For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.
Ecclesiastes 3:1
My phone buzzed with an incoming text while I built a fire in my fireplace. It was my cousin’s husband, John.
“Did u get much snow?” John texted, in his characteristically straightforward prose.
I responded with a picture out our back french doors.
We parried back and forth a bit, John taunting me with the 50 degree weather he was having in North Carolina and his plans to fish. “Should have some luck with the bass.” he texted.
I replied simply with “bastard!” and added another log to the now growing fire. Then I poured a glass of Langevulin and settled down to the business of rod wrapping snake guides on an 8-weight fly rod I was building.
Outside my little study, the wind howled and the white stuff was flying nearly horizontal. The temperature had been falling by the hour since morning. Snow piled high on the ground and blew in tall drifts. And the more I thought about the winter weather, the more thankful I was for being trapped by it all.
These days it seems that almost no matter where one lives, there’s an open fishing season to be had. On the one hand, it is nice to be able to get out and shake off the rod rust. The abundance of flexible fishing also provides ample opportunity to fish for species that were once closed to a strict calendar date. Trout, back in the day, were off limits from October through March, the opener dependent on the state. Bass season was also closed through winter. But for me anyhow, the true depths of winter provide a fishing respite in a way – a time to step back, work on gear, re-stock flies, build fly rods, make plans, do maintenance and repair, inventory tackle, and set goals for the year ahead. It’s time to do work the work of Stephen Covey’s 7th Habit – “Sharpen the Saw”.
Covey’s 7th Habit is all about the critical importance of self-renewal. The analogy is the saw – one can use a saw until it dulls. Further sawing just increases the workload and the wear until the sawyer is exhausted, the work utterly inefficient and now ineffective. By my way of thinking, time off from fly fishing is a necessary thing, just as rest is important to effectiveness during our hours awake.
Beyond that, there’s something to be said about absence making the heart grow fonder. When I was a boy, I would look forward to Opening Day through what seemed like an endless winter. The anticipation of that magical day just sweetened the experience all the more. It made one savor every aspect of it – waking early to the smell of hot coffee, and eggs and bacon – the chill of the air, the crunch of the remaining snowpack, the taste of the lunch packed, the anticipation as I drifted a worm through the dark waters of a pool, and the tug, that blissful tug of a trout.
As is said, to everything there is a season. Perhaps we should get back to spending more time on sharpening our fly-fishing saw and storing up that wonder and anticipation of another day astream…
Michel de Montaigne, French philosopher, on staying true to one’s craft.
By all accounts, it had been a great year of fishing. My logbook listed just shy of 50 trips the previous year, excluding many half hour jaunts on my backyard pond to unwind after work. So, during my early spring gear tune-up and overhaul, it didn’t surprise me that my boots were in pretty sad shape.
I contemplated, dare I say, putting them out to pasture. After all, I’d owned them since I started fly fishing some 10 years earlier. I bought them mainly for bass fishing in the rivers – a relatively inexpensive but classic design – and Hodgeman’s no less – still made in America back then. They’d served their master well, and the mantra of this throw-away society hummed away in my head as I looked them over. Those glossy catalogs of the big brand fly fishing purveyors sell a compelling story – faster, lighter, better, tougher…
Oh, the places they took me…
The fly rod may be the heart and soul of a fly fisherman, but its his boots – the workhorse – that get him where he needs to be. They take the most abuse – the lion’s share of wear and tear of all a fly fisher carries. They are rarely in the picture of the beaming fisherman holding up the bounty of the day’s trip. And at the end of the day the weary fisherman unceremoniously sheds them, and stows them out of the light, beneath his waders, the Rodney Dangerfield’s of the angler’s gear – not getting a whole lot of respect. But like the weathered hands of a farmer, a well-used pair of boots has a story. To anyone who sees them, they speak experience astream. And they get better with age – fit better and somehow feel better. So, for these reasons, and the outright economic prudishness these times demand, I reconsidered the death sentence I was about to hand down…
There’s an old shoe repair store on the mostly bypassed main street of my town. The stores that surround it are largely what you’d call mom and pop businesses. Some storefronts are shuttered looking for new owners, the victims of the big box retailers that now line the parkway to the east. This little place sits among them – a classic sign marking its existence. It is busier than one may think.
You won’t find Gucci here, but he could repair them…
So, I went there one day on lunch break, boots in one hand, new Hodgeman’s felts in the other. Inside, the place breathed leather, shoe polish, and glue. Behind the counter was a doorway, a window into the lonely world of the cobbler. In the back of the shop was a long workbench, shoe anvils, all types of tools – awls, picks, and mallets – and racks of laces, shoemakers stitching, and leather. To the left of the counter were the fruits of true craftsmanship – neatly set in racks, tags hanging with names of owners. Every shoe, boot, belt, and handbag was polished. I began to feel good.
