The Zone

It's been awhile.
Not because I have been lazy and too "busy" to write.
Nope.
It's because this is a fly fishing blog and there has been no fly fishing.
There is an upside.  I've watched my girls play some great soccer and work is going well.

But...
.... it has been awhile.

I flew in from the East Coast on Friday afternoon, packed up some gear and hit the road on Saturday morning.  I met up with Brother Bill and McSteel, loaded the Tacoma with rods, flies, waders and provisions.  McSteel offered to finish off the last two hours of the drive and I was all in.

We pulled into "the" campground as the light was falling.  In the deep gray November evening we saw only one other tent...a nylon version, perched lonely and coldly deep into one of the campsites.
The three of us were amazed less by the empty campground during steelhead season than by the soul who would choose to sleep a November night in a cold plastic dome.
Nylon amazement...because we have yielded to a higher power:  The "IC" (Idiot Central).The IC is the name given to the community canvas wall tent we were free to erect in any (of all the rest) of the other campsites we chose to claim.  

The IC is the most satisfying temporary structure in existence. 
Warm in temperature and ambiance, the outside world ceases to matter/exist once the steel stove is fired up and the IC is glowing with help from a lantern.  McSteel and few others plopped down some cash to acquire her a number of years ago.  I am not an "official" owner/member of the community canvas but I think I have established a solid foothold by virtue of squatter's rights.
AK pulled his truck in just before the evening's food, drink and incessant banter ensued.  Later, post lantern light,  the BBC rolled out of McSteel's portable radio with a timer set to shut it down in 15 minutes.  My personal dosage of the newsfeed from the UK lasted far less than the prescribed amount.

The tent was dark inside when I rolled up my sleeping bag, set a pot of coffee on the stove and opened the damper.  I stowed my sleeping pad, set up my chair and started getting ready.  I was in no real rush since the others were all still asleep or at least holding out.  I opted for a quick mash up of scrambled egg/sausage breakfast burritos on the cast iron skillet.  The morning unrolled as all camps will on morning one....excitement mixed with the slow confusion laced fog of the final night-cap and the disjointed order that is living, for the time being, out of duffels and totes.

We dropped a truck at the take-out and then took the shuttle upstream to the put-in.  By whatever forces are at work, McSteel and I headed further upstream and AK and Brother Bill headed down.

I don't really remember what happened next.  I just stepped in and started swinging.  I was telling the guys in the IC the night before that I intended to go "full-on west coast swing" and pull my hood up and tuck my left hand in my wader pocket just to see if I could hit groove and if not, I intended to look cool/foolish doing it. 

It worked.

My line slid down and across current and I fished the fly.  I had the sense that I was in the zone.  In retrospect I also remember thinking that I didn't care what zone I was in.  My hand was tucked and my hood was up.  My line tracked true and my guides froze.  Every 6th or 7th cast I popped the offending crystals out of the snakes and kept stepping down.  After what might have been 30 minutes but may have been two hours, I crossed the river and felt my waterproof camera bag hanging heavy.  I made it to the far bank and opened the bag to find standing water and destroyed camera.  A camera that has taken a majority of the photos on this blog and been with me everywhere.

My reaction was to bring it back to my truck, deposit it on the floor of the driver's side, step back into the river and step back into the zone.

At around mid-day when McSteel, Brother Bill and AK stopped for a brilliantly planned riverside fire, I just kept stepping down.  Swinging through.  I meant to care and I meant to turn around and join them fireside...but I didn't.  It had never been like this before, never felt quite this right.  I'm not sure if I was fishing or just enjoying the ride down river.  What I knew was that I didn't need to stop.
So I didn't.

I felt a small tug, pulled in a 10" river bow and snapped a quick pic with my phone, de-iced my guides and kept going. 

Along the way after the boys had tracked me down and AK was standing behind me on the bank he watched as a fish plucked me briefly and smartly.  I came up blank and uttered my best string of profanity just before ducking back into the zone and keeping on.

Fishless with the exception of one small river trout and the sun was dropping.  The air was hovering in the mid to high 20's and the water was not much better.  I fished my favorite run (after the group kindly ceded it to me....or perhaps they walked away cursing me after I jumped in first and staked my claim??)  I was leaning in certain of a take, poised heronlike....ready to react. 

Nothing.

I reeled up.

Done.

Thrilled at my day.

There was some talk of the runs further downstream and I figured that I'd watch the guys fish and just bask in my day of being in the zone.  I heard AK mention the second to next run downstream and then he stepped in to join Brother Bill on the current run.  McSteel decided to try the tail out of the run he was standing on.  I asked him if anybody was heading down and he said, "No man, you take it."

