With pals like me a fellow may grow fond of his enemies

This time of year a fellow has to tiptoe around all those packages sprinkled at his door for fear he opens the wrong one and is accused of peeking …

At this late juncture there are no surprises under our tree, no inflatable love dolls or mysterious oblong packages that resemble a new fly rod.

The harsh reality is our Destiny is pedestrian; lumps of coal interspersed with socks – or tee shirts with the neck as yet unstretched.

All of us had them same meager roots …Older Bro and I would grit our teeth knowing we were getting designer underwear compliments of the Emporium basement sale, as Ma loved her Italian designer, “Irregulare’.”

Today was no different, as I tripped over all the accumulated packages at the back door, one rattled fetchingly as it rolled toward the planter box and I knew it was That Which Cannot Be Mentioned. The first of many sins I’ll commit against our beloved sport.

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Naturally I spritz a bit of it on the doorjamb and note the piquant yet aged notes of over-ripe crustacean, and nod appreciatively knowing the Scent of Mashed Crayfish might feature prominently in my trips to the Pristine as well.

I keep thinking of That Guy, the fellow a friend invites that forgets half his tackle and ends up borrowing your toothbrush.

… and in the pre-Dawn blackness, he fumbles for his kit and finds his deodorant a couple of hundred miles South … and could he burrow mine …

Sure, I says, reaching for my vest …

The lack of water allowing us to see clearly

Outside of amusement for me, the purpose of all these unloved and untrammelled canals is to move water away from its natural drainage and force it into the dry portions of the Central Valley floor. With California’s lust for water intensive crops like rice and tomatoes, nearly every rivulet draining the coast range has been rerouted and reused many times over.

… which explains its gray-brown opaqueness.

Yet with the past couple of posts and the research we’ve undertaken on fish behavior and senses, there is still a bit more we can learn from our adversary that may maximize our ability to fish this unloved taint.

There are two basic types of waterways on the valley floor, man-made and “man-enhanced.”

“Man-Made” is self explanatory, someone takes a backhoe through the rich loam and flushes water through the scratch that results. “Man-enhanced” being something that started naturally, like a drainage or depression, and was augmented by a back hoe to make a larger waterway capable of greater capacity.

Some are lined with plastic membrane and the rest are not. The plastic prevents absorption of the water as it travels, and assists in slowing the gradual collapse of the banks into the main channel. This being a land without rock, nothing holds its shape for long.

Both types require periodic dredging to remain useful, the difference being the duration between backhoe visitations.

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The above is an unlined trench. Note the flat and featureless bottom. The cement structure drains the canal back into the owning waterway, whereas the dry fork leads to the golf course further downstream.

Examining the bank in the above photo we can see that the water level never exceeds 18” – which is the distance up the sides the water has scrubbed the ground clean of foliage. If we were looking into the water from the bank above we’d be unable to tell how deep it was, and therefore might spend time fishing it thinking it deep enough to support fish.

I had reconnoitered this structure before thinking it might also serve as a natural Crayfish trap once the summer flows recede, but the few claws that I found suggested the surrounding shallow water is essentially lifeless.

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Another shot further upstream. A featureless flat mud bottom that is slowly filling in with bank erosion and the sediment burden the water carries.

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This small ditch is about 12 feet wide and at the moment is about 6 inches deep. It’s about half the size of our golf course trench above, is about the same depth when full, yet is home to fish in the 15” –16” inch range.

… that’s visually confirmed fish, including two corpses in the weed pile removed from the grating below. Naturally they’re fish that you’d as soon drive past enroute to someplace cleaner, but “cleaner” is closed until April, and this is free and will keep you false casts and wind knots year round.

I’m standing where the water is pulled into a wastewater treatment facility, so the source of why fish live here is obviously at the other end. The Sacramento river is the closest natural waterway, and about three miles distant, and if the two connect that would be the source of my fish.

In between waiting on the UPS driver for the odds and ends I’ve ordered to properly exploit the watershed, I’ll focus on what tidbits of knowledge I’ve gleaned …

The water is shallow and the bottom is muddy and flat.

