Autumn Is For The Birds

No I haven't been fishing in a couple of weeks, so I'm a little distracted..............my wife would tell you I'm always that way, and maybe she's right.

The first "bird" we'll discuss is of the two-legged species. An older bird, who's wife is of the blue haired variety and one that generally takes an obstreporous view of even the slightest change. On Saturday morning, volunteers assisted Trout Unlimited in planting trees along a section of the Musconetcong River as part of their stream restoration project on this fine New Jersey trout stream. There were about 30 of us, mostly unshaven, unshowered middle-aged men like myself, some of whom smelled of the prior night's drinking activities. When all was said and done, we had planted over 300 trees along several hundred yards of stream bank. (Go to the NJ Trout Unlimited link in the right margin for more info and photos of this gnarly crew - and the two youts that had to put up with us.)

So anyways, this old bird calls the state and tells them he is going to kill all the trees we planted.  He also tells one of the volunteers he is going to spray them with Roundup.  Seems he thinks we did a bad thing planting these trees.  He prefers the grass - nevermind that he doesn't own the property - that grass is his and dang-it, them trees don't belong there, even if they stabilize the river bank.

On Sunday morning I did my usual greeting of the day - slowly opening the bedroom curtains to expose the wilderness surrounding the house so as not to frighten any creratures - and there drinking from our pond was a huge, ten-point buck with his harem of does nervously millling about the grass behind him.  By the time I got my camera, he had moved into the woods and out of clear range.

But all was not lost.  In the tree just off the corner of the house there was a pair of Pileated Woodpeckers.  Beautiful birds, clinging to the bark and turning their heads this way and that, as they crept along and studied the surface for burrowing bugs.  Here's one working away on its quest for breakfast.

And here are the two of them after they moved to a new tree further from the house..

          

There are birds and there are birds, some are so-called for their attitude, and some for their altitude.

I prefer the red-headed variety.

Going Back to Go Forward - The Rogue River is Free Again

If you have ever fished the Rogue River in Oregon, you what a beautiful river it is......and yesterday, "The wild and scenic Rogue River has become even wilder with the demolition of a dam that had hindered passage of salmon and steelhead to their spawning grounds for 88 years."

Here's the full story from the NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/10/10/us/AP-US-Rogue-Gets-Wilder.html

One more dam down, plenty more to go.....................

Early Autumn Bliss

A couple of friends and I fished Sunday afternoon and not only was the fishing good, the weather was mighty fine as well. Due to some technical diffculties, the posting of this report was delayed.................and also due to  those same difficulities my original text of the event has taken leave of this post.  (It is Friday morning, I wrote the original on Sunday evening......the time stamp is crazy....I'm very glad I don't rely on techno to fish.) So without further postponment, here is the report in an abbreviated form.  Hopefully, the photos will be worth a thousand words, or at least a few more than I have time to write here.

The river - low, clear, but cool and inviting.  Throughout the afternoon there was a steady hatch of tiny Blue-winged Olives and a smattering of October Caddis.  The trout cooperated and eagerly took a well presented fly.  In the faster riffles and runs, my October Caddis dry (see prior posts), was the ticket.  In the flat water and slower runs, a size #24 BWO thorax dry was the required imitation.

A typical wild brown trout taken on a BWO.

A decent sized brown taken on a size #10 October Caddis fished right up into pocket water at the head of a pool - the fly is still in his jaw.  The trout in these stretches were aggressive and the fly barely moved 6 inches after landing before it would be hammered.  Hooking these fish was difficult, but unless you pricked them on a missed set, they would continue to rise and you'd have another shot.

An October Caddis that decided to join the party at our house the night before.  He didn't seem to eat or drink much though.

My imitation as fished above...............you can see it in the trout's mouth.....I know, the thorax is light hare's ear.  It works better than if I use orange dyed hare's ear - go figure, or better yet, ask the trout why they prefer it this way.  It's one of the mysteries of fly fishing I hope we never figure out because it would stop being fun and delightfully perplexing.

Get out and fish before the falling leaves make it near impossble...............

He Could Have Been Talking to Himself.......

Thanks to Ron Luchesi for this one

I'll Take Mine in a Size 24, No Mustard

That's what the trout have been saying the last couple of evenings.  Anything less (larger), and we'll just take a quick looksee and not even move from our cushion on the stream bottom.

Even when the size was right, the drift had to be pretty darned good to elicit a rise and closeup inspection by the trout.  Only a perfect presentation was worthy of a take, and most of those were done with the utmost caution.  Nerves of steel were necessary to get a hook up, as the takes were so touchy - you had to wait a split second before tightening the line to set up.  They needed time to actually sip it in, as the fish somehow knew that an artificial fly typically disappeared the second their lips touched the fly.  So....you see the trout rise to the fly, he tips upwards and glides through the water column, eyes on the prize.  Sometimes he turns away at the last moment, seeing something he doesn't quite like, leaving a soft wake that pushes the fly just enough to see it move.  Other times, he opens slightly, hesitates, and if you can stand to hold your relaxed tension for one half second more, he sips it in...........barely.  When the hook did find flesh, it wasn't much.

