Spring...

...Has sprung for OO and Dr. Steelegood. May the open water season treat you to many solid hookups.

Salmon River Madness

We are Tyler and Nick, roommates, current sophomores at Bates College, and the newest members of the BFC. Tyler first fished with Wilke on the Dead River this fall and got a sense of the ruckus ways of the BFC. However, Nick’s first experience came when we were invited up to the Salmon River by the boys to do some Steelhead fishing.  

November 15, right after class we jumped in the car and drove west. We drove until city lights were in the rearview and deer lined the road. We drove to what most call the mighty Salmon River. We drove until 2:30 in the morning, and then we drank... a lot. Our first impressions of the BFC will never be forgotten, and for good reason as we were greeted by a bunch of drunken boys who welcomed us with the always grand gift of shots. As the alcohol flowed late into the night we learned more of the club’s legacy, our mission as the club’s newest members, and stories of past trips. We also found out that the days to come would revolve around steel, alcohol, and sleep deprivation.

Day 1: 
Early wake up, not sure how we pulled this one off. We trucked up to the fly shop to pick up some licenses. The couple running the joint were not bashful to make fun of us two for smelling of booze, and bumping into sunglass racks. Day one proved to be a bit of a warmup for everyone with the exception of Clark, he seemed to be the only one able to hits. Indeed, it may have been the overconsumption of Paul’s Mezcal the night before, but it seemed like everyone wasn’t quite on their “A” game yet. Chet decided to sleep off his hangover on the riverbank for most of the morning, while Paul figured it would be a good idea to take a swim in the river with his waders on. Amidst the failures, Clark and Keith pulled it together and landed a few fish. Despite the long day on the water, we came to learn that no day of fishing with the BFC is a waste. No matter how many fish are netted, every day and night is always a great time. As we found out, ice chilled coffee brandy resolves the longest of days. These boys still know how to get after it!

Chet sleeping off the Mezcal hangover

Clark's first fish of the day

Napping was the common theme of the first day

Day 2:

The warmup day was over and there was a taste of victory in the foggy air. Today could be great. Infamous Port O’ Steele (Jesse Robbins) was due in around noon, and Nick Ford, Paul and I had adopted our steelheading names from the night before, and according to Wilkie no one catches fish until they have a steelhead name. Ford became “Built Ford Steel” Paul was now “Wetback Steel” after taking a dip in the river the day before, and Cali boy Schleich was donned “Shaquille O’ Steel”. The rest was history and everyone started picking up fish. I best describe my first taste of steel with the following:
             In the town of Altmar, NY in mid November the air is cold, the river is low, and the fish are larger than anything that I had ever seen.  The grass and trees may be dead, but beneath the surface of the Salmon River, life abounds. With my only weapon a frozen rod, I trek through the darkness to the golden stretch of the upper fly. Waiting I hold my spot on the river as the sun rises. With the guidance of Clark I position myself on the stretch of the river that he knew the fish were holding. My mind focused and soul ready I knew my next cast would be one I would never forget.  The thingamabobber, split shot, and pink egg pattern splashed gently on the surface and sank perfectly into the zone. The current placed my line flawlessly in a row of riffles just above the pool where I believed a steel was waiting for his breakfast meal.  My blood shot eyes vigilantly watched the indicator fall in line with the current, bobbing among the ripples.  Suddenly, Bang! A strike! I whipped the rod up to the sky and pulled down on the line as my indicator screamed to the bottom of the river. The fish blasted off downstream as my reel sang and the line spilled out of the worn reel. Heart pounding, hands sweating, I chased my quarry downstream. Clark had followed the fish down river to swiftly net the slap. The instantaneous relief and joy that comes with netting your first steelhead washed over me, and I couldn’t help but smile and fist pump. Having migrated from the lake, the fish lacked normal steelhead coloring, bearing only stark silver strides, smoky fins, and a tinge of pink on the gill plates. I realize that this is not only the most striking fish I have ever caught but is one of the most fascinating. I finally returned the fish to the water after the picture and the monster gave one more powerful thrust of its tail as it faded into the gray torrent. I think it is only after you net your first steel that you truly understand the hype that comes with steelhead fishing.