Inside that door waits a true cobbler…
The cobbler soon emerged from the back, clad in a heavy leather apron, workshirt, and brimmed hat. His whole appearance, including the neatly trimmed beard covering his jaw, seemed Amish, though I couldn’t be sure, and his hands testified to his work ethic – rough, calloused, and black with polish. His demeanor was pleasant. He studied my boots, turning them in his big hands – pulling the tongue back, examining the sides.
That my boots needed to be re-soled was apparent. The felt was worn thin and, in some places, de-laminated from the boot bottoms. But it’s what I didn’t tell him that he seemed to focus on. “I can re-glue the inside sole”, he said. He continued examining my boots, noting how the stitching on the outer sides was frayed and, in some cases, parted. “I’ll re-stitch these here”, he added. We settled the particulars – I could pick them up in a week. He marked a tag with my name and phone number and set them in a rack of accumulating work. He asked where I fished. The Susquehanna he was not too familiar with – he had canoed a few local lakes, but not the rivers of the Southern Tier. So, for the next half hour I told him about the fishing – the big smallmouth bass, walleyes, channel cats, carp, and musky that could be caught, and then about the wildlife that could be seen – mergansers that flew like sea-skimming missiles up the river and the osprey that dove straight into the river like a rock dropped from the clouds and the eagles that cast big shadows where they flew, and the great blue herons that at a distance in the early morning mist looked like hunched old fisherman working a pool. All these things I had seen because of my boots.
A week later I returned – a sunny spring day full of promise. I picked up my boots, newly clad with bright white felts, neater in appearance, restitched, all put together, and ready for work. The fee was so nominal I can’t recall it now, but for the memories they’d bring me, I should have paid a hell of a lot more.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.
Oscar Wilde
On a daily walk in my new environs – Lake Ontario, its tributaries, ponds and wetlands – I stopped to watch a man as he fished the shoreline of Long Pond. He was fishing with a micro spinning rod; it’s length a bit more than the micro spinning rods used for ice fishing. On his second cast and retrieve, his little rod bent over with the pull of a nice fish. After a brief but vigorous tussle, he brought to hand a substantive white perch – thick and stout in body. Subsequent casts produced a few more of similar size. After witnessing his success, I felt compelled to talk to him about his unique fishing method.
Long Pond looking south from Edgemere Drive. Photo credits: Dick Halsey.
His name was Andrew, and his heavy accent hinted at Eastern European origins (he later revealed that he was from Belarus). He was of medium stature, fit, slightly balding, and he stood with an interesting stance as he fished, a fencer with his spinning rod extended like a foil.
A large white perch. Picture courtesy of wired2fish.com
I watched intently as he cast his tiny rig and then worked his bait to shore. His casts were 20 to 30 feet and ended with an open bail and upward lift of the rod to put more slack in the line. Then he’d stand in that fencing pose, rod held straight out to the side as he slowly retrieved his rig. The retrieve started with a series of rapid jigs of the rod tip, followed by a very slow retrieve and a pause. He repeated this all the way to the shoreline, then cast again at a completely different angle.
An example of the type of micro spinning rod used by Andrew.
Closer inspection of his lure revealed that it was nothing more than a small split shot above a size 6 – 8 hook, on which was threaded a ruby-colored, segmented, and very thin, soft plastic worm. The little worm seemed to imitate a bloodworm.
A soft plastic bait similar to what Andrew used.
I continued to talk to Andrew as he fished. It was not that he wasn’t forthcoming with answers to my questions, but he struggled with each sentence, bearing down with a grimace that looked like he just drank a very strong shot of whiskey, followed by stuttering and then finally the words that he wanted to speak. It was painful to watch, and I almost regretted asking him anything for the effort it required to respond, but he was enthusiastic and it was obvious he loved angling as much as he wanted to share his secrets from “his country”.
Among Andrew’s many “laws” on fishing were the following:
Fish when the wind is out of north or calm – this was purely to facilitate casting his ultralight rig. The line he was using was likely 2 lb. test and if casting from the shore of Long Pond, a south wind would have made it near impossible.
He claimed the fishing was “never good in summer”. I think this was more of a statement on the types of fish he was after, primarily perch. Yellow and white perch come into Long Pond to spawn each spring via an outlet that joins the pond with Lake Ontario.
Keep moving and cast in various angles – Andrew could not understand anglers who “camp” in one spot and fish that spot all day long. He emphasized that he would thoroughly cast the half mile shoreline up and down many times in the course of each outing.
Have confidence in your rig and method and perfect it like fine art. Andrew claimed he was a professional angler back in Belarus. I’m assuming this meant he competed in tournaments and based on what I witnessed, he was very effective at his craft.
Andrew showed me pictures of some of the fish he had been taken in the course of a week. Among the many big perch were truly sizeable walleye and sheepshead (freshwater drum).
