"It's Just a #$%@ing Jack"

Almost exactly three years ago I was standing at a wedding cocktail reception in the middle of a field in Saddlestring, Wyoming.  Despite the locale and the reason for celebration, my head was thousand miles away as I chatted permit with one of the most accomplished anglers you're likely to come across in the U.S., if not the world.   

The first permit this fisherman ever landed had come in Mexico.  He booked his flight without a return ticket and rented a shack on the beach, claiming to anyone that would listen that he wouldn't leave until he landed his first one.  He meant it.  Weeks had gone by and all he had to show for it were cracked and calloused hands, awful tan lines, and higher blood pressure.   Around that point, he came across another fisherman who gave him a few pointers, and put his mission into context. A few days later he came across the same angler, who showed him a few pictures of monster permit he'd caught since their first meeting.  The background was familiar though - it was right in front of the shack he had rented.  His eyes returned to Wyoming - he stared at me and said, "remember, it's just a fucking jack."  

Fast forward to March 2012, and I'm standing on the bow of a panga on my last day of a "tarpon trip." Instead of rolling 'poon in front of the boat, a black sickle-shaped fin snakes through the water.  I cast a few feet in front, wait for the crab to sink to the bottom of the foot-and-a-half deep flat, and began a slow continuous strip.  The fin changes direction ninety degrees and the fish is hot on my fly.  I speed up my strips - faster - still continuous.  

Forty feet later he's still on it, but I'm running out of line.  The permit is still noncommittal, but still hot on the chase.  I feel the perfection loop pop in through my tip-top - and then it happens.  The permit surges forward, opens it's mouth, flares it's gills, and my crab is gone in an instant.  The fish tears off to the right, ripping fly line as it goes.  I swing the rod over to my left, and apply pressure.  Ten seconds later the line separates with a sickening pop.  I check the rod to see where it broke, and it dawns on me that I busted the fish off.  Who the fuck does that with a permit.  The disbelief and disappointment was gut-wrenching, and it stayed with me for fourteen months.

Fast forward to today - adjacent flat, same fly, and the same damn rod.  Sickle-shaped fin knifing from right to left - sixty feet, fish is at two o'clock.  Lone permit cruising past at a pretty good clip.  The only words I can think of are "remember, it's just a fucking jack."

Two false casts, led him by about eight  feet, he stays on course - lucky, stripped the crab right past his face as he finned by.  Fish makes a ninety degree turn. He's on it.  Tips up - tail breaks the surface.  Steady strip set, and he's on.  Ten minutes later and I wrap my hand around the bony wrist of his tail.  

Twenty minutes later - long but slender shape is moving across the flat.  First cast, too close, and the fish rockets away spooked.  But wait - fifty feet behind is another one.   Another cast, and he's on it right away.

Pressure is on now with two-thirds of the Grand Slam complete.  First flat, first cast and my black and purple toad is inhaled, but the fish spits the bug and spooks faster than you could blink an eye.  Shit. That was my shot.

Next stop - a secret pothole nestled into the mangroves.  The guide polling barks - "fifty feet, twelve o-clock," but I don't see a damn thing.  Regardless, I cast what seems to be about fifty feet, and strip twice before my fly is inhaled in a violent boil.  I hammer the hook home with a strong strip, and bow as the tarpon erupts out of the water.   The fight is painstakingly long, and my heart jumps each time the tarpon does.  Finally leadered, finally lipped. 

The overlooked tarpon fishery has even more to offer, and for that, I am extremely thankful. First pumps, man hugs, and the air is electric.  This slam was a team effort.  

It's almost midnight and I'm still riding the adrenaline high, ears tuned in for a direction and a distance.  Outstanding guiding, willing fish, and a couple of lucky casts and I'm in fly fishing heaven.

Friday Fish Porn: Late Night Edition

There's nothing like a little bit of snow to brighten up your night.

Fast Jimi with a nice one.

The annual winter double shot.

And a couple more just for kicks...

You've got to love the winter scenery.

FJ with another.

Get out while you can - hurricane's a comin' on Sunday...

Photos courtesy of Eirik at vitsoimages.com...

Friday Fish Porn: Lake Effect Edition

It seems like every year around this time we finally get a dose of winter.  This year, as many of us have felt over the past couple days, is proving to be no exception.  Even though the dreary pattern of lake effect snow is starting to kick in,  we anglers have reason to hope, smile, and be merry.

The first week of December usually marks the start of consistent snowfall along the southern shore of Lake Erie.  However, this week isn't all bad if you're an steelheader - it also brings with it some of the biggest fish of the year, and less guys are out there trying to catch them.  

With that said, I'll be out every day I can looking for something like these guys...

Sometimes it's actually warm enough that you don't need a jacket.

And other times it's not.

Looking for the one...

It seems like every fisherman these days is after the big fish - the one that's going to take off and get in to your backing, the one that won't fit in the net, or the one whose tail is too big to wrap your cold, wet, fingers around.  That said, we often forget the little things...

The water was up a little bit, and had the green tint that every one of us spends hours of time on the road chasing around.  Honestly, it was the best water I've seen yet this year.  It was a cold morning, but I had really high hopes for the first pool that I swung through.  Nothing.  Alright, I went back to my pack, changed colors, and went through again.  Second pass...and still nothing.  Meanwhile my fishing partner for the day, fly tyer extraordinaire, Greg Senyo, had gone through a couple times with the same result.  Nada.

