Aquamarine, A Permit Tale

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“Now! Now is the time! Hurry!”

I am perched on the bow of a rocking Hell’s Bay Waterman, on the flats of Abaco, squinting through my bifocals and trying in vain to find the opening in a figure 8 knot. I’ve cut off six different crab flies and lucky number seven is waiting for me to finish this damned knot, while a forty-pound permit feeds in front of the boat. Ashron, my guide, is trying to help. I know this, but it’s not working. Sweat is running into my eyes and I’m starting to get tunnel vision.

The permit stops feeding and I’m finally able to finish the knot. Now we have to wait again. This big permit is doing what’s called “riding a ray.” It’s hovering over a manta ray about six feet across and picking up the scraps the ray misses. It’s sort of the Holy Grail of permit shots. As long as they stay together, the permit will focus on the ray and eat happily. We pole along about seventy-five feet behind them waiting for the ray to stir up the mud by feeding. Drop a crab pattern in that little puff of mud and you stand your best possible shot at hooking up on the permit.

Six different crab patterns have failed to get the desired reaction. I’ve had looks, swirls, follows and charges but no eats. Lucky number seven is a tiny Mop Crab no bigger across than my pinky nail. There is no eighth pattern in my box. There was, in fact, no seventh pattern. This fly came from Ashron’s hat. I’m already kicking myself for that. I’m kicking myself for making some bad casts early on, for not having practiced more before I came, for not calling my mother more often and any other shortcoming I can think of. This is what happens in your head when permit fishing and I know full well that the nagging voice in my head must be quieted before that ray muds again. That’s the devil F-ing with you. Permit ride rays and the devil rides permit.

“Now!” Ashron tells me. I see the puff of mud, I let go of my fly and sweep back my rod and tell the devil, “Watch this.”

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Labrador Bound

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By Jason Tucker

It’s no secret that I love brook trout, and thus the name of my blog, Fontinalis Rising.

Size doesn’t matter. From 4-inch little gems to behemoth monsters the size of respectable brown trout, I find them all fascinating and exciting. When I was a boy, my grandfather took me down to the river and showed me two fish in the 24-inch range that had staked out the area as home.

Most of our fish were in the 6- to 8-inch range, and 12 inches was considered a good fish. To see two fish that had doubled that mark was incredible. Ever since then, I’ve wondered what made those two fish get so big.

I spent as much time as possible fishing for brook trout in Northern Michigan and its Upper Peninsula, and after many years I finally caught a 16-inch fish, which was my personal best for some time.

Since then I’ve gone to Nipigon, where a 12-inch fish is considered small. I caught one fish that was 22 inches, and lost several fish that were much bigger. (Brook trout tend to pack on the pounds once they reach about 22 inches. A 20-inch fish may weigh 3 pounds while a 23-incher may weigh 7 pounds.)

A few years later I was invited to go fish with the Sault Gang. We caught 38 fish that averaged 18-20 inches and 1.5 to 3 pounds, and got one big male that was over 4 pounds. I also took a trip to Isle Royale with a distinguished group of gentlemen. The fish there average 3-5 pounds. With research I’ve discovered that

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Eye Surgery #8 Update

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By Louis Cahill

I’m two weeks Post-op and things are going well.

I hate talking about my medical issues, but lots of you are asking for updates, so I’ll keep it short. That should be easy since, as of now, all the news is good. A lot went on in the run up to the surgery but I’ll just hit the high points.

Things were feeling a little sketchy the week before my surgery. The oil in my eye had completely turned to muck. Like spring run-off inside my eye. As a result, I developed glaucoma. Rising eye pressure threatened to damage my optic nerve. There was no choice but to remove the oil, however, the murky oil prevented my doctor from seeing the condition of the retina. He was going in blind and not happy about it. I won’t lie, it was scary.

Fortunately the surgery went well. Dr Alurkar flushed two liters of solution through my eye cleaning it out and the retina stayed attached. Statistically, the majority of folks in my situation, who do experience another detachment, do so during surgery. The vast majority experience it during the first week. I’m two weeks out now and my doctor says the retina looks fantastic! After a couple of truly awful days, my pressure has returned to normal so it appears I dodged the glaucoma bullet with no apparent nerve damage. I will not be in the clear for 60-90 days but things look really promising right now.

