Iroquois Summer

When warm, summer-like temperatures persist into late September, we refer to this meteorological phenomena as "Indian Summer". This term is probably racist, unless it has to do with the country India, but for some reason I doubt that it does. Branching off from this colloquial terminology, I have decided to name the meteorological phenomenon of 60 plus degree temperatures in upstate New York in mid December "Iroquois Summer".   This logical extension is based off the fact that the Iroquois Nation was the group of American Indians that inhabited the Great Lakes area, as evidenced by the Iroquois Service plaza of Route 90 which has a very capable Roy Rodgers restaurant.

So with Iroquois Summer in full effect here in the northeast, old man Winchell and I ventured west for lake run fish beasts. The weather couldn't have been better but the fishing was pretty slow. Still a slow weekend of fishing beats a fast weekend of not fishing.

A nice drop back brown that ate a streamer from underneath a beaver dam. There were a couple fish hanging tight to beaver dams in this river, but they were tough to get at. 

A nice lake run domestic rainbow that ate an otter egg and fought without much enthusiasm

A lone steelehead made the return trip stop at the SR sort of worth it, although we kind of felt bad for him hanging out in the river all on his lonesome with no friends to play with.

A very impressive brown that weighed 14 pounds on the digital scale. It would have been really cool if he wasn't foul hooked!

The true catch of the trip, was the trash chair. We constructed this throne purely from discarded items pulled from the dirt near our fishing location. The trash chair was an iconic symbol of the way the river treated us on this weekend. We were able to put something together on the water, but in the end it was still trash.

When the bite became completely stagnant, Clark decided to go harvest some flies from the tree across the way. Using a large branch as a lever, the clever BFC engineer was also able to dislodge and destroy a healthy section of the beaver dam visible at the bottom right of the image.


Until the next Iroquois Summer adventure, tight lines and solid hookups! Happy Holidays friends

Fishin' the Ferry

It had been a while since Ol' Barefoot Schoen and I had been on the water together.  So with help and encouragement from his beautiful bride-to-be, we made our plans.  The destination would be a new one for both of us:  Lees Ferry on the mighty Colorado River; start of the Grand Canyon. 

 

As is often the case, we arrived late at night, in the dark and wound up.  Having a general idea of the magnitude of the locale, great excitement for the adventures to come and also lots of catching up to do, we got started on the beers in the cooler and then soon found ourselves staring at 4 am.  Sleep would come, but not for long as we both rose early, eager to get our first look at the area and the river.  The scenery did not disappoint.

Rooms with a view.

Vermillion Cliffs.

Our home base was Lees Ferry Anglers and the Cliff Dwellers Lodge, a perfect compound for visiting anglers and adventurers.  On site is the fly shop, guide service, lodge, restaurant and convenience store.  Given the store sells flies, fishing licenses, snacks, cold beer, gasoline and bitch trinkets (gifts for your lady) what else would one need?  Coffees and breakfast burritos helped us get over the lack of sleep and we made our way to the fly shop for some info.  We were booked with a guide the following day, so we had a day to get our bearings with the area and try to figure some things out on the river.  We elected for a short hike down a wash, which would lead us to the river.  The hike alone was worth it and at the end, we could finally lay our eyes on the Colorado.

 

Follow the wash to the river.

 

Keep your eyes on the trail, if you can, and watch your step.

This looks like a good place to start.

 

We had instructions from the fly shop to fish midges on 6X and strict instructions NOT TO MOVE the indicator in the drift.  This all seemed well enough, so we rigged up and got started.  It had been a while since I had played around with size 20's and 6X.  My fingers seemed to be in slow-motion and my knots didn't always hold on the first tie.  Eventually we got the rigs looking good and started fishing.

We did not catch a lot of fish that day, but we caught a few, most of which came on methods not discussed at the shop.  There are always a host of emotions when fishing new water.  And while I certainly let my mind ramble to wonder about this or that, in the end, it was just plain fun.  Again, the scenery was incredible.  It was easy to lose yourself in the river, the seam, the drift and your indicator, but eventually something on the bank would catch your eye and then your eyes would wander all the way up the canyon walls to the top and into the sky, so that you were looking almost straight up, not focused at all on your fishing. 

Oughta' be a couple down there too.

There's a bird in there, James.

