Fish even when you can't

I took a trip to LA last weekend to visit some friends and for work during the week.  I didn't bother to bring my fishing stuff because the friends I was visiting don't fish and I didn't have a car or any idea of where to go to fish.  Plus I was staying on the coast and I imagine that driving through the city to get out of town and to a river would take about a day and a half.  LA is huge!

So instead of actually fishing, one of my friends stole my Iphone and downloaded a fishing game for it.  I have to admit it is somewhat fun.  Of course it's not the same as being out on the river listening to the flowing water, feeling the cool water through your waders, and actually sensing the wiggle of the rod in your hand from a nice fish fighting you.  Then again, I've never been anywhere I could expect to catch huge fish on almost every cast.  I set many new personal records for fish and for wasting time with this game.

I
think the biggest bass I've ever landed was 4ish pounds (at best), and that was probably 15 years ago.  But this isn't just a bass fishing game.  There are carp, cats, bluegill, pike, muskies, walleye, and more.  And what's even better and just as realistic as catching on every cast, is that you can catch any of them on anything in the game's tackle box.  Take it from me.  I don't know how to fish for pike or muskie, but I can still fake catch them on this game!  All my new fish records that I will probably never beat except on this game, which I have already become bored with are as follows:

 

Not bad! Now if I could just repeat all of these in real life sometime in the next 50 years I can die a happy man.

Fish on.

Please deregulate!

It's not all that often that I agree with the political right in this country, but in one instance I am requesting some deregulation.  Please, please, please cut down on the fishing regulations in Oregon!  I downloaded the regulations booklet a few weeks ago to check out what all the rules are, mainly regarding sea runs and steelhead seasons.  I have high-speed cable internet, like pretty much everyone these days, and it took more than a couple seconds to download the regulation pdf.

In all, the booklet is a 112 page encyclopedia.  Sure, some of that is cute pictures and announcements for various parks, fishing days, as well as a few ads.  But the bulk of it is actually dense rules and regulations. 

There are nine separate "zones" in Oregon and each has it's own rules.  Each river within each zone has all it's own rules and regulations too.  I understand the need for some special regulations regarding some sea run fisheries and the need for coastal and mountain fishing regulation differences, but can't we please make this just a little simpler??  The regulations as written are mainly the same for all the rivers but they are still broken down river by river because a few here and there don't follow the general rule.  It's just unnecessarily annoying if you ask me.

Here's what I propose.  All rivers more than XX miles (make XX whatever you want, 20, 50, etc.) from the coast are open to catch and release fishing year round.  Then you can add on whatever rules you want beyond that.  Am I not the most reasonable man in America?

To release or not to release?

After my recent success with a couple steelhead in town I was talking with another friend of mine who suggested keeping one at some point to try it out in my frying pan.  I thought it sounded like a good idea so I went to the interwebs to tell me when, where, and how I could catch and keep a steelhead without going to jail or losing my fishing license.  And after more than a few minutes of leafing through the regulations novel (which warrants another post at a later date) I finally figured that, yes, I could catch and keep a steelhead this time of year where I have been fishing.  I also saw this nice notice right beside the regulations for the Willamette river:

In the immortal words of Homer Simpson, mmmm, mercury and PCBs.

Then again it doesn't tell me what "High" means.  So referring to page 18 tells me how fast I will die if I decide to eat some of these tasty fish.

 

Hmmm, I'm not sure it's worth the health risk.  Of course, PCBs are also quite tasty and nutritious.

"All persons should reduce or avoid eating..."  or what?  This one is even more frightening.  If I do eat some of the fat and ingest these lovely PCBs, dioxins, or pesticides what happens?  Instant death, or a small increase in the likelihood of getting cancer or having failing kidneys or something of that ilk?

I think I'll just continue my normal catch and release fishing.  Not because I'm a self-righteous prig but because it's not worth the potential side effects.

...and of course the squirrels

After some success in town on Friday after work, I decided to go back to the same spot on Sunday afternoon in hopes of landing some more trout, a carp, or perhaps get another chance at a steelhead.  I rode my bike with my gear on my back downtown and parked my bike near the spot I fished Friday.  I locked the bike to a fence and walked down to the river below.

