Category: Gear

Posted on

No Muskie, No Cry

We fished the Wisconsin River near Stevens Point, mid-state in Wisconsin, on the last two days of September. The night we got to Wisconsin it froze for the first time this year, months before we could realistically expect a freeze at home. During the day it stayed in the 40s, cold for us, cold for the smallmouth too. Some of the leaves had already changed, but we were told the rest would change and begin to fall during the week after the freeze. Our guide, Abe Downs, said that all but confused smallmouth had migrated for the winter to deeper lake water, and that the fish left in the river were muskie.

That was ok with me.  If the smallmouth were gone so were the summer crowds, and while the trees weren’t the brilliant fall-colors I’d hoped for, there was some color, and plenty enough trees, particularly when measured against the treeless Deschutes we’d fished two weeks before. From what I’d read I figured it was likely we wouldn’t catch a muskie, and I honestly didn’t expect to see fish.

We didn’t catch a muskie. We did see fish.

We fished out of a drift boat and covered a lot of water. It was a big open river lined with trees just starting their change. Off the river in Stevens Point Wisconsinites were friendly even when I couldn’t understand their accents. I think before we return I’ll buy some language tapes.

It was my fault I didn’t catch a fish. I got five strikes and a follow over two days, which for muskie is apparently great fishing. I had expected to deep dredge the flies, but instead they retrieved pretty close to the surface. The water was clean but it wasn’t clear enough to see a fish until it hit the fly. We weren’t sight-casting.

Along with steelheading it was as  repetitious and brutal as fly fishing gets. I would cast and cast and cast, an hour or two of casting, and then while I was daydreaming about cheese curds and beer a fish would violently collapse onto the fly. Being a cool, collected guy I’d freak out and jerk the fly away. Did I know better? Of course I knew better. For me the gap between the knowing and the doing was wide and high.

The rods were industrial Orvis Recon 10 weights, necessary for big flies and big fish but not the delicate whispy wands fly rods are expected to be. The leaders were a few feet of straight 60 pound fluorocarbon attached to a heavy wire bite tippet, attached to a snap swivel, which is the fly fishing equivalent of a steel cable. The flies themselves were huge, gaudy things, close to a foot long with tandem 6/0 hooks. It’s the only time casting a fly rod that I’ve felt like I was throwing a lure, not the line. Soaked muskie flies are heavy. Shoot, the flies were heavy when they were dry. They hauled the line with them, not the other way around.

Abe and Kris talked politics and birds. They both agreed on politics and both were interested in birds, and Abe rowed while we cast, pounding the bank, casting near structure. Abe was an interesting guy, a chemist in his day job, with degrees in mathematics and physics. He also liked bird hunting, which it was the season for, and he liked dogs. He kept us casting, and by the end of the first day my left hand ached from the line retrieve. By the end of the second day my right shoulder ached from casting.

The final muskie, the last one on the second day, struck sideways to the boat. For the first time I saw all of a muskie. It was thick-bodied, and Abe guessed it was about 42 inches long. That’s a big fish. I didn’t jerk the fly away and for a second the fish was on the line, but I needed to strip-set hard, and then strip-set hard again, and I didn’t do it. As fast as the fish struck and I failed to strip-set the fish came off and went back home to catch another re-run of Laverne and Shirley.

I don’t mind going back. Really.

The reels were Orvis Hydros reels with good drags, and I asked Abe if he played the fish on the reels. He said no, that they could be hauled in on the line. Muskie are big fish but I gather that the excitement is in the hook-up not the fight. I failed on the hook-up, but at least I got some of the excitement.

I don’t think Kris is unhappy going back to Wisconsin either. Really. We had a great dinner in Milwaukee with friends at Three Brothers, a Serbian restaurant. I had my first ever goulash, and Kris had the stuffed cabbage. The restaurant was what Milwaukee should look like, old and ethnic. We talked with our friends, Tom and Sal, about dogs and Wisconsin alcoholism and how they met and other stuff, but not much about politics and none about fishing. We would have forced Tom and Sal to look at our fish pictures if we’d had any. Since they probably didn’t want to see fish pictures at least somebody had complete success with our fishing.

That day the Brewers tied the Cubs for the National League Midwest Division, with a one game tie-breaker scheduled the next day to decide the season. Bernie Brewer was with us at the airport, and the Brewers ultimately won. Driving to the airport we wished we had time to go church to church just to see them. To us they were exotic, not the largely functional Baptist churches or mildly British Methodist or Episcopal churches of home. Kris asked me if next time we could fish for something easier than muskie and I said yes, and we will. We’ll go to the driftless region in the southwest to fish for trout, or we’ll come to the Wisconsin River in the smallmouth season.  Meanwhile I’ll think about those fish I didn’t catch. I’ll think about that last fish, the fish I got to see, flashing in the river when I failed to set the hook.