I thought I was done but decided to walk down for a look. 

This is a fools run. 
Easy access, hit hard, no secrets. 
A slow corner, with a relatively shallow flow that drops off only slightly on the outside.  It is a beautiful place to cast and it allows for a decent length of line.  I stepped in, dropped a snap-T upstream and fired off handed to the close side, extending each cast out and across until I reached the far side.  I stepped down.  Still in the zone.

I was third of the way down the run, still hitting my daylong stride in the zone when the fish creamed my fly and ran straight at me.  The ice in my guides popped under the strain as I stripped in line and stepped back trying to reduce the slack between me and the fish.  The boulder under my left foot was the perfect shape and height to drop me. 

I think I've only fallen while fishing maybe two or three times in my life. 
Never in November.
Never in water this cold.

I regained my footing and started stripping line. 
The fish was midstream now.  It bore down and tested the drag on my reel.  I recovered and stood wet and cold, in the deepest zone of the zone, feeling the strain and watching the spray. 

It was probably the largest steelhead I had ever hooked in this river.  27+ inches and fat so fat.
But I never touched it.  I never got the hero shot with my back-up phone camera.  I never got to hold it in the current and watch its gills flare before thrusting its broad tail for deeper water.

It seems that as I stood enjoying the lively thrum of graphite against freshwater power, the head shakes worked their magic and the hooked popped clean. 

Disconnected.

Yet...I was still in the zone.

I can honestly say that I can't remember having ever had more fun steelhead fishing.
It was blue fingers, iced guides, botched fish,  big one that got away, falling in, ruined camera...

...and the zone.

It's a magical place.
Go there if you can.
Return often.

Twitchy

It's happening much sooner than I expected...Green going red, orange, or yellow.

The night temps dipping into the 30's.

The trout season days from over.

I've been immersed in family activities, home ownership responsibilities and meeting employment objectives.  Though I've been out lawn casting with some of my friends, learning a better way to cast a switch rod, flies have not seen water for a long time.

I returned from a week of travel that normally would have involved sneaking out after work for some East coast striper fishing.  This time, my week included training a new hire and it seemed that casting to stripers were not what my company had in mind for this guy.

I flew home on Friday night and picked up on the homefront where I left off Sunday last.

By Sunday this, I was twitchy.

It's times like these that nothing beats the slow methodical, unencumbered pace of wading a trout stream.  Sure, dropping the skiff into a river and chasing busting smallmouth would have been fun, but the trailer, motor and launch fees were added levels of distraction that I didn't need.

A 4 wt, a hip back, my waders and a camera.  It helped that I hit the stream during the first quarter of the local pro football team's Sunday afternoon match against whoever...

On the creek adjacent to a farm, the sun was high and the wind caused the browning dry corn leaves to scrape.  Hoppers in the last throes of their summer bliss scurried and inspired my fly choice.  I tied on a foam beetle because it was that time, and droppered a nymph just in case it wasn't.

The creek I waded recently had a dam removed which opened its flow directly to the larger river it fed.  After 17 years of fishing this stream I like to think that I've come to know it.  What I found today though, was a surprise.  Creek Chubs.  Lots of them.  10 years ago I probably would have cursed the shortsightedness of the folks that allowed their reintroduction into my trout fishing playground.  Today however, I was pleased.  Pleased that things are where they should be, natives returned home.  Secretly pleased that the invasive Brown Trout that I was seeking would likely get very, very fat eating them.   

I spooked some nice fish where I knew they should be but failed to entice them.  My beetle and dropper didn't move them but my wading boots eventually did. 

Eventually the dropper worked and so did the beetle.

A nice 13" brown smacked my terrestrial mid-stream and the "pop" from the surface take was so fulfilling that upon releasing that trout I noticed I was no longer twitchy.

Summer...Over

Dropper

Hopper

Native (Trout Protein)

Green to Brown

Nailed it.

It was raining on my way North, but thanks to the various electrovoodoo weather apps on my phone I wasn't worried.  The front was passing through and McSteel and I were looking forward to a long afternoon of switch rodding for smallmouth.

In a pocket where his phone worked he called to tell me he ran into construction and traffic heading south out of the north-woods and that he'd be delayed.  Since the plan was to meet at a diner/burgerjoint for lunch he gave me his order and I told him I'd deliver.

The hatch of his rig was up and he was messing around with gear when I pulled in with his 20 minute cold cheeseburger and what was left of a large bag of fries.  The rain was still fallling in fits and starts but the sun was sending rays through the gray and we didn't acknowledge the precipitation as we took a few minutes to catch up and exchange news from our respective homes.