I finally left Andrew to his fishing, not wanting to delay him from enjoying his morning trip. As I continued my walk, I reflected on my infancy with the long rod and the hubris I developed regarding what I considered “lower” means of fishing. But over time, I changed my perspective, realizing there was a lot I could learn by watching conventional anglers, like Andrew. Their tactics clued me in on better ways to fish the fly, fly choice to imitate their own baits, color or action choice, and the amount of weight to use to fish the water column effectively. Even when I could not exactly match their tactics, watching them gave me better insight into the bite and made me a better fisherman. Indeed, these days I find myself often watching anglers around me as much as the water, the hatch, or signs of fish feeding. Andrew was just another good chapter in the book of imitation. And after watching him, I was soon envisioning adapting his technique with a one or two-weight fly rod, fine light leader and 6X tippet, and a fly all of my own to imitate a bloodworm…
Part 1 of this post covered the first four days of my Bighorn River fly fishing trip in mid-September of 2017. My brother-in-law and I fished those days on our own and did pretty well. With some initial successes under our belts, we couldn’t wait to spend some time with guides provided by Eastslope Outfitters.
The Old Hookers Guesthouse – a true fly fisher’s home away from home…
We checked in to the Old Hookers Guesthouse on Tuesday afternoon. We each had our own well-appointed bedroom and bathroom and the run of the house. The house is a very roomy split level – the basement floor had a convenient walk-in to a rod/wader room and utility room, perfect for stringing and storing your fly rod, donning your wading gear, and grabbing a few for the road from the “beer fridge”. Adjacent to the utility room were two of the five bedrooms in the house and a very comfy family room. The conveniences provided at the guesthouse impressed me – cleaning supplies of all types, a stack of cloth patches for line cleaning, and even spare waders and boots, if needed. Upstairs was another family room with fireplace, large kitchen, and dining room, as well as 3 more bedrooms with private baths.
Kent, Jeff’s co-worker and part of the original “10 year group”, had joined us on Sunday afternoon and fished with us on Monday. Kent arrived minus a prized fly rod, lost somewhere in the luggage on the flight to Billings. He was able to replace it with a brand new Sage, on sale at the Billings Cabelas. On Tuesday, the rest of the group trickled in – this included Dave, another of Jeff’s coworkers, and Jace and his daughter. The group represented a diverse mix of angling experience, from beginner to advanced angler. Fortunately, Jim and Joyce’s team of guides handled the mix of experience exceptionally well.
After everyone settled in, our cook prepared hors d’oeuvres and the beer and wine began to flow. This was a nightly ritual. Jeff and I had considered fishing that first evening, but we knew we’d be up early, so we decided to relax with the rest of the group, enjoy dinner, clean our lines, and get to bed early. It was customary for Jim and Joyce to stop by every evening around “happy hour” and check in with guests – a very nice touch. Besides getting to know their guests, they also used that time to make arrangements for the next day, including pairing anglers with guides.
Wednesday started early with coffee and a light breakfast and it wasn’t long before the guides pulled up, drift boats in tow. For my first day, Jeff encouraged me to fish with Jim, aka “Stretch”, while Jeff went with guide Jason and fellow angler Dave. Kent accompanied me for the day. Jace and his daughter went with Tyson. The two wanted to fish together and Tyson ended up being a perfect match for the mix of their fly fishing abilities.
Looking downriver at daybreak from Jim’s drift boat.
Jim does double-duty as Eastslope co-owner and guide. I was eager to fish with him: Jeff had nothing but raving reviews from previous years and claimed Jim could see fish where none seemed to exist. We launched that first morning from the 3-mile access and were soon drifting downriver while Jim talked about the plan for the morning.
Jim, left, rigs Kent up with a tandem trico dry fly set-up.
Jim talked about the trico hatch and the area of the river we’d fish. He rowed us downriver past cattle, grazing on the aquatic grass, and white pelicans getting set for their own fishing. After a 30 minute drift, we anchored along the river bank and got out to wade and sight fish. Jim set Kent and I up with tandem trico dry flies. He preferred to fish the dropper on 6X tippet. In his opinion, this removed doubt as to whether 5X was too much and putting the fish off. He also used desiccant on the flies pretty regularly so they would float well. He started me fishing and then walked with Kent upriver to get him situated.
Looking upriver on the Bighorn, with Kent fishing along the weed edges. Big pods of browns cruised upriver feeding in much the same way Jeff and I had observed on our first days on the river.
Eventually, Jim waded back down to me. He scanned the river for fish, his height and slightly stooped posture making him look like a big blue heron on the stalk. It wasn’t long before he sighted some browns slurping the steady downstream drift of trico spinners. He had me quietly move into position below them, then instructed me to put the flies just 6″ ahead of the fish at the tail of the pod. It was maddening seeing these fish feed with reckless abandon and at times almost bump my fly as they took the real thing. But both the odds and fishing Gods were in our favor: I watched my point fly disappear in a rise. “Set” was the word Jim loved to use to tell you when to set the hook on a take. And following his timing cue was a sure way to stick a brown.
Kent points to a mat of spent trico spinners pooled up in the river edge weeds.