It was a nice sunny and warm 80 degree day so I opted to leave the waders on the shore.  I pulled off my shoes and rigged up my rod.  After losing a nice steelhead two days ago on a poorly tied fly on 6x I decided it was probably a good idea to take my 5x tippet section off and change out to 4x.  There weren't any bugs coming off the water today so I figured dredging the bottom with nymphs was my best bet.  I tied a size 12 Mega Prince on the 4x and dropped a caddis nymph off the back on 5x.

I stepped into the cool but not cold water and started tossing my flies into the seam upstream of where I was, and watching the indicator flow down n to the slower water below me.  I worked the seam for 20 minutes and got no action.  At least it was a beautiful day to be out on the water and to enjoy the weather.

Not having any action, I moved out a few feet and found a nice big and stable rock to stand on to keep my shorts dry.  I started throwing my flies to the next seam farther out. And just like Friday the whole time I was snagging caddis pods and having to clean off my flies.  It was annoying, but at least every time I snagged one it gave me the momentary hope that I had a fish on the line.  Of course when I set the hook each time there would be nothing there.

Finally, when I set the hook after my indicator dove there was some solid resistance, and after a second or two I felt the telltale wiggles of a fish on the end of the line.  And the fact that it was stationary for a few moments told me it was a nice fish.  I pulled and he stayed still.  I pulled some more and I still remained where he was.  He took a couple of nice runs and pulled 10-20 yards of line off my reel and came up twice for some aerial acrobatics.  As a sidenote, I sort of wished my reel was the clicking sort so I could hear that glorious whir, but it's not.  After he took a few runs I was able to pull him into the slow moving water surrounding me.  I got him close with my net out, but when he saw me he took off again.

After another ten minutes of fighting me out in the swift current he came back into the slow water and I got my net ready again.  He looked ready to be netted so I got ready, stretched my rod out behind me and stuck the net in front and that's when I realized my leader was about two feet longer than my reach.  I could pull the fish up to the front of the net, but I could pull him in.  He gained some strength and took another run but was pretty tired out so it didn't take too long to get him back. I managed to pull him in close then quickly took a step toward him to net him.  It wasn't pretty, but I got my net on him.  He was actually considerably longer than the net, but he went in nonetheless.

Then he decided he wasn't done.  One big flop an he was right back out of my net.  He turned and took off and that's when he threw the hook.  It sucked and there were a couple fishermen across the river watching me from where they had just docked their boat.  I tried to play it off as though it was an intentional quick release.

I shook it off, took a short break to rest my arm, then shortened my leader to avoid another fiasco and got right back to it.  I walked out to my rock, stood atop it and started throwing my line out into the current.  And it wasn't too much later that I had another wiggle on the end of the line when I set the hook.  We were on again!

This time I was determined to get some images of the fish before I landed him just in case.  After he took his first big run and seemed to be somewhat stationary I quickly pulled my camera out of my vest and slipped my hand through the wrist strap.  Now I was ready to get a picture if he got in close enough or came up to splash on the surface.  It took a good 10-15 minutes before I even got a glimpse of him.  He was gracious enough to let me pull him up to the surface out in the current to snap a couple quick pics.

I breathed a sigh of relief because I at least had evidence that I had a nice fish on the line, now it was time to try to successfully land and release him.  Eventually I pulled him into the shallow still water and easily pulled him in netting distance.  I plunged my net into the water below him and picked him right up.  He flopped a little but remained in the net.  I hurried back to the shore to pull the fly and snapped a quick image of him, with my hand in the picture for perspective.

Then back to the water he went.  A couple quick back and forth agitations to get water moving through his gills and he slipped out from my hands back into the currents.  I stood up with a smile on my face, and a group of three guys on the other side of the river gave me some cheers.  They had watched most of it while hanging out chatting.  I gave them a thumbs up and went and sat on the bank with a smile on my face and a tired arm.

I know literally nothing about steelhead other than they are big rainbows that go out to live part of their lives at sea.  I don't know how you're supposed to catch them:  where, with what, etc.  But I managed to finally officially catch one.

Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while.

sigh-YOU-slaw

Now that the water has come down out here in Oregon (it came down quite some time ago), it occurred to me that I had taken a short drive out to the Siuslaw river west of town a few months back.  The river looked like a fun river to fish with all kinds of pools and runs.  There was plenty of great structure all over the river to hold fish and keep me entertained.  The downside at the time was that the water was HIGH and FLOWING.  The rivers in Oregon, I have come to find out, are quite different from the rivers I'm used to in Colorado.  Out here everything is built upon old lava flows, so the river beds are solid rock that has been warped and worn by the water over years.  Apparently what that results in is flat shallow areas that instantly drop off to 3 foot deep pools, which makes the wading a little frightening.  And when water is high it's even worse.  One wrong step and down river you go!

But back when I took my trip out there in high water I did try fishing for a while.  I probably spent about two hours tossing a variety of nymphs into the water in different spots to no avail.  I also couldn't walk around much due to the crazy drop-offs even in the grass.

Now, however, the water has come down nicely and I can walk all over the river, although still cautiously.

There was on curiosity, which I also noticed last time out.  There are crawfish all over the river bed.  They probably aren't crawfish because they're in a cold water stream and they are bright red (before being cooked).  I thought it was odd because I had never seen it before.

 

I didn't see any fish coming to the surface, but in a small stream I figured my old reliable dry dropper was the best bet.  I tied on a stimulator and a P-tail dropper and started throwing.  I got quite a few hit in all kinds of places.  The deeper, slow moving pools produced.

Quite a few of the faster moving runs with seams to slower moving waters produced too.

In all I think I may have caught anywhere from 30-50 fish.  I should bring along a little counter next time I go out.  Most of the fish were pretty small, but quite a few of them were fairly decent.  Nothing was bigger than 12inches though, sadly.  :o(

I tried getting some video of me catching fish, but every time I set up the camera to record, I got skunked.  I will keep trying and eventually I will succeed!

Learn from your mistakes

I've been meaning to hit up the river that runs through town and that I ride my bike along every day on my way to work.  There are a number of shelves, riffles, runs, and deeps that look like interesting places to drop a line into.  Last week I went for a jog farther south along the river where I don't go on my ride to work, and I saw a spot that I really liked.  There was a small island separated from the main bank by some still water along and for some reason I always like these sorts of places.  It's probably because I know I will not be surrounded by trees, which is pretty common out here on the banks in Oregon.  I vowed to fish this spot soonish.

Last Friday I took my fishing gear to work with me and headed out after work to the river.  I biked with my gear on my back down to the spot I had scoped out earlier in the week.  I had my waders and boots so I put them on, even though the water was probably warm enough to wet-wade.  I moved downstream to the bottom of the island, stowed my empty backpack on the shore under a tree and moved down below a long shelf.  The shelf poured water into some deeper, slower moving areas I figured held some fish.  I put on a big Possie Bugger and my classic go to, a pheasant tail dropper and started throwing them a few feet up from where the shelf dropped off.

Instantly, I started catching things.  Unfortunately, "things" weren't fish.  I began pulling up caddis larva pods on about half my casts.  The problem was my Possie Bugger was just too heavy and sunk too fast for the slow moving water.  However, I was too lazy as I often am to change my top fly, because that means cutting and retying two knots instead of one.  In retrospect, I suppose it's not that big of a deal but I pretty much always avoid changing my top fly until absolutely necessary.

And after another 30min or so of pulling these pods off my hooks I gave up and took the possie bugger off and changed it to a beadhead caddis larva.  I managed to pull one small guy out of this area, but gave up on it after about an hour and decided to move up stream.

But when I looked to shore my backpack was no longer where I put it.  There had been a couple young kids in the trails down on the river bank in that area earlier and I hadn't kept a good eye on my bag.  I figured it wasn't a huge loss since all there was was an empty rod tube, a bag, and my shoes.  I walked over to shore cussing at the stupid kids for stealing my stuff and causing me a bit of an inconvenience.  In hopes that they pulled the bag up into the brush out of sight to root through it, I walked up the bank to the trail and looked around.  Sure enough not 30 feet down the trail my bag was lying there.  Everything was as I had left it, just displaced a ways so I grabbed everything and vowed to keep it in better sight from now on.

I took my stuff a little farther up river where there was a nice seam between some faster moving water and still water, that was at least a couple feet deep.  I tossed my bags aside, removed some of the weights I had on, and fished the slower moving portion of the water.  I caught one or two smaller fish that wiggled off the hook when I pulled them out of the water, which was fine.  I also caught a decent sized rainbow and things were looking up!

