I was debating back and forth all day. Should I go or should I stay at home with the wife and family. I had even convinced myself that maybe a rare date night with the wife would be the better move. I told my wife this, and she looked at me like I was crazy. We can do that on the weekend. This is your vacation, you should go.
The drive brought me to the usual cheap motel. "Motel Patel" as my Indian friend at work calls them. "Really, it's not a joke, a huge Patel family bought up little motels all across the country." I recalled that my friend in junior high, that lived in the motel his family owned, his last name was Patel. "See? I'm not making this up." I didn't ask the guy in Beaver's Bend what his name was. But he recognized me. Somehow we got on the topic of women, the blessings and cursings depending on how the dice roll for you. He asked me where my older male friend was, the one I had shared a room with a couple of times. A fly fisher. "Couldn't come this time." "So are you married?" "Yes." Well now he knows I'm not gay, he must have wondered. It really is about a cheap night's rest before fishing, mister.
It was already light when my alarm went off. 6:45am. Too early and too late at the same time. A quick breakfast of cold pop tarts and I was off to the river. Evening hole was the first target. A truck was already parked at the access. Ok, room enough. Then as I was getting ready, a car pulled up with three anglers who popped out. "Re-routing" my brain said. I started the car and drove up to the lower Spillway creek access. Get away from the crowd.
I crossed the river to the west side and hiked up the road, that then became a trail. The river curves to the east as you get further up, and I had never hiked much further than that. What the hell. I'll just keeping going. "Undiscovered river." Victory goes to he that works the hardest. The trail became more difficult and I had to hike up a steep bluff and back down again. Ah yes, far way from the unwashed masses. As I got to the bottom I noticed a bait fisherman with shorts on. And another. Then it hit me, I had just hiked all the way to the upper Spillway creek access, where guys with beer cans can walk 40 yards from their car to access the river. I had once again proved I was a moron. So I turned around and headed back downriver and started working the holes.
Now this ain't my first rodeo on the Lower Mountain Fork. My first trip was guided by the talented and esteemed 87Flyfisher (Texags' own). He literally taught me everything I know. Before I tripped with him, I didn't even know what dead drifting was. My solo Washington trip would have gone a lot better had I known about it (!). So that's two trips with my older friend, a solo trip over a couple of days, and one trip with my father. Really with varied results. The trip with my father was a huge disappoint, and that was how I learned that Mondays are not the best day to hit this river. It's sort of like riding into a bombed out city and asking where the nearest Starbucks is.
But something different was to happen on this trip that I had never experienced before. Free born fish. Wild rainbows all over the place. Small and aggressive. These are the descendants of the stocked rainbows. And I hooked up with many of these little guys all day. But why now? After all these years of having stocked rainbows, why all of the sudden is breeding taking off when it hadn't before? Did something change about the river? Did benefactors create breeding suitable habitat that didn't exist before? Or do we even know the reason? Regardless, it is an exciting development. Because this means that I'm on a real trout river. Not just a stocked put-and-take river. It almost feels like if the river is changing, we ought to be changing. That the pressure on the river will need to change. But maybe that's the elitist in me talking. The Costas and Simms crowd.
[River born fish on the fly]
[One example of the river-born rainbows I caught that day]
While the river is changing, I'm changing too. It's not enough to catch a trout anymore. I want to catch it right. Hooked a fin? I let out a sigh. Hooked the outside of the mouth? Another sigh. Clean hook on the lip? That's what I'm talking about. First decent fish I caught was a brown on the upper Spillway Creek. Fin hooked him then, right at the junction of the pectoral fin and the body.
