Trout Lake Report: A Dead Man's Flies

After the Brown Day you go back to the lake happy to take it on its own terms. You fish with the cool calmness that you find there.

You work the shoreline with the damsel for a long way. Then a fish comes to the fly. You knew that fish was there somewhere. It feels like karma.

A few fish are rising as the evening lengthens.

You take out a small fly box. It came to you along with the bamboo rod you bought in an auction. They came to the auction by way of a thrift shop. You think that rods and fly boxes are not donated to thrift shops unless the owner is no longer with us.

You don't know who owned this box, but you know he chose his flies with care. You assume they are fly shop flies. Or perhaps he was a much more skillful fly tier than you are.

You have not used these flies yet, but on this peaceful evening you pluck a fat Humpy from the box. You find a fish patrolling a section of shoreline. You place the fly with care, several times, before finding the right place at the right time. The fish takes it.

Some kind of circle is completed as a dead man's fly takes a fish once again. You wonder if he somehow knows.

Later, down the hill at the well house to turn off the pasture sprinklers, you wonder what will happen to your flies after you're dead and gone. You wonder if you will know if someone else catches a trout with one of your flies. You think probably not. But it's nice to know that someone who never knew you might think of you then.

Trout Lake Report: Back In the Saddle Again

Feeling overdue for a few good fish you kick out on the north end. You're thinking of the cold water of the inlet on the other side. You have that new light-winged version of the damsel fly and you tie it on with anticipation.

A strong wind is blowing out of the south. You bob down the near shoreline first, thinking of the usual suspects in a couple of little damsel-rich bays. Nobody's home. You spend some time at the far north end thinking there may be a few opportunistic fish working the bugs washing up in the waves there. But nobody's home there either.

You buck the wind along the far shoreline until you reach the inlet. Somebody's home. You see a fish come out of the water in the little lagoon inside the willow-lined mouth. You decide to work your way in, so you get into position and lay a cast just outside the mouth. A fish instantly whacks it and snaps the fly off the tippet.

Why did you tie it on 5X? You don't know, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. You'll miss that fly, but you feel good: it worked. You still have the original version with the darker wing. Maybe it will work today, too.You clip off the 5X and tie it onto the 4X. You move in a little closer and lay down another cast just inside the mouth.

You begin to slowly strip it in, just a little faster than the current. Then, all you see is a big back and the fly is gone. You raise the rod and there's a good fish on the line. You start to horse him out, knowing you've got to get him out into the open to have a chance. You're happy to realize that's exactly what he's thinking. He slips past you into open water, and that's his undoing.

What a beautiful Brown.

You go right back to the same spot and get a quick take. You set, thinking big, and almost yank this little Brown into the float tube.

You still hear and see fish working inside the mouth, so you move right up between the willows at the mouth and start working over the little lagoon.

It's a Brown convention in there. They're on damsels, and they seem to like the original version of the fly just fine. Another one porpoises on it. This one, too, heads for open water.

And so does the next one.

Things slow down in there after that. But as the sun sinks lower a few fish begin to rise out in open water. You kick out and explore up and down the lake for a ways, and you're not surprised to see that the fish are concentrating in the cooler water near the inlet. That's where you concentrate, too.

As dusk lays down you clip off the damsel and tie on a little muddler. It gets lots of attention from little fish along the willows. So you kick back to the inlet and lay it in the sweet spot. A fish takes it hard, but instead of heading for open water it dashes every which way--Rainbow--and gets hung up in the willows. The 4X snaps. You'll miss that muddler.

You look in your fly box. You're running out of muddlers. But a Henry's Fork Hopper catches your eye. Why not? You tie it on.

All this time a fish has been rising splashily about twenty yards out. Earlier it ignored the damsel, but you wonder what it would do with a bullet-headed hopper. So you kick out, wait for another rise, and put the fly in the vicinity. You're stripping it in when the fish hits it. You're thinking, "Just like a Brown." What do you know, it is a Brown.

You can't resist one more check of the inlet. There's a fish working in there again. You're pretty sure it's a Rainbow. So you show him the hopper. He takes it on the strip, and this time you do your best to skate him out of there. You've got him right at the mouth when he jumps four feet out of the water right into the willows. He gets hung up, and thrashes there in the branches. You're able to kick over and scoop him up with the net before he breaks off. He's the best fish you've ever netted out of a tree.

You have to break the branch off to get the line untangled.

By then it's getting dark, so you begin to troll the hopper back to the truck. Just before you get too far away from the cool inlet water another Rainbow grabs it.

What a great evening. You feel like you're back in the saddle again.

Trout Lake Report: Feeling Long Overdue

I'm getting behind in my posts these days. Before I worked over my damsel pattern I made two trips to the lake. The first was on a hot day when fish were taking damsels. I used that first pattern all along the campsite shoreline, now deserted. There were fish, and they certainly saw the fly, but no fish came to it.

I switched to a muddler and stripped it over some weed beds and caught a fish. My pleasure was significantly dimmed when I saw that he was hooked in the eye. Only the second time that's happened to me. I released Ol' One Eye and sincerely wished him well.