And then we fell into an afternoon of fishing...an easy rhythm that we have forged and worked out over 15 years of angling together.  Mostly fishing together, one a spectator, photographer or coach and the other the angler, caster, hunter.  But, from time to time,  we drifted apart, poking around a back eddy or pressing on around a new corner.

Early on, as we climbed out of the river up a steep bank, McSteel clambered up and with eventual secure footing reached his hand down to give me a pull up.  He knows that I could have easily followed his lead unassisted but since we are friends, fishing partners, it would never occur to him not to offer.   On this occasion he retracted his hand and said, "stay still, don't move..." which made me think of every western movie where the protagonist and his sidekick encounter a rattlesnake.  Only this time it was a giant fishing spider on my shoulder which he he deftly flicked off before requesting that I remove the one that was clinging to the back of his sleeve.  "Did you get it?" he asked. "Yep", I replied.  Toothy Muskies no problem...but we both prefer not to hang out with spiders.  Again he offered his hand and this time he helped me up the bank.

Give and take, flick for flick.  That's how we roll.

The smallmouth were in an exceptionally eaty mood.  We took it as a sign to swing and twitch gurglers and ska-oppers with our switch rods and we were not disappointed in the results.  We hung no record book fish but the sheer number of willing topside feeders kept us giddy until the sun had fallen behind the trees.

We walked the trail down to the last run of the day.  McSteel said it as I was thinking it,  "I wish this day would never end..."  

When we got to the final run, I stepped in and began casting as McSteel worked his way through the falling light to a point 100 yards below me.  I began casting, alternating between snap-T's and switch casts and focusing as much on the feel of the rod through the casting stroke as the fly through the fishing swing.  I could barely make out McSteel in the darkness downstream but the squawk of his Hardy as a nice fish pulled line through his guides gave me a good indication of where he was and what he was up to.

Sweet Spot

***Note:  I have made it a point on this blog to not name names or call out places.  I think this post requires a little different approach.  You won't have to look far to figure it all out.  I feel the least I can do, given the day I had,  is to leave a trail of breadcrumbs for you to experience the place on your own someday...and, when you do, I can say with complete confidence, that you need not look for a guide.  I already found him for you.***

The guy's name is Luke and his photography is pretty sweet.  He has a style that appeals to him...and I agree.  Not the least important element of his images are the settings where he pulls the trigger, capturing on digital files some of the places that I haunt and some that I just want to. 

It didn't take long in the small Midwestern fly fishing circles for our paths to cross.

Last winter at a fly shop gathering I found myself leaning on a fly bin listening with intrigue as he told me about what he was doing and seeing on the south shore.

He's a Southie.
Me a Northie.  

He's got sand and sandstone.   I had basalt, granite and water washed cobble.  I had lake trout, coho, kings and brook trout.  He's got those too, plus browns as well as  pike, carp, smallmouth , walleye, and other warm water fishes.  I had cold water meeting cliffs and unforgiving shorelines dropping off to hundreds of feet of depth.  He's go that as well, but with bays, shallows, flats... along with greater fluctuations in water temp and seiche "tides" that create a whole new can of variables.  Interesting stuff.
He left me with an invitation to call him when I got up his way.

I'm not one to forget these kinds of things so when my family and I decided to vacation on the south shore, I shot him a message and we put a plan together.

At 8:00 this morning (right on time) he pulled up to the dock after pulling a cool hat trick (remind me to tell you over a beer sometime) that I was sure was meant to impress my wife but that he swears was just plain dumb luck.

He had just finished a multi-mile run from his launch dock and ran the last two miles exposed to the full wave action of Lake Superior in his Ranger that looked for all the world like a flats skiff but handled the chop like a bay boat.  Brilliant choice.

I thanked my wife for the shuttle and off we went, headed for the shelter of the big bay he guides and pays attention to all summer long.  The water was in the high 60's and low 70's, something a Northie might see for two days on a hot summer up there.  We rounded a point and immediately the deep blue gave way to aquamarine gave way to 4' of clear lake over sand.  A Lake Superior flat.  Without going into too much detail, let me say that trying to figure out where the small mouth bass are on this bay is worth the price of a guide.  I consider myself to be an interested and energetic fly fisherman, but chances are good that without Luke's help I would have been floundering over the wrong water for more time than married man with kids on vacation is allowed to fish.

We fished anchored up.  I fished as Luke poled.  We waded too.  Given the backdrop, if our targets  had been bonefish or permit it wouldn't have surprised me except that I was pretty sure I hadn't booked a flight to get here.

Mostly sight fishing.  Or, in my mind, Nirvana.

