Emerger

I had a bit of a wander around the shore line for a couple of hours last night.Wasn't hoping for much, and thats what I got. That a couple of fish blew up on my fly was more than I had expected.

While going through some archived files, I came across a vid I shot several years back, but never posted. So. here it is now. Apparently made during the Cahill emergence of that year. I caught a lot of fish of nice fish using that fly.

Stormy on Horne.

Heheh........got caught by a thunderstorm while I was in the middle of the lake in my toon. Something I do not want to experience again anytime soon.

Before the evil little storm snuck up on me, I was having an odd time. In a couple of hours, I only caught 2 fish. This was unusual. More odd was the fact they were both big bass. Usually, panfish are all about and ready to play. Not today. Nary did I see a single one.

Today was the first day the temps had started to climb back up to at least the seasonal averages. I had previously mentioned I figured a spike in the temps would do my fishing some good. Did seem to work that way, for at least the bass.

Sky looks alright, and this is minutes from the deluge.
Came fast from the other direction.

I caught both bass in 12 -13 feet of water on Clousers. The first fish came shortly after starting. The second just before the rain two hours later. The first fish measured 16 inches and weighed 2 1/2lbs. Second fish saw no measurement device. It was however, considerably larger than the first, and larger than the 4lb fish I caught earlier this season, making it my biggest bass to date. That fish gave me a great fight. I could see under water foliage on my finder, and caught this fish above it. He immediately dove down into it and made things a lot more difficult for me. My wrist is still sore from the scrap.

Hands down the fly rod was the better option for me today. Could not even get a panfish to hit my spin gear. The bass were both caught on sparsely tied Clousers. Predominately yellow, with red and green crystal flash highlights.

The weather quickly turned to shit tonight. A very dark line of storm clouds snuck up on me. I could not see their approach from where I was in the lake. When I noticed it suddenly get dark, I looked up and it was on top of me. I managed to get two thirds of the way back to the launch before I was caught in a vicious downpour. The waves were kicked up pretty high by a fierce wind, and it was all I could do to get to the nearest landfall. Hauled my toon and gear through some pretty intense foliage. I will assess the damage latter.

Continuing on a theme...............

The fish on the Grand continue to respond to Micro Caddis. Mind you, they now seem to prefer a 22 to a 20, and 7x tippet seems to be required as well. Weeks back, the whole river was rising to the hatch. Not so much now. Still great fishing though, but the rising fish have certainly thinned. It has been some time since I've had to change to a different pattern. Fish that have been sipping ( as opposed to the splashy rise forms often associated with caddis ) are also usually on the MC's..........just the cripples and dead.

You'll notice the patterns I use are really simple. Deer Hair/Elk Hair, dubbing and antron on the X-Caddis. They're tied onto Tiemco 206BL's #20's. There a curved shank emerger hook. I tie it on the straight part of the hook, making for a slightly smaller pattern. The wide gape does make hook ups far easier than a standard hook.

Yeah man, I'll be out again tomorrow. With a box stuffed full of Deer Hair and X-Caddis MC's. Gears rigged and ready by the door, a 22 on the end.

Short Vid

Just a bit of vid pulled from footage shot over the last while. Still have to sort out a solution for compiling footage.

Camping and Fishing on the Grand.

Flybox Fox Trot.

I love taking fish off the top. This was something that came with me from spin fishing. I was a topwater junkie by 6. Watching bass smash a Hula Popper was one of my favourite sights. With trout.........the sight of rising fish is just glorious. Its a beautiful sight, watching the trout take thier dinner from the surface. Sometimes, the fish have manners. Lightly picking their dinner fare from the surface. At other times, they are like Homer Simpson at a doughnut eating contest...........smashing the surface to inhale their favoured fare of the day. For me..........surface feeders usually foreshadow a good day of fishing..........if you can find the key.

If you can`t match the hatch, that can lead to some major frustrations. Having a river full of fish rising, but only manage one or two............well, thats an epic fail on our parts. We missed the match. It happens. If you haven`t encountered a specific hatch, you may not have a suitable imitation for it.......so, its back to the vise and a shot at redemption the next day. All pretty straight forward.

Then............there are days where not only do you encounter every fish in the river rising, but also every available insect hatching. This can present a whole new set of problems which can be found under the header, `Complex Hatch`. A complex hatch can be a difficult one to contend with. Even if you do have a match to what the insects have keyed on, you still have to figure it out, and put it on in time. Often, fish will have zoned in on one hatch, often the most prolific. This is good. You find the key, tie it on, and catch fish. Easy peasy, almost as if the competing hatches don`t exist. But things can get much more irksome.

What if some fish are on one bug, then switch to another.....or another stage of the same bug. What if different fish, are on different bugs? You can be dancing through your flybox looking for that right fly, for the right fish, In a limited time. I came across the most shining example of such a complex hatch the other night. Various Caddis, Light Cahills, BWO's, Cranes.......all coming off, or coming down. I had hit the water at around 4:30'ish and sat to watch a section of river that was devoid of trout rising. Chubs were going nuts. There were decent numbers of Cahills coming off since around noon, and the little guys were sucking them up. Fish attacking insects larger than themselves. I will not be surprised when I finally see a mayfly take off with a tiny fish latched to its leg. It had been an odd day. The morning never really took off. I watched a lot of water flow past without much happening. Sporadically checking the river throughout the day yeilded no results. So, I was realatively confident something should happen. When it did, it was fast, furious and frantic.