This little, size 24, blue-winged olive took a bunch of browns and rainbows the last couple of evenings.  It got beat pretty bad, but is still fishable as you can see.  And because I'm blind, I didn't notice I had forgtten to flatten the barb on this one and only noticed when I looked at this blow-up of the fly.  Tsk, tsk..................

I also took a few on this simple midge emerger.

And finally, the Isonychia/Slate Drake emeger tied with a caribou hair wing.  As dusk approached each evening, enough of the naturals started to hatch that I could switch to this larger fly (that I can see, damnit) and continue to catch fish.  This is another well-chewed fly that will be fished until it falls apart or joins others in a tree branch.

Get out and fish.  The weather's fine, and the fish are cooperative.

There's nothing like a well-chewed fly!

Did Someone Rewrite the Rules of Common Decency? Or "Have a Nice F*#king Day

I must have missed the revised edition of the book of manners wherein it defines respect and common courtesy.   Apparently, some guy I met yesterday did get the newly published rules, and proceeded to show me shove them down my throat.

Here's how it went down, you be the judge.  Should I go back and kiss this guy's ass as he requested of me, or should I have kicked his ass, or just let it go as I did.

I was deep in thought about nothing and imbibing in the fresh crisp air of very early Autumn, fishing the top of a run where a number of trout were rising softly to take tiny blue-winged olives off the surface.  The long pool above me was empty as far as the eye could see - 150 yards at least.  Below me, about 50 yards downstream, was a friend who had joined me in the quiet pursuit of fishing tiny flies in low, very clear, gently flowing water to wary trout.  The only sounds were the soft raindrop-on-water sounds of fish sipping in the minutiae and song birds on the wing overhead.

I had just taken a small wild brown trout on an emerger when someone walked up the trail past me and proceeded to fish from the edge of the water at the lower end of the pool above me.  No problem there, he must be going to work his way up through the long,empty riffle/pool.  Plenty of fish in there.

Instead he worked his way downstream, eventually swinging his wet flies through the water I was fishing.  At first I ignored him, thinking he can't be that stupid that he thinks its okay to fish over me.  Maybe he was going to stop after making a few passes.  But no, not only did he keep fishing downstream, before long he was fishing within 25 feet of me. Not cool, not necesary.

So, I asked him if he was going to keep fishing downstream.  He ignored me and even made a cast right over my line.  I then said, "I guess you are going to ignore me as though I am not here."

Without looking up, he said he was just fishing his water and moving downstream. 

His water.  His WATER.  As though anyone else that might happen to be fishing should move aside for him.

I didn't move and before long he realized I wasn't going to. So he reeled in and hitched up the bank and started walking downstream just above me.  He then yelled, "Have a nice f*#king day!"

I looked up at him, and said calmly, "Are you kidding me?  I then continued to cast.

"Are you trying to intimidate me?" he yelled.  "What is that?"

I ignored him, and thought, What the hell is he talking about?

"Who the f*#k are you?  There are miles of river and you have to fish here!"  he had the balls to say. 

I turned and said, "Are you serious?  Do you think I should have moved on when you came?  You're nuts!........You need to learn some manners."

He then waited until he had walked some distance and then told me to, "Kiss my ass!"

I looked toward him and said in as sweet a tone as I could, "Okay."

"Jackass!" Was his only response......which he repeated as he walked down past Chris.

He then stepped in just downstream of Chris and again mumbled something about the jackass.  I then asked Chris if he was still using a bugger (woolley bugger fly), to which Chris loudly said, "No, I think there are enough BUGGERS in the gorge today!"

Touche'.................and have a nice day.

Do Trout See in Black and White?

Does anyone really know for sure?  If they do, here's what our flies may look like to them.  Compare these to the same flies I posted the other day and besides the obvious color difference, you'll see the same bright and dark areas nicely contrasted.  In some ways, I prefer the subtleness of these over the colored versions.  The lack of color also allows the mind to focus on the textures of the materials - natures way of letting our eyes "touch" them with our mind.

  

The Leadwing Coachman wet fly - see the hardness of the steel, the smooth, ridged mallard feather wing, and the soft peacock herl body?  To us, its pleasing to the eye; to the trout its food....or maybe the trout also have an artistic lobe in their tiny brains just as we do when a well prepared dish is set in front of us.  "That looks almost too good to eat!"  Then we dig in anyway.

The October Caddis - the simple contrast of the soft fur body and thorax combined with the stiff elk hair wing over a bed of light bending antron.  I'm betting the trout would take it in this colorless state just as they do in our world of rainbows.

The Peach Sulphur - something about that quill body disturbs my eye.  Its too perfect, no taper or edges as might be found in a natural insect..................they work though, so who's to argue with a trout?

That's it for the art show.  Nothing earth shattering, but interesting all the same...to me at least.  When I convert my photos to B and W, I always see something in them that I didn't see in the color versions.

Kind of like taking off rose colored glasses..................