I landed two nice browns under Jim’s guidance and though I was pleased as punch at the early success, he wasn’t satisfied with the number of shots I was getting. The pods were very sporadic in his opinion, popping up, going for a few minutes and then vanishing, reappearing elsewhere. He told me to continue to look for rising fish while he headed downriver to scout out another area. I managed another hook-up before he called me from the high riverbank to tell me to follow him downriver. He led me to a nice run below the broad tail-out where we’d previously fished. As we waded back upriver, I could see a large pod of fish – at least a dozen or two – gulping tricos along the weed edges. Jim had me work the lower fish first. The tandem rig did its job and we picked away at the pod, yielding many quality browns in the 16″ – 18″+ range. Partway through the morning, Jim had me change to a glass bead sunken spinner. This fly would sink and the lead trico emerger would act as an indicator when a trout picked up the sunken fly. It worked like a charm and I enjoyed a little dry fly indicator fishing.
Jim gives my new Orvis Helios 2 6 weight fly rod a test cast. He loved it…
The hatch began to dwindle as morning faded. The pods of voracious browns were gone except for an occasional and sporadic riser. Jim suggested we move on down the river.
We strung up our streamer rods and began casting. Jim pointed out one area where a fellow guide had a client hook into an 8 pound brown – the biggest of the year it turned out – that they fought quite a ways down the river. But this big fish went to a “hacker” – a client with little fly fishing skill. Jim’s guide friend had wished it on someone like Kent or I. Beginner’s luck is apparently alive and well even on the Bighorn River!
Kent and I didn’t move a fish with streamers. We stopped bankside for lunch and enjoyed a delicious venison meatloaf sandwich, salad, chips – a gourmet river meal if there ever was one (word was Jim makes the lunches). After stuffing ourselves, we pushed off and drifted downriver, ready to give nymphing a shot.
Jim anchored his boat tight to a high bank and along a fast and deep run. He rigged Kent and I up for nymphing with an interesting sliding weight, similar to a steelhead slinky but much smaller and made with lead putty. The nymph rig was “tractor trailer” under an indicator. Initially Jim had planned on using scud patterns, but Kent wanted to try the split case PMD that had performed so well for me when I was fishing on my own.
The split case PMD – a very effective Bighorn pattern…
I wondered whether the split case PMD would work wonders like it had originally for me. It didn’t take long before Kent was hooked up, validating the nymph’s effectiveness. I started hooking up as well, including a really nice rainbow lost at the net.
Kent, seen here, is nymphing the deep and fast run just downstream from where we anchored for lunch.
We ended the day fishing streamers to the takeout. Once again, the streamer bite was not there, but after a lot of fish in the net, it was nice to just cast away and enjoy a beautiful river. Jim proved to be a great guide – knowledgeable, wise in the ways of trout, patient, and fun. His forte is dry fly fishing, so if the hatches are on, he’s the guide you want for at least one day on the Bighorn.
An abandoned farmhouse on the Bighorn River…
Jeff had fished with Jason that first day. Relatively new to the Eastslope stable of guides, Jason was also knowledgeable, professional, and very capable. Jeff had good fishing with Jason and my second day of guided fishing would certainly validate that.
Jason picked us up bright and early on Thursday and discussed his plan of attack as we drove to the river. We would fish the same red bluff area that he’d taken Jeff to the previous morning. The hatch had been good there and the fish were willing. After that we’d fish streamers.
We reached the red bluffs and anchored up. Jason sent Jeff upriver to a spot that had some fish already working. He then climbed the steep bank with me in tow. We walked a trail downriver to a spot where the feeding was on. We descended below these fish and carefully waded up river towards them.
Jason rigged me up a little differently than Jim had. In Jason’s world of dry fly fishing the Bighorn, there was no need to use less than 5X tippet and in some cases he preferred 4X or even 3X. An interesting aspect of fishing with multiple guides is that one gets exposure to a variety of fly fishing methods, techniques, and tactics. Some differ significantly in their approach and views, but all of that is good for the angler who will listen.
Jason used his own flies and I could immediately tell he was a skilled fly tier. We fished a tandem rig of trico spinners and emergers. He had me work the pod from the tail but once again, the fish I hooked did not seem to spook the other risers. Jeff and I fished the hatch well, netting numerous good fish, losing some as well. Jason taught me to pick up the slack after every cast and to stay relatively tight to the fly to ensure a good and quick hook-set. It turned out to be a stellar morning.
As the morning hatch petered out, we set out downriver and switched over to streamer fishing.
Jeff hangs out in our drift boat while we break for a shoreside lunch.
Jason set me up with a sparkle minnow streamer (his own tie) as the lead fly.
The Sparkle Minnow had amazing movement and flash.
He then tied off the first streamer an 18″ section of tippet to which he tied a smaller streamer called, of all things, “the grinch”…
The Grinch – a streamer that might not steal Christmas but certainly will steal some trout…
Together, these two flies seemed like a perfect one-two punch; the sparkle minnow moving the fish and the grinch giving any hot trout a second chance if they missed the lead fly. Most fish were caught on the grinch but a few couldn’t resist the sparkle minnow streamer.
