Fall In Full Swing

As I sit and write this it’s currently January 27th. It just so happens to be one of three weekends I went without swinging flies on the Salmon River since the last week of August. The only reason I’m not there is because Mark had persuaded me to attend the show in Somerset NJ. Between a full-time job and swinging flies from sunrise to sunset two days a week I rarely get to open a computer.

Back in August through the first two weeks of October I fished for Kings on the DSR. In my time spent there I befriended a season pass holder who also believed in “swinging or going home”. The last weekend I fished the DSR there were steelhead pouring in from the estuary and we stepped down a few runs together, both of us were rewarded.

A Coliseum of Fall

It's mid-October in Delaware and the temperatures are still approaching the eighties on a daily basis. For the most part, the leaves are still green. As I entered my truck for the drive home, everything felt like summer and there wasn't a hint of Fall in the air. Two hours north, in the heart of Pennsylvania, the Fall season is nearing its peak. Leaves are yellow, orange, red, and every shade in between. When I exited my vehicle in Pennsylvania, my senses immediately registered everything there is to love about Fall, my favorite being the smell. Try as I might, it is hard to put into words how much I love the smell of dead leaves rustling through the wind. It ranks a close second to the smell of an old growth forest after a brief thunderstorm. There is also a slight chill in the air, something that is noticeably absent in Delaware. Fall is definitely here and the signs are everywhere.

An Unexpected Twist

Home

A family function to the local Hungarian Hall was planned but I decided to go fishing instead. My reasoning was simple. It was a beautiful fall day, the water levels were up for the first time in months, and I only had a few hours left on my weekend home. The piece of water I had in mind was my Grandfather's stretch that he fished as a kid. As the family departed, they dropped me off on the side of the road, giving me a few hours of solitude, wild browns, and an unexpected twist.

New side channels...

Slate Hole

First cast wild brown...

The outing went as planned for the first mile of water. Wild browns were in all the right places as I made my way upstream. It had been awhile, so it was a pleasant surprise to see how the stream had re-structured itself in the past year. One particularly deep hole had been completely filled in with gravel and there was an entirely new side channel.

A Long Glide Wrapped in Autumn

The surprise came as I was hiking upriver avoiding a stretch of slate water. The hike takes you along a two-acre pond that is not ideal to fly fish in because of the heavy cover on its banks. Off the point of an inaccessible island in the middle of the pond, I saw a vast mud cloud in the water. With Canadian Geese feeding nearby, I assumed it was from them. For some reason, I stopped and did the unexpected. I started roll casting a nymph rig into the lake and caught a few sunfish. I walked out on a log and spotted a nice bass, cut my nymph rig off, and tied on a streamer and single spey casted attempting to catch one. After a short while, I lost interest, and made my way back towards the stream.

On my way back to the stream, I saw something that caught my eye. Halted in my tracks, I saw an active mud plume. I immediately dropped to my knees and crawled to investigate. At the tail end of the plume was nice a carp, in the mid-teens, that was going to town. My heart beat doubled as I reached into my waders to grab my single fly box. I clipped off the streamer and found one of three reasonable carp flies for the situation, a veiled Otters Soft egg. My mind was racing trying to comprehend the situation. I had spent the whole morning fishing at our premier carping destination and saw absolutely nothing. Here I was at a small pond trout fishing where I fished for thirteen years and never saw any sign of a carp.

A few moments later, I was ready for war. The carp had moved on and under a large fallen tree in the water. On the other side of that was our battleground. As I positioned myself, three other carp rolled into the same area, all going head down and tail up to feed. I couldn't believe that this was even happening. I had my Orvis Superfine Trout Bum, which is a 704-4 outfit that actually worked to my advantage because of the limited casting space and an overhang of leaves and branches. Completing the scenario was another fallen tree in the pond to the right. These odds tipped the scales heavily in the carp's favor. The only thing I had going for me was the fact that these guys probably never met a carp fly fishermen before. That was the only advantage I needed.

I had to side arm roll cast to get to the carp. It had to be dead on accurate or it would hang up on a snag. When it didn't hang up on a snag a dozen sun fish would play ping pong with the egg has it slowly sank to the carps level. I had to cast accurately over twenty times before the egg made it through the onslaught. With uneducated carp, they are not spooky to a light fly and a light line. When the carp saw the egg, it moved three feet to suck it in before it hit the bottom. All I needed was that one cast to get through and I was able to watch the whole thing happen. Carp fly fishermen live for that singular moment.

Miraculously, I did not lose this fish on its first two runs even though it went completely into one of the fallen trees. I lost him on my third landing attempt, when my leader caught a small branch sticking out of the water. As I fumbled to clear the caught line, he blitzed under a nearby log and snapped the line. I let out a roar of disappointment and sat on the bank to recover.

