Tag Archives: bass fishing

I managed to seduce a few of the unwary

It’s an excuse to fiddle mostly … the discovery of something new that you’ve never tried stimulates both optimism and creativity. The normal guardrails that exist when being shown something vanish when it’s a chance encounter; something read, something seen, or something accidentally observed.

This week I was fiddling with “balanced leeches”, and after viewing several videos, numerous fly patterns and articles describing the style and theory behind the practice – it sounded like great fun. A large Bobber-cator suspends a leech pattern in the water – with beads tied forward of the eye to “balance” the fly in a horizontal attitude, versus hanging from the indicator perpendicularly.

In theory, the wave and wind action would then make the fly dance fetchingly on the end of its tether, compelling even the most wary fish to scarf it down.

While it was fun staring at the strike indicator waiting for it to disappear, the theory and the practice proved much different. I hooked and landed three fish but each ate the leech after I moved the indicator with a short strip. I tried diligently but the wave action induced dance failed to yield a fish strike – but mitigating circumstances might have altered the result.

I was fishing the deep end of the lake – which is less conducive to flies fished close to the surface. I opted to fish the fly about 3.5 feet from the indicator to give it some sinking ability – but I was attending a local club’s Berryessa outing and launched where the club intended, versus launching where shoreline and depth aided this style. While the club promptly roared away towards parts unseen (likely shallower), I was left in the “knife cut” portion of the lake where the canyon near the dam makes the depth drop away abruptly.

I moved out of the creek arm and into the open portion of the lake where waves and gusty wind made the action on the fly much more vigorous. I focused on the points and drop-offs that were visible close to shore and managed a few grabs as well as a brace of spotted bass.

Water temperature was about 62 degrees, which is on the chill side but not excessively so, and might have made fish less willing to chase or swim up from the depths below.

I encountered a few fish chasing minnows in an after bay and managed to land one of them. These fish had proven (in earlier trips) difficult to catch as they move about with great speed chasing the bait swarm. With the balanced leech technique you can leave the fly stationary until the feeding fish return to where it was cast, then give it a twitch to induce a take.

In simple sight testing the fly, observing wave action on the suspended bait, the sparser dressed flies were much more animated and “swam” better. Large clumps of marabou do not respond to the gentle motion of wave and wind and tend to simply “bob” up and down. Traditional leech flies, with the wing (tail) tied sparsely – swam quite nicely when the indicator was disturbed.

I used enough marabou to give good silhouette but not enough to make the fly opaque. The overall flue length was chosen to position the hook in the center of the fly, offering ample movement of the tail and palmered hackle, but not so long as to induce the short strike, where the fish misses the hook entirely. The double bead offers a chance for a “rattle” when yanked – and is something I am fiddling with to add sound to my bass flies.

As the weather warms I’ll move to the shallower sections of the lake to fish over the emergent weed beds. Numerous weed “shoals” exist on the east side of the lake that harbor a lot of fish during summer months. I’m thinking this method will give me the opportunity to fish within the clumps – as well as suspend a fly above the weeds indefinitely .. offering a couple options I’ve not had before.

I did manage to bend a few of the dressmaker pins used to support the beads. They will deform on the occasional snag – as well as yanked through wooden snags or similar underwater obstacles. I simply bent the pins back into their original shape with finger pressure. I could see some flies having more issue with pin deformity – but only if fly components were attached directly to the pin instead of the shank. As my flies were simplistic in design, akin to Wooly Bugger flies, I had no issue with the pins and fly construction.

My war against the 25 pack continues

I held my nose while ordering a 25 pack of “balance leech pins”. I needed a sample of the genuine to confirm what these really were – and from which industry they came. Possession of a 25 pack of anything from a tackle store typically requires me to blush profusely and commit the obligatory toe scuff to distract onlookers.

I hate 25 packs of anything, unless it’s Twinkies.

In fly fishing, the twenty five pack is just enough material to fiddle with and then run out when you discover some unknown yet useful quality.It’s enough to give your fishing buddy a handful, then find you only have three for yourself.

