A Family Affair: Part Two

Heading off the water, the three of us were in search for a local motel to shelter our tired cold bodies from the weather. We settled on the first unit we came across, despite my father's trepidation, and forewarnings of past experiences. He made the arrangements over the phone, which involved a honor system of sorts. It required a secret password to gain access to the key for the room. I guess it was too cold to come let us in. My brother and father settled down quickly while I took to the vice to replenish lost flies that actually worked for us. While I worked on the vice, my father and brother passed out on the beds and I followed soon thereafter.  

No Shadow Casting Here.

Early the next morning, we arrived where we left off the evening before to find even tougher conditions. The temperature dropped creating anchor ice and floating icebergs along the slower water. The already low flows were also down another 1-2 feet. After rigging up my father, he took to the water and was soon into his first fish of the day. After the first fish of the day, things slowed down for a few hours with only a couple hookups before the sun crept onto the water. After my brother landed his first of the day we relinquished the water and hiked upstream to try sight fishing to fish.

Big Poppa Pump Strikes First.

Matt Provides a Helping Hand.

Two Cold Anglers Celebrating A Moment.

Rocking His 1975 Varsity Jacket, Poppa Pump Releases His Slab.

Matt Working A Net-less Land.

Admiration & Release.

An Average Fish Finds the Bottom of My Net.

Our plan to sight fish with the sun at our backs failed soon after we worked our way upstream. The sun receded behind advancing clouds and failed to reappear. However, a warm front was pushing through raising air and water temperatures providing a respite for our frozen hands and feet. Instead of relying on the sun to reveal fish, I used elevation and the reflections of tree trunks on the water. The tell tale outlines of steelhead could be seen after careful inspection. Often after spotting and fishing to a single fish, my eyes would slowly adjust and reveal more adversaries. After landing a few fish including a very beat up brown trout, my father called us downstream. Arriving, he instructed us on several steelhead he had spotted all by himself. My brother and I took turns dead drifting nymphs and micro egg patterns downstream to the fish. After a brief battle I was able to subdue a large and beautiful hen. 

Sight Fishing Conditions: Low, Clear, & Super Skittish Fish.

A Small Buck.

My Best Steelhead of the 2010.

One Pretty Hen.

After releasing the hen, my brother and I spotted several nice steelhead under a fallen tree in the water. To get a closer look and eliminate the glare, we used the log as a platform from which to fish. My father's warnings went unheeded as we worked out way out onto the frozen log often using a broken branch to balance on. I made it my mission to catch the other large steelhead my father had spotted. It was a huge buck that dwarfed the hen I caught earlier. I dubbed him destined to take and after botching the first two times he took my presentation, I nailed the third time. With a difficult hook set from a top my log, I lifted hard and he ascended in the water column throwing his kyped jaws back and forth. My size 16 patten popped out and I lost my chance at the largest steelhead I had seen in quite sometime. After letting the scene settle down, I replicated the feat except with a much less desirable fish. This closed out my 2010 fishing year and the trip with my father and brother. We took to the road as the sun descended on the horizon reflecting on our first fishing trip together in over a year. It was great to get back on the water with these two and see them get into some fish. Hopefully we can make it happen again sometime soon.

A Dangerous Perch.

Several Fish Were Using This Fallen Tree as Shelter.

Hooking Up.

Poppa Pump Comes to the Rescue.

My Last Fish of 2010.

A Family Affair

It was 12:45am as the truck rumbled to life, the bed laden with warm clothes, waders and rod tubes, the cab containing myself, my father and my brother at the wheel. We had a 6-hour drive ahead of us with the goal of arriving streamside as the sun rose, already having stopped at an early-rising fly shop for New York licenses.

We headed north on the turnpike and it stayed very dark. The myriad lights of a town in a valley below us glowed strangely, illuminating the jigsaw streets of sprawling developments.

The road turned twisty a few hours later as I dozed in and out of consciousness in the back seat. I registered that we were off the highway and I’d probably been asleep for a while.

We stopped for licenses in front of a darkened bait and tackle shop. The sign on the door claimed to be open for business at 6:00am. We waited in the abandoned parking lot. It was 6:09am.

The lights flickered on and we wandered inside, stretching our legs. Licenses purchased and water conditions discussed, we reloaded into the truck and headed to the water.

Low and clear was the word, with it getting lower and clearer as the weekend went on. Rigging up via headlamp in the parking lot of packed snow turned to ice, I imagined seeing this place at the height of the king salmon run, overflowing with cars and interesting characters. Thankfully, we were one of three cars there. Ultra cold conditions would make for sluggish fish, but its not like we had many weekends to chose from.

