Wet lines

This is the time of year I prize as a trout fisherman. Of course part of my enthusiasm is generated by the overwhelming need to put line on water. This winter has been especially long in my part of the country and I have had to quell that need to the absolute depths of my patience. The other reason for my enthusiasm is that now is the time when some of the best trout fishing is to be had.

The ice is slowly coming off the lakes and as it recedes, the cycle of life underwater begins anew. As the water warms insect life of all shapes and sizes begins to emerge. Between the Chironomid pupa and the Mayflies the shoal water of my area lakes teem with hungry trout ready for the taking.

As a fly fisherman if you are not taking advantage of what is going on underneath the surface you are actually only giving yourself access to about 10% of a trout’s diet. I used to fish only top water as a kid. Even though there are those times when fish actively feed the surface, learning to use nymph patterns effectively will increase your catch rate significantly.

If you ever have watched a fly fisherman catching fish when you can’t and you thought you had everything else covered, chances are that fisherman is nymphing.

Open a new world of trout fishing for yourself and add some basic nymph patterns to your fly box. My favorite nymph patterns are the Hare’s Ear, Pheasant Tail, and a pattern I learned from Al Campbell called the EZ nymph.  Another good fly that can be fished as a nymph or a dry is the Renegade.  I also like to tie variations of the previous mentioned using a variety of colors.

Good luck and as for Kelly and I it is time to head to the lake!

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I have been reading lately about the ongoing battle over the Smith River in Montana.  Landowners are becoming very resistant to allowing access to the river.  The fight between landowners and sportsman is heating up and sadly the sportsman are ending up with egg on their face.

Of course it isn’t the majority of sportsmen, but a select few who are causing the potential loss of a great natural resource.  That seems to be the way of it these days.  Their is a lack of consideration in society nowadays.  People are less likely to ask permission or forge lasting relationships with landowners, and more likely to feel a sense of entitlement.  “Fishing is our right!” I have heard over and over again. “Who are they to tell us we can’t fish?”

Sadly, fishing opportunities are becoming more restricted due to the inconsiderate actions of certain sportsmen.  There once was a time in my distant past where we were taught to respect the people who owned the lands we wanted access to. My dad took us to many a landowners home to meet and get to know the people.  To show them we were good people who respected their property.  We would make a point to offer some game and fish to the landowners who gave us access. Through forging these bonds with landowners we were never turned away.  We stopped to visit when we didn’t have to, just to maintain that relationship.

Now I hear stories of people cutting fences to gain access.  Littering on property, wasting game, and leaving landowners with a bad taste about sportsmen.  I can see why they want to keep us out.

But we are not all bad eggs and I propose we revive those landowner relationships.  Lets mend the cut fences, and offer ourselves as proof there are still good sportsmen to be found.  Pick up trash and litter even if its not your.  Volunteer to clean up sites that others have defiled. Report suspected wrong doers, and fight for our legacy.

I can’t imagine a time when you couldn’t find fishing or hunting access, but at the same time I see it in the near future.  Join me fellow sportsmen, fight the good fight.

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We all have memories of fishing trips past.  We may not remember what lie we told last about how many fish or how big they really were, but we remember the faces and the friends who were with us.  Sometimes it all gets lost in the moment. We compete for the best holes, curse those who are fishing in our favorite spots, and strive to be the one to catch the first biggest and most.  But when I look back at it I don’t remember who caught the biggest fish or the first or most, but the people I was with.

I can remember the delicate finesse of a fly rod in my mothers hand.  I still hear my brother laugh when he hooked one.  I can see my dad at the oars, directing the action and pointing out wildlife along the way.  I can see the Joy on Kelly’s face, holding a fish.  For me its just simply being there.  The escape from the daily grind to a world filled with fishermen present and past.

I don’t know when it happened in my life but somehow I have become sentimental.  I have started to wonder while wading a stream how many have come before me.  How many fish have been caught in the very place where I stood and how much fishing joy a spot might hold.  When the early morning mist is on the water does it carry the souls of fishermen past?  Do they whisper to me, telling me where to cast?

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I have found that no matter how many books you read, you will never learn as much as spending time with an old timer on the water. When I was a kid my mother’s uncle Arnie taught me all I would ever need to know about fly fishing. My dad was a great fly fisherman too, but I guess at that age you just don’t want to necessarily take advice from your dad.

My education began one day when everybody was going to go on a float down the river and there wasn’t any room for me. Arnie saw my dismay and said, “We’ll drop you all off up river and Eric and I are going to go fish on the little river.” We launched the floaters on a section of the Clark Fork River and we drove to a tributary called the St. Regis. It was a small stream that was either too high or too low, in my young mind, for any decent fishing.

