Tag: Sunfish

Posted on

Call me in Kansas

Former Kansas Governor Sam Brownback measuring a Kansas bluegill.

I started work at my law firm on June 1, 1984, and I’ve been there ever since. I don’t know how long exactly that is, it’s now April 2020 and I’ve run out of fingers and toes for counting. It’s a pretty long time. I bet I’ve practiced law more than I’ve done anything else except sleeping and being married to Kris. I guess over 60-odd years I’ve slept more than I’ve practiced law, but mostly I’ve managed to keep the two separate for a proper work-sleep balance. I’m a good lawyer. I’m also good at sleeping. As for being married to Kris, I guess I must be perfect. She hasn’t bothered marrying anybody else during that time.

Me practicing law at my English law firm. Henry VIII never showed.

Stuck at home during the pandemic I’ve had time to take stock, and I’ve decided it’s time to chuck lawyering. It’s time for a new challenge, something where I can make some real money. I’ve decided to quit practicing law and hang out my shingle as a fly fishing guide. 

Me not practicing law.

I’ve fished with a lot of guides, and one thing I’ve realized is that money-wise fly fish guiding must be about the best thing going, better than lawyering, better than just about anything that doesn’t involve trust funds and inherited wealth. Think about it. Fly fishing guides work hard.  Everywhere except Florida guides have to make lunch. They have to get up early and go to bed late.  They have to have a general notion of where they are, even when it’s foggy. Most of all they have to put up with extraordinary anglers like me, who know that my failure to catch fish has nothing to do with my skill, and that my failure is their fault.  

Guides could only put up with that sort of stuff for the money. Lots of money. More money than just about anything short of hedge fund management, and I bet these days even hedge fund managers are sucking air. Those fishing guides are out there getting rich while we’re sitting in our office on the phone and reading emails. Do you know how many emails I get most days, and how many of them are asking me questions that take work to answer? Chuck it. Like I said, fish guiding must be about the best thing going.

Where will I be guiding? That’s been a tough question.  I thought about here in Houston, but I’d hate to take all the business from local guides; I thought about trout country, but I don’t really like the cold; and fishing guides in the Florida Keys always get shot and die.   Nothing hooked me until I thought of Kansas.

Kansas.

A fly for Kansas bluegill.

If you’ve fished much you know some fly fisher who’s been to Patagonia for sea-run browns, or to Mongolia for Taimen, or to the Farquahar Atoll for whatever’s on the Farquahar Atoll. But think about it: how many anglers do you know who have made a special trip to Kansas? It’s the last fishing wilderness, the last of the world’s exotic destination fisheries.

There is not a single fly-fishing guide in Kansas, so I sense real opportunity. Since I’m an expert on supply-side economics, I know that consumption follows supply. If I produce the goods in Kansas, consumers will be there to buy them. All I have to do is show up with a truck and a boat and a couple of rigged fly rods and after that it’s all gelt, wampum, moolah, and a life of ease. Plus Kansas is far from the rising seas so I don’t have to worry about global warming. It’s already got enough tornadoes and dust storms and drought and hail and locusts that changing weather patterns can only be to its benefit. Like they said in that movie about that Kansas corn field, if you build it, they will come.

Kansas. 

A Kansas longear sunfish.

Of course I’ll have to start rooting for the Chiefs, but that’s easy since they just won the Super Bowl for the good people of Kansas. 

What will I guide for? Apparently Kansas has a spectacular sunfish fishery.  Kansas sunfishing may be better than sunfishing in the Amazon Basin or Kamchatka. It’s not very well known, but I’ve been told it’s legendary. You can talk about your Caribbean permit, or your Florida tarpon. You can talk about Olympic Peninsula steelhead or Alaska salmon or Pyramid Lake cutthroat. None of those hold a candle to Kansas bluegill. Bluegill in the 20-pound range are common, and the longears . . . You should have been here two days ago.

See? I’m practicing my guiding.