The rest of the day was filled with hooting and hollering as most of the crew netted fish. When we finally got off the river at the end of a long day, celebration was in order. We headed to the nearest bar, and downed a few pitchers as we shouted stories of the day. Pissing off everyone at the tables closest to us, we talked and ate until we couldn’t see straight.  

"00 Steel" got things rolling early

My first taste of steel

The dynamic duo killing it with a double

Robbins decided to join in on the fun

Even the browns decided to show up

Clark going for the hail-marry run down the river  

Day 3: 
There was still fishing to be done on the last day of the trip. Ford being the only member of the crew who had yet to land a fish hit the water in full stride. Up and down the river he searched for the perfect hole. Fighting the odds he struck a small guy who put up a large fight. Fighting him left and right, he teased him onto shore into Clark’s waiting net.  Wow, what a relief, the trip was now a total success. Landing your first steel comes with an unparalleled feeling of success. Man vs. Wild style, those suckers put up a fight and it’s unlike anything else bringing them to shore. 

Nick finally tastes steel

Driving off into the horizon on that third afternoon, we were already reminiscing upon the greatness of the trip. Going into a trip as blind as we had, our expectations had been blown entirely out of the water. Honestly, we never thought that middle-aged men would be so great to party with. These guys are the real deal and are some of the greatest legends of Bates. You boys were a real treat to fish and drink with. Thanks for the trip of the year, and we can’t wait to fish with you fellas soon. 

Just Grande

In the very southeast corner of Washington and the very northeast corner of Oregon, through the high desert canyons, northward runs a river that is the destination of Pacific summer-run steelhead.  So we went there.



Between six fishermen, the first two days yielded one steelhead landed, one steelhead lost and several chinook to hand.  A worthy by-catch, for sure.  

Then, as sometimes happens when steelheading, our luck changed in the final hour of the final day.  In our last run, three steelhead were hooked in a half hour.  The hooks held on two of them, tails were grabbed, and anglers were happy.  All was Grande.  

ADDENDUM:  you can just barely make out the fly in my steelhead above.  It was our guide's pattern, called Halle Berry:  black body, hot ass.

Eyes On the Prize

Its October, we've been thinking about Steelhead season each night for at least six weeks and cranking out flies every night; eyes on the prize.  Flows hovered around 185 cfs throughout September but spiked two weeks ago to 350 cfs; reports from people we knew were stellar, internet reports were solid, forum reports were spectacular, eyes on the prize.  We hemmed, we hawwed, we pondered, we considered, we booked, we took a day off, eyes on the prize.  We drove, we checked in, we observed multiple text messages on our phones at 9pm Thursday night....flow nearly tripling to 900 cfs that night; you've got to be shitting me!

This is all too often the hand that I have been dealt when fishing the Salmon River.  "You should have been here last week" or "Its going to be phenomenal in a few days based on this spike in flow" has rung from ear to ear in my head on a number of past trips.  I would like to take a moment to express that I will personally drag the next person below the surface of the SR waters if I am told this again.  So began the the first BFC trip to Western NY during the fall Steelhead season of 2012....deep breath....we rigged up, slept, and took to the water early on Friday morning.

This was Maxfield's (Steel Leader) first Steelhead trip.  I brought he and Ethan (both young gents I work with) up last Salmon season and it had been a bust under similar increased flow conditions.  This trip was shaping up to be very similar; it was looking quite likely that the man may never return if Jasper and I were unable to pull off some heroics.

We stuck to the original plan fishing just upstream of the DSR.  We were standing in the water by 6 am an hour before legal fishing.  The crowd grew as the day warmed, eventually doubling the amount of people you can see in the picture above.  The large crew upstream of us coupled with a similar crowd below us did little to raise our spirits.  The water was littered with leaves, carried a heavy sediment load along with a large quantity of dead salmon and garbage.  The flow had not reached such levels since the spring and everything that had collected along the banks since then was now in the water, serious buzz kill.  We left this position by 10 am.

After a quick check at the uppermost stretch of the DSR and a conversation with some down trodden Russians we decided that a move upstream was in order.  After a round of sandwiches we began our trek into the Fridge.  We arrived to find fewer leaves and less color in the water.  A quick conversation with a professor from Virginia didn't give us much hope.  We fished, we met a group of cats from DC who were in their low 30's, we sat, we bullshitted, we drank a couple beers and we fished some more.  We talked to countless driftboats rolling through, same story, no fish.  We moved on to the Altmar stretch to fish some famous river left pocket water.