Any cover that holds fish will be organic and likely visible from above, as constant dredging removes anything more substantial.

Flies should be lightly weighted and should vibrate or rattle when pulled through the water …

… and scent is a plus yet not a priority.

My quarry is likely anything wearing feelers, as well as the omnivores like Suckers and Pikeminnow, things that grow big on brown water food groups, decayed goat, Lawnmower and the occasional mayfly.

Why you’re a prick if you fish a Copper John

Considering that Science is a stale read, I livened up my research by poring over pages of BASS forum datum, searching for “cable guy” wisdom on the use of scent on baits.

BASS fiends are more fun than fly fishermen, but only because they have so many more hang-ups (and such thin skins) …

Mention to a fly fisherman that he “coaches soccer,” and you get that screwed up face suggesting the joke was lost on him, whereas the bass crowd is already climbing over the bar intent on your arse …

In short, science suggests scent in fish is somewhat synonymous with taste, and it makes perfect sense. In humans scent is particulate matter mixed with air, and taste is particulate matter dissolved in spittle. Each sense being chemically discrete and can be experienced without the data intruding from one to the other.

Fish “smell” particles dissolved in water and their “taste” is the same medium, so the two senses have overlap.

The physics of water and scent is reasonably obvious. The rush of water downstream carries scent and forms a plume from the source of the dissolved solid. Lake water has much less of a current and therefore the scent area is a slowly widening circle from the source of the particulate.

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Naturally my slow moving ditch water has neither appreciable current nor is it completely stagnant, so the chemical trail of any bait tossed within its banks will be slow in spreading.

That’s the good news.

Science drops the bombshell by suggesting polluted waters affect smell drastically, and even fish exposed in migration can suffer many weeks of scent impairment. Among the most drastic pollutants are metals, heavy or otherwise.

The worst of the worst being copper, which should send a cold chill up any fisherman’s spine …

Copper is most frequently deployed as an algaecide or fungicide. Significant amounts of copper in the water column result from farm field runoff from crops that are water intensive like rice or tomatoes.

As we’re discussing those drainage ditches that bisect California’s Central Valley, we know that copper is deployed wherever there is rice fields, which comprises about half the state.

Naturally its the Northern half – which means all that copper is in the Sacramento, and pushed down to Southern California via the aqueduct, and spat into San Francisco Bay after permeating the Delta.

Copper is apparently linked to the decline of California’s Coho salmon population given its ability to destroy taste and smell in salmonids, making them unable to detect waterborne predators like Pike minnow, Otters, and everything else the southern water districts conjure up as a Jihadist of salmon.

So while you’re buying all that antimony because you can no longer bear to throw lead into the creek, consider your use of copper wire ribbing and how many fish are bumping into things because of your errant back casts and the rusting Copper John’s left in your wake.

Even worse is how Copper is being used to mitigate Didymo … and in so doing, will play havoc on everything downstream.

The Bass crowd are adamant on the merits of Anise, Garlic, Eau D’ Earthworm, Shrimp, Shad, Herring, and Crawfish. Naturally, they don’t spend a lot of time offering science to back up their assertion that Bass adore Garlic, but they can claim it makes their own hammy hands smell less like human.

… and fish hate human … along with tobacco, urine, bubblegum and a smoking fry pan …

In short, scent is among the senses used to detect prey, as bugs and minnows, crayfish and frogs, all have a chemical plume downstream of them, assisting a fish in opaque water to located them by following that plume upstream to its source.

Polluted water means fish can smell less, but as murk water is a fly fisherman’s Achilles Heel, cannot be ignored as a source of attraction.

Bass anglers mention that both aerosol and liquid scents seem to wash off faster than the “sticky jelly” variant, so it sounds like we’ll be getting our hands dirty …

Murk Water and the Vesicles of Savi

Counter to what we’re taught with traditional angling, we don’t run out to buy a vest and a thousand dollar rod simply to fish the vastness that is the murk water.

Rather, we’ll be channeling a lot of Arthur Conan Doyle, and learn the weaknesses of our quarry and his environment, knowing we’re not likely to be holding aces when fishing water with little or no visibility.

