Just When You Think Your Dialed In
IT’S A NINETEEN HOUR DRIVE AND A THIRTY MINUTE WALK TO THE SPOT WHERE THE SYCAMORE TREE IS DOWN ACROSS THE RIVER, MAKING THAT SWEET SEAM.
Flies are tied in the truck on the drive up. The color and size that worked last year but with upgraded hooks. Rods and reels have been selected. New lines have been spooled up. Waders patched, hats, gloves, down vests all packed. We’re on the river less than an hour when the first big male brown goes in the net, followed by a nice steelhead. High fives and smiles all around, followed by a toast. We are dialed in, or so it seems.
The next morning we are reminded of a lesson we have learned time and time again. Fish are fickle, conditions change, you always work for your fish. We had gotten to feeling pretty good about ourselves that first day on the river, and why not, it had been awesome. We had come a long way from our home waters, to a very different river and we had fished like champs. The next day we got back to the business of being humble and figuring it out. By the end of the second day we had a few more fish in the net, but they didn’t come easy.
That’s the game isn’t it? Figuring it out. How long would we
Read More »Getting the Big Picture On Brook Trout
By Jason Tucker
I recently read an article on brook trout, about what beautiful delicate gems they are. It’s true for a lot of us that brook trout are a small, colorful, feisty reward for a day’s fishing. They are often some of the smallest fish we seek. They normally live in the smallest streams and creeks, or in the headwaters of our trout streams where it is easier to step across than wade them. Yeah, we’ve heard of bigger fish in far off destinations, but surely these are the exception, fish that through a series of happy accidents go against the grain and get unusually large.
That would be a complete misconception, and the small fish that most of us see and catch, at least in the United States, are fish holding on at the margins of their range, in remnants of water barely suitable for their existence.
It is impossible to understand brook trout without fishing for them in their Canadian strongholds. The small, delicate looking gems we are used to seeing in the United States are only representative of one form of the species. It is a truly remarkable adaptation that extends their range far outside of what it could normally be, but it doesn’t fully represent the species.
Living in a small, headwaters-dwelling form has distinct ecological and evolutionary advantages, allowing them to hang on in areas that have generally become unsuitable for them. In effect, brook trout are superbly adapted to Ice Age cycles, in which their northern habitat becomes unlivable every ten thousand years or so due to encroaching glaciation. Brook trout colonize the leading edges of the glaciers, which have taken them south, all the way into the Smokey Mountains of northern Georgia, a place that is otherwise inhospitable for brook trout. When the glaciers retreat, remnant populations are left in the few waters that remain cold and clean enough to harbor them, usually high up on the mountains. These small stream trout are usually quite small themselves, rarely reaching a pound in weight, and often living only about three years.
Their prime range however, covers a vast area of Canadian Shield country that runs from western Ontario, Lake Superior in the south, on up to Hudson Bay in the north, across all of Quebec, and on east to Labrador. In this region
Read More »Streamer Retrieves For Different Current Speeds
I’ve talked in great detail about streamer fishing since I began writing articles for Gink & Gasoline. Most of my time has been spent talking about color and pattern choice, streamer gear/rigging for both big and small water and how to locate and target prime trout water with streamers. One area of streamer fishing I’ve yet to talk about in detail is retrieve speed and candor with streamers.
Read More »Making Single Turn Trim Bands the Painless Way
Have you ever seen a fly rod with elegant single turn trim wraps?
It’s a subtle and beautiful look and not easy to do well. At least not the old fashioned way. I’ve done a lot of them and there is usually profanity and heartache. Matt Draft, of Proof Fly Fishing, makes it look easy. In fact, he actually makes it easy in this great video.
WATCH THE VIDEO AND LEARN TO MAKE SINGLE TURN TRIM WRAPS THE EASY WAY.
Read More »All That Glitters
By Louis Cahill
About once a year I get an email from the editor of a fishing magazine saying, “I heard you have photos of golden trout.”
The answer is yes, but better than half the time the question is completely wrong. There seems to be a lot of confusion over exactly what is a golden trout, and the media has done it’s part to foster that confusion. In reality, the jury is not, in any way, out on the subject but more than half the time what they are referring to is actually a palomino trout, not a golden.
I say this meme on Instagram the other day and it made me think this was a good subject to help clarify. A palomino trout is actually an albino rainbow trout. though they do accuse in small numbers in the wild, they are most commonly raised and stocked as a novelty in pay-to-play private waters. Feelings are widely split on these fish, who never asked to be called into existence. They are at once kind of cool and the highest level of bullshit. I’ll let you decide where you land in that debate. You can read more about palomino trout here.
Golden trout on the other hand, are something truly special.
Native to the Kern River drainage in California, this unique and rare subspecies of rainbow trout is one of the most beautiful fish you will ever see. They exist a few places outside their native range, notably in the Wind River Range of Wyoming and are known to be extremely elusive. The golden trout likely tops the list of
Read More »Working a Steelhead
I had the opportunity to watch my friend Jeff Hickman work a shy Steelhead the other day and his effort was exemplary.
Swinging flies for winter steelhead is a game of numbers, very small numbers. It’s a given when chasing winter fish that there may be limited numbers of fish present in the river. Even fewer of them will be willing to eat a swung fly. You can not afford to miss putting your fly in front of every fish. These fish are on the move so you never know where they will be. You have to be methodical and know that it could happen at any time.