After a bit of only catching really little guys, my mind went back to the online Orvis report I had read that 87Flyfisher updates on a regular basis. Terrestrial flies were his recommendation. On the drive up I had been ruing not having more terrestrial flies. No ants or beetles. Just hoppers. While I was seeing no sipping or surface action, I decided to switch to a hopper. I had done this before at the end of a long day on this river. In a very slow deep pool, I had lobbed a hopper, and to my amazement a trout had sallied out of nowhere, and gotten within an inch of my hopper and returned from whence it came. So I thought I would try it again. On the first throw of my hopper I got a rise, but no splash, and then another rise. Two rises on one cast! I looked up and saw that a family of four was watching from across the river. I yelled out to the dad, "Did you see that?" I realized he couldn't hear me over the river, but he could certainly sense my excitement. A few more casts and a rise or two. The mom was taking pictures, probably thinking she was seeing a "true" fly fisher, rather than the 2nd worst fly fisher on Texags. Then I said very softly, Dear Lord let me catch a fish here to inspire these kids and this family. I cast and BAM! A nice German Brown to hand. The family cheered, and I smiled. A nice moment. I almost never pray when I fish, because I figure God has better things to worry about. Although sometimes I do apologize for cussing. But if God listens to a pure heart, you figure he hears from fly fishers from time to time. That was the first fish I ever caught with a surface fly on the LMFR.
[Brown on a hopper]
It was time for me to eat saltines and tuna fish back at the car. On the walk back, I spotted two fly fishers coming up from the bank onto the trail. From a distance, I thought the younger one might be 87Flyfisher. Sure enough it was. After a friendly reintroduction, he told me that the recent cold front had led to less active fish over the past two days. Barometric pressure. I found that reassuring. Because I never know if it's the fish or me. Maybe today it was the fish. Said they had just been at Evening Hole and not seen any action.
After scarfing lunch while sitting on a rock, I hit the Evening Hole. I cast downstream using the push-technique 87Flyfisher had taught me. Double nymphs, weight, and indicator. No false casting. No reeling. Just pull the line back and let it ride out. Time and again, moving across the hole, I got nothing. Probably a hundred fish in that hole, and not a single bite.
Well, I had a new plan after getting that hopper action. I had rigged two rods, one with the double nymph and the other with the hopper. That way I could switch without re-rigging. Now, I could have done a nymph-hopper, but I wasn't smart enough to think of that, despite the fact that 87Flyfisher had mentioned it to me minutes before. I decided to hit the little bend in the river just a few feet upstream of the Evening Hole. I started drifting the hopper. And I swear, the fattest pig of a trout I have seen on this river rose to my hopper. Took a sniff and went back down. That's what gets the heart thumping. I drifted the hopper and again it rose, but did not take. And then a third time, and after that, nothing. I had seen all kinds of little tan moths on the river. Caddis, I guessed, based on color not entomology. So I switched to an elk hair caddis. Again and again, I drifted it and nothing. Ok, so Mr. Pig doesn't want a caddis. I put the hopper back on. Nothing. Then I nymphed over him. And nothing. Sometimes that's the way it is.
Back to Evening hole, I started nymphing again. I intended to go downriver but wanted to try a few more times. Just as I was retrieving a drift, I felt a strong tug. That z**** pull on the rod that is a fish. And I saw it splash the surface. A large one! I worked it over about 15 seconds and brought it to net, my heart pounding. This is really the finest looking fish I have ever caught. A brown I won't be ashamed to tell my mother about. After releasing him, he hovered in the current next to me for a few moments and then he was off to deep waters.
Down the river, it becomes slow and lazy. The river moseys along with the barest of riffles. I saw a couple of white spots in the river and wondered if they were albino fish. Or just light colored rocks. Movement. They were fish. And I was on them. Sight fishing. As I nymphed these guys, I was watching closely. I was observed the shake of the head compared to the movement of the indicator. The indicator is actually well downriver of the fish when it strikes the nymph. And sometimes the movement of the thingamobobber indicator is subtle. By the time the indicator has moved a great amount and you react, it can be too late. I had just been listening to Tom Rosenbauer describe currents and indicators on his podcast. The surface water is faster than the deep water, but somehow the drift still works. The big fish took my nymph and he was hooked. Brought him to hand. The largest trout I have caught. And not bad looking in his own right. He survived bird and man in this river against the odds, and he returned to the river to fight another day.