“Brown Water” is not brownlining, brown is merely a convenient pseudonym for a body of clay-rich and filthy … the presence of enough suspended sediment to make sight essentially useless.

Our normal fly tying arsenal of eye-searing colors and tinsel Bling is useless when visibility is so scant, as neither the hottest of Oranges nor the flash of iridescence can be seen under any light condition.

Yet those who’ve dipped salted clams for Catfish and other bottom dwelling bewhiskered species can vouch for their being well fed, suggesting fish acclimated to this environment have little issue finding food in opaque water.

It’s plain that something other than visuals draws predators to their prey, and it’s likely that the commotion of a struggling fish might travel further underwater than its visuals. Larger food items are likely to have a signature swimming motion allowing predators to quickly pounce on known items due to their swimming rhythm.

A mud burrowing mayfly may struggle enroute to the surface, but its small size is liable to have a proportional disturbance, which would have an insignificant signature compared to a larger baitfish or swimming frog.

Murk water has plenty of hatching insects, but hatches and surface bugs doesn’t yield the same swarm of opportunistic feeders. The rhythmic dimples we see with clear water species and bug hatches are the result of sight feeding and share no parallels in opaque water.

The science of fish and opaque water (or the impenetrable blackness of low light) is completely fascinating, and suggests that fish have as many as three tools to locate prey without relying on visuals.

First, it may surprise some that fish actually have ears, and their range of hearing (detectable frequencies) varies considerably among species. Scientists classify fish as “hearing specialists” – fish with an ability to hear a greater range of noise frequencies, “hearing generalists” – fish that can hear better than average, and regular fish, like Salmon and Trout with only marginal hearing.

Therefore, for most ?shes that rely on hearing only through particle stimulation mechanism, their hearing ability is limited to a narrow frequency band (less than 1000  H z) with high sound pressure threshold (as high as 120   dB at the best frequency). Such ?shes are hence termed  “ hearing generalist ”  species.

It should be little surprise that many of our dirty water fish like Carp and Catfish are among the hearing specialists.

However, fishes in the superorder Ostariophysi (e.g., cyprinoids, characoids, and siluroids) have a specialized mechanical coupling structure (i.e., the Weberian ossicles) that connect the gas bladder to the inner ear (Furukawa and Ishii 1967 ). Hence, vibrations caused by the passing sound to the gas bladder are transmitted to the ears and hearing abilities are enhanced. Because of their extended hearing frequency range (up to 8000 Hz in certain catfish) and low thresholds (60 dB in goldfish), these fishes are called “ hearing specialist ” species.

In addition to the ears of fish, a fish can also detect vibration in the water around it via its lateral line. It turns out this organ is poorly understood among ichthyologists, and while there is much thought and conjecture, there is a great deal of unknown about its function. What we do know is it is host to numerous types of receptors and its complete range of capabilities is still unknown.

The lateral line has mechanical receptors able to detect vibration in the water around it, akin to a second type of “hearing”. Less well known is the ability of the lateral line to detect electrical fields, the ability to discern the presence of a living organism due the change in their surrounding electrical current.

All organisms produce electrical currents. A variety of aquatic organisms can detect these currents with specialized neurons. Such electrical sense has been found in a number of invertebrates and many aquatic vertebrates including sharks, fish, and even mammals such as the duckbill platypus. Electrical senses are important in turbid waters such as muddy rivers or the vicinity of a bleeding victim after a shark takes its first bite (scarlet billows, through the water ….). Often, the electrical sense neurons are concentrated near the head or in a structure that is placed in contact with a muddy bottom, such as the barbels on the chin of a catfish (which also have chemoreceptors), or the bill of a platypus. Other organisms go so far as to create their own weak electrical currents (modified muscles can do the trick) and actively search out prey.

As turbid water emits “noise” both audible and vibrational, consider your average trout stream to be an exceptionally noisy environment. Water flow around obstacles creates vibration as does current when it scours streambed and propels rocks and debris downstream.