For 2 hrs only a very occasional trout showed itself. Then a number of trout started moving on bugs at the same moment. In a couple of minutes the entire river was full of risers.........taking emergers ( and the occasional dun ). Including a decent fish. SO, I slowly got into the water and moved into a position were I could observe that fish. It was pushing good water, and defintely on emergers. A day earlier fish here had been taking Cahill emergers. I was confident they'd be on that today. That was actually the plan. Beat up the fish on Cahill emergers. So I wasn't surprised when my first cast into its feeding lane was sucked up without hesitation. It was a very short hook up, but good enough to make sure that particular fish wouldn't show himself again. Oh well, onto other fish and successes. However, after a relatively brief burst of productiveness, the fly stopped producing. WTF? Something else had changed........the rise forms. They were now sipping and splashing rise forms. I could see no Adult Caddis or may duns getting sucked up..............so I was thinking something small, or difficult to see. My first though was...Black Caddis, Spent Caddis, Cranes, or BWO's. A look into the drink showed numerous cranes. The splashing and sipping is something I associate both with the crane........so on went the crane. Instant and undeniable success! Yippee. But wait! Whats this? After another brief window my fly is ineffective. Fish are now all splashy. Hmmmm........lots a caddis? Which one? After flipping through my caddis, leaving my box in disarray, I find more immediate success on a #20 TanTan Caddis. Kewl. Ask me how surprised I was when the fish all started sipping shortly after.
Here I got stuck. At first, I tried a BWO......as the days weather had me thinking they should make an appearence. My #20 dun and emerger patterns got rejected. A former guide/friend tells me the were smashing #22 Bwo's in the upper stretches. I hadn't come across any BWO's that small before ( edit: Yes I have...........somehow brain cramped on this. )and had none in my box. Or if I had, a 20 had sufficed. However, when I was rejected...I had a good long look at the drink and saw the #22 spinners. I first tried a #20 color appropriate spinner. First cast.........rejected. It was a little large, but I liked the attention. So, on goes a 22 spinner. Instant success! Problem solved. Of course, when I dealt with that fish, and looked to the river............there was now no fish moving anywhere. At all. Nothing.

SO it was off to the bank for a rest and a look see. Then a short time later back to the campsite. All of the activity had taken place within a two hour period!!!!

Oddly enough I had been talking to an angler the other night, who had related to me something he had read about the different types of anglers. One type, is the type that falls into the 'as many as possible' category. Next, was the 'biggest possible'. And last we had ' size, numbers not as much, as technical as possible.' I like to believe I fall into the third category, having worked through the first two.

In my opinion, working through a complex hatch can be difficult enough. Often, we can get lucky and the key is fish are on one of the hatches and stuck there. Having to go through a night like I did was definetly an exception. And with such a short window on each bug? I can't remember that happening to me before. It may have, but I can't remember it. In order to keep step at all, I had to be stocked with the requisite flies. I had anticapated to be fishing to trout on Cahill emergers. That I had the needed flies ( with the excetion of 22 BWO's ), spoke more to preparedness than blind luck. I was happy about that. I also thoroughly enjoy figuring out fish. Waiting, watching, then talking a fish into taking the first cast gets my rocks off. When its a good fish, its as close to perfection as I've experienced on this plane.............well short of the aid from hallucingenic substances. For one brief moment, you were perfect in the eye's of the fish, and god.

I would have been far more successful had the fish kindly done as I hoped and stayed on the Cahill emergers for the night. Just the changing of flies and tippet cost me valuable time. However, I was savvy enough to be aware of the changing rise pattern, and check the drink for the cause. And I figured the fish. And while I havehad much better days on the water in terms of fish numbers and size, not all will be remembered as long as this evening, when I and the trout did the flybox fox trot.


edit: I more than certainly familiar with #22 BWO's. I have dozens of them tied up in my UC box............and a look at one of my older sites reaffirmed this. Can't explain this brain cramp. Maybe 4 seasons off? More likely Ian Martins evil little book on the Grands Hatches that has misinformed me more than once. I had been pouring over that lately and poisoning my brain once again.

A good week. For once. God damnit.

I can't even begin to tell you how thrilled I am to start putting in some real time on the water this season. After losing the previous four, I'm downright ecstatic.

Having been knocked out of beat, my rythym with the river disrupted, I hadn't been expecting to enjoy the success I have. But for whatever the reason, the river gods have been kind to me. The bugs have been doing what I expected, when I expected. The fish were behaving properly, rising to the plethora of insect activity. In my limited outings over the previous few years, this was certainly not the case. I don't want to even get into how I could walk into a blanket hatch and find no fish rising. And, well, that really screwed with my shit.

Fishing the Grand over four days last week, one evening, 3 days, provided some great fun. The fish were co-operative, taking Caddis adults and emergers. Being somewhat limited in mobility, and time ( back is still bad, I have to limit my hours on the water ), I've stopped obsessing with the piggy hunt. Now I'm generally content just to peg whatever rises. That fish were caught requiring a net was a happy bonus.

I'll finish this off with some footage shot over a couple of days. Unfortunately, my camera person on the occasion wasn't as keen on getting footage as they were fish. Can't blame'em.........but it is a fail if you are designated 'CAMERA OPERATOR'. I certainly have no inate need to show off fish I catch, but they certainly do add some flavour to a 'fishing' video. Certainly it was an opportunity missed...........you just can't gaurantee good fishing. But hey, something is better than nothing............... High and Dry.