I continued on towards the regulation dam, having never spent any time there before. The water was very shallow and the river wide. I could see the albinos here and there. And as I moved into the river, I could see the occasional large non-albino trout hopping from one hole to another. I sat on a tree trunk in the middle of the river, like a street preacher. But my flies, like words, just fell on the water and the fish were unimpressed. I would need another day and another approach for these guys.
[The view upriver from the stretch to the regulation dam, with evening hole just past those trees]
As the evening pressed on, I returned upriver to Spillway Creek, hoping to catch another decent fish. Maybe a stocked rainbow. Light was fading. I picked up the nymph rod. It was my best chance. After just a little guy, and no success at a couple of holes, I said my second little prayer, Dear Lord let me catch just one more so I can go home. And BAM a large rainbow was on. He zagged across the river and jumped and was shaking. He was about to go over the log fall and I made the split second decision to try and hold him up. Snap! He was gone. The first fish I had lost on the day. The disappointment was there, but it had been a good day, some you get, some you lose. My nymph got hung up in the river and the tippet snapped, leaving me just my indicator. This was a sign to go home. But like the gambler, I still had another play. I switched to my hopper rod and threw it a few times. I couldn't even distinguish the hopper from the bubbles in the fading light. And then another hit. A little rainbow barely larger than the hopper. I admired his spunk.
[His eyes were larger than his stomach]
A slow day on the river was still a good day. The hours swept by without notice. I think each time I go I get a little more zen. More in the moment. Less about results. Even less about fish. More about rhythms. My own movement. The movement of the river. And everything singing, the rocks and water, the insects, the trees. Moving and casting, I am just one more frequency in a song that was singing then. And now. Some miles away in southeastern Oklahoma.
----
Prior report from the Rio Hondo in New Mexico:
http://forums.texags.com/main/forum.reply.asp?page=1&forum_id=34&topic_id=2507909&nomobile=1
[This message has been edited by shiftyandquick (edited 8/16/2014 10:37p).]
The drive brought me to the usual cheap motel. "Motel Patel" as my Indian friend at work calls them. "Really, it's not a joke, a huge Patel family bought up little motels all across the country." I recalled that my friend in junior high, that lived in the motel his family owned, his last name was Patel. "See? I'm not making this up." I didn't ask the guy in Beaver's Bend what his name was. But he recognized me. Somehow we got on the topic of women, the blessings and cursings depending on how the dice roll for you. He asked me where my older male friend was, the one I had shared a room with a couple of times. A fly fisher. "Couldn't come this time." "So are you married?" "Yes." Well now he knows I'm not gay, he must have wondered. It really is about a cheap night's rest before fishing, mister.
It was already light when my alarm went off. 6:45am. Too early and too late at the same time. A quick breakfast of cold pop tarts and I was off to the river. Evening hole was the first target. A truck was already parked at the access. Ok, room enough. Then as I was getting ready, a car pulled up with three anglers who popped out. "Re-routing" my brain said. I started the car and drove up to the lower Spillway creek access. Get away from the crowd.
I crossed the river to the west side and hiked up the road, that then became a trail. The river curves to the east as you get further up, and I had never hiked much further than that. What the hell. I'll just keeping going. "Undiscovered river." Victory goes to he that works the hardest. The trail became more difficult and I had to hike up a steep bluff and back down again. Ah yes, far way from the unwashed masses. As I got to the bottom I noticed a bait fisherman with shorts on. And another. Then it hit me, I had just hiked all the way to the upper Spillway creek access, where guys with beer cans can walk 40 yards from their car to access the river. I had once again proved I was a moron. So I turned around and headed back downriver and started working the holes.