Today’s case it was enough to identify that “balanced leech pins” at $2.95 for 25, are simply dress maker’s pins – available at any fabric store for $6.95 for 750 of them. This wasn’t earth shattering as many fly tiers have guessed similarly, but as I noted the pattern recipe called for fly tying beads to balance the fly, and beads being another exorbitant 25 pack item, I thought I’d mention that standard metal beads will work better than the fly tying version – and are much cheaper.

Dressmaker pins are used as they have a flattened head which prevents our bead from slipping off the end of the pin.

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Solid copper, steel, or brass beads are available from Etsy, eBay, or Rings & Things and most hobby stores that cater to jewelry making. They work on barbless fly hooks with model perfect bends as they are not slotted to accommodate barb or sproat-style bends, but are sold for about $4 per hundred, versus $4.5 per 25 at the fly shop.

“Balance Leeching” is tying the fly on a 60 degree jig hook and including a bead on a dress maker’s pin to hold the fly level when suspended from a strike indicator. I had an idea this would work well on shallow weed flats for bass, and was intent on tying a couple dozen to try with minnow imitations as well as leechs.

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Any chance I have to thwart the sale of a 25 pack of anything is worthy of the effort.I used some “diamond cut” 4mm iron beads to act as the balance element and tied others with dual beads so they would bang against one another (rattle) during the retrieve. Weeds are not yet available in the local lakes but they’ll show once the warm weather starts in earnest.

And One to Rule them All

If you tie a lot of bass flies a pandemic is a welcome interlude given how enforced isolation and “work from home” is instrumental in creating the debris field from all those large hooks you stuffed with marabou, rubber legs, lead wire, and spun deer hair.

… and, even better, most of the folks sheltering in place with us have seen us lick our fingers after handling all those dead animal parts, and we’ve got no one pestering us to wash our hands, either.

My last trip afield showed my fly box had more plastic showing than flies, and knew I was overdue for an extended “self quarantine” period with a couple fistfuls of Marabou and a lot of Olive Grizzly hackle.

Fortunately, bass flies are not like trout flies and the typical angler need not carry every phase of insect life, in every color, and in both floating and sinking varieties. Instead bass fishing is limited to Big Things that Float, and Big Things that Sink, and only a handful of colorations are required: Shad, Crayfish, Frog, and anything that resembles a small child or escaped Chihuahua.

While many thousands of sinking bass flies exist for bass, few can match the qualities of the Wooly Bugger. The simplicity of construction, low material cost, and seductive fishing action has made it a prominent option at your local fly shop – and likely earned a spot in your fly box already.

Over the years I’ve had to slim down the volume of flies carried and shift focus to colors instead of patterns. Bass are usually associated with frog, minnow, and crayfish baits, and typically are pursued in lakes and ponds. where depth is always an issue given how fly tackle sinks so poorly. The long shank hooks typically employed with a Wooly Bugger allow us to pack lead, bead chain, beads, and allow us a platform for adding considerable weight – which is a boon in lake fishing.

The regular pulse of marabou has always been attractive to fish, and the palmered chenille front and marabou rear make a reasonable facsimile of a swimming crayfish (which swim backwards), as well as resembling a minnow when yanked with a sustained retrieve, and in a pinch can approximate a frog – with its thin legs and bulky body, despite the fly not being on the surface – where frogs are found.

As a terrestrial angler wandering the bank I look for flies that can be used in more than one role – or simulate more than one prey, as space in my vest is always at a premium. Bass flies, especially the top water deer hair poppers, are bulky and ill suited for traditional fly boxes forcing bass anglers to cut back on the diversity of flies they carry versus trout fishing. The physics speak for themselves, as a dozen deer hair Dahlberg Divers requires a couple of square feet of fly box space versus the tiny amount needed for a similar amount of #16 Griffith’s Gnat. The Wooly Bugger being one of the few styles that compress well in a fly box, allows bank anglers to carry a lot of them (or more colors) without having to carry a suitcase to accommodate their bulk.

