“A lot of people want to be rich, they just don’t want to put the work in to get there. “
-forgot where I heard it

Great fishermen don’t spend a lot of time fishing stretches of water dominated by hatchery fish.  They don’t stand on the same rock, or even in the same run all day.  They’re always moving, covering as much water as possible, only slowing down when they’re into fish.  While experience gives them an idea of which flies they’ll need for the day, they don’t actually know which ones they’ll be using until they’re on the water.  And if that fly isn’t working, they don’t stick with it cause they caught a really big fish five years ago in this spot with it.  They will go through fly- after fly after fly after fly- until they find the one that does.  When fly changes don’t work, they’re adjusting leader and tippet diameter, or leader length, or the distance between their indicator and the fly, or the amount of split shot on the leader, or their drift, or anything else they have control over.  And if they don’t have control of something like the weather, they adapt to it.  Speaking of the weather…while good fishermen will try and catch the weather on the nightly news, they don’t let it determine if they’re going out or not.  If it is going to be 103°F and humid, or 6°F and windy, they still fish.

They’re constantly thinking.  While you’re admiring the beautiful sunset, they’re anticipating where the fish will hold after it gets dark, as well as which fly and what size tippet to go to. Good fishermen fish a lot.  They fish for as long as they can, whenever they can.  There is no such thing as not having time to fish.  There is only making time to fish.  And don’t go accusing them of being bachelors with no idea of the responsibilities that a family man has.  They have jobs and families too, its just that instead of sitting on the couch for an hour when they get home from work, or after dinner, they’re spending that time on the water or at the fly tying bench.

Its not that they love it more than you, its just that they work harder.

Unbuttoned

You know the carp are there, but they’re snubbing everything you throw at them.   You cast and cast and cast.  Switching flies.  Moving from spot to spot to spot.  The take comes when you’re somewhere between wondering which fly to tie on next, and whether or not you remembered to lock the car door back at the boat launch.  You raise the rod and watch the water explode a split second before your fly line starts rooster tailing through the muddy water.  Through the rod you feel the fish and the way it just does whatever it wants, all the while trying to ignore the little voice in the back of your head that is telling you that you never got a good hook set at the start of all this ruckus.

And the line goes limp.

Ya know, I’m pretty sure that if I ever heard you say a fly fishing celebrity was your hero, I’d either laugh or roll my eyes at you.  Yet, there is some hypocracy there, cause most of the people I look up to are in fact, fly fishermen.

I can never recognize the reflection looking back at me when I stand in front of a mirror, or look at myself in pictures. I make eye contact with myself, and it’s like I’m looking at someone that isn’t real.  Or rather, it’s like looking at a picture of someone who passed away.  The eyes in the picture, they stare back, following me around the room as if they were still there.  You get a sense that thoughts are still happening behind them. I guess the only time I see me, and feel like I’m looking at the real me, is when I see pictures of myself fishing. I like to think this is because it’s when I’m doing what I love that the real me comes out.

While reading through the new issue of The Drake, I couldn’t help but notice one of the ads.  It’s an Orvis Helios ad.  There’s a picture of a Helios, and some guy from SoCal who fly fishes for Mako Sharks.  Underneath his picture, it said his name, where he’s from and what he fishes for, followed by this gem-

“Extreme Fly Fisher”

Now I’m guessing that this guy saw the ad and had the same reaction I did.  That is, feel a little embarrassment for Orvis.  I don’t know this guy, but I am pretty sure I’d be accurate in saying that he doesn’t walk around telling people he’s an extreme fly fisherman.

Other than companies such as Orvis who totally missed the advertising boat on the whole action sports/fly fishing thing, and who are now trying to keep it alive to show something for their missed opportunity, I think it’s safe to say that the whole extreme fly fishing thing is history.  Adiós, muchachos.

And that got me to thinking about the now defunct, AEG Media.