It will take at least 90 days to really know what I can expect for vision. It’s a mess right now but the double vision caused by the oil is gone and as of just last night my eyes have started trying to focus again. That’s very encouraging. Whatever I end up with, I’ll be very happy to have it. I’m struggling to keep my expectations in line. I’m just superstitious enough to worry about jinxing myself, but I’m starting to feel truly optimistic. I am sooooooo ready to get on with my life!

Thank you all for your continuing support throughout this nightmare. I can not tell you how good it feels to have so many people in my corner. I can’t imagine how difficult this would have been without that support. Hopefully I’ll be checking in with more good news in a couple of weeks. 

Thanks!

Louis Cahill

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Fly Fishing Tip: Mend Your Strike Indicator to Increase Your Drag-Free Drift

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IS THERE EVER A TIME, WHEN NYMPHING, THAT IT CAN BE BENEFICIAL TO LIFT THE STRIKE INDICATOR OUT OF THE WATER DURING A MEND?

When I first started learning the art of mending fly line, I constantly struggled with keeping my striking indicator and dry fly from moving across the surface of the water. Quite often, I not only moved them during my mends, I even lifted them completely out of the water in the process. Most of the time that wasn’t a good thing, because it usually caused my flies to be pulled off my intended drift line, and that greatly hindered my ability to catch fish, no matter how accurate my initial presentation cast happened to be. I learned quickly, that poor mending, and sloppy line management, were the two main factors in keeping me from getting my rod bent with trout. There was no doubt that my problem with mending fly line laid in the fact that my technique was awful. I thought I was a whole lot maturer than I really was as a fly fisher, failing to realize that I had just begun to skim the surface of learning the intricacies of fly line mending. Such as, determining when or when not a mend was called for during a drift, mend timing and form.

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Carp on the Fly – 12 Q&A’s to Get You Ready

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Good friend and fly fishing guide, Ryan Dunne has been capitalizing on the growing carp buzz by fly anglers lately.

Ryan commented, “I’ve seen a significant increase in carp fishing inquiries the last two years, and when the dog days of summer arrive and the trout fishing bite goes south, I now opt for poling my skiff and guiding my clients to carp on my local rivers and lakes”. Thank you Ryan for taking the time to sit down with Gink & Gasoline to answer twelve frequently asked questions about fly fishing for carp.

Have you found certain colors of fly patterns to be more effective than others?
I find that the water conditions and ambient light conditions dictate which color is more effective. I typically stick to four different colors when tying carp flies. They are black, brown, olive, and orange. Although the majority of my flies are tied in the aforementioned colors, I do tie with other colors as well.

Have you found certain fly tying materials (synthetics or natural) that carp seem to dislike?
I haven’t noticed a difference in carp behavior towards either type of material. However, most of my fly patterns contain a combination of both synthetic and natural fly tying materials.

What are a couple of your favorite go-to carp flies?
My two favorite patterns are the Carp Carrot and Carp Dragon.

Is the weight of your fly patterns critical and if yes, when do you prefer heavier flies?
Weight is definitely a key part to my subsurface carp patterns. Feeding carp rarely stay in one place, so you want to get your fly in the feeding zone as quick as possible. Water depth will dictate the weight of my patterns. I find that bead-chain and dumbbell eyes in various sizes are ideal for carp patterns.

When would you say is the most consistent time to go carp fishing?

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Trout Deformities

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I SPOTTED THIS LITTLE GUY IN A HATCHERY SUPPORTED STREAM IN NORTH CAROLINA AND FISHED TO HIM UNTIL I CAUGHT HIM SO I COULD GET A PHOTO.
While not common exactly, deformities like this are not unusual in either hatcheries or in the wild but you seldom see a ‘special’ fish like this in a wild stream. Nature deals with this sort of thing in short order. In a hatchery, however, a fish like this will do fine and grow to maturity.

This brook trout would have been a solid 16 inches if he were normal. A buddy suggested I bank him. There was no need. This kind of deformity stems from injury to the fish’s spine early in life. There are no defective genes or disease to pass along so I released him. After all, he plays an important role in the ecosystem, at least from the otter’s perspective.

There can certainly be problems with hatchery raised fish. Disease and poor genetics can wreak havoc on wild populations. On the whole, I think North Carolina does a good job and it’s important to remember that this is a regional issue that is best evaluated by region. What’s right for a trout stream in North Carolina is not right for a steelhead river in Oregon. That’s another topic worth some considerable ink, but not just now.

It did get me thinking about some more troubling fish deformities. Specifically Idaho’s two-headed trout. There was a little bit of excitement about it when the New York Times published photos, in February of 2012, of the deformed fish which were

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Are We Being The Best Ambassadors For Fly-Fishing?

