Western Flies 1: Mosquito

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I leave in a few days for a kamikaze solo trip to Colorado in which I’ll spend just under three weeks backpacking to as many 11,000-12,000 ft alpine lakes as I can squeeze in.  I have the ultralight backpacking elements squared away, and the tenkara-backpacking proof of concept from the last trip.  What I have no experience with or much preparation for is fishing alpine lakes, or stillwaters of any kind.  I’ve read Jason Klass’s post on tenkara on alpine lakes, but that’s about as much received knowledge as I have.  I plan to use the Keen sandals and neoprene socks to wade where possible.  The main technical worry is casting range.  I have 12, 16, and 24 ft floating pvc line purchased from Badger Tenkara.  I used the 12′ line a bit near the start last year and in fact caught my first biggish wild brown using it.  I’ll take the GM Suikei 39 and the Sato, and I guess I’ll see how casting extra long floating line goes.  What’s not very clear to me is how to land a fish when the line and tippet are together twice as long as the rod.  I guess you have to handline it (obviously), but just getting the line into a position that you can grab it doesn’t seem an intuitively obvious maneuver.  Hopefully I’ll have an opportunity to figure it out.

Anyway, the other worry is fly selection.  I guess buggers work, they work pretty much anywhere.  And I’m decently set for weighted nymphs.  But it seems like a lot of the action on lakes is dries, possibly sort of flipped from the normal situation on streams where subsurface will generally take more fish.  I hadn’t tied a dry fly in my life, but I’m pretty set on the idea that I’m not going to buy any more commercial flies except in a pinch, and tie everything I fish with.  So it’s time to have a go.  The first pattern that gets talked up everywhere is the mosquito.  They kinda look like an actual mosquito, and some people opine that it’s what they actually mimic.  I dunno.  Yes, mosquitos are everywhere, but I’m not sure they spend a lot of time on the surface of the water except when something goes dramatically wrong in their life.  They don’t hatch in trout water, but in shallow stillwaters – bogs, standing pools, etc.  The patterns seem to basically be colour variations of a classic Catskill mayfly.  The most widely used one seems to be black thread, a grizzly hackle fiber tail, a stripped grizzly quill body, grizzly tip wings, and grizzly hackle.  I’m short on time and skill, and it seemed a bit much to jump in with learning both hackle tip wings and quill bodies, so I’m trying to crank out simplified versions, with a black thread and extra fine silver wire rib body and omitting the wings.  I dunno, I guess they more or less look like dry flies.  I’ll see what the fish think.  I’m cranking out a bunch in sizes 14, 16, and 18.  Using Whiting 100s keeps it modestly idiot proof.  I figure if they’re a bust I can always stop into a fly shop in Colorado and remedy the situation.  With limited time, I’m planning to concentrate on these and a whole bunch of stimulators.  If I have time I’ll try to tie some other attractors, like wulffs or humpies.  I figure I’ll mostly fish tandem flies, sometimes with a weighted nymph dropped beneath a stimulator.  I have a few commercial dries in larger sizes, including some Royal Coachman, Adams, BWO, and a few deerhair caddis.

Western Swing (Part 1)

IMG_3059So, we’re just back from the first of potentially three major western trips this summer.  This first one was a combination of palaeontological work in Utah, fishing in Nevada, and then we were supposed to go on two multi-day backpacking and fishing trips on the Encampment River in Wyoming and Colorado.  The latter crashed and burned as the river was still in full spring flood stage, impossible to fish and more or less impossible to hike due to swollen tributaries, but it was a great experience regardless.  We hit some fishing milestones and, importantly, started figuring out that we can hike and effectively fish in the backcountry.  We’re going out in July and August together for another major trip – the fishing shouldn’t be in doubt then.

Organizing hiking equipment.
Organizing hiking equipment.

Continue reading Western Swing (Part 1)

Backcountry Gear

I got back into fly fishing last year via ultralight hiking.  I kitted myself out with ultralight gear, and at some point got led to tenkara, which for obvious reasons is popular with backpackers.  This summer the hope is to spend a decent amount of time in the mountain west, both with James and solo.  So first I had to get James kitted out with basically all the same stuff that I have.  Then I had to think about what to take for fishing gear when we’re backpacking.

The backpacking gear is fairly standard ultralight stuff.  We each have Gossamer Gear Marisposa packs and Exped Synmat UL sleeping pads.  I have an Enlightened Equipment Revelation quilt and we got James a ZPacks cuben and down sleeping bag.  We settled on a Big Agnes Copper Spur UL 2 tent.  It all came together fairly well, if at bruising expense.

The first problem with backcountry fishing is wading.  In many situations it’s basically impossible to just fish from the bank, and it didn’t seem wise to count on being able to do that.  I looked into lightweight waders, but even the lightest aren’t really light and they’re very bulky.  And packing along separate wading boots didn’t seem practical.  Going that route would have involved buying James brand new waders, as his current ones are impossibly heavy to pack.  I thought back to my days fishing the wilds of Canada as a teenager.  I just wore shorts and cheap running shoes and waded.  Hm.  Why not?  When doing fieldwork in the Arctic for years, I crossed streams by carrying rafting sandals and switching into them, and I used the same tactic in the Canadian Rocky Mountains recently.  Couldn’t see why it wouldn’t work.  So I bought us each a pair of Keen sandals, sturdy enough that some people actually use them for hiking, along with a pair of neoprene socks each.  We’ll use them both for fording streams while hiking and for fishing.