I’ve been working on my Kansas sunfish leaders: they involve 40 pound butt sections and 60 pound bite tippet, and are 14 feet long because of the bluegills legendary skittishness. They’re strung together with Bimini twists and blood knots and huffnagles and some spare links of an iron chain I found in the garage. I originally thought 9 weight rods would be the very thing, but now I’m thinking 11 weights? From what this guy I know told me we’re talking big game here. These are powerful bluegill that always run you into your backing. Any reels without heavy duty saltwater drags are worthless.

Our new house in Elmdale.

I haven’t told Kris about my plans yet, but I have bought a house in Kansas, in Elmdale. I bought it online, and from the pictures it may need a little work. Whatever, I know she’ll be thrilled, and Elmdale ought to be remote enough for these troubled days. The guy who sold me the house said that of course there were fish near Elmdale. He reminded me that the whole area was once an inland sea. I paid his asking price, which was very reasonable, not too much more than what houses go for in my neighborhood, and with plenty of character. This is going to be so popular that I think I may go with the Florida model and let clients bring their own lunch. Apparently there’s no grocery store in Elmdale, so bringing lunch from Wichita probably works best anyway. It’s only 70 miles.

I’ve let the major manufacturers know I’m available for their pro staffs, and I’m waiting to hear from them. I think the Abel series of Kansas sunfish reels are pretty nifty, and I’m trying to decide whether the new Orvis Recons will be sufficient or if I need Helios 3s. You can’t skimp when you’re chasing Kansas bluegill.

When you’re ready to fish Kansas, inquire within. We’ll be on Main Street in Elmdale.

On the edge of the inland sea with a typical Kansas bluegill. Photo courtesy of Nick Denbow, Western Caribbean Fly Fishing School.

Posted on

I Got Speyed, Redux

Lately I’ve had rod fever. This happens from time to time. I convince myself that there’s a hole in the universe that can only be filled by possession of. . . some rod, some rod that is newer and niftier and pretty as a happy child hunting Easter eggs on a bright spring morning and that will make me a better caster and a better catcher and a better husband and father and human being. Rod fever may happen to me more than most, but I doubt it. And it never quite works out the way I think. I’m always still just me.

Last year I got rod fever bad for Spey rods, which is a peculiar thing for a Houstonian since there’s no real Spey fishing for at least a thousand miles. Still. I bought a Spey rod, and in 2018 we fished four days for steelhead on the Deschutes River in Oregon. We swung flies with long 13-foot Spey rods, about four feet longer than normal rods, and tried to learn Spey casts, or at least enough to get through four days’ fishing.

To most fly fishers, Spey casting is exotic and mysterious. It’s not like the standard overhead cast. It’s done with two hands, not one. There is no backcast; the line never lays out behind the angler, instead there’s some flippy dippy stuff that eyesight and brain can’t quite follow. After a couple of incantations and some pyrotechnics the caster shoots the line forward, as much as twice the length of a normal cast. It is a lovely, magical thing to see, baffling and irresistible.

Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland, J. Cary, Detail from a new map of Scotland, from the latest authorities, 1801, London.

The River Spey is in northeast Scotland, and the long rods and the two-handed casts originated on Scottish Atlantic salmon rivers. Speyside single malt Scotch is also from the region of the River Spey, Glenfiddich and Macallan being the best known, so there are many good things from thereabouts. What could better define a day of manly sport than putting on a bit of tweed, spending a day casting a Spey rod, and following it all with a wee or not-so-wee dram of rich and smoky Speyside? What man or woman could want more?

The long rods have advantages. They don’t require a backcast, so you can stand by a bank in a river and cast without hanging up in the branches behind you. They cast far, so you can cover lots of ground on big water, and the rod length better manipulates the line once it’s on the water. After four days of fishing I could cast 50 or 60 feet with the spey rod, but I fished near a good caster, Louis Cahill of Gink and Gasoline. He consistently shot line twice the distance I could manage, and it was beautiful.