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Are you proud of how you represent fly-fishing?

I sat in a meeting the other day, a discussion really, with a group of fly fishing guides. Most of them are guys I like and respect. I was very quickly stoked at, from my perspective, how they all got it wrong. The experience left me frustrated and angry for about twenty-four hours. After a cool-down period I’m ready to discuss it here. If what I have to say makes you angry or defensive, you should take a hard look in the mirror.

By any measure, guides are the gateway to the sport. They are the educators, informants and even the evangelists of fly fishing. They, and the guys at the fly shop, are the most common point of contact for the angler new to fly fishing. They are skilled, hard working, motivated individuals with a passion for what they do. If they weren’t, they’d have washed out of the business. Many of my best friends are guides and some of them are the best examples of what guides should be. So what’s my beef?

The first question put to this group of guides was, “Who are your clients?”

What followed was about a half hour of bitching and moaning with the common thread being, “our clients suck.”

To my ears this is inexcusable on every level. To be fair, I don’t think most of these guys are prone to thinking that way, but it only took one toxic personality to pipe up and they all piled on with comments about their clients being idiots, not being able to cast or tie knots or follow instructions. They also agreed that most of their clients did not want to be told they were doing something wrong, an important point I will return to.

I get it. There is no shortage of unskilled anglers out there. Many of them, as the group described, are business tycoons who are not accustomed to be told they are wrong. Still, I think there are a couple of very important points being overlooked.

If you are a fishing guide, you are in a service industry. You are being paid for your time and as long as you are treated with basic human respect, it’s up to the client how that time is spent. I have spent my entire career in service to clients who don’t understand my job and are often completely unreasonable and I have never complained about having a job. If that job allows me to spend my days on the water doing something I love, that goes double.

The root of much of this is ego, pure and simple. Fishing guides, and for some reason especially trout guides, can be a wildly egotistical lot. If this stings, it’s likely true. I heard comments like, “He’s a surgeon, you’d think he could tie a knot.” I’ll be the first to admit that doctors can be a pretty egotistical bunch as well. They say the difference between God and a doctor is that God doesn’t think he’s a doctor. Regardless, anyone with that degree has made a commitment to mastering something far more challenging than catching a trout. Perhaps the reason he’s not a great angler is because his job has left him little time for it, and when the time comes that I need surgery, I damned glad his priorities are not the same as mine.

If you expect to be respected for putting in the time, and making the sacrifices, necessary to master the art of fly fishing, then you’d better first learn to respect the choices of your clients. Everyone has skills. To think that being a good fisherman, or even a great fisherman, makes you better than anyone else is childish.

Now I’m going to get to what really raises my hackle.

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Small Wonder, Middle Georgia’s Shoal Bass

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By Justin Pickett
THE SETTING SUN IS WARM AT MY BACK AS I STAND AT THE REAR OF MY JEEP.
I slip on my guard socks and wrench down on my boots until I’m happy with the fit. No need for waders today. The deep south humidity is smothering as I place my Buff around my neck. I dig through the mess that is my gear bag, and pull out my reel and place it on my six weight rod. I’m anxious as I slip the fly line through the guides, but I know that haste often does not lead to happiness. “Slow it down, take your time,” I remind myself.
I peer into my fly box, looking at all of its different inhabitants. Flies I’ve either bought, tied, found, or that have been gifted to me. The colors, the variety of materials. The unique purpose each pattern serves. There are several flies that have not so much as kissed the water, and a select few that have some serious frequent flyer miles. I don’t know why I stare for so long. It’s almost comical. I knew what fly I was going to fish with before I left the house.

I smirk and shake my head as I grab and inspect my go-to fly. It’s a simple fly, but a deadly one. It is a variant of an old, tried and true pattern. The materials reside around a size #4 streamer hook and are dark olive in color. The free flowing, marabou tail has just a bit of flash added to aide in piquing the interest of the fish that I seek. The body is wound with hackled feathers, and within the body are several rubbery legs, protruding from each side just before the nickel conehead. Ah, that’s where the life of this fly exists. The long, webby schlappen and the speckled tentacles breathes this fly to life. It is not prey. It is a seeker, and find, it does. My quarry just can’t seem to resist it once it is swung through their space. Add a little dash of confidence and a pinch of mojo, and how could one go wrong? 