Jason was an excellent streamer guide, calling out where and how we should fish the river as we drifted. He’d say, “I want you to fish left here, give it a 5 second count”, “be ready to cast to the bank”, or “pick your flies up while we drift through this shallow riffle.” We fished the deep parts of the river using a sink-tip line, letting the flies sink up to a 10 second count depending on river depths. Jason also had us pounding the banks on a relatively short and fast cast. The visual of watching a nice brown peel off the bank to chase down a streamer made the repeated casting well worth it, even if they didn’t always take. Jason explained that when fishing the bank, you want to cast slightly behind the boat (upstream) so the fish has time to intercept the fly naturally and turn with the current rather than making the fish chase upstream. He also corrected my long strips, instructing me to work the fly in very very short staccato strips that better imitated baitfish movement. He explained the rationale very simply: how many baitfish can out-swim a big brown? By the end of our float, Jeff and I had done reasonably well but Jason felt the bite was off.
Thursday evening was windy with big gusts firing off the mountains and roaring across the river valley. Dust was blowing everywhere – a sure sign a front was coming through. Sure enough, as forecast, Friday dawned very cold and rainy – highs dropped from the 90’s to the low 40’s in just 2 days! Jim and Joyce’s advice to pack and be ready for almost any kind of weather was spot on.
Jason picked Jeff and I up early Friday morning at the lodge. As we drove out of Fort Smith he discussed his plan. He was concerned that the heavy overnight rains might begin to cloud up the water and that it would only get worse the farther downriver we fished, so rather than start at the 3 mile launch, he wanted to launch at the Yellowtail dam access, drift and strip streamers, then pull out at 3 mile and do another loop.
The after-dam access. This is the highest up the river you can launch on the Bighorn.
We were fine with the plan. Once we launched we were immediately hit head-on with a stiff cold wind that came right up the river. Though Jeff and I had foul weather gear on and had layered up under our waders and rain gear, the rain wet any exposed skin and the cold winds soon numbed fingers and faces. Neck gaiters and wool hats helped, as did the heavier work of casting and stripping tandem streamer rigs on sink tip lines.
Jeff cinches down while guide Jason re-ties a streamer. Jeff, from Northern Cal, was not so used to this type of fishing weather. For me, a north-easterner, it was not so bad. As the saying goes, “there’s no bad weather, just bad clothing“…
Despite the weather, I enjoyed the streamer fishing. Jason set me up once again with the sparkle minnow streamer as the lead fly and the grinch riding tail gun.
We picked up some fish, mainly browns in the deep pools, and then came to a river braid that Jason felt might hold some good fish. This braid was often overlooked apparently. We anchored at the end of the island and wade-fished the braid. I could see some fish periodically rising to something very small but nymphing this stretch was not moving any fish. After a while I asked Jason if I could try throwing a streamer. He was all for it so I pulled out my Helios2 6 weight and gave it a shot.
I walked up to the top of the braid and made casts across and up, letting my streamer sink and swing down. Occasionally I short-stripped across, and sometimes I did this on the swing. Just below the head of the braid was a large log-jam and perfect cover for trout. I worked my streamer through this area and had a solid splashy take.
The first of 6 trout from Jason’s river braid…
Repeated swings down the length of the braid and below where the water cut into a red clay bank brought many strikes – some short and some solid – for a total of 5 browns and 1 rainbow.
This rainbow smashed the sparkle minnow on the swing.
We continued our drift, throwing streamers, and hit the 3 mile pull-out at noon. We were pretty wet and cold and per Jason’s suggestion, drove back to the lodge to eat our lunch in the comfort of the dry and heated rod and wader room.
Jeff was done with fishing at that point. His rain jacket had been not much more than a wearable sieve to keep the big raindrops out; he was soaked through from the driving rain. I was pretty dry and wanted to give the fishing another round.
And so we went – just Jason and I – back out into the gray cold rainy afternoon. It was the same drill; casting, stripping, casting again, but oh how good it was to get out one more time. I caught some nice browns and lost a really good rainbow that I considered a final “thanks” offering to the river.
We all left the lodge the next day for home. I was the only one heading eastbound – the rest traveled westbound by plane or car. By 2 o’clock that afternoon, I was wing-borne and climbing high over Montana. From my window seat I got one last look at the khaki high desert landscape marked by little veins of green and gold. Then we were in the clouds and the last good country was gone. But, like Hemingway’s own northern Michigan woods, I now realized that one never really loses such a place.
Ernest Hemingway posing with a nice trout caught from the East Branch of the Fox River. This river was the river portrayed in his classic short story, “Big Two-Hearted River.” And it was the very definition of Hemingway’s “last good country.”