We fished, looked around, moved around, chatted, laughed, snacked and when we had our fill, we made our way back up the wash to the lodge, where the cool, cooler contents awaited us.  The sun went down as the beers did and with a hearty meal in our bellies, the lack of sleep from the previous night caught up to us and we were down a good 7 hours earlier than the night before.

The extra early bedtime had us up early - an hour earlier than our already-early alarm.  Again, excitement had us up and at 'em quickly.  We met our man at the dock at the Ferry at 7 and we were soon off, heading up river via jet boat.  Sweet.

 

Not surprisingly, we were much more effective in our catching this day.  Our guide Tyson had us dialed in with the appropriate techniques and once we got good at that, the fish came.  It was what I would call busy fishing.  Each cast would go something like this:  roll cast or false cast 20 - 40 feet; shake out ten feet of line; huge upstream mend, small upstream mend; shake out some more line, mend; shake out more line, mend, mend; shake out more line, mend, mend; shake out more line, mend; pull some line off the reel, mend, mend; walk the dog a few steps; extend arm for the last few feet of the drift; strip in 60 feet of line, recast.  Fluctuating water flows resulted in waves of action - at times, you'd expect a bite every cast, others you'd go 15 minutes before a take.  As before, any break in the action allowed for sight-seeing.

The scale of everything was pretty wild.  Here, Schoen-boy works a 300 yard riffle.

Given the nature of our presentations and the size of our flies and tippet, we missed a lot of fish.  Turns out, it's hard to sink a size 20 hook into a 12" trout's mouth with 20 feet of slack in your system.  No worries, while our average may not have been great, our attempts were, so we stuck quite a few.

80-foot hook set.

Eventually the shadows grew long and it was time to retire to the front porch to watch the sun go down over vermillion cliffs. 

 

River ride in style.

 

The next day we had a few hours to fish before we had to roll out.  We caught exactly one fish apiece.  Deuces, Lees.  We'll be back.



The mighty Colorado, as seen from the Navajo Bridge.

 

Cliff dweller, Chi Bo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blowin' 40 on Newfound Lake

A couple months back, the buddy whose boat I go out on in the warmer months threw out the idea of a Super Bowl weekend trip to his old stomping grounds up on Newfound Lake.

Originally there was to be a posse of eight of us but with two late dropouts we were six. Newfound Lake is a trout and salmon protected lake so we were limited to two lines per person. But even after losing four lines, we were still psyched at the potential of bringing some slobs through the ice.

Some of the group was able to get to the cabin on Thursday night in order to put a full day in on Friday. I was toiling away in the office and I get a text:

They had found a nice spot that was perfect for all intents and purposes, nice changes in depth, a lot of different formations under the ice, perfect. So the three gents who made it up early set up the shanty and popped some holes.......and sent us all the spoils of their efforts:

 

After a solid morning showing, the winds started to pick up and lunch was a necessity; so, they packed it in to warm up and heat up some chili. And then the winds really picked up. Oh, and then they picked up some more. And then some more. And then finally some more.

By the time my buddy Joe and I got to the house, it was 1045pm and the winds were blowing pretty insanely and a conversation started as we met with an old friend:

"Do we think the shanty is still there?" There were some bets placed and some very scientific conversations had about the merits of the ice screws holding everything together. And that's how day one wrapped. 

Five short hours of restless sleep later, we were all up. Three solid metal deck chairs had been blown over on the deck and massive clouds of loose snow could be seen blowing from the north end of the lake to the south. Couldn't be that bad, could it? More coffee brandy gave us the stones to give it a shot. 

First 100 yards, slippery but OK. Next hundred yards some 30-40 mph gusts started to pick up. A sustained gust would slide the five of us not wearing yaktracks about 20-30 feet south on the glassy ice. And the battle was just beginning. We trudged further to one of two islands and the snow covering the ice had somehow turned to slush annnnd it became a battle between packed snow and foot-deep slush. And still we continued, determined to make it to the shack where our trusty propane heater was waiting for us. As we turned the corner of the second island, that was all that was waiting for us along with all twelve of the ice screws that had been sunk in to keep the shanty in place. Sadly though, fiberglass poles were no match for the winds and snapped like twigs, turning the shanty into a sail (that would be found later that morning on the south end of the lake maybe half a mile away).