I'll admit right now that I represented myself as an adequate angler rather poorly.  I farmed a pile of fish and I'm still not sure why they came unpinned.  But, between the stunning setting, the graciousness of my host and the enlightening conversation, the fact that I wasn't converting seemed a small price to pay.  On one occasion as we waded, I hooked and promptly lost 3 fish that I'll call 17 inchers though I may be wrong either way about their size.  The fish in this bay are strong fighters and can pack it on to the tune of 22-23".  And that my gentle readers, is a giant small mouth.  Luke told me that the big fish here can be as much as 20 years old and mentioned that he may be catching from his skiff, the same fish that he hooked as kid from the dock.  Chew on that for a minute.

Somewhere out in the blue water a salmonid of size breached and sent spray flying. It was probably less than 200 yards from where I was double hauling for a small mouth and yet it felt like I was in the Bahamas.  This was seemingly all the things I want from a place...all at once.

With a great eye for not only spotting fish but also the sweetness of a resource like this bay, the patience to watch and learn and the conviction to keep the places he loves healthy, I tip my hat to you sir.

For allowing me along to spend the day as a guest on your skiff I say, "Thank You".

You can view some of Luke's photography and his essays at his blog: http://www.freshcoastangling.com/

Spend a day like mine by reaching Luke via Anglers All in Ashland WI:
http://www.anglersallwisconsin.com/guides/

Vacation

The family and I packed up and jumped in my truck for a week up north on an island along Lake Superior's south shore.  My boat in tow, was jammed with bikes, coolers, lawn chairs and every other conceivable vacationing artifact.  Luckily the tires stayed inflated and the ferry only dinged me an extra $50 for the ride across.  The young lady selling the ferry tickets looked through the passenger window at me and said, 2 adults, 2 kids 1 vehicle and the boat and trailer?"  I said, "Yes and the dog".  "Oh, the dog is free, but I just need a sec to measure your little boat".  Which my wife thought was hilarious.   I wanted to go into a witty joke about guys with big trucks and big boats and then reflect on the symbolism of my small truck and small boat...but I couldn't compress my thoughts into a quick comeback and I let it slide despite continued giggles.

Suffice it to say the week came and went.  We scored a backdoor deal to use a private dock and beach that kept the kids and the dog confined and happy.  The kids swam and so did the dog.  My wife hit the lawn chair, read her book and the bikes were used.    I stole away for an hour in a rented canoe and paddled through a rainstorm firing flies at the tannin stained backwaters of a lagoon.  Pike and Bass in evidence.  I spent a day fishing with LK  (more on this in the next post) and another on my skiff with McSteel, shamelessly trying to apply what I had learned from LK the day before.

McSteel and I also took advantage of the yard space to line up various switch rods and lines to let fly.  There may be no finer way to tend a grill than exchanging tongs, for rods, for beers...and repeat.

The rented cabin left a lot to be desired even with the free snake and toad in the basement, but we lived and let live.

At the end of it all, sun darkened weary vacationers loaded up the small truck and tiny boat and headed south where my decompression Sunday took a turn when it was discovered that a contractor's nail had found its way through a waterline in my house. 

Vacation over.

rigging is cool

Sand Hill Cranes

rating: 1 star

at the food trough...a brilliant dragon waits.

Dog of Thunder

mid flight

Great Lakes sand

Private Playground (Thanks Frank!)

Bikin'

touchdown

pike

McSteel beaching it.

loading the rod...

On the platform

wet wading

long ball hitter

mowing the lawn

Push Polin'

It got toward the end of a long week of home improvement and I decided that I needed to finally climb up and pole this boat around.  I shot a note to MK and he obliged.  (And by obliged I mean he agreed to fish while I pushed his ass around.)

We hit the local river and had very low expectations as the water this time of year makes for a pretty soupy mess.  I was surprised to see relatively good visibility, probably 18" though a decidedly green tint.

I politely asked him to try and stay centered and not make any sudden movements as i climbed up onto the platform, pole in hand for the first push.

We eased on down the river.

The small baitfish and tiny gills were gorging on hatching damselflies.  The biggest hatch I have ever seen of this particular critter.  I was hoping, as was MK, that it might trigger a major feeding event and that 5 pound largemouth bass would fall all over MK's fly. 

But that didn't happen.

The fishing actually sucked...but the poling was sublime.  After about 30 minutes I climbed down, grabbed my camera and carried it back up.  If I wasn't going to fall off I might as well take some pics.

We spotted some glumping carp back deep in an algae carpet and it seemed like not only our best target of the evening but also a decent test of the poling capabilities.  I pushed.  The boat went.
I will admit that the current was almost nonexistent and the wind was dead, but this trip solidified what I though I already knew about poling...it opens some new doors and is a helluva lot of fun.