Arnie took me to a little pullout off the road and we grabbed our gear and started into the bushes. When we hit the river Arnie said, “Lets go find an old fiend of mine.” I thought he meant maybe the owner of a battered rusted out old pickup I had seen a few turnouts back. Instead he told me about a fish he knew about in the river.

“I’ve been catching him for about 5 years now, always in the same place,” he said. “Tie on a muddler minnow and cast right in the fast water above that rock.”

As I was tying on the fly I noticed my hands were shaking a bit. I don’t know why I was nervous but I felt like this was a solemn occasion. My first cast caught the other bank and snagged on an Oregon Grape bush. After I retrieved my hook from the offending branch, I casted again and hit water. “Let the current feed it naturally into the seam between the fast and slow water,” Arnie said. After a few casts I finally had a strike and I couldn’t believe such a large fish would be in such shallow looking water. Arnie laughed with a kid’s glee as I fought the fish to shore. As we landed the beautiful Rainbow I looked at Arnie with a new respect. From that day on I listened every time he talked about fly fishing.

My young eyes began to see rivers and lakes in a new way. I saw how water moved on itself and would sit and watch as bugs and debris filtered through it. I found a new meaning to matching the hatch and how one little color could be the difference between landing the fish and not having a strike. I learned how even a small stream could hold a big fish, and where to find it.

Every time I cast a fly I think about Arnie and those lessons on the water. Thanks again Old Timer!

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I grew up the son of a wildlife biologist in the state of Montana, and I have had alot of extraordinary experiences with my dad over the years. I guess that when you grow up fishing you sometimes forget that there are actually people out there who have never had the opportunity to experience it for themselves.

 I find that there are alot of people who just don’t understand why we will sit on a bank or wade a stream for hours on end just for the opportunity of feeling that electric tug on the other end of the line. As the years go by it seems that we as a people are moving away from the outdoor sports and with it we are finding our lifestyle in jeopardy. As we lose our fishing access to rivers and lakes, my heart grows sad that this wonderful way of life may someday be lost.

 So whenever I get the chance to introduce someone to fishing or the outdoors I jump. I have witnessed people who are against fishing, but will agree to try it just to get me off their back, come away from the experience with that quiet awe that I fealt as a child. When they feel that first tug and the fight of the fish they inevitably laugh like children and are hooked, no pun intended. So I encourage people to find a new friend and take them fishing. Let’s keep our way of life alive and strong.

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I know that when you think of gear reviews, the last thing you might consider is a Barbie Pole. However, I wanted to inform the readers of a remarkable product and the experiences we have had with it. It is sort of its own phenomenon really, when you see it you almost can’t help but laugh. I know as a die hard angler when it was bought for a little girl we fish with, I couldn’t help but think why not buy a real pole. However I stand corrected, if you have a little girl who wants to go fishing, by all means purchase this product! I will also add that the Spiderman, Sponge Bob, and any other themed kid should have the same effect.
What is so remarkable about this product you may ask? It is a fish catching machine! I have never seen a pole with the ability to generate laughter and produce fish at the same time.
Last year we took the little girl fishing and she had her pole. The first cast landed about 10 feet off shore and we figured well, she’ll never catch anything there but at least she’s fishing. The rest of that day no matter where it casted to it landed right on top of a trout eager for a worm.
Of course at 6 there were too many other things going on to really pay to much attention or even set a hook. No need! With this pole the fish set the hook for you and wait patiently for you to reel them in! By the end of the day, all of the adults were fighting over who got to fish with it. The end result: Adults schooled in the fine art of fishing, casting, hook depth, reading the water 0, little girl chasing butterflies 10.
So if you have a little kid who’s dying to fish with mom or dad, hurry out and get a Barbie or Spiderman pole. You won’t regret it!

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I was reading an article the other day about an illegal species introduction into one of our area lakes. It seems that anglers were fishing illegally with live chub bait and as a result the chubs have been introduced into a fantastic trout fishery. It seems that the chubs compete with small trout in shallow water feeding areas and can eventually take over a lake.
I was disgusted to hear about another illegal introduction, but I was very impressed to find the Division of Wildlife Resources had come up with a creative new solution to fighting this problem. It seems that this lake was poisoned and re-stocked with trout some years earlier at great cost to the state. This solution was not viable again in this fishery and so they have decided to instead stock the lake with Tiger trout.
Tiger trout are a hybrid between a female brown trout and a male brook trout. This creates a trout with a unique, dark, maze-like pattern over its brownish gray body. Its belly and lower fins are yellowish orange. This fish is sterile and can not further cross with any other fish species. It also grows rapidly, up to 12 inches in a year. Tiger trout are also piscivorous (fish eaters) and are willing to hunt prey in shallower waters favored by chubs.
I was somewhat torn by the idea of introducing a new species to combat the introduction of yet a different species. I now am of the mind that while the Tigers can coexist with the other trout and not ruin the fishery it is a good thing and I applaud the DWR for finding a creative solution to a terrible problem, and I hope it will help keep our fishery alive and healthy for years to come.