Spey rods have some disadvantages. They’re not particularly accurate, and casting that far usually isn’t necessary. They’re made to swing flies, and swinging flies, isn’t common. Swinging flies lets the line pull the fly down and across in an arc, with the angler as the pivot point. It’s an old method of fly fishing, arcane even, with plenty of modern arcana pitched in to make the whole business obscure and esoteric, but except in the Pacific Northwest and maybe Scotland swinging flies isn’t common. Instead we let flies drift naturally with the current, or retrieve streamers. We don’t let flies swing.

I hadn’t seriously touched my Spey rod since our trip to Oregon, but we need to catch a fish in Washington State, and the obvious play, the right color of fish, is Olympic Peninsula winter steelhead. Kris didn’t hesitate. “Of course,” she said. “Let’s go,” she said. “And bring along some whisky.” Ok, she didn’t say that last, and she didn’t spell whiskey like a Scot when she didn’t say it, but sometimes one needs to extrapolate.

So I emailed Jason Osborn at The Portland Fly Shop and asked Jason who we should fish with in Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. Jason said he was guiding in southern Washington, but that the Olympic Peninsula was a good idea. He said that for February we should check with Jack Mitchell’s The Evening Hatch.

But I also had rod fever, I wanted–no, I needed–another Spey rod, so I asked Jason to send along a 3-weight rod and a matching line because suddenly Spey fishing for trout is all the rage, and like I said, I had rod fever. This 3-weight business takes a bit of explanation. Fly rods are in weights, higher weight rods are used for bigger fish. If you want to catch a 200 pound marlin, a 14-weight would do the job. If you want to catch a bluegill, a 3-weight would be the very thing. For steelhead, the usual weight is somewhere around a 7- to 9-weight. A 3-weight is built for smaller fish.

Jason made a couple of suggestions and I took the cheapest, a Redington Hydrogen trout Spey made in China. I should say it wasn’t cheap, but for a Spey rod it was pretty reasonable. It’s a rather homely fella, with none of the design flourishes that would come with a high-dollar rod, but it’s well put together. It’s perfectly good to fool with in local waters.

And for most of what we catch in Texas rivers a 3 weight will work just fine. It would let us practice spey casts before our trip to Washington, and that’s all I really wanted. The rod came, and we drove three hours to New Braunfels to see if there were any trout yet in the Guadalupe. There weren’t, they won’t be stocked until Thanksgiving, and the flow in the river was ridiculously low, but I hadn’t forgotten everything I knew, the rod cast fine, and there were bluegill and bass. I caught a Guadalupe bass, the state fish of Texas, swinging a girdle bug. I also caught a tiny bluegill on a partridge and yellow. What sounds more manly than a partridge and yellow? Just forget that tiny bluegill part.

And then I went home and had a wee dram. Or two.

T.E. Pritt, Pritt’s Orange and Partridge, Plate 6 – Yorkshire Trout Flies, 1885, Goodall and Suddick, Leeds.

Posted on

All Dressed Up

For the first time this year,  we don’t have any out-of-state fishing trips on the calendar. It’s an odd feeling, but I’ve more than used my annual vacation time and tapped into my built-up surplus.

I need to keep some vacation time. Next year I want to make three big trips, Idaho, Mississippi, and Nantucket, and it’s still a few years to retirement. When we go to Massachusetts we’ll probably hit Rhode Island. At least I think that’s right. My knowledge of East Coast geography is sketchy. I do know there’s a lot of states crammed into that right hand top corner below Maine.

Mississippi is a big deal because of William Faulkner and the Blues, and in Idaho I want to float the Middle Salmon River and fish Silver Creek. There may not be time for both. Nantucket of course is the port from whence the Pequod sailed, so we’ll be fly fishing for whales.