Then things turned a little odd.  There was a bit of a small baetis hatch going on so I put on a size 20 baetis emerger and continued fishing the slow moving water.  Only a couple casts later I got a nice strong bite.  My indicator took a dive and I set the hook.  It didn't take long to realize I had hooked a nice fish.  When he refused to go where I pulled it was obvious that the fish was bigger than any I had caught so far.  I fought him for a few minutes and then he began splashing on the surface, which gave me a clue to how big he was.  Nice fish was all I could think!  Then again, the way he was fighting was not like a normal trout.  It was sort of a lazy fight, and when I pulled him in close enough to get a good look I realized why.  It was a nice 20" carp.  I know some people craze over them, but carp just don't have a real fight for their size if you ask me.  At least not compared to trout or bass or, for that matter, most other fish.  It's ok, send the hate mail.

I landed the carp and shot a quick pic and moved on with my life.  Although I did have to laugh some at the experience and surprise of catching a carp here.  It wasn't what I had expected, and I was a little surprised that he bit on the little emerger I had just tied on.  It was hooked to the front of his sucker in a way that was not a snag.

I kept fishing the area and got no more bites in the slow moving water so I started moving my casts out farther and farther.  The sun was getting low on the horizon but there was still ample time.  Within another dozen casts, I got another strong bite.  The fish fought in a lazy manner, just like the previous catch.  I figured there was no way I caught the same fish twice in just a couple minutes, so there must be a pod of carp feeding in the area.  He even gave a splashy top-water fight occasionally.

But then I managed to get him in sight, which was when I realized it wasn't a carp.  It was a total shocker, but I had a 24" steelhead on the end of my line.  Perhaps a little back story is important here.  I moved to Oregon in February and have not targeted steelhead because I know pretty much nothing about them other than that they are just big rainbows that apparently live in the west and east coast rivers.  I had assumed you had to target them like fishing big streamers through deep pools, but that is not so.  Apparently any idiot can catch a steelhead.

Except I didn't manage to catch him.  After a 10 min fight I got him in close to my net for the third time and he ran for the third time.  Unfortunately this time the pull on my rod let go and my line shot back behind me.  My bottom fly, the emerger, had pulled off.

My first mistake was that I was too lazy to change my leader, which was a 5x, and I always like to go a size smaller for the tippet to my dropper so as to only lose one fly in case of  snag.  Catching a big steelhead on 6x (that would be 3.7lb test for non-fly people) is probably not advisable.  But the big mistake was when I had tied my dropper on, the knot slipped as I snugged it down.  Generally that means you didn't tie a great knot and if you pull it will keep slipping.  At the time I gave it a gentle tug and said "eh, good enough."  Well, Mr. Steelhead, the first steelhead and biggest trout I've ever hooked, told me it was not good enough.

Live and learn.

Karma

Fishing outing number two in Missouri consisted of going back to Casey's and getting another styrofoam of worms, and driving out to another local pond.  The pond was rimmed on one half by cattails and at the other end was a nice dock from which to fish.  It was a little smaller than yesterday's, but clear.  It looked to be a decent place for a couple bass.  There was space for them to hide among the cattails and there were also a few overhanging trees for shade.

We stepped out onto the dock and quickly noticed that there were some wasps buzzing around.  And before long we realized there were more coming from beneath our feet.  I thought it was a good idea to take a 5 gallon bucket that was lying around, fill it up with water, and pour it all over the deck where the wasps were.  When the wasps swarmed up from under the deck it no longer seemed like a great idea.  Laura, Kyle, Isaac and I all vacated the dock at a run.  Fortunately one of the guys who works on the farm drove by on an ATV and went to get some wasp killer.  He came back and sprayed the pests good and dead.  A few continued to come back from foraging throughout the day and were promptly stepped on.

That's about all I can really say about the day's fishing.  I got totally skunked.  I tried weedless worms in and around the cattails, under the trees, I tried some spinners, and a few other things.  I even resorted toward the end of the day to trying to catch some bluegills on worms.

Laura and Kyle caught a few decent sized bluegills that we kept for hors duevres before lunch.  Dad caught an occasional 6" bass.  I think Isaac was skunked and Grandpa I believe pulled in a few bluegill too.  We took our treasure back to the skinning area at the grandparents for some photos and more work than it was worth.