Many of the flies I carry loosely map to roles seen in traditional bait caster tournament lures, as crank baits, jerk-baits, poppers, worms, jigs, and spinner baits, possess actions that are timeless and have been fished successfully for decades. The Wooly Bugger falls into the “jig” category when weighted, due to it’s up-down dance when equipped with a bead head, and is more of a “jerk-bait” when unweighted – as the hackle and marabou provide no resistance to sinking allowing the angler to retrieve it with a variety of fetching motions that resemble numerous food groups.

Lake fishing requires a lot of weight to sink the fly quickly and the fly’s design lends itself to bead chain, cone heads, or large lead – none of which will affect the fly’s action. Streams or shallow ponds typically require less weight, but most of the Wooly Buggers that I fish are heavily weighted – simply due to the big water I’m fishing of late.

Lastly, the attribute that few consider is how the Wooly Bugger is often taught as one of the first flies learned in a beginner fly tying class. Cagey parents might be able to add a request for a few dozen as part of the allocation of weekly chores. Since the pandemic requires both parents and children to stay at home, what better way to ensure their online education complete – then researching the patterns and colors you’ll need for your next family adventure … after they take out the trash …

While it’s certain your stable of newly christened fly tiers will have a lot of defective product and won’t hold together long, it’s still a good bargain. That fly eating tree limb behind you coupled with the two wind knots in your leader will ensure your goodly supply is less so – in short order.

Marabou is cheap and a few minutes away from Tik Tok is downright patriotic …

Big Water, Bigger Fish, and What I done this Summer

After several decades of piscatorial success, it’s difficult to realize the only certainty is you can catch some fish with regularity, some are the result of good fortune, luck, or happenstance, and the balance can be explained by throwing a Big Mac and hook in front of a lot of foot traffic.

… it’s likely to be stepped on quickly, scorned by those that have eaten recently, yet eventually consumed by some unfortunate that is either too desperate or in too much of hurry to care much about the marks left by other’s soles …

That notion haunts my summer, as I recognize I’ve veered onto the path less traveled, and found myself in the deep end treading water.

My first failing was realizing that trout have occupied a place of great prominence because of their surroundings and the stunning mountainous areas they can be found. As a foe, they are largely predictable –and are are weakened due to a steady influx of federally funded variations that are less wary, climatic conditions that are less conducive to their survival, and the crush of forces present in the wildland-urban interface.

My second failing was thinking that the skills I’d spent so many decades accumulating while fly fishing for trout – would serve me in good stead when fishing in less pristine environments … some of those hard won skills transferred nicely, many did not.

The science is the same, the reasoning and deduction, the mechanics of casting, the understanding of flora and fauna and their lifecycles are unchanged, but the physics of tackle, water, and how the quarry makes use of terrain and cover all have to be rethought. Most importantly, how to overcome the adversity of large bodies of deep water and their ever-present wind. How to get flies within visual range of an ambush predator …versus throwing exacting imitations at fish that move from safety into the open to feed on the same set of insects at the same time each evening.

Pure Heresy for most trout fishermen, but for those of us that delight in suffering unimaginable tortures, big open water is an area fly fishing has never dallied with – and with good reason. Our tackle and its physical limitations, our unspoken preferences, and the genteelness of our pastime are ill suited to this environment.

Fly Tackle and its limitations

The weaknesses of fly tackle are well known. Long limber rods that are magnificent at preserving fine tippets and reducing shock, but cannot punch an 8 inch long, soaked rabbit streamer into even the slightest breeze. Wet marabou or fur strips combined with lead wire and heavy beads, strung on a heavy gauge 2/0 or 3/0 hook, and even experienced casters begin to blanch in the face of a breeze …

Sink rate is abysmal with fly tackle. The large diameter fly lines sink at a different rate than the monofilament tippet and heavy fly, and with each element of backing, line, leader, tippet, and fly, strange shapes are introduced between rod tip and hook point that add slack. Hook sets have to be exaggerated to move all that sunken line into a straight line capable of pushing a large hook through lip gristle.

