. I've never been there--not yet--and neither has John, but he has some history on the Skagit. Back in the day, when he was with the Atlantic Salmon Federation, he fished the Skagit with a select group that included the fly fishing legend Harry Lemire. He wrote in an email, "That was the day I was chastised by Harry Lemire for fishing too slowly through a drift, thus wasting valuable time. So much for the 'contemplative sport.' I was the redtail that day and he wanted harrier."

Hah! That makes me laugh because when we fish together John always moves faster than I do. He's the one that came up with the redtail/harrier comparison to describe our different fishing styles.

Just goes to show...that I'd better not ever fish with Harry, I guess.

So all of those options are hanging out there, each with much to recommend themselves.

But then there's this: here I am, as I write this, sitting twenty miles from the border of British Columbia, right next to the highway that would take us in a few short hours to the fabled Skeena watershed. That fishery is famous for many reasons, not the least of which is that it's April Vokey country.

I couldn't resist. (And, let's see...think I'll make April's image extra large, and John's large. Yeah. Perfect.)  

So I've been researching a possible trip to that area. There's no shortage of information about that fishery, and it's all, well, as tantalizing as April herself.

In the course of my research I found a photo that makes me think Brother John has been holding out on me. Here he is:

And here he is on the Skeena with a 45 inch wild Steelhead! Why didn't he tell me?

OK, no, that isn't him. But what a resemblance. As I emailed John, it's a sign, man.

March Dreams

March Nightmare

Respect the planet.

Do something to help relief efforts in Japan.

http://ow.ly/4dHc2 #

Fun With Feathers

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Anybody know what bird these feathers came from? Here's a hint: they look like ostrich herl if it was hackle.(Answer below.)

It's an exotic, and I've never seen it in any fly recipe. There's probably a good reason for that, but I was able to get my hands on some and have been enjoying playing with it. As you can see, these are very webby feathers, but they beg to be wrapped.

I started on the obvious, a soft hackle. I began with a short wrap...

Then went long.

Sure makes a soft hackle look like a mouthful.

Another obvious use would be as gills or wing buds on nymphs and emergers. This is as far as I got in that department

All those flies are on #14 hooks. I went to a #10 for this Wooly Bugger. Now that's a buggy Bugger.

All those are wets; I'll be interested to see how well this stuff floats. Could it be a CDC replacement? The friend I got the feathers from says the rain just flows off those birds. I'll tie up a CDC pattern next and try it out as soon as I can. I could do it in the bathtub, I suppose, but I think I'll wait for field conditions.

Give up? They're Emu feathers.

Another Scouting Trip

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You might remember these guys, Jeremiah and his friends Juan and Brian, and their little brother Fernando. They had some great days last summer fishing and swimming in the local warm water lake.

This evening they were excited to go back there on a little scouting expedition of their own. They found the whole east end ice free, a big change from when I passed by here just a day ago. And they were sure they were seeing fish, although I could never see them when they pointed them out to me.

They had gone with me to load up a bin of apple wood, something to get us through the last remaining cold nights. That took us right by the lake.

They knew they were going to get pizza as a reward for their good work, and they were excited about that, too. But they were more than willing to postpone pizza for a chance to "bond" again with the lake.

You know, I didn't strike these poses the other day when I checked out that early season trout lake. But I think I felt exactly the way they did this evening about all the fun ahead.

Band Update: Jack Black Day

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Today the band met Jack Black, marched at Disneyland, and had dinner with him there. No word on whether he marched with them as Drum Major.

The photos are cell phone pics that I took off the band blog and tried to resize. Not so good. I hope someone there is actually taking some good photos.

Here's the band with Jack. Isaiah is on the far left. 

And here are the chaperons with Jack. Notice whose wife got close enough to reach out and touch someone.

UPDATE: I talked to Kim tonight, and she said that Jack Black did not march with the band as Drum Major, but that he marched behind the band pushing a stroller with his two little kids. She said he's real nice, and that they got to meet his wife, too.

Open(ing)

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I was out and about today and drove over to scout out the early season trout lake. The fishing season on this lake is open, but the lake itself has just begun opening.

This is the far western end where I like to go, as far away as I can get from the houses and resorts strung out along the shore. It shows promise of being open sooner than other parts of the lake thanks to this feeder stream. It's actually a controlled sluice way, but it's flowing fast and working away at the ice. 

The weather, too, is doing its part. We broke fifty degrees this afternoon for the first time in awhile, and even in the blustery March wind the air felt mild. We're also getting some good rains, so the ice is getting it from all sides.

It can't last much longer.

Family Post: A Jack Black Band Trip!

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Yesterday a couple of charter buses joined the school buses at our school complex. While most of the kids climbed aboard the yellow buses for the trip home, the band and a hefty number of chaperones boarded the charter buses for a special band trip.

They're heading to Disneyland for a chance to march in the Disneyland parade.

Isaiah will be there, and so will Kim, who saw her chance and volunteered to be a chaperone. It's not the easiest thing to get a thirteen-year-old kid to pose with his mother in front of his friends.

He's glad she's going, I think, but he was also glad that she will be on Bus One, and he'll be on Bus Two.

I like Disneyland. The first time I went was the year it opened, 1955, when I was five years old and living in an LA suburb. And I've been back a few times since.

This will be Isaiah's first time there, and he now has a brother and a sister who are insisting that they get a chance to go too. So, who knows; maybe that will be our next big family vacation.

What makes this trip special for the band is that they are being hosted by Jack Black.

His Dad and Step Mom live here, and she has worked with Jack to make this trip possible. They'll have a meal with him, and rumors are that he will be the Drum Major in the parade. We'll have to wait and see about that.

A couple of days ago, thinking about the dwindling wood pile, I said, "I hope we hit 70 degrees sometime soon." Kim said, "We will. On Thursday."

Looks like she was right.

The Disneyland Resort Weather

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Updated: Mar 10, 2011, 7:05am PST

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Nearby TruPoint Locations: John Wayne Internation... | Arrowhead Pond | Your Address

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Today Mar 10

Fri 11

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Sun 13

Mon 14

Sunny	Sunny	Partly Cloudy	Mostly Sunny	Partly Cloudy
76°F	72°	71°	74°	74°
High	High	High	High	High
51°	50°	49°	51°	52°
Low	Low	Low	Low	Low
Chance of Precip: 0%	Chance of Precip: 10%	Chance of Precip: 10%	Chance of Precip: 10%	Chance of Precip: 10%

For anyone interested, you can follow the progress of the band on their Band Trip Blog. Just click 

here.

Firsts

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This was a day of firsts. It was the first time this year I got to the river early enough to make a long afternoon of it. It was the first time I waded in first below the bridge. The river is down; that made it easy.

It was the first time this year that I could feel the warmth of the sun on my face, even when facing into the teeth of the wind.

It was the first time in three trips that I didn't hook up with a Steelhead on this sweet glide. My guess is that the low levels have made this stretch just too shallow.

It was the first time this year I ranged on upriver and fished all the way back down to the glide.

And this is the first trout of the year. That's worth two portraits. It took a big nymph while I was stripping it back for a cast. Good to see they're still in there.

Even better than that, if you can believe it, is that today I saw the first swallows. I tried for a group shot, but they just don't stay in one place. This one, though, expresses all their combined joy in his leaping flight. I confess; I felt joy, too, watching them.

That makes it official for me: the new season is here.