Wednesday, June 27, 2012

MA

I met up with the Wednesday night crew from the Bear's Den tonight.  We hit a new (to me) part of MA and wailed on schoolies...
The No-see-ums were incredible...cast, strip, strip (wipe the bugs off your face and hands) strip, strip (wipe the bugs off your face and hands)...
The schoolies were targeting sand eels on the flush from a tidal creek.  I lost count of the number I hooked and landed. 
An excellent time, bugs be damned.

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

RI

Stopped by a striper spot in Rhode Island after work today. 
Tide was low, the weeds were everywhere. 
The fish were not.


Thursday, June 21, 2012

A hexed hatch

I headed out to my favorite brown trout hex water tonight amidst weather that was hot enough for a hatch but wind that made it iffy.  Again, as last time, the big bugs stayed put and I decided to give the bonefish hex nymph a try to see if the last outing was a fluke. 
It appears that it was not. 
At this point I am not even sure I care. 
On top or under the surface, hooking up with a brown at night is always a thrill. 
If they want to spend the rest of the hex season, sucking down bead chain bonefish flies...
...fine.


Wednesday, June 13, 2012

No hex, no film, no problem...

We know better, C.A. and I, about the ways of the hex.  A 71 degree evening in early-ish mid June with a stiff breeze is not what you'd call "ideal conditions". 
So we went anyway. 
That is the odd thing about fishing.  You can think you know and you go and get skunked and/or you can think you know better and you go anyway and you end up rearranging your sense of what is.

The latter being the case tonight. 

Here are the facts. 

The hex hatch didn't happen on the runs we were stalking.
Smallish fish dimpled to smallish flies.
Eager to fish I started casting my hex spinner (because, why not?) and I hooked a dinky stocker bow.
Not satisfied, I decide to wake a steelhead foam fly against the far bank....
(It would be really cool if the giant brown exploded on the waker wouldn't it?)
Nothing happened.
Deciding that the fish had most certainly seen at least a few hex nymphs making a break for the surface in the past few days, I tied on a bonefish fly.
To clarify, I was in my basement packing up my night/hex stuff for the evening fish.  I was shuffling fly boxes and happened to open a bonefish box that was the same color as one of my trout boxes.  A few of the flies seemed to be about the right size and color as a hex nymph so I threw them in the "to go" pile.  After parking and gearing up, the bonefish flies were in the bottom of my bag without a home so I stuck one in my hat.
When the waker failed and I wanted to change flies quickly in the failing light, I grabbed the easiest option...the fly stuck in my hat.
I touched 20+ trout in the next hour and a half.  I landed about half of them and they ranged from 13" to 15".
When I reconnected with C.A. at 11:00 pm I told him about the evening.
All he said was, "You are almost certainly the only guy who has a bonefish fly on (censored) Creek"

Sometimes you can think you know better and you go anyway and you end up rearranging your sense of what is.

Sidenote:
As anyone that stumbles upon this blog may have noticed, I love images,  pics of fish, flies and the places where the gear gets pressed into action.   On this particular night I snapped some (photographically poor) shots of brown trout, in various stages of release.  I would have posted them except that my memory card went south on me.  On a 0-5 star rating, I'd give the Nikura 32 gb Ultra High Speed Premium SDHC Card a big Ol' Fat ZERO.
I'm returning it tomorrow.


Monday, June 11, 2012

The T-shirts are in (?)

The short version:
Shox McSteel and I flew out to PDX to fish with Nate K and Thomas.  A great trip that inspired, a t-shirt design.
I wore mine to the http://flyfilmtour.com/ in Depere WI and one of the guys that worked on the tour noticed the shirt and wanted one.
I sent him one and he posted it on Facebook
One Brian Bennet took notice.  Brian works for Patagonia, runs a successful website and is also on the board of directors at the Wild Steelhead Coalition.
We had a few conversations and struck an agreement.  I sold the art licensing to Brian for use in printing up a batch of shirts, all proceeds from my end (as suggested by my friend Nate K), go to the Native Fish Society and a good chunk of Brian's proceeds go to the Wild Steelhead Coalition.


Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach a man the importance of conserving the resource and he'll design a T-shirt.



-E

Sunday, June 10, 2012

The Big W

I got the word from C.A. that the smallies were on the bite on the Big W and promptly proposed that we make a break for it the next chance we got...which was today.  We dropped in amongst 2 other boats loaded with fly gear (an odd but welcome sight for this river) and proceeded to sling baitfish patterns into likely nooks and crannies.  We made our way downstream to the "The Bucket" and found that there were two other anglers posted.  Further inspection revealed that they were not complete strangers.  Billy (brother of the International Man of Mystery) whom I know count as a friend and his buddy (and C.A.'s associate) Rob.  Rob instantly won my approval as a worthy candidate for the pole position on the bucket both for his tight loops and for admitting (aloud) that he actually reads a post or two on this very blog. (Greetings Rob). 
We left them to impale the hungrier denizens of the run and proceeded downstream to fish over some strangely selective smallies crashing bait.  As hard as we tried we couldn't get them to eat.  After pounding their last known positions long after we scared the digested baitfish out of them, we finally motored back up to the bucket.  Finding it empty we proceed to feed the smallies that Billy and Rob had so thoughtfully left for us. 

It's always a pleasure to be on the Big W, doubly so when you meet friends out there and they are kind enough to leave a few for you...


Tuesday, June 5, 2012

The walleyes step up...

Tonight's mission with JP yielded 3 walleyes and a few White's...always a good time.
They tend to start biting just after the last boat get's pulled out of the launch...

Friday, June 1, 2012

White Bass after hours

Back to the local lake after dark and though the White Bass bite has been decent, they are quite a bit smaller than I remember them being last year.  I guess I'll just keep casting.