Large open water has its own weather system, and an airless morning is promise of a stiff breeze in the afternoon. Casting physics means even the heaviest leader cannot sustain the weight of the large streamers and bulky poppers, and all casts (except those downwind) collapse at the transition from fly line to leader. Big wind resistant poppers work against the caster – as the properties that ensure they float – also guarantees their instability in flight. Big and bulky, guaranteed to puddle leader and prey to every gust of wind – rarely landing much beyond the fly line tip.

Terrestrial anglers are forced to fish in the direction that blows the fly line away from the body, as neither rod nor leader can control the instability of a large fly buffeted by a stiff breeze. After a few encounters between large hooks driven through larger arse cheeks, self preservation overcomes one’s lust of fish flesh.

Worse is that none of fly fishing’s quiver of tools can reliably determine depth, the kind and type of bottom substrate, nor cover enough water to prospect a large body of water with thoroughness. Fly anglers rely on a combination of bankside detritus and visual inference to surmise what they’re fishing over, and deep water isn’t always predictable given its opacity, the varied weed types, grasses, and sunken objects that may be present.

Not knowing what you’re fishing over also means you don’t know when to return there during periods of receding water. Disabled shopping carts and old Christmas trees are potential eyesores, but they provide surface area for weed growth and hiding places for minnows and other food, which draw in the big fish to linger.

Snobbery and the Proper Tool for the Proper Job

For large bodies of water the deck is already stacked in favor of the fish, so why handicap yourself by insisting on fly fishing purism? Big open water is perfect for fly anglers, but only after you know enough about the environment and your quarry to make the intersection of fish and fly tackle optimal.

Last year I spent the summer “drop shotting” the western side of Lake Berryessa, from the dam to the Pope Creek arm. “Drop Shot” fishing is simply constructing a leader containing one large shot and one 4.5” plastic worm, and walking that bait back to you once flung into the lake.

Each time that large split shot touched bottom it told me how deep the water was at the spot. Since most of my time was spent on the points and contours, I quickly learned where the deep water was versus the shallow flats.

My visual inspection of bank and substrate entering the water was enough to clue as to whether the bottom might be sandy or rocky, but adding the drop shot data told me how deep it was and whether there were underwater timbers, weed beds, or rocky boulders and ledges.

What was down below I snagged – and often. When I recovered the tackle it would have weeds from weed beds, or simply break off when snagged on timber. Watching the line pay out while chanting, “one thousand, two thousand, three …” gave me an approximation of depth, and if I caught fish it taught me what was down there, and occasionally by inference, why.

Fly fishing is not part of a triathlon for good reason. All of the rigmarole associated with line management and wading means fly fishing is a slow process for scouting big water. Throwing weighted lures and big plastic top water baits isn’t affected as much by wind, and an angler can cover a couple of miles of shoreline with an easy gait, where a fly caster has to constantly pause and strip out or reel in all those coils of line necessary to cast and retrieve.

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As a bonus to the data that different types of tackle provide, you’ll catch plenty of large fish, which is the hidden pot of gold of big lakes, they contain much bigger fish than small ponds or streams, and contain more of them as well. Where you catch them is as important as any other data element, given you’re looking to repeat that process with some consistency. Certain depths, or time of day, similar types of cover, anything that patterns where the big fish hold is essential to attempting to find them in other parts of the lake.

The outflow of Lake Berryessa is Putah Creek, which is the closest trout stream to San Francisco and the Bay Area. As such it has both New Zealand Mud Snails and is constantly pounded by an enormous contingent of fly fishing enthusiasts. None of which attempt the lake proper, and I’ve yet to see another fly fisherman plying the bank. I suspect it’s the big water as the source of their trepidation, given how many are wading only several hundred yards distant, yet none have ventured into the lake itself.

Bass aren’t like Trout, they’re moody, aggressive, and stubborn, sometimes all at once

We’ve all heard that Cutthroat’s are “stupid” and by comparison, Rainbow’s and Brown trout are finicky – yet all trout species share a great deal of similarities in their feeding behavior and survival instincts.