Posted on

Oregon Packing List I

We didn’t take many clothes to Oregon, and that was just about right.  Ok, we may have taken a few too many layers of polypropylene, and I took a pair of shorts I never wore, but here’s the most important thing you need to know about Portland: You can wear your nylon fishing pants into any restaurant in the City and fit right in. If the only clean shirt you have left for that elegant tasting menu restaurant s a mid-weight Patagonia underlayer pullover, it’s ok. It’s stylish. Stylish. One pair of Keene sandals, my running shoes, and a pair of wading boots would take me anyplace in the state unless I needed some other kind of technical sports shoes. Hiking boots, skiing boots, cycling cleats; those I might need. I wouldn’t need a dressier pair of shoes.

Oregon is an outdoorsy milieu. There are as many Subarus in Portland as there are F150s in Houston. There are a lot of Subarus.

Unlike New Orleans, I didn’t take a blazer, and unlike New Orleans I didn’t need one. I did worry that in a Nike town my New Balance running shoes might not be quite the thing, but Portland folk seem pretty tolerant.

The homeless like Portland, at least in the summer, but I don’t think it’s because they don’t need a blazer. Our first morning I took an early-morning run around the river. There were colonies of the young and ragged sleeping in doorways and camped on the riverside. Someone told me that much of Portland homelessness is about heroin, but I also think it’s some about accomodation. Portland has long been particularly tolerant of  the homeless.

When we first got to Portland we went to Portland Fly Shop. Ok, that’s not true. We first went and ate Pacific Coast oysters at Olympia Oyster Bar. For Gulf Coasters, Oysters on the West Coast are high dollar, about $3 each, but happy hour oysters were half price. They didn’t serve Saltines with the oysters, and I’m not sure they understood the value of salt and lemon or a classic mignonette, but the bread was good. The oysters were good.

So we went to Portland Fly Shop after the oysters and met Jason Osborn, who had helped me buy my 7 weight Beulah Spey rod long distance. Kris finally committed to a Spey rod, a Beulah Onyx 6 weight, and we bought some sink tips and some leaders. Here, though, is the bizarre thing about steelhead fishing:

To fish for steelhead, you honest-to-God could fish for days with two flies, one wet and one streamer.

If there are no tugs by the end of the swing, one doesn’t agonize about whether the fly is the very thing, you take two more steps downriver and cast again.  Changing flies ain’t in it. “Jason,” we insisted, “sell us some flies.” I’d tied a good two dozen flies getting ready for Oregon: multiple fish tacos in many colors, steelhead coachmen, skaters, black things, brown things, orange things. . . Jason seemed baffled that I wanted more flies. He clearly thought we had plenty flies enough. We insisted. He sold us some, but his heart wasn’t in it.

We only changed flies when the spirit spoke to us, or when the light changed.  In the morning or when it was overcast, we cast wets three-quarters downstream on Skandi lines. When it was full sun we cast streamers 90 degrees straight across the river on Skagit lines.  Then we did the two-step (or the four-step). The idea was to cover water. Maybe people who know what they’re doing change flies, but for us, what’s the point? Within the realm of decent steelhead flies one fly was as good as any other.

I was told that the Clousers I brought weren’t in the realm of decent steelhead flies.  What fish doesn’t like a Clouser?

As to other stuff we didn’t need, we took a bunch of trout rods. When we arrived at Maupin and met Travis Johnson, I said that I was in Oregon to catch one fish. He looked concerned and asked if I’d brought a single-handed trout rod, I think in part because trout are easier to catch than steelhead and in part because he worried that my casting would be even less competent than it was. Because I’d caught a Chinook the first day, I never took my single-handed rods or trout flies out of the suitcase. My fish was caught and everything after was gravy.

I took along a better guitar than usual, a 1973 Kohno, because I would be sitting by the side of a river for a few days and that deserves a better guitar.  The Kohno is a bit beat up, but has a lovely tone. My hands though were a wreck.  They were sore, I guess from the rod, and cracked and bleeding from the dry weather and the water.  I worked a bit on the Sor Variations on a Theme from the Magic Flute. I was playing it early in the hotel the first morning–we were running two hours ahead of everybody else on the West Coast–and the person in the neighboring room banged on the wall.  I’d never had that happen before, but they banged on the wall in the middle of the fast 6th variation, so maybe the song was a bit raucous.  Maybe they just weren’t Sor fans.

We spent a long time in Powell’s Books, which is one of the great bookstores. I bought Tom Robbins for Washington and Seattle, which isn’t scheduled, and replaced my copy of Sometimes a Great Notion. Mostly I was reading Faulkner’s Absalom Absalom, getting ready for Mississippi.