When you really think about it, the mathematics of the system are remarkable. For those not familiar, the idea is pretty simple. You cast across the current far enough to cover any possible holding water and swing the fly down and across until it hangs directly below you. Strip in your line, make the same cast with exactly the same amount of line, step down stream the length of a fish and repeat. Granted, this is a gross oversimplification of a very nuanced technique but that’s the general idea. If you take the time to draw a picture, using a drafting compass you will see that the concentric circles your swinging fly makes cover the water with amazing efficiency. It’s a bit like Tai Chi. You are always striving for perfection.
After hours, or days, covering water in this way it can be heartbreaking when you find a fish who’s interested but won’t commit. Often a single tug is the only evidence that you have found a player. I had the opportunity to watch my friend Jeff Hickman work just such a shy player the other day and his effort was exemplary. Here’s how it went down.
Jeff was fishing through a run and got a timid pull on a purple and black fly. He immediately changed flies rather than show the fish the fly he had rejected a second time. A good call in any type of fishing. He went to a pink fly. The water had some
Read More »Spring Bass Tactics for Southern Appalachian Lakes
Spring Bass Fishing Tactics for fly anglers interested in Southern Appalachian reservoirs. There’s tons of lakes readily available for fly fisherman to catch bass throughout the Southern Appalachian region. Unfortunately, these lakes aren’t your two-acre farm pond in your backyard or subdivision that you grew up fishing as a kid—they’re multi-thousand acre reservoirs that can be extremely challenging to learn how to fly fish. Fly Fishing Reservoirs starts with fishing the correct areas. Fly fishing for bass on public reservoirs is much like trying to find a needle in a haystack. If you don’t have a general idea of where the needle is located, your chances of finding it are slim to none. To be successful fly fishing lakes, you’ll have to quickly be able to eliminate areas of the lake where the bass aren’t located and then narrow your focus to small areas of the lake that provide bass what they need. Bass need the following: suitable habitat, satisfactory food and comfortable water conditions (water temperature & water depth). All these change depending on the season. In our case, we’ll be focusing on what bass need during the spring. Just like in trout fishing, bass fishing is all about bypassing unproductive water and spending your time fishing the productive water. Eighty percent of the bass on the lakes will be found in 20 percent of the water. If you want to catch them, you’ll need to maximize your time fly fishing the correct water. A Quality map of the lake is critical Keep in mind, all maps aren’t created equal (and many are total crap). The map you want to buy needs to have enough detail on it that you can get a clear picture of what the lake looks like underwater and what types of cover it has. … Continue reading
Read More »Bob Stays Out Late
Bob isn’t a quitter, even when he should be. Maybe there will be a hex hatch…where’s my truck?
See more of Bob and the angling art of Andrea Larko on Etsy.
Read More »No-Tech Flats Boots
Want to do a little wading on the cheap?
A few years ago I was fishing in the Bahamas with my friend Kirk Deeter. We stopped to get out of the boat and wade to some tailing bonefish and Kirk pulls out a pair of Converse All Stars. We grew up calling them Chucks but Kirk calls them flats boots. I couldn’t help but see the brilliance of it. Kirk explained that he bought a pair of these cheap high tops when he was headed to the salt, wore them for the week, then pitched them. Not even flying home with dirty wet boots. Smart guy.
So the next time I headed to the keys I made a stop at Target where I discovered these. Converse One Stars. Important distinction, not all stars just one star. Like the one star motels I usually end up in. I bought them because they were cheap, and handy. Thirty five dollars at Target, but it turned out great. I actually like them better than the Chucks. Here’s why.
Following Kirk’s lead, I planned on throwing them away at the end of the week. Kirk had explained that the Chucks were only good for that long because the metal grommets rust from exposure to salt water. The cheap One Stars have no grommets, so no rust. They also don’t have
Read More »Angler Attitude Can Increase Success During Tough Fishing Conditions
I’m grateful to have a full-time fishing partner that isn’t afraid to step it up when the going gets tough.
Louis Cahill is the epitome of this, he’s an angler that’s willing to do whatever’s necessary to put fish in the net, even when catching fish seems completely hopeless. In fact, he seems to shine when fishing conditions are really tough, and oddly as it may sound, sometimes I think he actually prefers bleak fishing conditions for the challenge and reward. It doesn’t matter if everyone on the river is getting their butts handed to them, Louis won’t except defeat until he’s given it everything he’s got. And here’s the real kicker, unlike many of us, I rarely have to pump Louis up for him to give me his absolute best on the water. All I have to do is get a serious look on my face, start cranking on the oars, and mention the words, “Let’s do this”. Nine times out of ten, he charges out the gates, like a horse at the Kentucky Derby, and ends up getting the job done by landing multiple big fish.
I think Louis has figured out how important angler attitude (staying positive, confident, grounded) is for catching fish, and many of us, including myself, need to take note. Louis openly acknowledges trout can be super technical and extremely difficult to catch at times, but he maintains a firm stance that trout don’t have a higher intelligence than us, and they can’t consciously pick and choose who they outsmart. This fishing attitude is why Louis can travel all over the world fly fishing uncharted waters and find success, and that’s why I eagerly follow his lead where ever he goes. The man always has a plan b, c, and d, if plan a fails to produce.
When fishing conditions are grim and we, as anglers, begin doubting our ability to catch fish, we often begin fishing below our skill level. Unaware, we begin straying away from our angler reasoning and fishng instincts, and in turn, we make bad fishing decisions on the water. We’ll find ourselves sticking with a dry dropper rig, because we’re seeing an occasional riser along the bank even though we’re getting no takes. We’ll continue fishing a specific fly pattern because it produced for us earlier in the day even though its been hours since we caught our last fish. Plain and simple, we stop thinking outside the box as anglers, and we
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