Bass species share some traits as well, but each species has unique traits that must be learned to catch them consistently. In the comparison, we might think bass overly aggressive when contrasted with trout, but the real difference is their infuriating ability to be moody, finicky, sullen, and shy – sometimes all at the same time.

I’ve seen enough bass behavior to be humbled routinely, and have rethought everything I’ve heard about bass, given my experiences in the last couple of years.

Lake Berryessa contains three species of bass and two species of “mule”. Spotted Bass, Largemouth Bass, and Smallmouth Bass inhabit the lake, as well as two mule variants of Spotted Largemouth, and Spotted Smallmouth. Each mule resulting from the interbreeding of two of the three species.

Purebred bass can spawn again, but the mule bass cannot reproduce.

Bass decide not to eat and in the blink of an eye the entire lake appears barren. The infuriating part is they do this whenever you decide to go fishing, or when a storm front makes the barometer quiver, or when the Standard station up the highway runs out of Doctor Pepper. Understanding the psyche of this beast is likely to drive the rational angler to drink – and it’s a matter of enduring their fits of pique, versus truly understanding them.

Spotted Bass move around more than the other species, and can be present and absent within minutes. Smallmouth love rocky bottoms and rock outcroppings, and largemouth seem to be comfortable everywhere, except where you’re fishing.

The food chain is different, and you need to own big and blustery

While bass have access to many of the insects that trout covet, and it’s likely they dine on bugs when small, once they get larger their tastes run to fish, frogs, other bass, sunfish, small dogs, and unwary children. Bugs simply don’t provide enough protein to keep a large bass fed.

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^{Fish like this don’t eat bugs, they eat 6 inch plugs fished noisily, with much commotion}

With baitfish being the food staple, suddenly our traditional caddis, midge, mayfly, repertoire is largely useless as we’re pressed into learning threadfin shad behavior, bait balls, and where minnows sleep at night.

Structure and vegetation offer cover for small fish, but so does the muddy water churned off the sandy points by boat wakes, and the milky water resulting from the swells breaking when pushed by wind.

Big bass behave similarly to Stripers or similar ocean predator. They try to gather and bunch minnows against natural structure like bays and points, and then stuff themselves before the ball squeezes past them into open water. Bait fleeing a big predator are visible as minnows leap into the air, making the chase as visible as a rising trout.

The amount of surface commotion caused by baits is important. Big deer hair poppers get waterlogged, and chug through the water with less and less disturbance. Sinking flies are heavy as lead due to a combination of weighting, size, and waterlogged materials. Traditional bass flies leave a bit to be desired, as the size ranges they’re available in are too small. Custom ties are needed for big water, and closed cell foam, wine corks, or anything that keeps its noise level is preferred to the hair flies.

There’s little question that noisy flies that burble and pop are among the most consistent producers. The issue is their delivery and the understanding that large fish are often in shallow water based on the prey and their lifecycle.

A Summer of frustration and data gathering

Most of this summer has been spent learning all the details associated with successful bass fishermen, and watching them use conventional tackle designed for big water and bigger fish. The result has been a lot of frustration, a lot of perspiration, and great deal of fun.

Having spent a lot of my youth casting 3/8 ounce and 5/8 ounce plugs at the Golden Gate Angling & Casting Club (under the watchful eyes of Jon Ray), I’m finally getting to hone those accuracy skills in anger – versus GGACC’s static plastic targets.

Certainly the scorched hillsides are less scenic than piney woods, but they’re only a quarter tank distant, therefore cheaper, there’s a lot more of it, it’s less than an hour away, and I rarely see another angler, all things not found in the Pristine upper elevations.

Summation of a misspent summer:

Developing the tool suite to harvest environmental data is the first requirement of open water.

Knowing the foibles, weaknesses, and strong suites of your quarry is the second requirement of open water.

Knowing where the fish are and why they’re there is the third rule of open water.

Insects are not a factor, learn minnow behavior and observe them in the quiet coves to learn their swimming motion, their feeding preferences, and where the hide (when you throw a pebble).

Don’t use a screwdriver to hammer nails. Adapt and incorporate fly fishing only in those areas where it’s able to perform optimally is the culmination of the all the above, and the desired end game for us aficionados.