Posted on

I Got Speyed

So in our last episode, Mark Marmon had asked me what was I going to do on the Deschutes for a rod and I’d said that the outfitter had rods we could use and Mark said that was smart and we should use them and I said it surely was smart and that we would and I knew, even as I said it, that I was lyin’ like a big dog. I was going to buy a Spey rod. This wasn’t about smart. This was about fly fishing.

I don’t remember whether it was the next day exactly that I started looking. It  might have been two days. The problem with buying a Spey rod in Houston is that there aren’t any.  While there are five or six places I could go for strong and excellent opinions on rods for redfish or bonefish or tarpon, the number of places where I could get credible Spey rod advice is pretty limited.  I like our local shops, and that includes Orvis, but there’s not a lot of demand for Spey rods here in Harris County.  We don’t have steelhead. We don’t have salmon. The River Spey don’t run through it.

I could have mail-ordered a rod, but that seemed wrong. I owe a duty to my local merchants, I don’t want to see them Amazon’d or WalMart’d, and if I am going to buy a rod I should seek local advice, even if that advice was from a local shop in Oregon.  Here’s the problem though. On the internet it seems that about 9/10ths of the Oregon economy is fly shops. It’s amazing that with all those fly shops they can find pinot vintners, or marijuana confectioners, or indie musicians.

So I finally turned to Yelp*. I don’t usually find Yelp* useful.  You will never convince me that, notwithstanding the excellence of its burgers, a place called Pop’s Seafood is the best high-dollar restaurant in Houston. But I was desperate, and when I searched for Portland fly-fishing shops, the place with the best Yelp* rating was The Portland Fly Shop. I didn’t care that there aren’t many reviews and that the place is pretty new. Drowning man. Rope.

“My wife and I are going to fish the Deschutes with an outfitter in September. We are accomplished flyfishers, particularly when it comes to fishing bluegill on stock tanks, but don’t know nothin’ about (1) two-handed rods, (2) skagit-skandi lines or polyleaders or sinktips, or (3) steelhead. . . . You know what? None of our local flyshops know much either, except for one guy who sometimes fishes the surf at Galveston with a backcast. . . . We need (1) some suggestions on rods, spey not switch, reasonably fast and light . . . I’m guessing around a 7 wt; (2) lines; and (3) to book a guided trip September 8 to actually fish the rods on moving water.”

Ok, I admit it. It was the next day. It took Jason Osborn nigh on forever, at least an hour, to answer.

“First off, you have made a great decision, and you have chosen the perfect time to chase Steelhead. The biggest factor in Steelheading is fishing when there are the most fish in the system, and September is prime time. . . . “

Well. That’s going to make me feel great when I catch no fish. Jason goes on to explain how hard the Deschutes is to wade, and how we needed barred wading boots and wading staffs.  Kris has now added wading the Deschutes to her standing list of horrors, right next to grizzly bears and alligators. She’s convinced that for it’s length and breadth it is bank to bank slightly deeper than 5-foot-4.

Back to Jason:

“Rods. It’s almost harder to find a bad rod than a good rod these days, but there are some great rods in each price range, and a few to really avoid. Here’s my suggestion

  • Top End:

  • Sage X 13′ 7 WT

  • Winston BIII-TH 12’9″ 7WT

  • Burkheimer 13’4″ 7 WT”

Ok, skip the top end. I want to retain some dignity.

 

  • “Mid Range:

  • Sage Pulse 13′ 7 WT

  • Winston Nimbus Spey 12’9″ 7 wt

  • Beulah Platinum 13’4″ 7 WT

  • Echo 3 13′ 7WT”

No reason to go further. I’m usually a Winston guy for trout rods, but I’m also a Southern Protestant kid of a certain age. He had me with Beulah. I had never heard of Beulah rods, but I know heaven when I hear it. “Beulah Land, I’m longing for you/And some day, on thee I’ll stand . . . “

“The lines will match the rod, skagit just means sink tip, scandi means full floating. Fancy words for basic stuff. You will want one of each, but wait until after the rod to buy them, to make sure they match correctly.”

Isn’t that lovely, clear prose about a difficult subject? I am so jealous. “Where my home shall be eternal/Beulah Land, sweet Beulah Land.”

So Jason and I go back and forth for a bit: there’s a whole string of emails. I tell him I’m going to buy two rods, not realizing that Kris is going to find it impossible to commit to a rod without seeing it. Then fairly late in the day, after Jason has found me a guide and done all sorts of retail calisthenics to explain spey rods I get this:

“Great. I’ll email you in a bit, we’re closed today and I have some running around to do. I’ll get you all the info this evening.”

Well. Damn. I’ve been ruining Jason’s day off. This is not my finest moment. Damn. I ordered the Beulah Platinum because, well, Beulah Land, I’m longing for you, and a Hardy click and pawl Salmon 2 reel because, well, Hardy. I can not catch fish on a Hardy English-manufactured reel so much better than I can not catch fish on anything else.  The rod arrived a few days later with the reel lined with a skandi head. It’s a lovely thing, and I can almost roll cast with it. I even caught a fish.