Remember when “Trout Bum Diaries: Patagonia” came out?  It was unlike anything most fly fisherman had seen before.  It wasn’t exactly the start of a younger generation making it’s mark on the sport, but it definitely was the point where the older generation started to take notice.  And since the fly fishing celebrity they had watched on their VCR, or their favorite fly fishing magazine was  the stereotypical guy wearing tweed, casting bamboo fly rods, and trying to show everyone how much he knew; the whole idea of a fishing movie meant only to expose/entertain seemed pretty different to them.  It was so far from the norm that there was only one way for them to describe it.

Extreme.

Now, my generation’s definition of extreme is quite different than our predecessor’s.  When we found out that what we were doing on the weekend and what we were seeing on our DVD players was extreme,  it rubbed off on us- and AEG-  it took on a whole new meaning.

It became more Al Braughtinwood, more Sky Diving, more Kiwi, more fish, more bigger fish, more fish porn, more fish porn, MORE FISH PORN, bigger, crazier, bigger, bigger, bigger!

BIGGER, DAMNIT, BIGGER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Looking back on that whole “movement”, I think that if it weren’t for the industry/media pressure put on AEG as the new posterboys of “Extreme Fly Fishing”, their following films would have had a much closer look to Patagonia.  They would have been more about the fish and the places than about the people fishing them.  Looking back,  I think we still might have the same group of guys running AEG Media today, had they not embraced the labels being thrown at them.

It was never supposed to be extreme, it was just fishing; and the older generation with dollar signs in their eyes almost ruined it.

Don’t believe me?  Pull “Trout Bum Diaries: Patagonia” off the DVD rack and watch it again.  This time, with hindsight on your side.   I recently did, and the only thing I could label as extreme, were the extremely beautiful fish and extremely beautiful places I was being exposed to.

Other than those creepy glowing eyes that follow me during the hike in and out of a spot, and all those bugs that fly in my mouth when I turn my headlamp on, fishing at night is probably one of my favorite times to be on the water.

I love the whistle of the fly line as it whips back and forth, probably inches from my nose.  Adrenaline surges with the sounds of fish rising in a stretch of river that was obviously vacant before the moon came out of nowhere.  And most of all, I love those little white waves that simultaneously appear with the sounds from those fish.

There I was, standing 10 yards off the south bank of the Delaware River.  I’d been working a decent fish that was rising every 5 minutes or so to something I couldn’t figure out was there.  A fog suddenly, yet slowly, appeared over the water’s surface; almost in sync with the sun falling below the tree line behind my left shoulder.  Three good drifts.

“If it didn’t take after three, then it wasn’t going to take that fly the fourth or tenth time it floated by.”   I reasoned

The sky had been black for nearly an hour, and the fish must have been putting on weight from the bugs it was eating, cause as the sky grew darker, the rises got louder, the fish started sounding bigger- and the fly on the end of my leader was changing a whole lot quicker.

Cornuta compara spinner- nope
Big Stimulator- notta
Parachute BWO- no chance
Emergent Caddis Pupa- as if
Stillborn Emerger- getting colder

It went on, and without warning, I turned and started wading towards the bank.  I hadn’t even been given the chance to start replaying the scenario back over in my head when, about a second before I was out of the water-

SPLOOSH!

Without warning, I again turned and started wading back into position.  It was as if the fish had been toying with me the whole time, and then had a little hissy fit when I stopped falling for it’s jedi mind games.

“One more fly”  I thought.  And if you could have seen my face in the black hole of the night sky, it would have looked just like Harry Callahan(played by Clint Eastwood) as he pointed a loaded .44 Magnum at the robber’s head in Sudden Impact.  Teeth clenched, I grabbed a downwing Brown Drake imitation.

It was big and floaty, and stuff.  Why not?

I tied it on facing away from the fish, illuminated by a red headlamp.  After biting off the tag end, the line swished and swashed as I worked it through the air;  then, like a Navy SEAL on a black ops mission, it parachuted down upon the flowing water.