50 Shades of Tepid Reflexes

With fishermen as superstitious as sailors and baseball players, I recognize my poor showing this year is manifesting itself as a burgeoning streak of good Karma. While never sure whether it’ll take the form of hundreds of fish caught, a single hundred pound fish, or simply finding a Ben Franklin crumpled next to the curb, the only absolute is my knowledge it’s coming …

That’s because all of the hiking along the lake, all of the careful monitoring of wildflowers, bass and spawning beds, the sneaking over hummocks hoping for top water action befitting fly gear, have been pipe dreams.

Four trips up to the lake were too cold, too blustery, or too off color to even see fish activity in the shallows, so I kept thinking next week, or the week following. Now it’s the week following that – and I’ve returned fishless yet again, but things are starting to stir – a few spawning bass are visible, a few scoured spots suggesting mating activity, and a few more warms days offer a chance to cash in on that Karmic debt.

I’m learning as much about lake ecology as I’ve learned about streams so there is a silver lining. Drought really muck things up for years, both due to their arid nature – and what it does to terraform exposed bank that challenges fishing once the lakes refill.

All that weed growth evaporates as the lake lowers and each bed is extincted once it reaches the surface. Foot and animal traffic powders the newly exposed rubble and dead weed bloom, and fine dust replaces the aggregate washed clean while submerged. When the lake refills the bank is akin to Mars, completely dead and featureless. Weeds take months to sprout and all that windblown dust that spread itself last year leaches out into the water with the slightest surface activity.

That’s a fancy way of saying, fish early before boat traffic.

All the forage fish that used weeds for cover are absent, likely using what remaining beds that remain submerged despite last summer’s relentless baking. As the lake has come up nearly 25-30 feet, that’s a lot of dead zone that’s absent forage and therefore fish.

Which makes fly fishing, with it’s inability to sink quickly, a real disadvantage.

Fortunately Mother Nature drives bass to spawn in the shallows, so despite obvious problems from drought and rapid refill, once the fish move inshore with a vengeance, there’s plenty of sport for all manner of tackle.

But that appears to be next week … or the week after …

I did get a welcome respite from blustery and fishless bank wandering to fish the California Delta via bass boat. It’s the first time I’ve fished in the matrix of canals and waterways that feed San Francisco Bay via the Sacramento River, and as all of them were still swollen with runoff and tides – it was cold and off color.

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… some of that murk can be seen under this gleaming , carbon spewing Steed of Angling Awesomeness. While wandering lakes is invigorating to both life and limb, I figured I’d earned the carbon credits to have my arse skipping above the waves without feeling like I’d squandered all them decayed Pterodactyls …

With a stiff North wind for competition I learned the mysteries of flinging 5/8 ounce Spinner baits to an elusive audience. Elusive, due to my hook skidded off of lips, tongues, gill plates, and anything else in the path of lure inhalation, leaving me cursing and untangling gear from the knot of tules that should have been massive hungry bass …

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.., like the beast pictured above. This is my gracious host, Leroy Bertolero, showing me how to use a sharp hook as it was intended.

With each fish giving me the Finger, and as I tuned tackle and checked hooks for sharpness, I was still content. That reservoir of Karma that I’d built with all those fishless miles of lake, I knew was growing ever deeper.

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I did manage to land one of my tormentors. Apparently Striped Bass lack the armor of their freshwater cousins, and the hook found purchase. It is one of the beauties of fishing the Delta’s brackish water, as both fresh and saltwater fish inhabit the same environment.

As I’d proven useless as an angler – by “unbuttoning” all my earlier fish, it was timely that the 250HP carbon guzzling beast refused to lift itself into plane on the way back. Needing BALLAST in the bow, my host looked about for any Useless Weight and by mutual agreement I perched on the nose on the way home.

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An interesting perspective to be sure, but it was still thrilling to be so mobile when you’re used to pedestrian speeds. Then again, given my inability to stick anything solidly, it was an exercise in my finding new ways to swear – while “long lining” everything I touched.