As I look over the bridge I can see fish rising, splashing at the surface each time they take a mayfly that has perilously drifted into their feeding lanes. Topwater isn’t my game plan though. The river is running at the perfect flow, just a touch high, and that’s just how I like it. I know this is going to be a great evening. The “magic hour” is approaching as I cinch down on my loop knot and hang my fly on the hook keeper. I set my drag. I grab my sling pack and clip my hemostats to the shoulder strap. I check again to make sure that I have my fly box and the few tippet spools that I need.

For those that fish within its banks, this location is endearingly known as “The Promised Land.” It is a

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Concentration, Relaxation and Communication Equal Better Bonefishing

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By Louis Cahill

Concentration, Relaxation and Communication. I wish I could claim those words.

I’m quoting Jose Sands, bonefish guide at Andros South Bonefish Lodge. That was his answer when I asked what he thought was the key to successful bonefishing. As usual, he nailed it.

Plenty of anglers are frustrated or intimidated by bonefish. Bonefishing is a complex game with a lot of moving parts and all too often what should be a simple formula breaks down completely. When that happens it’s usually because one or more elements in Jose’s recipe are missing. It’s easier said than done but if you can accomplish these three things, the pieces start to fall into place.

COMMUNICATION

Most saltwater fishing is a team sport. Whether fishing with friends or a guide, you are generally depending on someone else to help you find fish and make a good presentation. Things happen quickly and everyone needs to be on the same page and communicating efficiently to make it work.

There are some universal ideas that everyone needs to understand in order to have good communication. Understanding the bow clock, for instance. When your guide tells you there is a fish at eleven o’clock, forty feet, moving right, it should be a simple thing to find that fish. You learn pretty quickly however, that everyone’s forty feet is not the same and even your guide will occasionally lose track of where eleven o’clock is.

It pays to take a minute at the start of the day to pick an object like a mangrove sprout and decide how far away it is. That helps you calibrate for the day. I find that guides often call out distances that seem much farther than I think is realistic. Not because they don’t know how far away the fish is, but because we are looking at it from very different perspectives. Mine on the bow, and there’s, from the platform at the back of the boat. It’s also worth the time it takes to look at the bow of the boat and confirm where twelve o’clock actually is before you waste a lot of time looking for fish in the wrong spot.

Guides will also use terms like “drop the fly” and “shoot the fly,” to indicate how it should be presented. Drop means you are already carrying enough line for a good presentation, while shoot indicates that you need to let some line go on your delivery. These kinds of directions vary from guide to guide, so take the time to ask early on. It’s impossible to over emphasize the importance of good communication.

I have about a 40% hearing loss and it’s a huge challenge for me. I remind my guide several times during the start of the day that I am deaf as a post. No guide likes to shout in the presence of bonefish but if I can’t hear their direction we both wind up frustrated.

CONCENTRATION

The thing I enjoy the most about bonefishing is the same thing that makes it so difficult.

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5 Tips For Better Dry Fly Fishing From Ronnie Hall

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There are few things more rewarding than a wary trout rising to a dry fly.

Seriously, who doesn’t love fooling fish on a dry fly? Rising fish are like puzzles waiting to be solved and when they are, the angler is rewarded with one of the greatest visual displays in fly fishing. The rise.

Unfortunately, there is also the agony of defeat. All too often your offerings may be refused or worse, just plain ignored. Hold on, don’t go for the cherry bombs just yet. Our buddy Ronnie Hall (Yoda in residence at the Fish Hawk in Atlanta,) has 5 tips to help you unlock the puzzle of rising trout.

#1 Presentation is always the most important aspect of fly fishing, especially when it comes to dry fly fishing. As the British say, “It’s not the fly, it’s the driver.” Practice making the proper casts to achieve a totally drag-free drift. Practice your reach cast. Take the time to get into position. Accuracy is a part of presentation too. Getting your fly to float directly in the fish’s feeding lane is a must. Large trout will not waste energy moving any distance to eat a small fly. Trout are very efficient in their eating habits. They don’t waste energy!

#2 Color, know when it matters. On bright days trout see color more accurately. During some hatches, like tricos, trout may use color to target egg-laden females. Color is not always the most important consideration in choosing a fly. Often silhouette is more critical, especially when fishing opaque imitations, such as beetles or hoppers.

#3 Size matters. When unsure of dry fly size, always go smaller. Selective fish will always more readily accept an imitation which is too small over one which is too large. Often mistakes in size are angler error. It is a human shortcoming to imagine things larger than they are. If you can, catch an insect and compare.

#4 Watch out for masking hatches.

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