Altmar was a bust as well, plenty of guys on river right, things looked fishy but there was nothing fishy about this day.  We retired to the Altmar Hotel for seafood platters, beers and Velvet Elvis shots.  Day 1 was over and we held onto hope that Day 2 after the flow increase would produce fish that had settled into the high water.  We had pre-purchased tickets to the DSR for Saturday so a plan was in motion.

Tickets to the DSR this season are $45 which is a tough pill to swallow unless you have a good idea that things are going to be productive.  We couldn't do much worse than Day 1 so the money was the last thing on our minds.  We settled into the Flats at the bottom of the stairs and I almost immediately tied into a fish, a battle ensued, fish was twice to the net and the hook popped as the fish was a mere foot from victory.  A nice fat chromer casually swam back into the depths, if she had a middle finger it would have been high out of the water aimed directly at me.  The place went cold after that; we saw nobody tight and touched nothing else other than leaves.  Downstream we trudged.

All the way down through the DSR we heard the cries of angry fisherman.  At one point I heard a guy yell "F*ck this we're leaving for Altmar!"  Lines and lines of fishermen with nobody tight.  Down through the Meadow we went with similar reports.  When we got to the end of the line we came across a bit of promise.  Two driftboat guides had motored their clients up into a run and were frequently hooked up.  Would they leave?  We had little else to consider so we hunkered down and enjoyed some great conversation with a couple of guys from Holland who had just flown in for a week on the river.  One driftboat left, the other posted up and then left.  By 2:30 we were standing in the hole alongside a guy from NJ that knew the driftboat guides.

I went tight, fish threw the hook, NJ guy went tight, he went tight again, then again, oh wait.....then he hooked another.  This was maddening, he was fishing a spinning rod, we were on the fly, and obviously he was in the money spot.  We buttered him up, hooting and hollering at his every hookup, and eventually Jasper got him into a conversation.  "Our buddy Maxfield over here has never landed a Steelhead", the guy was on it.  Immediately he put Max in his spot giving him detailed color info as well as highly specific drift tactics.  The guy knew the spot well and bless his soul he took pitty on us and lined up Maxfield for success.  After a couple Steele dances that ended poorly, old Maxfield put chrome in the net, his first ever.  The guy from Jersey beamed like a proud father.

After a couple more hookups for each of us, one botched by on old geezer closing in on our position, Max closed out the day with a domestic Rainbow; Mahoney thumbs up were in order, the kid had just put a smile on our faces after two painful days of fishing.

A quick time check....5:37p.m.  We had over a mile to cover to get back to the parking lot and escape the gate closure by 6 pm.  Three men busted ass this day, made it to the car with 4 minutes to spare and got the hell out of there.  That night over beers, pizza and cake we celebrated Jasper's 31st birthday.

As we lay in bed that night, we chatted like a bunch of 18 year olds in a doormroom with the lights out.  The plan was in Jasper's hands as Sunday was his birthday.  We were headed for the last stretch of water in the river system that we hadn't fished or investigated in the previous two days....the fabled Upper Fly.

The snooze button was hit a few extra times on Sunday morning, no matter though we were a stone's throw from the parking lot and nobody could cross the river to the side we would be hiking into, crowds would not be a concern.

We settled into the BFC's favorite glide in the upper reaches and once again I came tight; once again the fish had other plans and threw the hook, this was beginning to be a thorn in my side.  It was early, perhaps this was a good sign.  By 9:20 neither we, nor the half dozen people on the far bank had touched another fish.  We had an hour and 10 mins to make something happen before we had to leave the river so we ventured downstream.

There is a tree, a tree we have caught many fish near, and when we approached it there were three people already fishing there.  We nearly bailed on the day.  There seemed to be room for perhaps two of us and as we began fishing the guy below us went tight and his buddy upstream offered us his position so he could help his friend, all three of us now had a position.  30 mins left in our trip.  Tight, snapped, tight, pulled hook, tight landed, tight snapped, tight pulled hook, 5 mins left, tight landed.  That was our last 30 mins of a stupidly bad trip.  War cries, pictures, and fist bumps ensued.

Love it or hate it, thats Steelhead fishing.

