Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Solo: Part 1


My first fish of 2015 was stunning... 

~ "My absolute best days are when I see many fish and none take.. ..That is fascinating, for that means I have much more to learn… I really like that." - Göran Andersson, A Drift Inside

As a hopeless addict and guide, fly fishing never leaves my mind. My time off the water is spent pondering topics such as fly presentation, speed of the swing, and how flies are affected by subsurface currents and different ways to correct for it. You know, the usual stuff… This season I decided to experiment with my confidence fly, with the variable being color. I enjoy designing these experiments. It makes paying my student loans easier knowing that I’m getting my money’s worth. HA! Long story short, I designed an experiment that includes multiple unknown variables that will still yield conclusive results. It was easy, but it took many years on the river to be able to do this. The key was eliminating the unknown variables with the knowledge that I personally gained over the years. Sometimes I think I should have gone to grad school…  




75% of my time on the river was spent dedicated to the experiment. The remaining 25% was dedicated to not thinking about it. Some days were fully committed to the experiment while others were spent hunting. The amount of time each day allocated to experimentation varied due to outside factors that would instantly render the results inconclusive. I have strict standards. For example if one drift boat simply floated the river or another foot pursuit angler passed through at any point during the day, no data could be collected there after. I was fortunate enough to have the river to myself for a few days and was able to test my variable. The paper is a long way from being published as many more trials need to be run, but so far the results have been fascinating. A trial consists of two passes on a piece of water, each pass with a different color. There were some trials where the fish had a strong preference for one color over the other. This was only determined by not producing a fish on the first pass while producing one or multiple fish on the second pass. There were trials where a tie was determined where both colors produced fish, one on each pass. As for the trials where only the first pass produced fish, the data was rendered inconclusive because of the possibility that all of the players revealed themselves on the first pass. After multiple trials it became apparent that there was a favorite, that color was then designated for the second pass. As it stands today there is a favorite color. It's an interesting deal... I personally believe color makes a difference especially on pressured fish in low clear water. Although one could factor in variables and make a great argument against my results. It’s something I’m not going to stop thinking about. 

That entire BS aside I must say how fantastic it is to have a river to yourself. I don’t really know if there is anything better in this world than landing over one dozen steelhead without an audience. I did have a one man audience for my first fish of 2015 though... A familiar face and a fellow swinger who I must thank again for his courtesy. As he waited patiently for me to step down the run before entering at the top to follow me down. He watched as I hooked into one pissed off piece of compactor chrome... Thanks again for the picture my friend.       



Solitude... 


A familiar face taking my Cross S1 for a test drive... 






















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