The Pequod

I’m talking to our friend Mark Morgan about a weekend trip to Beavers Bend in Oklahoma to fish the Mountain Fork, maybe in November. It’s a five-hour drive and I’ve been preparing, putting together a playlist. There are a surprising number of great guitarists from Oklahoma, or at least guitarists who passed through in a significant way: Roy Clark, Michael Hedges, Vince Gill, Tuck Andress, Leo Kottke, Charlie Christian . . . Charlie Freakin’ Christian. Some places, Memphis, say, or New Orleans, you expect a lot of great musicians. I didn’t expect it of Oklahoma, and not so many guitarists. Oklahoma, OK!

But that is probably late November or December. Because the trout season is ending in most places, Kris suggested Arkansas, which I enjoy, but I hate to use up all the neighboring states early. That would take Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Arkansas off the board, leaving only New Mexico. The other places where I think we could fish into December are Florida (I have to go in February, so not now), Mississippi (already on the list for February or March), Georgia, and the Carolinas (later, they need more time than a long weekend), Missouri, Arizona, Southern California, and Alabama. It’s all vague and squishy, but those places might be warm enough. Of course I could go to Washington State for the winter steelheading, but I want to go to Seattle in the baseball season. And frankly I’ve done enough steelheading for one year.

We’ll get some trips in, maybe Alabama for New Years. Last year we went to Portugal for New Years, and Alabama’s just like Portugal, right? I guess I’m desperate.

There’s also Hawaii. Mighty fine bonefish in Hawaii.

* * *

Meanwhile last weekend we made a quick trip to Damon’s 7 Lakes to fish for bass. I caught a couple, and I also caught the world-record bluegill.

Ok, I lied about that world-record part, but it was a nice bluegill, and it stripped line just like a permit.

Ok, I lied about that permit part too. 

Posted on

Sunfish, Tarpon, and Donuts

Friday we fished the San Marcos River with Chris Adams of Go Outside Expeditions.  We’d fished on the San Marcos with Chris before, and there are few things as pleasant as repeating a river with a guide you like. Chris had a new raft, which was great, and his wife made cookies which were also great,  and we fished from 7:30 or so until almost 5, with Kris the client spending a good two hours trying to re-think Chris the guide’s business plan.  Meantime I added to my sunfish collection.

There was a nice redbreast, the most notable feature of which is that weird long opercle flap–the ear.  I also caught a long-ear, which is more boldly named but which runs a poor second to the redbreast in the long-ears competition.

Kris caught the pretty Guadalupe-largemouth hybrid in the top picture and a warmouth and some largemouths and some other stuff.  I got a nice river largemouth.

Mostly we were fishing poppers and streamers with 6 weights, and we switched flies a lot during the part of the day when things were slow.

I noticed that the river fish aren’t as dark as the pond fish I usually catch.  They seem almost translucent, less brightly colored, and better matched to the shades of the river than the fish in weedier ponds. As long as it’s not time to spawn the fish match the place.

* * *

We go to Tampa at the end of the week to fish with Court Douthit, and I’ve had a lot of conversations in Houston about Tampa. It seems that everyone but me visits Tampa or came from Tampa, and a lot of the people I talked to have fished Tampa Bay for tarpon.

In the elevator a colleague told me that she went to St Petersburg for a deposition, and thatshe had to cross the Howard Frankland Bridge. Halfway across with no other traffic she had a memorable anxiety attack. Duly warned.

At Gordy & Sons, I was buying a big game sinking line and got into a conversation with an employee and another customer. The customer said he’d fished Tampa a lot, that the bait fishermen gather to catch tarpon on their way into the bay at the Howard Frankland Bridge, and that the boat bloom was not to be missed. “You should get your guide to take you there just to see it.” The same thing happens up and down the west coast of Florida, famously at Boca Grande for abundance of tarpon and Homosassa for the size of the tarpon. The customer told me that the boats were so crowded that the guides carried knives, big knives, to slash tangled lines. I could picture guides in center consoles slashing away with sabers.

Last Thursday a client showed me his picture of a 70-pound tarpon caught in Tampa the weekend before.  We were in a medium-sized banquet room, about the size of a basketball court, and he said that in a space the size of that room there would be 100 boats. He said they were fishing 60 feet deep with crab, and that the guides were so used to the press that a path opened for his boat to follow the tarpon’s run.