Inflated Deathring of Hydrogenated Oils or: How I Learned to Call Them Flies

I spent a large portion of my youth with family like Terry, in Central Washington, fishing reservoirs with lures.  Lures were what you used to catch fish.  You bought lures in the same stores where you bought your beers and your infiniteconveryed fried stuffed things and your smokes and then you went and got fish.  This was good.

Except that old fishing buddies grow old and decide they want to spend money and buy fly rods. And Halsch and JLR (Justly Lording Riverslut) move to the PNW and if I wanted to spend any time at all with them I had to pretend like I hadn't quit dipping and go fly fishing.  Which I did, over and over again, with no fishy success.  This too was good.  I never stopped liking dip.

And then James took me for another round of cutthroating and I hooked one and he hooked one AT THE SAME TIME and it was beautiful and magical and there was a rainbow and it got away but it was everything I could have ever wanted and wow, just wow, pass me that fucking tin and lets do it again.

So we went east to the Yakima last weekend, following my ancestral roots in search of raucous BLM parking lot scenes and trout.

With Waka Flocka ringing in my ears and JLR (Jovial...Loving...Rebel) at the raft's helm we shoved off.  The first few hours were slow, the sun still high, and the river littered with Yakima's finest human parade.  Most flotillas were groups of 6 - 10 twentysomethings, drunk and yelling and enjoying nature; save the quartet of lovely young plus-sized women cranking cigs, with each individual tube anchored to the beer-cooler-turned-snack-pit housing every last brand of potato chip known to man.  Not a beer in sight.  As they drifted slowly past, one of them managed a garbled, "It's all about the fucking rapids." Yes indeed my dreamboat, yes indeed.

After a quick lesson in terminology, (JLR (junior league rugby) reminding me, very politely, that they're called flies, not lures), and a swap over to a dry fly, lightning struck twice and Halsch and I simultaneously had trout on. Exciting. Lost it. Whatever. We bustin' at 'em.

JLR (Jaunty Locks, Raven) had the raft cruising alongside the bank like it was on a track and finally, finally, I got into one, and managed to bring it in.  I've been knee-deep in thousands of pounds of writhing sockeye while gill-netting in Bristol Bay, but I've never experienced joy from a fish like that little rainbow.  Awesome.

Finished the float with some more serious trout action and a tiny blond thing drunk and speechless on the boat ramp.

Thanks to Halsch and JLR (JupiterLionRenegade) for the guidance and patience.

Skunk no more

Let's start by saying I just saw Jesse Lance Robbins' name printed under a fine piece in the new Drake magazine. We have ourselves another published author in the mix..... nice work son !

Up at 4:30am driving to southern Maine to pick up a new rod and reel, shopping by 8 back on the home water by noonish. The new 11'9" 4wt spey casts like a dream, I did not want to leave.

I have fished this spot 15 consecutive times without so much as a grab. Not that bad right, but think of 15 consecutive one hour long drives home ...... November came and went, December brought iced up guides and a broked rod.... Jan and Feb were touchless.... March... skunk no more. Not a huge fish but it took my clouser smelt, ugly enough as it could only be a Newburgh bait fish.

This is not a huge fish, but a hard won fish.


















The skunk is off boys and it feels good.

And So It Begins

Well yesterday was the opener, had the day off from work, but mother nature had bigger plans for our area. 16 inches of snow fell and 40mph winds blew, not the kind of day that entices a man to the water. I felt guilty all day that I was unable or unwilling to get out and wet a line. Had high hopes today to get the snow cleaned up and connect with Robbins & Billy in southern Maine on the Crooked. Again, hampered by the snow removal process around the house, I was unable to stick to my projected plan. A late afternoon huff finally drove me to the water and I was balls deep in 34 degree water by 3:30p.m



Standing high atop a jagged submerged rock I hooked into my first fish of the season. A brookie or possibly a brown was played to within yards of my position, at which point I ate shit, fell into 4 feet of water, and proceeded to dash all hopes of an early season net job...major bummer.

All was not lost however as a few minutes later I was tight again and this time Poseidon let me play the specimen to net.



Its not often that a man is offered up any sort of action at this point in the season, God knows it's been quite a few years since I've stung much of anything around the opener, but I must say it is a significant confidence boost and a welcomed reminder of the months ahead.

2011 open water skunk is off....