Tie, test - Streamers on the Clark Fork

Got a nice streamer idea from Benny and tied up a few variations yesterday morning. Had a talk to attend at 5:00, so I hit the river around 3:45 and fished for 45min. Despite the weight on the flies, the water was big and it took burying the rod on the stream bed in front of my feet to get them deep enough to induce strikes. Caught a couple, very big white fish - well I think they were white fish. The bodies looked like white fish, but instead of the "sucker" looking mouth, they both had a wide, almost catfish mouths. A quick search online didn't produce any revelations. Anyone have any ideas? Caught one on a quick change to BWOs, but the last streamer cast of the day produced this guy:

The talk was on masculinity and the three papers focused on the perversion of the reality of cowboys to fit a masculine myth, a review of a novel challenging the male-dominated, aggressive domination of the western environment, and a scathing critique of how county music videos and songs perpetuate sexism and ill-defined gender roles. I've been to my fair share of conference presentations, but I was struck by the format and the eloquence of the presentations. Granted, the papers were pre-written and read, often word for word, from the page. Despite the blatant disregard for all the public speaking rules, it worked very well - the mastery of the written word was impressive and inspiring. I was frustrated, however, with the implied conclusion that these myths have been conspiratorially and maliciously perpetuated by some "powers that be." I tend to think, rather, that these ideas are rooted in our identify and mythos as a people, as Americans, and, not unimportantly, in our biochemistry. It's been perverted and usurped at various times for a variety of malicious and greedy purposes, but our willingness, no, our eagerness to buy into these myths is not manufactured, it is based in tradition, history, identity, in our failings and in our dreams (honorable and otherwise). Beyond that, and in addition to being just plain fascinating, the talks got me thinking about my research: how has our culture's definitions of men, of domination over nature, of independence and ruggedness, of traditional masculine roles and a nostalgia, justified or not, for how it was long ago affected our natural resource policy. And more importantly, how does it inform the acceptance and effectiveness of new natural resource policies and extension efforts. Its a perspective that reminds me of my high school days, reading "Choice of Heros," and trying to understand who I was, how the world would view me, and if I really cared. Favorite line of the night came from Carl (don't know last name) from the Missoula Public Library - "The myth of the cowboy is alive and well. Anyone visiting the statehouse in Helena will witness an endless parade of cowboy drag. Feet squeezed into shiny, pointed boots and hats on heads of folks who couldn't herd anything, let alone cattle."

Urban trout

When I moved to Missoula in June, the Clark Fork (and most any other low lying depression) was full of chocolate milk. Frothy, fast, and inhospitable to most any aquatic creature, including me. I debated sneaking into the soft chocolate of lawns and parking lots a few times, but decided the marginal chance of good fishing wasn't worth the time away from work. So I hunkered. Every trip across a bridge inspired glances at seams and surveys of the scrambleability of banks. June passed. July passed. The water was still angry from the melting of record snowfall. Just my luck. Travel, work, travel, visitors. I got out. I had success. But the few hours I had were best spent, I thought, on the legendary blackfoot, the renowned rock creek, and the bitterroot. And these rivers are amazing. Very. And so August passed, too, without me fishing in town. The weather has changed from summer to fall. Yesterday the clouds rolled in, dark, and rain poured down in the morning. I'd decided the week before I was finally going to bite the bullet and fish in town and was just waiting for a day like this. Now, you see people fishing in town and they all look like asswipes. Indicators flying everywhere, never left alone long enough to even approach a reasonable drift. Flies in bushes. And never any bent rods. Guys at the flyshops speak disparagingly of "messing around in town." And so I'd avoided it, confident that if the fishing was worth it, more people would be there who knew what they were doing. But the weather was right and I'd stared at the river in town long enough.