Thanks Jason.

Posted on

Speycasting for Grass Carp

Last August we booked a Spey casting lesson with a local TFF instructor, but it was canceled because of Hurricane Harvey.  Meanwhile our friend Mark Marmon said that he’d learned to Spey cast for Salmon in Iceland and that he’d give us a lesson. We had to have a lesson because when we go to Oregon we have to Spey cast, it’s like a law or something, and we don’t want to break any laws. Everything else is legal in Oregon, but they’re serious about Spey casting.

That’s Mark in the photo above. I stole that photo off his website, so he can sue if he wants. I’m not certain but it doesn’t look like the photo was taken in Houston. He’s sans pony-tail these days, but I always liked that photo of Mark. I don’t know if he lost the pony-tail when he became an Episcopal priest, but it’s a better story that way, sort of an Episcopalian version of God’s Wrath.

I knew Mark first through local fly shops, Angler’s Edge I think but it’s been a long time. Mark chose and sold Kris one of my favorite Christmas presents ever: a 5-weight Winston matched to an Abel click-and-pawl reel. About the time Kris bought that rod I ran into our friend Shelley.  I’d known Shelley since law school, and Kris and Shelley were even better friends than Shelley and me. Shelley said she had taken up fly fishing and that also oh-by-the-way she and Mark were getting married. Houston is a big city, and the chance that Shelley would know Mark, much less marry him, was pretty remote. I figured whether they knew it or not we were the common thread. They might see it differently, but I’m a firm believer that coincidences never happen, except by accident.

There were entire years when you couldn’t open a Houston Chronicle on any given day without reading a story about Mark. Every other guide in Houston (and that was pretty much Chris Phillips) was obsessed with saltwater, but Mark fished fresh. He fly fished the inner city bayous, and the Chronicle couldn’t get enough of it. Still can’t. Mark fished in the bayous mostly for grass carp, but he was also fishing for trout on the Guadalupe and for local bass: Mark introduced us to Damon’s Seven Lakes. Mark says his largest grass carp out of Braes Bayou was 48 pounds, which would be a state all-tackle record. Braes Bayou is less than a mile from our house.  He had found big fun fish that he could sight cast to, even if the fishery was decorated with abandoned grocery carts.

Mark met us at Meyer Park Duck Pond to teach us what he could on stillwater about Spey casting, and it turned out that it’s the place to be on a Sunday evening.  Stacy was there from Bayou City Anglers giving casting lessons to a family.  Gretchen from Orvis (who ties the best doubled Bimini twists I’ve ever seen) showed up to meet Stacy and go for Margaritas and Tex-Mex.  I’m pretty sure they looked at us and the Spey rods and laughed and laughed and laughed.

It was nice of Mark to give us the lesson, but Mark is a really nice guy. I once mentioned to Mark that my second-ever fly rod was a Shakespeare Wonderod that my mother bought when I was 14 with S&H Green Stamps, and that while I had the Pflueger Medalist reel I’d long ago lost the rod and wished I still had it. The next week Mark brought me a circa 1970s fiberglass Shakespeare Wonderod.  I’ve fished with it some too. It’s heavy as a horse and casts like a slug, but it’s great fun in small doses, as most memories are. My 12-weight is lighter than that Shakespeare. Modern spey rods are lighter than that Shakespeare.

 

Mark’s only flaw, really, is that he doesn’t like the Beatles. Personally I think he’s enjoying some mild perversity, which after all I know a good bit about. I’m the one learning how to Spey cast.

When we went to the pond, Mark had three Spey rods of various weights, two Thomas & Thomas and one Echo. Mark also had some great second-hand reels for his rods that he’d apparently found the same place that he’d found that Shakespeare Wonderod. We fooled around for a while, and I got to where I could do a roll cast that didn’t always end in a puddle 30 feet out.  The rods were heavier than I expected, in part because of the need for a heavy reel to balance the rod, plus the surprisingly heavy lines.  They were also really, really long.  They’re magnitudes longer than 9-foot rods, nearly half again as long.  Kris of course was a natural, though Mark was giving her workout advice for upper body strength by the end of the lesson. I offered to loan her my Shakespeare Wonderod.

Mark pointed out that you could in fact overhand cast with Spey rods, just like you would normally cast a single-handed rod. Since that lesson it’s been easy for me to shoot 100-feet of line casting overhand, though where it lands is not real precise. They never tell you about overhand casting in the online videos, but that’s because overhand casts are also illegal in Oregon. They’re serious about Spey casting.

Mark asked what rods we were going to use in Oregon, and I said that the outfitter had rods. He said that was smart and did I want to borrow his to practice with? I said maybe.

The next day I went rod shopping. This has nothing to do with smart.