We walked down the slippery bank and headed downstream from the spillway, hoping to find some nice holes unoccupied. We did, and stepped into the water.

As the three of us spread out over a nice stretch, the zen experience of dead drifting in silence, with only the pull of the current on your legs and the zinging of sharkskin line registering in your mind.

As the day wore on, our feet got cold and we hooked a few fish. Each of us brought one into the net. Mostly, they were haggard fish that had been in the stream for a while, bearing the scars of run-ins with other’s hooks.

As the sun sank we fished a deep tailout and wrestled one or two more steelhead towards shore. We hiked back to the vehicle in darkness and peeled off the layers of clothes that kept the frostbite more or less at bay during the day. We rehydrated in the glow of our headlamps and drove off into the night looking for a place to stay.

This was a day I was looking forward to for quite some time. Seeing the fish my family and friends were pulling from the Great Lake tributaries while I lived far away was always something I enjoyed and I couldn’t wait to wade back into the water for a try at it myself. It was great to be on the water with my father, who is coming in to his own as a fly fishermen, and it was great, as always, to watch my brother do what he does best.

We slept like logs and awoke early the next morning for day two on the water…

-Matt

Grandpa's Stretch.

The story was often told on a car ride as we passed by. Like every family story it is told numerous times throughout your life until it gets to the point where one day, you will end up telling the story too; despite all the times you complained upon hearing it again and again. 

When I was a young boy, every time my family drove a long a particular road, my father would tell us that it was his Dad's favorite road to drive on. The road descends into a hollow along a small stream, where it is flanked by woods and small cottages overlooking the pavement. The few miles that the road encompasses are beautiful, especially during the fall when the leaves turn hues of yellow, orange, and red. My grandfather's favorite time of year. The road parallels our home water, a small stream containing a small population of wild brown trout before ending abruptly by joining a small highway. 

Whenever we passed the two sizable ponds down in the woods beyond the stream, my father would tell us that when his father was a young boy, he would walk the few miles from the nearby town where he lived, so he could fish this stretch of stream as well as the two ponds. In my youth, I always envisioned my grandfather walking to the stream in the dead heat of summer and finding solitude, shade, and cool water along its banks. I imagined him catching trout and sunfish all day long before walking back to town as the sun crept behind the hills. I also imagined that one day, I too would replicate this feat.

A decade later, I fished that stretch for the very first time. I found solitude and several willing brown trout to put a bend in my first fly rod. Since then, it has become one of my favorite stretches of water to fish and I routinely do so whenever I am in town. Often, I will walk its length, in the shadow of my grandfather stopping in the very same pools he probably stopped and fished in his youth. Maybe one day, the story will be passed on, and a future generation will find the very same thing awaiting them at the end of the road.  

People Say Carp Are Ugly?

Pucker Up.

Thats More Like It.

A Lunker.

Gin Clear & Cold.

Deep Bend Pools & Undercuts.

Still Low From the Summer Drought.

This Used To Be A Nice Hole.

Pretty Browns.

A Future Lunker.

Home Sweet Home.

Pulling on the layers of warm clothing beneath waders was a feeling that I hadn't realized I had missed. Stepping into the chilly waters and feeling the pull of the current on my legs brought a smile to my face. The 3wt I carried felt like it was made of air compared to the 10wts I usually wield. The 6x tippet was much thinner and more fragile than I'd remembered it to be. The winter in the northeast is beautiful, a different kind of beautiful than the caribbean, but beautiful nonetheless. I looked around and soaked in every detail; the crunch of the ice and leaves as we walked to the water, the scrape of branches against my wading jacket as we bushwhacked through the undergrowth, the strangely shaped ice formations and the dead leaves trapped against the rocks, wavering in the current. I was home.

Traveling home for the holidays was something I was looking forward to for many reasons, friends and family chief among them. After not experiencing a winter for two years, I was pumped to feel the cold air and see some snow.

I was also looking forward to some small stream fishing for wild browns.

Mark and I have fished these small tributaries on the last two Christmas Eve's that I was home for and it would be great to hit them up again. They flow in to a lake near our parent's house and are full of small, wild fish. Sometimes, larger fish will swim up from the lake to spawn, but that is exceedingly rare.

Wearing drab-colored wading jackets and tip-toeing our way into positions for proper drifts in the tiny pocket water, we were able to entice a few beautiful, perfectly formed gems from their lairs.