Like light, high pitched noise (high frequency) travels the shortest distance in fluid. So if we’re tiptoeing around the creek and bark our shin on a stone – emitting a girly-nasal-screech will scare less fish than a throaty epithet …

And were we to pull all that murk water auditory science into fly design, we’d want larger beads in the rattle than smaller beads to make the noise as deep (low frequency) as possible, we’d want as many things sticking out of the fly as we could to cause vibrations when yanked through the water, we’d want the thing weedless as we have no idea what peril we’re throwing it at, and we’d want it to throw a dab of static into the water column to alert predators that it has a heartbeat versus some shoddy silicon wiggletail …

… and smell, smell would be nice …

Where “Teddy” becomes “Gordo”

Every angler vows to hone their skills in Winter so they won’t miss a beat come Spring, but practicing at the pond is less exciting than imagined, and as cold as Winter can be, only those with a yen for multiple species find the conviction to brave icy water.

I know, only because I have to convince myself to fish in the murk water in the best of times, and when conditions are less than odiferous optimal, even chores look attractive by comparison.

With midday temperatures a bit higher than freezing, I spent more time looking than casting, but as daunting as my task appeared I know I have considerable more of this …

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… than clean water.

These many hundreds of miles of despoiled opaque water hold plenty of fish, but requires we face the Demons of the Sport, something no self respecting fly fisherman will do when there are lawns to mow – or less troubled spots to fish.

We all know fly fishing has three horrible weaknesses; we can’t sink stuff fast enough, we can’t attract stuff that can’t see the bug, and we have plenty of fellows that insist anyone attempting the other two is a spin fisherman and should be shunned.

Being comfortable with the “Bull in A China Shop” role, I think the “Teddy Gordon” role is about played out, and most of the frontiers left in our sport involve one of the three above.

Fortunately all them tea-guzzling Orvis types bought into the bead-head phenomenon, so we were able to slip brass and tungsten by them without ruining their sport too much, even if they are as dangerous to us as they are to the fish when hurled with a six-weight …

… and while our flies sink a bit better than the fuse wire variant, our offerings neither stink nor rattle, so they don’t enjoy much murk water success.

I’ve got spinner blades and rattles and have broken faith with the rest of the crowd with my absorbent cotton chenille, “super sinking stink flies,” destined to mine the fetid ooze with as much gusto as an AuSable Wulff dances through the riffle water …

“What I done this Winter” is likely to be murk water heresy, so it may be time to avert your eyes.

Trout Underground victorious in Stienstra Lawsuit

lawsuitThe Trout Underground has successfully defending itself from a spurious lawsuit by San Francisco Examiner Outdoor columnist Tom Stienstra.

Mr. Stienstra took exception to the Underground mentioning his apparent 2010 Marijuana bust, and chose to flex a bit of judicial muscle, albeit a bit tardy given the statute of limitations had expired on any potential defamation complaint.

I suppose the angling version of the judge’s gentle reminder would’ve been, “ … you should’ve sued him last week.”

Anyone who’s ever relied on information provided by weather-people or outdoor columnists (present company included) should not be surprised someone was smoking something …

You can read the Underground’s initial report of the incident at the link above. Myself, I see it as a simple narration of facts reported by other news sources and have trouble with the concept of apparent malicious intent.

Thinking of the great heritage angling writing has – and the many colorful characters that have added to angling lore, the only surprise here may be denial. Amid all the flashing bulbs and stern gendarmes leading some minor angling worthy to the Hoosegow, should be an unapologetic smile and a couple of choice epithets for the press.

That’s the stuff of legend … not, “I never inhaled …”

And the Angel on the left shoulder said …

I always wondered what the connection was between my “Gasoline Leech” and the brown water environment. I’ve not thumbed my nose at my quarry for exploiting their obvious weakness – rather I’ve just assumed it was a bit of good fortune that the plastic beads rolled off the table into the bag of Olive marabou.

Blink. Light bulb.