Now this ain't my first rodeo on the Lower Mountain Fork. My first trip was guided by the talented and esteemed 87Flyfisher (Texags' own). He literally taught me everything I know. Before I tripped with him, I didn't even know what dead drifting was. My solo Washington trip would have gone a lot better had I known about it (!). So that's two trips with my older friend, a solo trip over a couple of days, and one trip with my father. Really with varied results. The trip with my father was a huge disappoint, and that was how I learned that Mondays are not the best day to hit this river. It's sort of like riding into a bombed out city and asking where the nearest Starbucks is.
But something different was to happen on this trip that I had never experienced before. Free born fish. Wild rainbows all over the place. Small and aggressive. These are the descendants of the stocked rainbows. And I hooked up with many of these little guys all day. But why now? After all these years of having stocked rainbows, why all of the sudden is breeding taking off when it hadn't before? Did something change about the river? Did benefactors create breeding suitable habitat that didn't exist before? Or do we even know the reason? Regardless, it is an exciting development. Because this means that I'm on a real trout river. Not just a stocked put-and-take river. It almost feels like if the river is changing, we ought to be changing. That the pressure on the river will need to change. But maybe that's the elitist in me talking. The Costas and Simms crowd.
[River born fish on the fly]
[One example of the river-born rainbows I caught that day]
While the river is changing, I'm changing too. It's not enough to catch a trout anymore. I want to catch it right. Hooked a fin? I let out a sigh. Hooked the outside of the mouth? Another sigh. Clean hook on the lip? That's what I'm talking about. First decent fish I caught was a brown on the upper Spillway Creek. Fin hooked him then, right at the junction of the pectoral fin and the body.
After a bit of only catching really little guys, my mind went back to the online Orvis report I had read that 87Flyfisher updates on a regular basis. Terrestrial flies were his recommendation. On the drive up I had been ruing not having more terrestrial flies. No ants or beetles. Just hoppers. While I was seeing no sipping or surface action, I decided to switch to a hopper. I had done this before at the end of a long day on this river. In a very slow deep pool, I had lobbed a hopper, and to my amazement a trout had sallied out of nowhere, and gotten within an inch of my hopper and returned from whence it came. So I thought I would try it again. On the first throw of my hopper I got a rise, but no splash, and then another rise. Two rises on one cast! I looked up and saw that a family of four was watching from across the river. I yelled out to the dad, "Did you see that?" I realized he couldn't hear me over the river, but he could certainly sense my excitement. A few more casts and a rise or two. The mom was taking pictures, probably thinking she was seeing a "true" fly fisher, rather than the 2nd worst fly fisher on Texags. Then I said very softly, Dear Lord let me catch a fish here to inspire these kids and this family. I cast and BAM! A nice German Brown to hand. The family cheered, and I smiled. A nice moment. I almost never pray when I fish, because I figure God has better things to worry about. Although sometimes I do apologize for cussing. But if God listens to a pure heart, you figure he hears from fly fishers from time to time. That was the first fish I ever caught with a surface fly on the LMFR.
[Brown on a hopper]
It was time for me to eat saltines and tuna fish back at the car. On the walk back, I spotted two fly fishers coming up from the bank onto the trail. From a distance, I thought the younger one might be 87Flyfisher. Sure enough it was. After a friendly reintroduction, he told me that the recent cold front had led to less active fish over the past two days. Barometric pressure. I found that reassuring. Because I never know if it's the fish or me. Maybe today it was the fish. Said they had just been at Evening Hole and not seen any action.
After scarfing lunch while sitting on a rock, I hit the Evening Hole. I cast downstream using the push-technique 87Flyfisher had taught me. Double nymphs, weight, and indicator. No false casting. No reeling. Just pull the line back and let it ride out. Time and again, moving across the hole, I got nothing. Probably a hundred fish in that hole, and not a single bite.