Small Egg FTW

After I re-tied, I found another feeding carp. This one was more clear of the fallen trees but I still had to get past the sunfish. This fish was also a little larger than the previous one. He took, and blitzed across the entire pond to the far side where I thought I was going to lose him. With the carp bum fly rod held high and bent in half I had to go for a little walk down the bank where I finally subdued him on a shallow shelf. 

Battle wounds from the heavy structure...

Autumn Colors

"Bridge of Death"

This guy buckled while I was in the middle of it...

High on some carp action, I spent over an hour trying to find some more real estate to cast to carp. I attempted to make my way to the island but found it inaccessible. I returned to the stream and walked the last mile finding several more willing trout. As the rains came, I headed to the road and was picked up for a return home.  

Back to the creek...

The Men Who Stare At Nothing

It's early October and I find myself stepping outside to the first chilly air of the fall. Overnight, temperatures plunged into the thirties signaling the end of warmth and the heart of autumn.  Leaves are rustling in the woods and being swept out over the yard and clear skies reveal a canopy of stars. It is 5 a.m. and the sun isn't rising for another hour and a half. I am on my way to go carping for the last time of the year at one of my favorite haunts: the local canal.

The local canal is bi-polar. Despite zeroing in on early mornings, certain moon phases, and patterns of weather as the best times to fish, it still produces the most bizarre extremes of fish activity. One morning can produce regular shots at feeding submarines, while the very next day, in the exact same conditions, it can produce nothing. Not even a remnant of activity. This produces a conundrum for the local angler and a pretty serious love/hate affair. I can honestly say that of the ten times I was fortunate enough to fish the canal since the Spring, I did not see a fish during half of those outings. I effectively spent over a days worth of time staring at absolutely nothing.

This is basically what canal carping boils down to. Can you spot a fish? If you are lucky enough to spot a fish, can you get a cast off without it seeing you? If you can get a cast off, will your presentation be soft enough to not send it back to the dark abyss? If your presentation is on point, will your fly get to the zone in time without succumbing to a sunfish or snag? If it reaches the zone, will a twenty pound carp, mere feet away and in full view, suck it in? Finally, will you actually be able to land the guy in a small waterway full of snags on 3x? Not only do we stare at nothing most of the time, we are crazy enough to endure this, repeatedly. We might have even gone a little crazy sometimes.

On particularly bad outings, we have been known to hallucinate. We end up seeing what we want to see, rather than what is actually in front of us. Low light, fog, deep water, and a rising sun play tricks with your mind. Did you really see the outline of a carp cruising into the shallows? Is that a mud plume or simply the fog rolling over the placid water? Are those bubbles from a turtle or a monster carp delicately sipping something off the bottom? It gets to the point where everything seen is named and referenced on subsequent outings. Names emerge for for the degree and likelihood that the rate of bubble trails correspond to sizes of carp. Mud plumes are named based on formations, direction, and length of time since a carp was in the area. A catalog of different kinds of carp blocks is kept that ranges from barking dogs and trains to old ladies and homeless men.

These hallucinations keep you walking down the path. Somewhere along that journey you will find what you are looking for. Eventually, you will finally see the image that all carp aficionados crave. It is often unmistakeable and your knees will begin to shake. It forces you to realize that the previous few hours, you basically stared at nothing. All those things you thought you saw, weren't what you thought they were. The real thing is five feet away from you. It is huge, beautiful, and actively feeding. It is the "perfect" shot that you have been waiting for. An opening emerges and you decide to go for it.

Don't mess it up.

You might just spend several more hours staring at nothing.

Outside

Too many people put a premium on fish, rather than just being there in the moment. I found myself in that particular position when I took my buddy Austin out carp fishing. I had high hopes to get him on his first carp, but after an hour there wasn't any activity to justify spending more time. I was placing a premium on our score sheet, rather than the beautiful day, the knowledge passed on, or the stories told. We went on a rescue mission to a nearby stream where I found myself apologizing for the poor carping experience in the morning. Austin told me, "that's alright man, I just like being outside". It was then that I snapped back to reality, looked at my surroundings, and smiled. Sometimes, all it takes is a reminder that its not always about the fish.

Bonus Fish.

Day two and rain is in the forecast. We are two very happy campers and expect big things on this particular day on the water. However, with our high expectations we set ourselves up for an inevitable let down. The skies were overcast, the air was chilly, and rain came down. The steelhead for some reason, shut it down. Most likely due to a shift in water temperature that they must not have liked. Throughout the day, covering a ton of water, we witnessed three landed steelhead for a hundred or so anglers. Not very good odds, especially when most of the day was spent swinging flies through great looking water. Adam managed one tug to satiate his addiction and landed a very pretty brown trout while I settled for a six inch creek chub (good times). The rest of the day was spent probing, hiking, swinging, and wading. Adam with a malfunctioning pair of Orvis waders and myself with a slow leaking neoprene booty that left my left leg soaked and frozen much of the day. This post consists mostly of bonus fish from the previous day and random catches and sights from the weekend. 