Credit: “Ernest Hemingway Collection. Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston”
My thoughts turned to fly fishing the Bighorn: the pods of rising browns, the trico hatches so thick they looked like rising smoke over the river, the sight of an indicator plunging down in fast water, the savage strike of a big trout intercepting a streamer on the swing, the company of friends, good food, a cigar and bourbon on the deck, the sun setting ablaze on high desert mountains, the good tired feeling after fishing hard all day, a worn-out casting arm, and the unfailing work of great guides. And I decided then, I’d return as long as I could to refresh my fly-fishing soul in my last good country.
“Even a fishless morning can still be a great day because of the experience earned and knowledge gained. Count the hours, not the fish. Be an observer, look for things, think about what’s going on around you, work the structure and remember that time on the water builds casting and fishing skills.”
Bob Popovics
I met Captain Greg Cudnik at the Barnegat Light marina, where his 25-foot Parker, “Endless Summer”, was docked. It was “Oh-dark-thirty” and the air was unusually warm for November. On past trips, I would have been dressing up with foul weather gear and layers of warm clothing, but not this time. The ocean water temps were still in the 60’s, 10 degrees higher than normal and air temps and weather had been unseasonably warm.
“It was really blowing at my house”, Greg remarked as I got my gear out, implying some concern about the day’s fishing prospects. It was definitely breezy at the marina, but I was hoping the fly-fishing gods would mediate that for this trip.
We geared up and headed out in the early dawn. Captain Greg powered the Endless Summer into the inlet as the ocean poured into the bay at peak flood tide. I had two10 weight and two 9 weight fly rods rigged and ready, the former with T-14 and T-17 sinking heads and the latter each with a floating line and intermediate line.
An Atlantic Menhaden, aka as “bunker”. These baitfish can exceed 6″ in length.
We began casting the sinking head rigs and large bunker patterns as there were bunker everywhere. They were so thick in places that the water took on a purple hue where these baitfish were concentrated. Bunker are filter feeders and a prime source of food for striped bass. The stripers will at times crash through pods but are more likely to sit below them waiting for an errant or confused bunker to stray from the protection of the school. A common technique to catch very large striped bass is to live line bunker, and that’s what most of the boats out around Barnegat Inlet were doing. Indeed, last year in late November I caught a 40 lb bass with Captain Greg using that exact technique, after several fruitless hours of dredging with a sinking line and bunker fly. Admittedly, I had given up the ghost that day…
Big striper caught live lining…
And so, on this trip I was out for another go, trying to get a larger bass to come to the fly. I’d had plenty of success in the past with nice schoolie and schoolie-plus bass, as well as some very nice bluefish, but a solid striper had eluded me.
I fished a large bunker fly deep along the north side of the jetty to no avail for over an hour. Captain Greg was “feeling” a change to topwater and wanted me to try a large popper. I had a big-bodied bug made for saltwater and tied it on to my 9 weight floating line rig. To my delight, not much casting was needed to fish the popper over the submerged rocks of the north jetty. The flood tide had set up an ideal drift along the jetty. Greg expertly positioned his boat ass-end and “up-current” to the submerged rocks. The flood tide poured over them, creating big standing waves and a perfect ambush site for the bass that so love turbulent wash-water and rocks (in Maryland, stripers are referred to as “rockfish”). Any bunker that strayed too close to the hydraulic set up by the flood tide was surely going to get carried away over the rocks, banged up, and disoriented. Smaller baitfish have a hard time holding in such fast, turbulent water and they are prime pickings for a big, powerful, bass. All I had to do was occasionally cast over the submerged rocks, popping the bug up current, and then let it slide back over the rocks. At times all of the fly line was off the rod tip, with me using the backing to pop the bug.
We worked the length of the submerged jetty and after a time I got a slashing strike that missed the popper. Greg expertly held the boat in position as we drifted along and then I was onto something very solid, followed by a powerful run that caused my 30 lb dacron backing to tangle around my wrist and come tight with no give. I scrambled to untangle at the risk of injuring my wrist as dacron under strain can be sharp, but before I could clear the line, it popped, and went slack. This fish had broken the backing and not at the backing knot! My heart sunk for losing such a fish as well as all of my floating fly line, my leader, and the popper.
After collecting myself, I broke out my 9 weight rod rigged with intermediate line. Greg went through my fly box and found a large white streamer. This fly was tied on a 6/0 short-shanked hook with a spun deerhair head tipped with scarlet red. two big eyes, and a body of long white hackle and white ostrich herl, a good 6″ in length. I couldn’t recall where I got it or what it was named but Greg felt it would be a great choice to fish just under the surface. Greg added that often times big muskie flies do well for stripers.
The Montauk Monster
I fished this big streamer like I had the popper, casting it to the rocks and letting it slide over them in the flood tide, then stripping it back in with erratic movements and letting it slide out again in the frothy wash of the tide. We slowly made our way towards the beach and parallel to the submerged rocks. It wasn’t long before I was onto something solid. Backing stripped off the reel in head-shaking surges, my 9 weight bowing to the submerged jetty, as the fish hung close to the rocks.
It took a while, but slowly I gained back my fly line. Greg had the net out and with one good sweep landed my personal best striper on the fly.