Well, I had a new plan after getting that hopper action. I had rigged two rods, one with the double nymph and the other with the hopper. That way I could switch without re-rigging. Now, I could have done a nymph-hopper, but I wasn't smart enough to think of that, despite the fact that 87Flyfisher had mentioned it to me minutes before. I decided to hit the little bend in the river just a few feet upstream of the Evening Hole. I started drifting the hopper. And I swear, the fattest pig of a trout I have seen on this river rose to my hopper. Took a sniff and went back down. That's what gets the heart thumping. I drifted the hopper and again it rose, but did not take. And then a third time, and after that, nothing. I had seen all kinds of little tan moths on the river. Caddis, I guessed, based on color not entomology. So I switched to an elk hair caddis. Again and again, I drifted it and nothing. Ok, so Mr. Pig doesn't want a caddis. I put the hopper back on. Nothing. Then I nymphed over him. And nothing. Sometimes that's the way it is.
Back to Evening hole, I started nymphing again. I intended to go downriver but wanted to try a few more times. Just as I was retrieving a drift, I felt a strong tug. That z**** pull on the rod that is a fish. And I saw it splash the surface. A large one! I worked it over about 15 seconds and brought it to net, my heart pounding. This is really the finest looking fish I have ever caught. A brown I won't be ashamed to tell my mother about. After releasing him, he hovered in the current next to me for a few moments and then he was off to deep waters.
Down the river, it becomes slow and lazy. The river moseys along with the barest of riffles. I saw a couple of white spots in the river and wondered if they were albino fish. Or just light colored rocks. Movement. They were fish. And I was on them. Sight fishing. As I nymphed these guys, I was watching closely. I was observed the shake of the head compared to the movement of the indicator. The indicator is actually well downriver of the fish when it strikes the nymph. And sometimes the movement of the thingamobobber indicator is subtle. By the time the indicator has moved a great amount and you react, it can be too late. I had just been listening to Tom Rosenbauer describe currents and indicators on his podcast. The surface water is faster than the deep water, but somehow the drift still works. The big fish took my nymph and he was hooked. Brought him to hand. The largest trout I have caught. And not bad looking in his own right. He survived bird and man in this river against the odds, and he returned to the river to fight another day.
I continued on towards the regulation dam, having never spent any time there before. The water was very shallow and the river wide. I could see the albinos here and there. And as I moved into the river, I could see the occasional large non-albino trout hopping from one hole to another. I sat on a tree trunk in the middle of the river, like a street preacher. But my flies, like words, just fell on the water and the fish were unimpressed. I would need another day and another approach for these guys.
[The view upriver from the stretch to the regulation dam, with evening hole just past those trees]
As the evening pressed on, I returned upriver to Spillway Creek, hoping to catch another decent fish. Maybe a stocked rainbow. Light was fading. I picked up the nymph rod. It was my best chance. After just a little guy, and no success at a couple of holes, I said my second little prayer, Dear Lord let me catch just one more so I can go home. And BAM a large rainbow was on. He zagged across the river and jumped and was shaking. He was about to go over the log fall and I made the split second decision to try and hold him up. Snap! He was gone. The first fish I had lost on the day. The disappointment was there, but it had been a good day, some you get, some you lose. My nymph got hung up in the river and the tippet snapped, leaving me just my indicator. This was a sign to go home. But like the gambler, I still had another play. I switched to my hopper rod and threw it a few times. I couldn't even distinguish the hopper from the bubbles in the fading light. And then another hit. A little rainbow barely larger than the hopper. I admired his spunk.
[His eyes were larger than his stomach]
A slow day on the river was still a good day. The hours swept by without notice. I think each time I go I get a little more zen. More in the moment. Less about results. Even less about fish. More about rhythms. My own movement. The movement of the river. And everything singing, the rocks and water, the insects, the trees. Moving and casting, I am just one more frequency in a song that was singing then. And now. Some miles away in southeastern Oklahoma.
----
Prior report from the Rio Hondo in New Mexico:
http://forums.texags.com/main/forum.reply.asp?page=1&forum_id=34&topic_id=2507909&nomobile=1
[This message has been edited by shiftyandquick (edited 8/16/2014 10:37p).]