I started under a bridge, walking by a recently abandoned motorcycle lying in the stream leaking god knows what. Second cast, fish. Hm. Ok. Not a lunker, but a solid little rainbow. Fought like hell. Looked beautiful. Maybe this will work?! I worked a seam upstream, produced a handful more little rainbows. A small hole in a side channel gave up a meatier specimen. I bombed up the bank and sped along the trail past mailboxes and sandbags and driveways. After a couple hundred yards of slack water, there was a hole that looked tasty and was, of course, occupied by some dude with a tacklebox and bobbers. Ha. He probably caught a shit ton! He wasn't very interested in talking, so I moved upstream further. Hopped some silt fence and scrambled down some rip rap. The bank, as it hit the water, got even steeper, it was about 6" deep a foot out and about 10' deep a foot and a half out. I thought this looked promising, but who knows right? I flopped and sank some flies. Nothing. I slowly worked my way along the tangled bank. Flop, sink, swing, nothin. I got myself fully tangled in some trees, almost swimming a couple times. Flop, sink, swing, BAM! Oh yeah, baby! Big flash from a pissed off fish. Reel whined. I contemplated trying to follow it downstream, but I was really fully tangled and couldn't move. Luckily the big guy gave up the fight after a while and the current allowed me to haul him back to my perch. Beautiful rainbow, thick, strong. Missed another one on the next cast - big flash. Damn... And then I proceeded to lose about 10 flies. Fuck my ass. Some in the stream, some in a tree, some, who the hell knows where they went... I literally stomped the ground and swore. Some douche decided that the 4 foot bank was a good place to walk his aggressive dogs. Ok, time to take a break. I seated my fly and walked upstream some more.

This is where I wanted to fish anyway. Everytime I ride my bike downtown I look at this part of the stream. Main channel running big on one side of the channel. The side channel dumped into the main through three consecutive runs. Lotta seams, lotta water, lotta places for fish. And I caught a pile. Nymphing was slow at first - caught a couple. Water was big on the inner seam of the first run so I switched to streamers. After only a couple casts I got hammered. Huge rainbow! Took me almost to my backing. People pointing from the bridge. HA! I was laughing out loud it was so fun. Damn thing fought like hell. And the current was on his side. But after a while I won, dragging that beast into the net. He was whooped. But I held him up to the people looking from the bridge. Nothing like a little exhibitionist fishing. The streamer produced only one other fish at that spot, but it didn't matter. The nymphs pulled a dozen more, and a pile of solid whitefish, too, to keep my interest peaked.

As dark approached I decided I wanted to hit one other very public spot so I hiked back to the car and drove upstream. I was the only person there for about 10 min. Had a huge fish on that popped off. It hit softly at the end of my swing and was probably only hooked by one scale. Saw him flash, held him through one run downstream, but lost him on a crazy barrel roll. Big fish. Oh well, back at it. Others showed up. Three guys upstream, two down stream, just as I'd tied on streamers to work the edge... I stuck with the streamers and worked slowly down as far as I could. Two cutts cooperated. One of the guys upstream stuck in behind me and fucking hammered a huge brown on a cream streamer. Damn. Nice fish. I pulled a few others out after swithing back to nymphs. At one point, I shit you not, I was focusing intently on my sighter and suddenly realized a goddamn syringe was floating next to my line. Well shit. If the fishing wasn't so good, I might have cared. I wonder what the dirty-needle durability of my G3s are? I ignored the urge to think about the source of this and what else was in the water, besides trout. The west mountain stone caught the biggest, a fiesty cutt hanging out in the cold water coming out of a trib. Dark was falling. I was content. And I figured Libby was about done with spin class. Just before dark I packed it in. What a great day! Its not the prettiest scenery and obvious influences of 100,000 people in the immediate watershed. But there was cold air, the clouds of October, and cooperative, big fish. I guess I've no excuse not to be fishing when I've only got an hour or so on my hands. Darn...

Cosmic Lockdown

The only picture I have is of Ben and Paul in their skivvies on the camp porch looking over a map. It ain't pretty nor good for anyone so, you're welcome.