Personal best – 28″ and roughly 12 lbs.
After releasing this striper, we returned to our station along the rocks. It was not long before I was into a nice bass again…
Hooked up! Note the large standing waves where the flood tide races over the submerged jetty. Barnegat Light stands proudly in the background.
As with the prior fish, this bass held heavy in the wash but over time, it was landed and quickly released.
A second nice striper in hand with the Montauk Monster placed perfectly in the corner of the mouth.
We continued to fish the remnants of the flood tide and I tied into another good bass, but the hook pulled mid-way through the fight. After that the bite turned off, even for the live liners fishing near us. I suspect the change of the tide had something to do with the shut-down.
Bass on the fly. That’s a TFO BVK 9 weight blank I built that’s served me well fly fishing, saltwater. The standing waves are from flood tide current racing over submerged jetty rocks. The boats in the background are fishing the inlet.
When we got back in after this great trip, I promised Greg I’d dig up the name of this fly that served us so well. The movement in the water was, as Greg would describe it, “Sexy.” At 6.5″ in length and mainly white, it surely matched the large bunker that schooled above the bass. Driving home the next day, it came back to me: I’d bought it online through Orvis – it was called “The Montauk Monster.”
The Montauk Monster had proven itself. After doing some research on this fly I found that it is the creation of Joshua Fine, a veterinarian. Fine is a featured fly tyer for Orvis who reportedly put a tremendous number of hours in developing this fly at the bench and in field trials before he came up with the winning combination. After all the development work, Fine reportedly what maty have seemed like an eternity tying samples and creating the material list and technical drawings for Orvis. The ostrich herl compresses when wet which makes it easier to cast. Though I didn’t do a ton of casting with this fly, it did appear to be a much easier cast than the bunker fly I was fishing earlier that day.
Motivated by the fly’s success on our trip, Captain Greg tied a few for future trips and the results were inspiring.
Greg’s initial tie of the Montauk Monster
In fly fishing there are two general schools of thought as to effectiveness, one being that fly selection is of primary consideration, the other being that proper presentation is more important than fly selection. There are times when one or the other on their own can make the day, but in my experience it’s usually a blend of the two. The right fly fished poorly generally won’t work, nor will pure presentation when the fish are on a specific bite. On this memorable day with Captain Greg, I’d say we fished correctly in terms of the method, location, and tide. And, we also had the Montauk Monster…
“The house was built on the highest part of the narrow tongue of land between the harbor and the open sea. It had lasted through three hurricanes and it was built solid as a ship.”
Islands in the Stream
Ernest Hemingway
It was mid-April and my wife and I were in Destin, Florida, our “happy place,” but I was not completely happy. The weather was sunny and mildly warm, with the winds out of the south at 15 to 20 mph blowing across the gulf – a huge fetch of water – and the surf was up. Rip tide warnings were posted in the weather forecast and the surf flags flew the dreaded red, doubles no less, standing straight out in the wind, as in “stay out of the water.”
For flyfishers of the Emerald Coast, April can be an incredible time to fish for pompano which are migrating northward along the Gulf and Atlantic coast of Florida, searching the warmer coastal waters, and on the feed after spawning in the Gulf, offshore. Pompano will move seeking their ideal water temperature, moving inshore from the Gulf after spawning for warmer coastal waters above 68 degrees and then moving north ever-seeking water in the 68-to-75-degree range, not too hot and not too cold.
It was pure torture for this flyfisher, knowing the fish were there and not being able to get to them with the high surf conditions. So, I monitored the weather daily, viewing the beach cams and hoping and praying to see a drop in wave height and action. Unfortunately, as long as the wind remained blowing strongly out of the south, the surf just continued to build and get dirty, another condition that can turn the bite off for pompano.
After a week of this, I finally noticed a change in the forecast that predicted a wind shift out of the north. On the Florida panhandle, northerly winds translate to lower surf, and better access for fly anglers who generally must wade out to fish from the first bar. Conventional anglers need only wade out to cast a long line, anchoring their baits, then retreating to the beach where they can wait for the bite while basking in the sun on the beach.
Meteorologists get a bad rap for forecast accuracy but Weather.com was right on the money when it forecast a wind shift. Early the following morning I stared in disbelief at a surf that was almost as calm as a mill pond. The surf laid down to the point where I was wondering if what I saw on the beach cam was a still picture in place of the usual video stream. The winds were still on the breezy side, but I could deal with that. A coffee or two later, I saddled up in the golf cart, gear at the ready, my 8 weight TFO BVK home-build strung up with a 350-grain intermediate sink tip line and 5-foot leader, with a pink and white clouser, size 4, on the business end.
A pink and white clouser – a terrific searching pattern to use for pompano, as well as redfish, ladyfish, and sea trout. Like rainbow trout, pompano like a little bling.
I parked near the beach access and made the hike eastward beyond the hotel beaches where swimmers and sun-bathers were already taking station. Soon I was striding at a good pace along the wet sand, eyes on the water for bird play, signs of fish, and surf structure. The water was crystal clear and the white sand bars stood out in contrast to the emerald green and deeper blue of the troughs.