I don’t know if it was the second or third drift, but what I do remember is the standing wave, and the faint silhouette of a trout’s head as it shook my fly free before I could set the hook.  It was one of those moments where your internal metronome suddenly stops, and time stands still.  You get to watch life as if you just hit your TV’s  slow-mo button, frame by frame.  Yet, even as you see disaster coming, there’s nothing you can do to stop it.  The script has already been written, and that’s all I have to say about that.

I love fishing at night.

The worst part of the drive home is the stretch from Albany to Buffalo. Its an area of the earth where time slows down, and you either sleep or deal with the boredom. The sun was in my face, so I dealt by daydreaming about the days ahead. Most people think that they go back to places not because of the new memories they’ll make, but because some stupid part of them thinks that the same thing will happen again. As we drove westward on I-90, I knew that lightning wasn’t going to strike twice. As I approach my 29th birthday, I’ve realized this, and have begun to appreciate just knowing that I’m somewhere that lightning was.

Instead of following the south shore of Lake Erie, we crossed into Canada.

What’s a kilo-meter, eh?

West shore of Lake Ontario

It a weird place, that Canada. Except if someone held out two handfuls of dirt in front of me, one Canadian, and one American- I don’t think I could tell the difference. Not to mention, all of their shopping centers are filled with the same boring mega-chains that ours are. Yet from the second you enter, till you come back to the U.S. through customs in Port Huron, you can always sense that something isn’t right.

During the few days leading up to the trip, I developed a craving for brook trout fried in butter with fresh morels. the next morning when we woke up, my son and I hit the road to one of my favorite morel spots. Along the way we stopped at a small party store to get something to drink. Standing behind the counter was an old friend from high school. He had just moved back to the area after failing to make it down in San Antonio, Texas. When I asked him what it was like down there, all he could muster was that there were a lot of Mexicans. I set two pops on the counter and asked for $10 in gas on pump 2.

We stopped at another gas station up the road before heading into the Pigeon River Country State Forest. The Pigeon is a big ass chunk of northern Michigan laced with a maze of gas well roads and logging trails. 20 minutes into the woods, we pulled off to an excellent squirrel hunting spot, and sprayed each other down with bug dope. Instead of walking through the woods with our eyes on the canopy, our eyes were focused on the ground. I was starting to think we weren’t going to find any after seeing how dry the area was, but we did manage to find a handful of shrooms, and a small patch of wild leeks. We also ran into a small herd of cow elk.

Can you count how many elk are in this picture?

I talked the boy into driving over to check out a few of the Pigeon’s trout streams

Let me preface my naming of rivers by saying that-

1.) No outdoorsmen in Michigan doesn’t know about the three main rivers flowing through the Pigeon: the Sturgeon River, the Black River, and the Pigeon River. Each is about 30-50 miles long, and for the most part, average about 20-50 feet in width.

2.) 11 months ago, a small dam privately operated by a yoga retreat, The Song of the Morning Ranch, “accidentally” was opened wide up. This released a massive plume of sediment that pretty much wiped out what was a thriving, blue ribbon, brookie and brown trout stream. This is the second time this has happened. The last was like 30 years ago.

Did any of you outside of Michigan hear about this?

While I lived in northern Michigan, I was involved with the local chapter of Trout Unlimited. One of the things that was happening at the time was an effort by TU and the MIDNR to have the dam federally regulated since Song of the Morning was operating it in a peaking mode instead of a “run of the river” mode. Basically, they’d let a bunch of water out every night, then reduce flows to a trickle during the day. This is bad for fish, bad for bugs, bad for the whole ecosystem.

Did any of you outside of northern Michigan hear about this?

FERC refused to regulate the dam, despite the fact that it met several of the criteria listed in the Federal Power Act. Had the dam been regulated, the latest fish kill probably wouldn’t have happened.

Yeah, some streams need to be kept secret, but the three main streams flowing through the Pigeon River State Forest- an area with rampant oil and natural gas exploration, constant logging operations, and dam owning yoga hippies aren’t one of them. (I have nothing against them, they just suck at operating their damn dam)

If you read this report, or any other report, and you’re inspired to go fish an area or a river for the first time- go there and treat that river like it was one of your own homewaters. Be there to fight for it, tooth and nail, should it ever need people to stand up for it- the same way you would if your own local stream was threatened.