More Pain then Wadding a Sharp Hook through Gristle

With every Californian intent on their Memorial Day Exodus, I lounged against the garage jamb and waved as my neighbors wadded their protesting kids and worn camping gear into anything capable of towing something else, then followed their neighbors onto the Interstate, all in a mad rush for the woods.

Having competed with this angry mob many times in the past, and knowing the lack of water would compress anglers even further, we opted to splurge on the local private bass water . We knew the cost of a full day’s fishing was much less than the gas, food, and campground fees we’d absorb if we donned our “Mad Max” garb and chased Charlize Theron (and everyone else) up the interstate enroute to the Parched Pristine.

… not that Miss Theron isn’t worthy of chasing, its the notion that frayed nerves, squealing tires, and campground backing accidents, resulting from too many people crammed into too small a resource, are never a recipe for decompression and relaxation, rather they have the opposite effect.

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But an entire lake filled with voracious gigantic bass, off-limits to kids, unruly pets, and powerboats, and rimmed with wildflowers and framed by beautiful weather, followed by a fine meal of rice balls and grilled Spam, that’s the makings of workplace water cooler legend.

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To compound our good fortune, our guess as to the lake’s readiness was perfect, and “should’ve been here last week” was forgotten in the howl of, “gotta be here goddamn right now.” No sooner then we were clear of the vehicle and armed, we were assaulted by hungry bass intent on eating flies, fingers, floating tippet spools, and anything else exposed to the water.

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Morning till noon was the big meal bite, using larger, slow sinking flies resembling frogs or tadpoles. When that slowed the fish shifted to smaller food, Wooly Bugger style flies in drab colors. We caught fish all day long and yielded the water grudgingly around 5PM.

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I’ve seen plenty of manicured trout water; everything from the rough hewn management of a “sugar daddy” conservation group like Cal Trout, to clubs meant for wealthy capitalists like Rising River Lodge and the Bolibokka Club. Each has its own personality and appeal, but grooming the lake to achieve a singular vision of bass fishing is quite unique in my experience. Every bush, sapling, and flower individually planted to yield a specific effect when mature –including rafts of dead timber and tules planted around the periphery and lake center.

The notion of mixing wildflowers with fishing makes for an interesting duality. On the one hand the bright colors and gay borders are akin to fishing in a garden, but they assist in stabilizing the earthen mounds from eroding into the lake.

Most certainly the fishing takes priority in your enjoyment of your surroundings, as it is superb, but being able to take your spouse along without having to entertain her may be worth even more.

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I keep thinking that with this as the destination for the first exposure to fishing – wives and girlfriends might seriously contemplate the pastime versus their traditional baptism … shivering as mosquito bait.

No sympathy from me …

With all this amazing good fortune, I found my mortality by midafternoon. My host showed up in his truck and watched me land a fish, and commented, “…you’re doing pretty well, every time I see you – you’ve got a fish on.”

I showed him the left thumb, scraped raw from “lipping” bass, and then unglued my feet from the suction of loose mud at waters edge, avoiding pressure on the blister on my knee from crouching on the side of berms avoiding being “sky lined” so as not to alert my quarry, and he chuckled. “You’ll get no sympathy from me …”

Can’t say as I blame him – nor was I looking for some, I just had the cathartic realization that fishless fishing has its share of aches and pains, yet even when moon’s align and the Cornucopia spills open, there’s blisters aplenty … and only the wound locations change.

That evening as I hobbled to the bathroom, I did some mental math. Landing a fish requires three squats; the first when kneeling on the berm when casting, the second when extricating your mending line from Poppies and bankside debris, and the last when you squat to lip the fish at water’s edge. Figure (with the Bluegill) you land 140 fish in a single day, and you’ve neatly explained the blisters on both knees and why you groan like Grandpa when you get off the couch.

So you like tormenting the fish then …

Back in the 1980’s I worked the night shift in one of those cold edifices that shadow Market Street. As I left one morning waving at my fellow workers, I noticed a quiet looking number with a shy smile in the company of one of my female coworkers.