So we were finally defeated...for the morning. After some time by the fire we were determined not to let this weekend get totally away from us and we devised a new strategy. We were going to set up no further than 150 yards from the house. We laid some cusk lines, some tip ups, and some were even brave enough to jig for a bit. This is how we spent the better part of the morning and then again in the afternoon into the late evening with nary a bite.

Finally as we were wrapping up for the day we did pull a small laker through the ice. No picture though - too cold for iPhones and hands to operate in sync.

More coffee brandy and whiskey and Naragansetts got us through the night and a brave few woke up real early to catch more wind and a chill. And their gumption was rewarded with the fourth fish of the trip: one ugly ass motherfuckin' cusk.

All in all, a great trip. Surely more to be made. Possibly Maine next year.

Take 2: NZ

Two days ago, we arrived back in Christchurch - home base. Since my last update a lot has happened. A fair amount of fishing, tramping, sight seeing and of course, bug killing. I am now one rod poorer (broke a 5 wt 9 ft in the middle casting a dry fly, go figure) and one phone poorer. The latter is certainly the most devastating as with that phone went a full month of photos. Oh well. You will have to take my word on the fact that there were browns, plenty of them, some reached Instagram, while most disappeared with that mobile as it followed one such fish into a deep pool on one night fishing escapade. 

There is something at night...that bites...

An old man in Maine once taught me that the coming of dusk is no time to relinquish the fly rod. In fact, there are fish to be caught at night as well and they are often well worth the effort. Here are a few pics from this last month's "night bite". 

A mouse hungry brown.

Clear water rainbows
I have never met a fish that has challenged a Steele at the top of my list of beauty and power, but these are some real pretty relatives and they can pack a punch themselves.

This buck had a hat trick + 1 of aerials before coming to net.

Kat strikes with a day time beauty on the dry. And yes it was raining, sandflies that is.
*Sandflies are NZ version of blackflies, a little less nasty but often shows up droves. 

A little less than a month left here in this great land, but there are plenty more fish to be targeted. 

Cheers, 

-00

Consolation Prize

I'll start by mentioning that I should be working on my resume and applying for jobs, for if the government shuts down tomorrow then I'm out of work for the immediate future. But I find this more compelling. 

A couple weeks ago I made plans to visit a friend from Maine I hadn't seen in several years. He was in Spokane briefly before taking off to another far-flung corner of the world for who knows how long. We met halfway on a lake in the middle of Nowhere, WA, and spent our time catching up late into the night. The next morning as we prepared breakfast I noticed some fish activity on the water right in front of our site. Then I saw more. And more. And more even yet. Lo and behold, unbeknownst to me we had camped on a lake that is rather well known for its carp fishing. It's plausible that I had somehow inadvertently ended up on what might be the best bay on the whole lake for said carp fishing, and that was what laid in front of me. Rod-less. I watched helplessly as what seemed to be dozens of carp finning and feeding on the mud flats everywhere in front of us. And there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. Lesson learned, always carry a rod. 

I mentioned my observations to Brother Jesse, who also found this information very compelling. This past weekend we both happened to have free and he arrived Friday night, ready to make good on all those carp. Judging from the arsenal of rods he brought with him he looked like he was ready to make good on any other fish that might swim within 200 miles of here too, but as you often know you need to plan for contingencies. As it just so happened, we needed to plan for contingencies as his arrival also heralded the arrival of a trio of wet and wild storms fresh off the Pacific, up from the tropics and down from the Arctic. Between the flash flood warnings and high wind advisories the forecast was the first inkling that maybe trying to fish at all was a bad idea. However, instead we planned for contingencies. South to the Yak, east to a spring creek, north to a small trout stream or even Steele water above and beyond there. The prospect of carp seemed too exposed and thus no longer reasonable. We were going to set out in one direction and see where the wind blew us. 

We opted to try our luck east. For reasons one or another it seemed like the best chance at having a legitimate day on the water. The wind still blew like stink all day, but we saw hardly saw much more than a few sprinkles. The only time it wasn't windy was when we weren't casting, and that wasn't often, but the few other people that we saw on the water cleared off shortly after we arrived and we had the place to ourselves. We spotted fish right off the bat, but it took us awhile to get them to do more than just window shop. Jesse finally figured something out and got himself into pretty consistent action from then on. I wasn't so lucky, and did little more than prick one lip until well into the afternoon. I finally managed a couple, but such fine specimens they were it was worth the investment. All in all, I'd say the Basstards dun gon an lemonaded the shit outta that day!