Naturally the fly fisherman in me suggested my creation the product of profound knowledge and artistic genius. My insight into the tainted watershed about me, the creatures that call it home, and the things found dripping into or oozing out of – rolled into a single creative whirlwind of fish death …

… but the scientist in me suggested there was not enough data to assume any connection between the gawky beaded mess and the fish that eat it, and a carrot stick trundled through the pool would have as much impact if twitched fetchingly …

“All living things seek pleasure and avoid pain,” being the scientific rationale why the former is more palatable than the latter. Despite the absence of an impartial third party I was all set to fit that olive wreath to my brow …

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… when “Chumley” barfed lunch into my hand …

The fly fisherman in me exclaimed, “I’ve seen that before on the Upper Pit River, when the trout root in the vegetation for Ephemera SmallishKindaBrownia … Your Prescience has extended that cold-water treatise to the present odiferous watershed.”

The internal scientist suggested I was an egoist and hadn’t had an original thought in months. After being pickled in agricultural chemicals and estrogen, bugs taste about as “buglike” as a McNugget resembles chicken, and any fish with brains goes Vegan …

Blink. Light bulb. Fillet this one … it may be the final indignity.

So long as it’s smaller than us it’s worth tormenting

In this occasionally competitive pastime we’ve either heard or relied on the familiar disclaimer, “ .. despite all the fish you’ve caught the truly important thing is simply getting out in the woods and having fun.”

… which my pal mentioned to me today after the long hike in gale force winds, unforeseen cold water immersion, and obligatory bee sting.

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Immersed to his chin in cold water and enduring all with nary a hint of complaint.

I caught two but grudgingly let him beat me to the “frog jerky”. Desiccated amphibian mashed fetchingly against streambed cobble compliments of a passing four wheeler.

On occasion I’ve mused what life would be like if I could lick my nuts like he can, naturally I’ve assumed he thinks the same of my opposing thumb and fiberglass wand.

I don’t think he’s trading up anytime soon.

I don’t blame him.

If you peed enough Bacon would trout want a pork chop?

wastwater3It started with the discovery that hot flashes and night sweats lead to wastewater rich in estrogen and other hormones, making everything downstream of our treatment facilities female and completely irrational near a shoe sale.

Now our worst fears are becoming scientific certainty, anything we eat, drink, and pizzle, dips our watersheds and its many residents in a chemical cocktail of human excesses.

That which is excreted by us is swallowed by them. “Them” being fish both common and noble, insects, tadpoles, frogs, newts, and anything else that buries a muzzle in the creek to drink.

As anglers we’ve limited our outdoor competencies to the lifecycles of fish and insects. Entomology is used as the only device to explain both angling phenomena and our good fortune. Everything else, the lack of fish, the presence of Didymo, the absence of trash, the color of the water, its opacity, are all Mysteries of Nature – marginally understood and endured as part of the outdoor discipline.

Bugs and fish alone can’t explain much of what we witness, yet we use them as the “Lee Harvey Oswald” of angling; the guy they caught and hung, and chemically charged sewage ripples through our watershed undetected like a sniper cloaked by the shrubbery of the grassy knoll.

If the essence of everything we eat and drink are marinating fish, the difference is our visual recognition of them as food and conscious choice. We knew what the chili-cheese fries will do to our colon and eat them despite the pleas of the medical profession. Fish are not so lucky, they enjoy the same clogged artery endorphins we’ve released upon completing our sodden meal, but lack any knowledge of the source of this obscene pleasure.

If our excreted chemicals are part of the watershed then its residents are filled with unexplained cravings, unfulfilled deep-seated needs, and both fish and insects hunt for oddities they’ve inhaled but never seen, hoping it’s a Caramel Macchiato, cheese burger, or nicotine-rich cigar butt.

While afield we’ve seen countless fish dart from cover to inhale some current-borne morsel and being dependent on bugs science have assumed it to be a tumbling mayfly or caddis that caused this feeding behavior. Not surprisingly fish behavior has always been attributed to bug theory, and the reality may be our incessant pizzle of hormones have given them all seven cardinal sins; wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony, and the real motivations are akin to our own.

Flick, Schweibert, Swisher & Richards, all join a Human history full of ardent prophets whose outlandish theories were proven wrong after they were burnt at the stake.