I trolled the muddler over to the far shoreline. No fish were caught.

I tied the damsel back on and really worked that shoreline for a long time. I finally caught a fish. He was  one of those fish, full of adrenaline and actively feeding, who would have hit anything, I think.

Once again there was no good evening rise. I trolled back, but no fish were caught.

It was still a good trip--you know how that goes--but I was missing that pleasant sensation of feeling like I know what I'm doing.

The second trip was the next day. I had planned to go to the lake, but then things came up. It was a hectic day, and I had needed to completely unload the truck. When I finally had the chance to make a break for it time was short. I re-loaded the truck in a hurry. I got all the way to the lake before discovering I had forgotten one thing: my waders.

I considered going wet. If there had been more time I would have. But with the little time I had left I decided to go retro and fish from the bank. It took me back to my very first trips here some five years ago, pre-canoe and pre-float tube.

It's a different experience, and my feet at least ended up going wet.

I cast out as far as I could and stripped in a streamer. In the old days Browns would follow a streamer right to the bank, and sometimes take. Not this time. A few fish began rising at dusk, but they were just a little too far out for me to reach. So I fished for the little guys in the shallows. They'd hit the streamer but it was too big for them.

So I tied on a pheasant tail nymph I had tied up that morning just for those fish who were now rising beyond my reach. In previous trips those open water risers had ignored my dries, so I figured a nymph fished in the film might do the trick. Well, it worked on the little guys.

I tried the streamer again--think night-cruising Browns--and then a little Trico, hoping it might match the little dark caddis and the midges.

The only thing I caught was a wild grape out of the thicket behind me.

It wasn't what I had expected to be doing, but it wasn't a bad way to spend an evening. Still, I was feeling more than ever that a good day at the lake was long overdue.

SCOTF, Summer 2012

The Summer 2012 issue of Southern Culture on the Fly is here.

Fly Tying: Damselflies

The lake is quiet right now--except for the damselflies, and the fish actively preying on them during the hot afternoons. I have come to the conclusion that the reason for the lack of an evening rise is that the fish are simply too full of damselflies by then.

In fishing the damselfly hatch I have found that on some happy occasions an individual fish on damsels will be frenzied enough to hit any fly that comes into his window, especially if you can get it right on his head. More often the fish are locked onto the damselflies, and will ignore everything else.

I tied this fly awhile ago, and then forgot I had it until I uncovered it on my fly patch the other day. I had been mostly unsuccessful up until then at getting any fish on damsels to give me the time of day. This fly elicited a slashing strike by a good fish, and I caught a little tiny Brown on it. But on subsequent days It has been mostly ignored.

I have been experimenting with presentation--dead drift, twitch, fast retrieve, slow retrieve, drowned, trolled--but finally concluded that until I can make it sit on a reed or fly lazily 6 inches above the surface the look of the fly may be more important.

So I went back to the bench and tied up another version. This one has a much lighter wing and a slightly thinner body. The head is too big, and I might go sparser on the hackle next time, but my hope is the lighter wing will be the trigger.

Will it be? I'll let you know.

Trout Lake Report: Mission Accomplished

You get out of the truck and think you catch a whiff of smoke. The "No Fires" sign is up all over, and the campground is deserted. But there have been thunderstorms recently. You wonder if there's a lightning fire burning on the mountain. Just when you begin to think it was your imagination a forest service helicopter with a bambi bucket dangling beneath whaps over the western ridge and settles down over the lake behind the trees.

You rig up and kick out into the channel. There are damsels everywhere, and fish are leaping out of the water to take them off the reeds, and on the fly. You try for them with what you have--non-damsel flies--but the fish want damsels and only damsels.

You give up and take your muddler on down the shoreline. Not as many damsels here, and not as many fish. Nothing comes to the muddler.

You decide to change flies. You pluck a different muddler off your fly patch, and there, hidden under that fly, is a fly you forgot you tied and never used: a damsel imitation. You tie it on and kick back to a reedy little bay where one or two fish are splashing around.

The fish are cruising up and down the bay. You never know where they'll be. When you cast to a rise they're already gone. It's like shooting at a moving target. You finally get the fly in the right place and a fish rolls on it. You have him for a split second, then he's off. You're encouraged. You try again and get another splashy hit and a good hookup. Not what you were hoping for, but you'll take it. You're glad to see all these little Browns cleaning up their plates and getting their exercise.

You give him the full photographic treatment.

Meanwhile the helicopter is making its runs. Two more forest service fire trucks rattle up the road. Another helicopter flies in from the east, lands beyond the trees at the north end where there must be a fire camp, rises up with a bucket attached, and joins the first on the water runs. Every time they come back over the western ridge you stop and pull out your camera.

Dusk settles in.

You've seen a few Brown Drakes again. You'd really like to catch a fish on a big drake pattern, so you tie one on and go hunting. But again the rises are sparse and erratic and you run out of light without a fish.

By the time you troll in, the helicopters have been grounded for awhile. But you haven't caught another whiff of smoke all evening. Looks like mission accomplished.