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There is a little girl inside every woman.  Sometimes its hard to see her, but she comes out every once in a while and is playful!  The trick to the whole thing is at what inopportune time might she emerge.

We were fishing at one of our local haunts on a lazy summer afternoon last year when Kelly the Kite flier emerged.  It was right in the middle of a gnat hatch and the water was alive with fish.  I was in that zone where the only thing you can see is your fly on the water.  That zen moment when you hear nothing but fish dimpling the water.  Focused like a pointer on a bird ready to spring into action.  It was during this moment I lost Kelly all together.  So much so that I had not the faintest idea where she was or what she was up to.  I’m sure I had been carrying on a conversation with her, or should I say filling in the gaps with “yep” but that was just from habit not from cognizant awareness. 

 About that time a boat came floating by.  All I could think of was they are going to scare my fish away!  I heard them say, “What did you catch?”  I was about to answer when Kelly chimed in with “I’m flying a kite!”

How could she be flying a kite in the middle of an incredible hatch, the water alive with fish?  How could she not be fishing?  Where in the world did she get a kite? Zen moment over. 

 As I turned around she surely was flying a kite.  She had attatched it to her pole and was reeling out line so the kite would go higher.  “Look baby,” she laughed “I’m Kite Fishing!”

Apparantly she had found a little kite somebody had left behind on the bank. Women, gotta love ‘em.

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When I met Kelly she was an active fisher woman before any of my influences.  She had a nice fishing pole and a tackle box loaded with all of the prerequisite gear needed for success at the lake.  So when we went fishing for the first few times I was met with a new phenomenon an avid angler like myself had never seen.  She liked to “decorate” her pole.  Sigh.

Of course she broke me into this compulsion gradually.  At first she would have a fairly normal setup; hook, line, and sinker.  We would add either a worm or powerbait and away she would go.  I was proud to be with a woman who fished and excited to have her there with me.  Then came the compulsion.

At first it would start with a daredevil lure baited with powerbait, then advance to a variety of the most colorful selections in her bag and the powerbait would turn into a golf ball size glob.  “I think the fish will like my pretty colors,” she would say with true conviction.  “I’m going to catch the biggest fish in the lake.”  I remember wondering if she had stumbled on a manner of fish suicide.

Then came the day we were in a store and she found a bag of beads and other sparkles.  “I could decorate my pole with these,” she squealed excitedly imploring me to buy them for her.  The result was a rig three feet long of all kinds of pretty colors on the end of her line.  She casted once and I heard the comment, “looks like a parade going by” from a nearby fisherman.  Sigh!

I could tell she wanted to catch a fish and she just couldn’t understand why she wasn’t catching anything.  It was time to do something.  So on the next trip I convinced her to put a fly and a bubble on her pole.  She looked at the setup I had given her with one of those disapproving faces I knew meant there is not enough color.  I assured her that if she didn’t catch anything we could go back to the “decorations”.  As she made her first cast I prayed to the fish gods like I have never prayed before.  Please let her catch a fish!

Sure enough not a moment later she had a nice rainbow in tow.  That fish was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, I think I almost kissed it when it hit the bank.  I have never been so excited over a 12″ trout in my life.  That day she caught  21 fish in about 3 hours.  Hardly a cast went by without her catching one or getting a strike.  She out fished me that day, my fly pole couldn’t keep up.

Since that day the “decorations” have yet to return.  I even caught her using my fly pole once when I went back to the truck.  This year we purchased her a fly pole, float tube, fins and waders.  I can’t be more proud!

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You know as I was buying neoprene waders today I realized how much adulthood can complicate fishing.  I’m not saying we don’t still fish with the same passion we just at some point in our lives decide that we need more stuff to go fishing.

I can remember as a boy wading endless rivers and streams in nothing but my sneakers, “Fishing shoes” I called them, and shorts.  Of course these were mountain streams that seemed so cold at times I was convinced everything was glacier fed.  But as a kid you were okay with the varying levels of numbness and hypothermia you encountered.  It was always more important to reach that other bank or that hidey hole behind the big rock in the middle then your own personal comfort. 

Now in my 30’s something seems to have come over me that I can’t explain.  I can barely stick my toe into a lake or stream without having serious reservations about wading in.  Hence the new waders.  And of course with the new waders come a rod and reel that have to meet certain specifications designed by engineers in a test lab somewhere who have convinced me of their inane findings.  Now I must have tippet material and dope my line.  I must have a landing net and that chest pack.  I have somehow lost my inner kid!

 Its not that I have lost my love for fishing by any means, now it is even more precious to me.  I just wish somedays I was once again in my fishing shoes, numb from the waist down with spinning line as tippet.  Only worried about reaching that next fish.

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