I’ve been reading Marjory Stoneman Douglas’s River of Grass, and because of the conversations and the reading it finally struck me that I was missing something important.  Douglas is a lyrical writer. She describes the Rock, the limestone spine that gives Florida shape and substance, the concave shape of which creates the Everglades, and which plays out as the Keys in its final submersion. It struck me that because it shapes Florida the rock also shapes the tarpon migration up the western coast. Like I said, Douglas is pretty lyrical, and maybe I let too much rub off.

The tarpon migration, not the limestone migration, follows the Gulf Coast from the Keys as far as New Orleans. For marine biologists the number of tarpon that migrate and why they migrate, including their inshore excursions, is one of the grand mysteries. It’s probably all the usual fishy reasons: Sex and food and protection. They spawn offshore so inshore would only be a staging point for spawning, but there’s certainly food inshore.  Maybe they come in because from larvae they’re hardwired to move offshore to inshore, inshore to offshore. It’s some kind of vestigial biological instinct that plays no real purpose. Maybe.

In the 1880s anglers figured out that tarpon migrate and could be caught with light tackle at the openings of the bays, so the anglers began show up in numbers to match the tarpon. Maybe we’re as hard-wired to follow game migrations, whether woolly mammoths or salmon or tarpon, as tarpon larvae are to move inshore. Maybe the angler migration is as much a vestigial instinct as the tarpon migration.

Postcard, Tarpon Inn, Port Aransas, Texas, 1911-1924, The University of Houston Digital Library, from Wikipedia

It also struck me that I hadn’t connected Marjory Stoneman Douglas with  Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where the mass shooting occurred on Valentines.  She doesn’t deserve that connection, but no one does.

* * *

Bakeries, which in my worldview includes donut shops, are necessary to fishing, and on our way to fish with Chris from where we were staying in San Antonio we stopped at Mi Tierra’s panaderia for breakfast.  Of course what we really wanted was to have the huevos rancheros at Mi Tierra: there’s no better bacon or coffee or wait staff anywhere, but we were running late. It was doubly disappointing.  There was no pan dulce that early, only empanadas, and they were only ok.

Earlier this year driving from Houston it struck me that every donut shop on the way to the Guadalupe River seemed to have a Buddhist shrine.

There’s a large Vietnamese population in Houston, and I figured the donut shops must be Vietnamese.  Turns out no.  Cambodian.

At the Foodways Texas symposium in April there was a panel on Cambodian donut shops moderated by Rob Walsh, with David Buehrer, Houston’s hippest coffee guy, filmmaker Keely Steenson (who showed her film on Cambodian donut shops), and Samoeurn Phan, a shop owner. Turns out that most donut shops in Southeast Texas are Cambodian-immigrant owned. These aren’t hip donuts, they’re not cutting-edge donuts, and they’re not authentic kolaches (because every Texas donut shop has to have a kolache which is a sausage roll which is not actually a kolache). They’re working class cheap donuts. Joy Donuts. Snowflake Donuts. LeDonut (where I go for the boudin kolaches, which are also not technically kolaches but which are delicious).

It’s no accident, and it’s all in the business plan. A Cambodian donut entrepreneur builds out the shop then finances its purchase by a Cambodian family, as often as not relatives of the entrepreneur. There’s no bank, because no bank would finance the venture, and it’s a family affair. Mom’s in the front at the counter, dad’s at the back turning out donuts.  It’s a hard way to make a living, but it’s a way to make a living.

Steenson has a film on Cambodian donut shops which was shown at the symposium and which I hope will someday make it to the internet.  Buehrer, the hip coffee guy, had worked at Phan’s donut shop in high school. That, he said, is where he learned about customer service. And kolache. So a hip Anglo coffee entrepreneur learned about an old-fashioned Czech pastry from Cambodian donut entrepreneurs in the Houston suburbs. That’s kind of the way Houston works.