Marginal Tenkara

The Jamesinator is off to the UK with his mother for a month.  I should do any number of things, not least some actual research.  Or work on the house.  I know myself well enough to be fairly confident that I will basically fish until my arm falls off.  Self knowledge is at least a partial salve for the stresses of life.  I think.  Anyway, this trip saw me plunge back into intense solo fishing.  I missed James badly, and I think he also acts as a major check on my more obsessive instincts.  He’s obsessive himself, but the trips are basically calibrated to safely accommodate the obsessiveness of an eight year old.  Without him, I just go and don’t stop.

There were a couple of worries.  First, there were thunderstorms across the area on Thursday, and Fayette County was forecast to get more precipitation than the Iowa City area.  So the state of the streams was a concern.  Second, while the summer continues to be wetter than normal, some serious heat has finally arrived.  Around home, Saturday was forecast as a high of 91 but with a heat index of 103.  It was a bit better in the area of the streams, high of 88 and heat index of 97, but still pretty brutal.  But I was absolutely pining to get back on the water, so I decided to take lots of fluids and hopefully make myself bail if it got too ridiculous.  I chose Bear because it has generally held up best when the water is high.

Continue reading Trip Report 2015 July 18 – Bear Creek, Fayette County, IA

This is sort of fishing related, in that it’s about the vehicle that takes us fishing.  After 16 years of faithful service, my 1999 Chevy Malibu blew its engine two days ago.  I got the bad news this morning: even a second hand engine (installed) would cost more than the Blue Book value of the car.  And have no warranty.  It was a good run, but it’s over.  Didn’t seem sensible to pour thousands into an elderly car where something else could fall apart at any minute.  So I spent the day buying a 2014 Jeep Compass.  It’s kind of a girly Jeep (not sexism – the Compass is expressly marketed to females; its manlier counterpart is the Patriot, which is the same vehicle marketed to males).  And it’s sniffed at in real Jeep circles.  But it’s a 4WD and has some clearance, so it’ll be a huge upgrade for hiking and fishing in the mountain west (and on some level B service roads in northeastern Iowa).  And it’s what I could afford.  It already feels weird driving a vehicle where the signal lights shut off automatically after you turn and the gas gauge works.  It was a difficult moment saying goodbye to the Malibu.  It’s bound for “recycling”.

We got up around seven on Friday morning.  It had gotten down to 60 during the night, so we wore our hoodies/fleece to start with.  I made a huge breakfast of bacon, eggs over easy, mushrooms, and strawberry/rhubarb toast.  By the time we ate it and got packed up it was almost nine.  We headed for STSNBN, with the temperature set to hit 82 and a small possibility of thunderstorms late in the day.

Continue reading Trip Report 2015 July 09-10 – Bear Creek and STSNBN, Fayette County, IA. Day Two

I finished recording lectures for a new online course offering, an activity that has devoured my life since April.  I celebrated by charging out camping with James about six hours later, on five hours sleep.  We headed directly to Bear Creek on the Thursday to see how the trout were getting on one week after the beauty day when we caught 26.  Bear Creek isn’t supposed to be stocked in July and August, so it seems like those trout were the base for any holdover fishing in the height of summer.

Continue reading Trip Report 2015 July 09-10 – Bear Creek and STSNBN, Fayette County, IA. Day One.

Brook Trout: 17

Rainbow Trout: 27

Brown Trout: 8

Creek Chub: 297

Common Shiner: 321

Smallmouth Bass: 6

Rock Bass: 2

Dunno (Unidentified): 1

[Note: this is the final “retro trip report” and gets me up to date with a log of all of our fishing trips since resuming fly fishing.]

Weather was supposed to be high 70s but felt hotter.  Humidity was really high and nasty. We both got uncomfortably hot and tired.

There’s not a lot to report about this trip.  It was similar to the previous one four days earlier but with no landed trout.  James caught 3 creek chub and 6 common shiner.  I caught 52 creek chub and 72 common shiner, on a mix of killer bug, copper john, and amano kebaris, including a self-tied one.  About the only real development was that we discovered a way to wade into the head of “deep pool” that got us in casting range of the nice deep portion of the far bank.  Here I hooked two trout, one on a killer bug, the other a copper john (first time I hooked a trout on a nymph).  Both were on the line for a good while and the net was deployed in each case, but they both got off.  I briefly hooked one more trout downstream, again on a copper john, but it was only on the line for a few seconds.  Other than that, nada.  The normally productive lower section didn’t yield any hint of trout this time.

Continue reading (Retro Trip Report) 2015 June 10 STSNBN, Fayette County, IA

Weather: around 80 and humid.

This trip marked the point where James seemed to cross the line into a little kid version of parallel fishing obsession.  He went like a machine all day, didn’t want to stop, didn’t want to turn around, just wanted to keep fishing.  The most fish he’d caught prior to this was four.  He caught 20 on this trip.  It was the first time he wore his new vest given to him for his birthday by my sister.  It was the first time he released most of his fish himself.

Continue reading (Retro Trip Report) 2015 June 06 STSNBN, Fayette County, IA

For what it’s worth, a current gear list.

Clothing: Columbia convertible pants I bought for ultralight hiking, very lightweight and comfortable; a TenkaraBum camo t shirt; a Lamson LED hat in camo; a trout buff worn as a neck wrap; Patagonia Gunnison Gorge wading pants, Patagonia felt ultralight wading boots.

Vest: Patagonia convertible vest.

Continue reading Gear

This was the single most perfect day of fishing I’ve had since resuming.  I knew it was going to be good.  I’d looked in the previous Wednesday and STSNBN was blown out, but there had been five days of no rain since then.  I figured it would be clear but with the water level replenished a bit.  This was exactly the case.  The only downside was I didn’t drag my arse out of bed early enough, so didn’t get on the stream until late morning.  As it turned out, this was a major waste of a nearly perfect day.  Nevertheless I fished the entire length of the preserve, upstream and down.  I didn’t start downstream until around 3 pm.

Continue reading (Retro Trip Report) 2015 June 01 STSNBN, Fayette County, IA

White Pine Hollow is a National Natural Landmark featuring the last stand of old growth white pine forest in Iowa.  It’s tiny, but as close to a patch of true wilderness as you can get in the state.  It also has a protected catch and release only trout stream.

The first challenge is getting to the stream.  There are no designated trails in the preserve and only two parking lots, one at the south edge and one at the east.  The best stretch of trout stream is in the western part of the preserve, so you have to find your own way there through dense forest.  It looked to me like you could get closer to the protected water marked on the DNR map by starting from the south parking lot.  I planned to follow the preserve boundary to a corner, turn west, and go in a straight line until I hit the stream.  There is one larger stream which runs east to west in the preserve, and which the DNR has labelled Point Hollow Creek aka White Pine Creek.  It’s joined by a smaller stream running from the south.  The DNR has a stretch of this smaller stream, then Point Hollow Creek downstream from where the smaller stream joins to the preserve boundary marked as special regulation water.  The upstream part of Point Hollow Creek isn’t designated.

Continue reading (Retro Trip Report) 2015 May 29 – White Pine Hollow State Forest Preserve