Next came how to transport the fishing gear, and what to use on the water.  Vests are very heavy and bulky, out of the question.  I ended up buying a bunch of Zimmerbuilt stuff, centered around a guide sling.  We take four rods in this setup, and a decent but pared down assortment of tippet, lines, nippers, and forceps.  It worked great.  The guide sling, loaded and ready to go, fits in the big outer pocket at the back of my pack.

The last consideration was fly boxes.  I love C&F boxes, so I got a couple of C&F ultralights.

New C&F ultralight boxes.
New C&F ultralight boxes.

On the one hand, they are indeed really, really light.  On the other, they’re a bit bulky.  One of them got squished in the guide sling on the drive out and I thought it was ruined.  Amazingly, after a day it just sprung back to its original shape, closing perfectly flush again.  I really like these boxes.  You might want simple slimmer foam ones for midges and nymphs, but the C&F ones will hold dries without disrupting the hackle.  I’m really sold on them.

Our main ultralight fly box on our first trip.
Our main ultralight fly box on our first trip.  Upper left, woolly buggers and plus size killer buggers.  Bottom left, beadhead hotspot killer bugs.  Right from top: green weenies, some kebari, Frenchies, Griffith’s Gnats, McFly Foam Eggs, some midges, crane fly larvae, pigstickers, sparkle buggers, beadhead Prince nymphs (not exactly perfect, but my first attempts at tying in goose biots), and RS2s.

I’m sure it will take some refinement, but it works fine, and packs well with our standard ultralight loadouts.  Our first trip got curtailed by high spring water, but we got enough done to establish proof of concept.

Last Cabin

Before our western trip, there was a final booking window for a couple of midweek cabin nights, so I pounced (the cabins have to be booked by the week after Memorial Day, and are all booked solid for the entire summer).  As is becoming standard, we headed down to Richmond Springs on arrival and messed about for the last hour of daylight.  This time there were people at the upper pools, and more people everywhere than usual for the time of evening, so we stopped in here and there, finally settling on the bottommost unoccupied pool.

Trout holding in one of the spots we stopped.
Trout holding in one of the spots we stopped.

Continue reading Last Cabin

Browns Like It Too

The final day of fishing, I decided to go back to the special regulation wild brown stream I’d fished twice earlier this year.  The vegetation makes fishing all but impossible in the summer and I figured I was getting close to the last chance.  I also wanted to see how the beadhead hotspot killer bug did with a population of exclusive wild browns.

Vegetation is growing, growing, growing...
Vegetation is growing, growing, growing…

Continue reading Browns Like It Too

Otter!

The second day of fishing from the cabin, I decided to try some new water.  Otter Creek and Glovers Creek are very well known and very popular stockers in Fayette County.  I’d avoided them, mostly because they are known for the fishing pressure they receive.  I’m trying to fish everywhere at least once, though, so I decided to see what was up.  What was up was an extremely pleasant surprise, a beautiful stream in unique surroundings.  I saw only one other angler on the water all day, though there’s probably serious pressure on the weekends.

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Chasing Redemption

For the first full day of fishing from the cabin, I couldn’t resist heading back to STSNBN.  It’s hard to explain its appeal, given that I can now routinely catch a dozen trout from stocker streams without much trouble yet have never caught more than three at STSNBN.  I guess it’s a combination of low fishing pressure (I almost always see tracks and there’s the bait fishing going on, but I’ve never seen another angler on the stream), the chance to get away into something special, and the fact that the trout are challenging, but most of the time at least toss you something for your efforts.  And now, of course, there is also the tantalizing possibility of truly huge brown trout.  Anyway, back I went.

This was the first day I had bead head killer bugs tied up, but I used the regular killer bugs beside them, tied on a #14 Daiichi 1550, copper and sand.
This was the first day I had bead head killer bugs tied up, but I used the regular killer bugs beside them, tied on a #14 Daiichi 1550, copper and sand.

Continue reading Chasing Redemption

Cabin Escape

Plans over the spring got scrambled and crushed as usual, but I made it to the Backbone cabins for a no-distraction, no-nonsense, no-email stretch of three nights and four mid-week days.  I fulfilled my ambition to bring along fly tying paraphenalia and spent the evenings listening to music and tying flies.

Fly tying at the cabin.
Fly tying at the cabin.

The first evening I headed down to Richmond Springs for the last hour of daylight, fishing the top pools which have become my favourites.  As usual I didn’t fully gear up so had nothing but a rod and my iPhone.  I caught a few trout, some with a killer bug, some with a black woolly bugger.

A little rainbow.
A little rainbow. I didn’t realize they stocked ones this small.
Bigger one, taken above the springs.
Bigger one, taken above the springs.
Brookie on a woolly bugger.
Brookie on a woolly bugger.

It’s always very pleasant to fish these pools toward darkness, as almost everyone else has gone away and you can enjoy the setting.  It always seems a little bruised from the swarms of people, but that’s part of its charm.