Now that our sport struggles to free itself from its classical roots, and real scientists struggle with the role of human diseases, sexual aids, and dietary shortcomings as they pour into our watersheds – it may be time to rethink our dependence on bug-minnow imitations and upgrade our selection to include flavored and scented patterns that imitate the chemical essence of an Egg McMuffin.

Now that artificial sweeteners coat our stream bottoms and antibacterial soaps are denuding our watersheds of life-giving algae, it’s becoming obvious that the next century of anglers will be mastering sewage-sitology, the predation of innocent hosts using effluent based triggers.

It’s not really that far fetched, as it’s possible all of the great fly fishing mysteries remain so because insect science has never been able to explain them fully …

Why do fish prefer one fly pattern over another?

Entomologist: The #12 Royal Wulff more closely resembles the Ephemera Guttulata, and the trout mistakes the artificial for the real insect.

Sitiologist: The trout cannot recognize a cheeseburger by sight, yet it has inhaled beef byproducts in its water supply since it was an alevin. The Calf Tail emits a faint odor of cow flesh and the trout inhales it, knowing it to be a natural.

Why do bead headed flies work?

Entomologist: We’re not sure, but it sinks like a Son of a Bitch so it must be tasty!

Sitiologist: Normal insect imitations look like real bugs that live in the creek. Real bugs hide under rocks, burrow in the bottom, or simply fall in the water by accident. Despite their origin fish know they taste like shit compared to a Twinkie.

The addition of a big shiny copper bead makes the insect imitation something novel and new, therefore they eat the beaded fly to satisfy their craving for Twinkies (which they’ve never seen, and hope this is). Fish are optimists and something new may be that human thing they crave, yet cannot attain.

fivehourWhy do large fish feed at night?

Entomologist: Large fish are wary of predation and feed on smaller fish which are wary of big fish, and therefore unavailable until black dark.

Sitiologist: Large fish have been in the river far longer than smaller fish and therefore have inhaled a great deal more Five Hour Energy, Starbucks, and Rock Star effluent and have considerable trouble sleeping.

Without much else to do they prowl around for smaller fish that are quietly sleeping so they can bully and eat them.

 

Insect theory suddenly showing itself as quite porous in light of the above …

Unfortunately for the wader industry it appears  front zippers are doomed based on the Fish & Wildlife’s concern about chumming …

Rumors of scarcity were overblown someone else exerted a prior claim

Having just finished the National Wildlife Federation’s report on global warming, and how half of our cold water fisheries will vanish in the next eighty years, I was content that the conservation issue was destined to be hot topic for the next several decades.

If it matters, I vote for smallmouth bass as the neo-nobility …

At the same time I was equally determined to find out why my lukewarm fishery was chosen to be extincted in the next eighty minutes, and without benefit of additional discussion.

So I checked the upper river …

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Plenty of water, nothing appears amiss other than the constant roar of gunfire from the morning’s dove hunt. Both doves and I were content to stay on the edge of the highway and watch – while hunters blasted jays, sparrows, and starlings, as they were all “gray” and sporting a long tail, and therefore fair game.

Then I checked the park area, two miles below the dam and some 25 miles further downstream …

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… and even that was lipping full of water, fish, fellow anglers, and even cormorants.

Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize I’ve been victimized by canal diversion, rather than any drought related reduced dam flow. The water is diverted below the dam, sent through assorted farms, rice fields, golf courses, and tomato fields, then restored to the channel about five miles below the newly dewatered Dead Zone…

The same zone that used to hold all the really big fish and deep water, and now holds only big rocks and deep dust.

… and explains why repeated exposure to the water downstream makes me want to scratch body parts. It’s likely to have been treated with fertilizers, anti-fungal agents, and warmed to lethal temperatures as it drains all that boron, selenium and arsenic out of your organic veggies and into that dogleg Par 5, behind the club house.

If a Big Mac and fries is characterized by the sudden blockage and subsequent fatal aneurism, my health-conscious salad having been strained through a couple of fairways and a tomato plot suggests my doctor is advocating a slow, Zombie-esque  demise.

Which isn’t the re-invigoration he describes will result from distancing myself from the fatty and caloric, but with all the maladies I’ll be contracting from local lettuce it’s likely to make his remaining years Golden as Hell …