Beautiful Destin – looking westward to where I was fishing. Note the first and second bars and the trough between them. Often times the pompano will cruise that trough and come up on the first bar in search of food.
On my way, I stopped and talked to a spin angler, hoping he’d gotten into some pompano. He was fishless at that point but reported a good knockdown on his rod soon after his first cast. I remained hopeful as I continued eastward, pausing at a spot where the last house on the beach stood – a massive single floor mansion that had the look of a bunker – it’s outer skin concrete white – dotted with a series of magnificent windows looking south over the beach and to the expanse of the gulf. Beyond this house was the Topsail Hill Preserve Park and miles of unoccupied beach. Normally I would continue on to a place where I had done very well on previous visits, but this place looked fishy, and the first trough took an appealing curve in close to the beach. I decided to drop my pack there, under the stony gaze of that mansion, and give it a try…
I waded a bit beyond the first bar, waist-deep in the still relatively cool clear gulf surf, fanning casts out to the deeper water off the edge of the bar, then stripping the fly back in short erratic retrieves. A few skipjack, smaller but very aggressive surf dwellers, would annoyingly attack the fly and sometimes hook up. But after a few minutes I finally came tight to what would turn out to be my first of over a dozen pompano, with half as many lost. As typical with pompano, the take was solid and followed by some spastic headshakes and then the launch of a fish with drag-strip speed.
A beautiful pompano of good size. These fish are terrific gamefish on the fly rod, having tremendous speed (note the forked tail), and using all of that deep side profile to their advantage in the fight. They also are wonderful on the grill, with firm slightly oily flesh and a skin that crisps. Amazing table fare.
I landed that first fish under the gaze of a few beach-combing onlookers. Much to my delight, the bite lasted an hour and a half. At times, large schools of pompano of 30 or more would cruise through, their silvery sides shimmering as they scavenged for sand fleas, crabs, and small baitfish.
The sand flea or mole crab, a favorite food of pompano, among other surf-dwelling fish. These crustaceans inhabit what is known as the swash zone, the wet sand area where the surf coats the sand and retreats. The sand flea can hold its appendages close to its body, allowing it to roll in the tidal currents and waves but it can also quickly dig into the sand and disappear from predators.
The fishing was on and off as the pompano cruised the trough – fast and furious one moment, dead the next, requiring fast casting when sighting an approaching school, almost always followed by immediate hook-ups.
Vlahos’ Marbled Sand Flea – a great fly pattern designed to imitate the real thing. I have used this pattern with great success – cast it out, let it sink, and let the surf move it about, interspersed with occasional strips and hang on!
My time fishing on the bar was as always almost magical in terms of the plethora of marine life seen, including sea turtles, rays, schools of big jacks moving through just out of casting reach, distant sightings of porpoise, and an occasional shark. On this day, one very large shark sauntered in, sinister black against the white of the sand bar, leaving me to slowly vacate his hunting grounds until he was well out of sight.
As in most of life, all good things must come to an end. Perhaps porpoises had moved in stealthily to drive the fish off, or maybe the pompano just moved on as is often the case with many fish of the surf, roaming endlessly for miles in their incessant search for food. The previous spring, I had fished this same bite but had given up in desperation with waves that occasionally broke over me as I fished the trough. On that venture I witnessed a pack of porpoises herding the pompano and playing with them like a cat does with a mouse, literally flinging the fish high into the air just 30 feet from me. At least I knew I had found the pompano, but who could blame them for ignoring my fly when fleeing for their life!
Having had more than a day’s worth of fun, I grabbed my pack and started my walk back to the beach access hidden in a morass of beach hotels and towering condos. On the way I stopped to speak with a spin angler who was set up with several surf rods. He was an older man, sporting a colorful shirt that worked hard to stay buttoned. We talked about the fishing and after learning of my success, the angler inquired as to where I’d found fish. I described the place, and this affable fellow immediately recognized it. “Oh,” he said, “that place belongs to Jerry Jones. I know Jerry through his son…” On he went with a long-winded oratory about his bountiful business connections, his southern drawl mixing with the cacophony of sunbathers close-by – radios playing, laughing gulls on the breeze, kids shrieking, water lapping up on the sugary sand. And all the while above his chat, the high-pitched whine of my fly reel played in my ear. The warmth of that late morning just sweetened the happiness of coming home after some solid fishing.
After politely disengaging the spin angler, I continued my homeward walk. It was close to noon, and the hotel beaches were crowded with vacationers from places like Columbus, Ohio, Ridgeland, Mississippi, and Memphis, Tennessee – the heartland and the southeast- all basking in the warmth of the sun, adoring the brilliant Gulf waters, and enjoying a mere sip of the good life that attracts so many to such a place. Seeing them and thinking of my own short visit made me wonder whether Jerry Jones even stayed at his place and whether he knew what lay just beyond his very own front yard…
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