What could possibly be going on - we were on the right river, there was nobody around, and the water was perfect.  I knew there were fish in that piece of water - in fact if I knew how many were really in there that I didn't catch I'd probably quit fly fishing and guiding right then and there.  Regardless, they didn't eat our flies, and so we moved on.

We took a shortcut through the woods, on an old road, and ended up at our next stop.  We fished, and finally hooked in to a few of 'em.  A mix of bright silver and dark fish, which gave us a good bit of fun for the better part of an hour.  

We moved up again, and Greg tied in to a good one.  After an interesting fight, and an even more interesting net job, he held his fish up for the money shot.

We started to work out way back downstream, and then I ran in to this old dog.  

Although it was a really big fish, it still wasn't quite what we had come there for.

Another quick jaunt downstream had us in to some more of these things, and another nice fish fell victim to the cosmic superfragalisticexpealidocious white bugger.

We were getting warmer now.  So close to what we were after I could almost taste it.  By this point in the day the water temperature had warmed up enough so that the fish were moving out of the holes and runs, and in to the faster water as they made their way upstream.   I stopped at the top of the chute, and watched a half dozen fish shoot through over the course of a couple minutes.  There it was.  I caught a fleeting glimpse of a gray torpedo shooting through the water.  

The decision was made to fish right below this obstacle.  We figured fish would be holding up in some of the slots and buckets below the fast water, and with the number of fish we'd seen in this stretch of river already, we figured our guess was pretty good.

It was.

        By this point in the day just about any steelheader would have been satisfied.  We'd caught a whole bunch of fish, hadn't seen many people, and some of the fish were big.  But not me.  Not on this day.  I was looking for skippers and I still hadn't caught one.

I decided to quit screwing around, and took a second to gather myself, take a leak in the woods, and then got my game face on.  It was time to be serious.  Once I was focused I got on the board pretty quickly with this little guy.  He ate a swung egg pattern (a secret technique for targeting skippers).  The fish went left, right, jumped, dove, and ran itself straight on to the bank.  True skipper style.

As you can see from his bewildered look on his face, this young guy didn't quite know what to do during the photo op.

Daylight was fading now, and I was looking for another to end my day.  Cold air was descending in to the valley, and the sun was beginning to set behind one of the shale walls.  We'd made it all the way back to the first hole where we'd started and hadn't caught anything.  After about a dozen drifts with the indicator rig, I figured that my luck had run out.  I turned around, set my rod over my shoulder, started reeling my line in, and walking towards my pack.

I about jumped out of my skin as my rod doubled over, and I turned around to see another silver BB (this one was too small to be classified as a silver bullet) shoot out of the water with my small streamer in his mouth.  After a ten second fight, in which this fish put out every ounce of energy that he had, I had him in my grasp.

It's amazing how in a day where you catch a whole bunch of fish, it's the two smallest ones that stand out in your mind.  These guys crush flies with reckless abandon, sit in the funniest little spots, and for the first three seconds of the fight make you think you've got the biggest trout in the river.

Today Dudewater celebrates the skipper, jack, timmy trout, dink, or anything else you can think of to call these things.  The fights may not be long, but you can be sure that these little buggers will give you absolutely everything that they have, and then some more.  They're definitely some of the most fun fish to catch in our rivers, and I hope we get another big push of them soon.

The Day

If you fish our area long enough you'll find yourself obsessively checking things like weather reports, stream flows, forecasts, etc.  After it rains you start counting the hours, monitoring the flow gauges like you're possessed, and waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat to dreams of green water, screaming drags, and really big chromers.

This fall hasn't been a cakewalk.  No water, no fish - it's that simple.  So for anybody who cares about steelhead fishing in our area, the rain we had the other night was a welcome respite from a dry nightmare that just wouldn't end.  I was working today, and had the pleasure of fishing with two gents from the south.  These guys have both fished all over the world, and as a guide, when you know that about your clients coming up, it adds a bit of pressure.  There's not many ways that northeast Ohio can be compared to Alaska, Labrador, New Zealand, or anywhere like that - but when our fishing is good, it's just as good if not better than anywhere in the whole wide world.

I was a little nervous about what the water was going to look like this morning.  The gauge had dropped, but kind of stalled out, there had been a little more rain overnight, and there was still a lot of standing water in the drainage.  I'd stayed up late the night before tying big chartreuse, orange, and cerise sucker spawn; better to be ready for the worst.  I showed up just after first light, walked down to the river, and held my breath as I looked over the bank down in to the water.   After looking at the water only one question remained.  Is this going to be the day?

Our fishery has "boom potential" unlike any other.  Basically, if you run in to a fresh push of fish on an Erie tributary, chances are it's going to be a day you're going to remember for a very long time.  However, fish these rivers enough and you'll notice that things don't always happen the way they should - sometimes the water is perfect, but the other half the equation is missing.  Fish aren't always predictable, and they don't take angler concerns in to consideration when making their spawning runs in to our creeks.  Some days where conditions suggest that even trying to fish is futile, the creek gives fish away.  Other days when the fishing should be incredible the water is fickle and nothing comes easy.

  Today was one of those days where I thought it could have gone either direction.  But it didn't.

  

It was "the" day.

Friday fish porn..

Hopefully we'll remember to do this every week...