We drove over to the tourist water on the Black River.

Then we headed over to the Pigeon River to see how she is healing.

After scanning the water upstream, and then down for several minutes, my son asked,

“Dad, how come there are no rising fish?”

He passed out in the back seat on the way to the next spot. Feeling a little tired myself, we headed back to my in-laws’ house for a nap before heading out with my father-in-law for northern pike.

More than anything in the world, I wanna go back home to northern Michigan this weekend.  I want to take a walk through the cedar swamp, to the hardwood ridge overlooking the Black River where I proposed to my wife.  I want to take the long way back to the car, and hopefully find a few morels.

After I get back to my car, I want to drive downstream to that spot where I caught that 14″ Brook Trout on a Muddler Minnow.  I want to catch 3 Brookies around 7″ and take them back to my car with me.  I’ll clean the trout, then fry them with the morels.  One for me, one for my son, and one for my father-in-law.

After we’re done eating, I’ll drive over to the Au Sable.  Not sure if I’ll go to the North Branch, the Main Stream, or the South Branch; but I’ll figure it out when I get there.  No matter what parking spot I find myself, I’ll probably do more watching than fishing.  I just want to watch the fish rise, the bugs fly, and the sun set…

Friday night was awesome.  I took my son to that little pond up the road for some panfish action.  As the sun reached the tree line, I switched from little flies, to what I consider the most exciting fly to fish in my fly boxes, a deer hair mouse.

Ya see, after watching the real mice swim in Once in a Blue Moon I realized that I’ve been fishing my mice all wrong.  Yeah, I’d get bit every now and then; but not nearly as often as I did on Friday night after making some adjustments to my retrieve.  Both my son and I gasped and giggled at some of the toilet bowl flushes under my fly.  Then he’d yell at me for setting the hook too soon…

Yesterday, still looking for that mouse fix,  I made my way over to the Battenkill.  To say it was windy would be an understatement.  I don’t think I’d be exaggerating if I told you winds were a steady 20mph with gusts around 30mph.    It made me feel like my casting might be coming around, though.  I was throwing that mouse 60′ into the wind with a 4wt and a double taper line, no problem.  It’s probably a little early in the year to be fishing a mouse pattern for trout, but I really didn’t care cause it was damn fun!

Flows were a little faster than I prefer on the Battenkill, but they were manageable enough that I could wade the center of the stream and pound both banks on my way down.  I’d splat the fly down hard a few inches off the bank, then give it the smallest line strips I possibly could as it would slowly swing out into the faster current.  To be honest, I don’t know how the fish could refuse.  Watching that mouse move through the slackwater on the banks was foreplay at it’s best.

Despite all the fun I was having, about halfway through my walk, I traded my mouse in for an indicator and some nymphs.  I started with a Bead Head San Juan Worm, then went to a Bead Head PT Nymph, then a James Brown Nymph, and finally to a small Olive Bugger. My indicator hesitated a few times that could have been fish, but rocks were more likely the culprit.  The fish just didn’t seem to be feeding.

At times there were good waves of BWOs coming off.  Waves large enough that the local birds were going bananas for them.  There was one point in my walk that I just had to stop and appreciate their aerial acrobatics as they carved through the wind tunnel that is the river corridor, snatching macroscopic mayflies from the air.  Only adding to the beauty was that big, bright ball of fire in the sky.  Even with polarized sunglasses on, the rapid surface of the water gleamed white, and when the birds swooped at different angles, they looked like little mirrors flying through the air.  Actually, at the time I thought they kind of looked like what you would get if you crossed a boomerang with a ninja star.

There were a few caddis here and there,  although I never managed to get my hands on one to make an identifcation.  I also saw one Hendrickson spinner- sitting on the downwind side of a Maple tree, just before I stepped into the river.  Hopefully next time I get some better bug weather, and some rising fish.