The next day the lady I worked with asked if I’d consider a blind date with her pal, to which I readily agreed.

To make the story short, I found myself on an East Bay lake, with no fishing tackle, attempting to look interested in my companion, while fish cavorted about thumbing their collective nose at me. She was a nice gal without any interest in the out of doors, and I tried my best to appear engaging and personable.

As I was wont to do, I attempted to couch my confession into my best “Mac Daddy” moment. I mentioned I enjoyed fishing and the woods, and spent lots of time there. She responded in Big City fashion, how, “.. she would never eat anything caught out of the water as it was likely unsafe ..”, unfazed by her ignorance about where fish lived, I opted for the “catch and release” gambit …

“Yea, I let them all go, actually.” As I pick an imaginary speck of lint off my sleeve, expecting her to think me a swell fellow and consummate sportsmen. Rather than swoon in rapture as I was expecting, she replies, “.. Oh, so you like torturing them?”

(No lady, that’s what this date is all about, really.)

This same scene played in my conscious mind after this weekend’s debauch. Realizing that age and overindulgence are combining forces to ensure that should the fishing be either good or bad, I’m taking more abuse; lumps, scrapes, contusions, and actual blood loss – than the goddamn fish are.

No. I don’t enjoy tormenting fish … I have a yen to be tormented by them. Through my own actions of pursuit and capture I inflict much more pain on myself than I ever do wadding a sharp hook through gristle.

I just … need a nap … before I do it again tomorrow …

Too Close for comfort

Roman_Red350 Nearly every periodical teases me with some gizmo whose description promises revolutionary change and awesome functionality, and price tailored to a member of the Saudi royal family.

Like you, I have a weakness for gadgets made from the protective titanium bathtub of a decommissioned Warthog, but my budget can only support the early plastic variants of decades past, and am therefore forced to avoid eye contact with my peers when scuttling from creek to welcoming tailgate.

More than once I’ve scratched my head thinking of our fly fishing demographic and the statistics of Who We Are, and would love to claim a bit more education and disposable income than most of the sporting fraternity. On the down side, we still have trouble grasping the notion that an ounce of graphite scrim applied to a spinning rod doesn’t make it base or common, and when slathered onto a fly rod mandrel – doesn’t enhance its value to rival a red diamond, or a pristine copy of Action #1.

Why a bait casting or spinning rod containing as much boron or graphite as a fly rod is one tenth its price, and why we don’t rise en masse to hurl crates of Sage and Orvis into the Boston harbor has forever eluded my understanding.

All that extra education squandered as we majored in beer drinking with a minor in Sociology or Psychology, and skipped those important Physics classes that would have given us balance and scientific wisdom. Worse yet is none of them “people” studies sunk home – given the chill with which we relinquish our hole to our brother angler.

When all seems darkest and I resolve to swap fly rods for flower arrangements (to upgrade my friends and peers) the Internet washes up a bit of lightness to restore my mood, akin to Styrofoam at high tide …

mother_swimbait600

… the $450 bass lure.

I was reading a bass forum on the usefulness of the new (Dyneema) braid was in bass fishing. Most of the participants commented on its fine diameter, and one fellow pointed out the 100 pound test was equal in diameter to his old 20 pound dacron standby – and had the added ability for him to hand-over-hand himself down the line to fetch lures.

As you might expect there was a flurry of questions, and he revealed his newfound obsession for Roman – Made lures from Japan, and as most were $150 – $450 each, he opted to swim down and retrieve them when snagged.

While I admire his sudden frugality, I wasn’t buying the overall story. Anyone throwing $500 dollar bills in Harm’s Way is doing so for the rush of endorphins that come with your losing the entire food budget for the month.

I figured he’d likely had a track or football scholarship – one of those unfortunates that peak in college, have a short NFL career, and are attempting to salvage the adrenalin rush of lost youth.

In summary, the one class in Psychology I was required to take at City College Harvard … suggests that I require at least one group to point fingers at and question their fishing sanity. The notion of us fly fishermen BEING that group, is of course, unthinkable.

Singlebarbed

Fly fishing the Unloved & Unclean