Last spring in PA before moving to Missoula; time to book some days in the turkey woods. Got Paul to take 2 days off from work and a couple more from the family to join Ben and I in the Quehanna to chase birds. The birds were supposed to be thick, the weather perfect, and the pressure light. Long story short, we didn't hear a goddamn gobble - not one - for three full days. Denny's camp was awesome, the food superb, the booze plentiful and we even managed to get up super super early to bomb deep into the woods, well off the roads. The ground was tore up, the sign thick, the other hunters almost non-existent. Not one gobble. Not a distance one, not a early-morning tree gobble followed by silence; just the silence. Made you think there weren't any birds there, but we know better. There are a TON of birds there. Is was just on cosmic lockdown. Super going away present from PA. Oh, and to top if off, Ben and I got lyme disease from two never-seen ticks. 6 days of 102 fever followed by 8 more of exhaustion, then a bullseye rash met with steroids and 4 weeks of doxycycline. Fun. Fuckers. We did get into some trout on Kettle (picky, feisty stockies) and Medix (beautiful little brookies). But WTF. Cosmic Lockdown. Sonovabitch.

Yampa, Steamboat Springs

Headed into town this morning and ate at a little Diner. We've been striking out on good food and this place was no exception. Hit the fly shop afterwards for some RS2s and jujus then drove to the Mt. Werner parking area and jumped in the stream. In town here, the stream looks small, but has some very deep holes and islands creating side channels every so often. We decided to walk downstream from the car and were both immediately untangling stuff, losing flies, and tying on new leaders. Sometimes you're just not operating at 100%.

Around the first bend, though, both Ben and I hooked into some nice rainbows - both on egg patterns. It slowed down a bit for a while and I decided to tie on a streamer and rip it through a long, slow, deep hole that bent around for a hundred yards or so. After a few minutes of stripping that egg-sucking leech through the water, BAM, a fish. A nice fish. Went on a few runs that peeled line from my reel. Ben came up to help net and that fish took off everytime Ben got close. Really nice to finally catch a nice fish on a streamer and really nice to catch a rainbow that big so early in the day. But that was it for the streamer activity. I stayed with it for about an hour, but Ben kept pulling in fish on his Czech nymph rig. I switched and immediately had two fish on, lost them. After regaining composure, I started paying attention a little more closely and pulled a few out of the same hole. The egg pattern kept working all day, so we barely changed it. I did find that a heavier front fly made keeping an eye on the leader a lot easier and also kept the leader tighter, making takes easier to feel/see. We basically walked downstream catching fish left and right. Sometime Ben was into them, sometimes I was. I don't think we had a double on the day, but damn close to it many times.

At the bottom of a slow run, I spooked a huge rainbow. It looked like he darted downstream right behind a rock, so I stood there and took a few casts into the seams behind. After a couple casts the leader took off and I, finally, landed a nice brown trout. We came out here looking for these bruiser fish and besides the two big ones I had on and lost, we've been at a loss to find many browns at all. It was nice to see the bright yellow belly, red spots, huge, predatory mouth. Another couple casts and I nicked into a big rainbow - maybe the same one? He took off like a rocket downstream, through a spillway and was gone as fast as he was on my line. Damn.

Ben and I split up and walked the side channels around an island that formed just below that hole. Ben walked quickly so while I was halfway down, he was coming back upstream on my side. We fished here for a while - I caught another brown, a few rainbows. We moved downstream and I took over a hole Ben had just left. I said, "You didn't catch anything out of here?" He said, "No, I know, it looks fishy..." I must have had a little more weight on than he, because within a few casts I had a rainbow on. He wasn't happy. He was about to get less happy. Two more casts and after a very subtle take, I raised my pole, felt a fish, and saw a huge, huge rainbow take off downstream. My initial reaction caused Ben to stop fishing and immediately walk upstream. Real big fish. Ben was downstream, net ready, and everytime that fish skirted him, he'd lean back, "Woah, man, he's huge!" He fought hard, but didn't cover much ground - we netted him just at the tail of the riffle I'd caught him in. Beautiful rainbow. I marked his length on my pole and took a few pictures before releasing him. Even as he swam away his size was impressive.

I was a bit shaken after that and took my time before starting to fish again. I divyed up the rest of my egg patterns - they were obviously killing. We worked a little further downstream before turning back toward the car. Ben hooked into a very, very nice rainbow on another side channel. Huge fish, but looked sickly as hell - gross web-like markings all over the fish. Hardly wanted to touch the damn thing. After a few more fish we decided to jump out and just b-line for the car. It had been a good day, the first where I didn't need a coat or a winter hat. 60 degrees and sunny. It would have been nice to end the day with some dry fly action, but a damn good day nonetheless.