First Cast, First Light Coho.

My, What Big Teeth You Have.

Intermittent Brown Trout.

Knubs.

It is approaching the time of year when the river starts to exude a wonderfully pleasant odor. That of rotting salmon. Sea gulls, ospreys, the occasional eagle, raccoons, and maggots all feast on the rotting corpses in the stream bed and along the banks. Large dead salmon often get caught up on logs and boulders in the river some of which approach thirty even forty pounds. Others are left on the banks from previous high water periods where they go through several stages of decay. Stages that remind me of a scene from Young Frankenstein where Marty Feldman assumes the position of "presently dead," and breaks into song once discovered. Anyway, the salmon are extremely beneficial to the river ecosystem and also to the fly angler. Aquatic insects will feast on the decomposing carcasses and steelhead and brown trout will begin keying in on these insects allowing one to diversify their arsenal on the river. 

Not Presently Dead, But Probably A Few Days Dead.

A Maggot Feast.

All That is Left is Skin, & Dispersing Maggots. 

Small Browns That Will Grow Up To Become Quite Large.

We spent much of our slow day of fishing swinging flies, slowly getting into a zone, and hoping that a fish would be willing to grab. I tried everything I had in my box. Egg sucking leaches, woolly buggers, tube flies, intruders, and some stinger missiles. I tried all sorts of colors as well, black, olive, brown, purple, red, blue, and chartreuse and then mixed and matched them to no avail. It just wasn't my day. Sometimes, especially on this river, you often latch onto something other than a fish. Mono-filament litters the landscape and is an unfortunate problem associated with fishing. It does not decay and with so many lines entering the water on a daily basis, your are bound to get caught on, trip on, catch, and lose your own line on someone else's lost fishing line. The day before, Adam and I were nymphing a deep run and we each caught someone else's rig. Judging by the size of the split shot and the large hook wrapped with estaz, this person lost more than one rig and we both caught them. The rig was a little excessive. 

Swing, Swing, Swing.

Practicing on a Beautiful Stretch.

More Bonus Fish.

Someone Else's Rig.

A Sparse Chartreuse and Purple Tube Fly Intruder.

Some Previously Caught Steel.

Small Male.

Release.

Adam's brown essentially saved our day. His persistence paid off after he spent some extended time on an outlet of a nice stretch. I, long before, had given up and was searching another piece of water when I heard the hoot and holler of Adam. Netting his fish in the fast flowing water, we brought the brown to some slack water along the bank, where the tube fly was removed from her lower jaw and the fish was released. On slow days, it pays to have patience and the resolve to offer a variety of presentations. Varying the speed of the swing and maintaining constant contact with the fly paid off for Adam. Not everyday is produces steelhead, but fortunately the browns are there as well. 

The Grab.

The Satisfaction.

The Shot.

The Release.

First Frost.

The crisp cold air catches me off guard as I step outside, sending a shiver down my spine. Frozen grass crunches under my feet as I make my way to the truck only to find a windshield coated in ice. The truck takes awhile to warm up and I am still quite cold as I approach my destination. Sliding into a pair of waders my breath fogs up my polarized glasses causing my eyes to water. As I make my way down the path, the sun is emerging through the trees slicing through the fog hovering above the tiny freestone stream. After a few errant casts, the small stream rod becomes familiar once again, like riding a bike, and a roll cast under some evergreens provides me with my first trout. A young of the year wild brown. A perfect contrast compared to the spectacle about to unfold in the coming weeks. The spawn, which will produce next years yearlings, and the coming years adults. 

The first frost of the year means more than just the beginning of the spawning period for brown trout. It means hunting. Hunting for deer, hunting for fish, and hunting for a meal to fatten up for the upcoming winter. As I change destinations, I spy a red tailed hawk on the side of the road with a fresh kill. A groundhog. As I am exiting my car, an older man and his son drag a doe out from the woods with their bows dangling at their sides. A product of their morning in the outdoors. As I make my way into the woods, several gunshots are heard in the distance and a pack of wild turkey fly over head just before a cast produces another wild brown on an orange stone fly. Squirrels run about as they make their way to and from their nests harvesting acorns. A weasel prances about along the opposite bank and several birds sing in the trees. As I make my way upstream, I am just another cog in the food chain, except I am not doing this out of survival, I am doing it to escape. This is why I love to fly fish.