Brilliant.

The 3wt became comfortable after a few practice casts.

About 14 more articles of clothing than I am now used to wearing while fishing...

Spots.

Thanks, little guy.

First Carp of 2011.

Early November, and I deemed thee a time of late season carping. With descending water temperatures, cyprinus carpio is out of the shallows and prowling somewhere in the deep preparing itself for the long haul. Late November, and a change of plans had us back on the chase. Carp were nowhere to be found until one made a grand appearance and Adam made his chance count. I dubbed thee the last carp of 2010 and the end of our season. I remarked that I may or may not be eating those words but I suspected that maybe in the days following that last catch, I too would have one last chance before the end of the year. With the end approaching and anchor ice creeping out onto the lake, I figured my carp flies would be taking an extended break until early spring. I was wrong.

With the third and final day of a warm front on the east coast, temperatures approached the mid fifties. Ice had all but disappeared from several lakes in the area. It was my last day of my winter vacation and the first time in several weeks Adam and I would be hitting the water together. We decided at the last minute with only a few hours of light left in the day, to hit up the lake to see if carp were even a possibility. Even in terrible conditions we have settled into the idea that carp are worth more than the potential of slaying some nice trout. We arrived to find low light conditions, a steady wind, and several hundred geese on the water for the winter. To top it off, a few dozen people were enjoying the weather, including a group of young boys. They had a large stick tied to a rope with the intent of clubbing a geese on a wayward toss. The geese were freaking out. A lot of commotion for prime carp fishing in the spring let alone for January 2nd. Our line of visibility stretched a mere twenty feet into the lake and the water was cloudy from melting ice and snow. We decided to give it a go before packing it in. We were glad we did.

Been Awhile Since the Heart Sank & the Adrenaline From Carp Coursed Through Our Veins. 

First Bent Rod of 2011.

The Eruption.

As our eyes adjusted to the new water the same way a spelunker's does as he/she enters a cave, we discovered the tell tale outline of a decent carp in the murk. I took a shot with a damsel and laid my sixteen foot leader out onto the water. The damsel in distress descended two feet to the carp's left. She was interested and made a move in the flies general direction. I had lost sight of the fly moments after it hit the water due to the water clarity and instead relied on my sixth carping sense. I was rusty and she spooked. Adam and I had 5-6 more shots at lone ranger carp who were willing to investigate the shallows. Their orange outlines barely visible, I decided to switch to a sucker spawn imitation to increase my chances of seeing the take.

The Beach and Grasp.

Pumpkin Orange.

With only an hour left of light, I had one last chance and it all came together. I set the hook and felt the weight before the eruption occurred with the carp's realization of his folly. He made a run to a nearby branch in the water but I increased the drag pressure slightly to prevent the 4x from breaking. Soon, I beached him at my feet and posed with the first golden ghost of 2011. In a matter of hours I went from having to wait until early spring to catch a carp and instead found warming conditions and curious carp to ring in the first fish of the new year.

Hopefully Another Comes Sooner, Rather Than Later.

The Blogger Issue.

Awhile back, I was contacted by Blood Knot Magazine to write a piece for their upcoming issue showcasing fly fishing blogs. I was ecstatic that TRIW was chosen out of the hundreds, possibly thousands of fishing blogs on the internet to participate in such a grand idea. I wrote up my article, chose all my pictures carefully, and submitted them by the deadline. Feedback was great and I patiently awaited the release of the latest issue. I couldn't wait to see what all the other bloggers were up to. Today was the day and the issue lived up to my expectations. Although I didn't make the cut, some of my favorite blogs did, and their articles are outstanding. Check out the latest from Blood Knot Magazine at the link below. You'll be glad you did.

Blood Knot Magazine: The Blogger Issue

New Year, New Licenses.

Across the world, fly fishermen are ringing in the new year by dropping some hard earned cash. Our money is not spent on a new fly rod with the latest nano-resins or a spiffy new reel with a completely sealed carbon fiber drag but on something else entirely. We will be dropping some dough in order to have the right to fish and also to support our fish and game departments. Some of us will be buying a singular license for our respective home states, while others will need more to satiate their hunger for open water and fish. In my case, living in the mid-atlantic region, I will be forking over a few hundred dollars on a fresh round of licenses from several states. Throughout the year, I am sure my list and expenses will grow as I seek new water in new states. Licenses are a necessary evil that I have no problem buying despite the dent it puts in my pocket. Here is to a new year, new water, and new fish.

Happy new year everyone!