Spring in PA

After many too many days of cold weather, rain, and late snow squalls, spring has finally sprung in Happy Valley. As the buds are bursting and new leaves stretching skyward I've been trying to spend as much time as possible in the turkey woods and in trout waters before the move West. The trout have been cooperative, the turkeys not so much, although there have been two close calls. After a silent opening morning, I spent the first Monday on the Weaver property. Walking the entire border of the property yielded nothing, but as I was leaving I found myself peeking into the front field where a Tom and two Jakes were strutting their stuff and chasing each other around. After a belly-crawl to the corner of the field edge, the yellow gate to my left, I posted my gun on the left side of a white oak and gave some soft purrs and clucks. The Tom came running from right to left. "Perfect!" Or so I thought. Instead of his head poking out from behind that oak, all I saw was the tip of his tail, down, as he turned and headed back into the field. I guess I should have set up on the other side of that tree... Sonova... Being on the edge of the posters, and knowing there was at least one other hunter wandering the property, I hesitated. As usual, just a moment of doubt erases opportunity. In hindsight, I should have swung steadily around that tree and pulled the trigger, but within seconds that bird had retreated back down into the center of the field - my decision making time blew my chance. I regrouped and called again, but only the smallest Jake would come in. He stood at 15 yards in my sights for a few minutes, but I passed; his beard was barely protruding from his chest.



The second chance came with Paul and Ben a few days later. After toying with a hen on "gobbler's knob," we moved in on a Tom that finally decided to be vocal. We snuck within 50 yards and set up just as he came into view through the understory. Ben was to my left, Paul behind us calling. He came in within 20 yards but was always behind thick brush - very thick stand with a short canopy and lots of deadfall. As soon as he was in sight, two hens showed up as well. I think we all converged at the same moment, because those hens cut his path off (to my gun)and steered him away, silencing his gobble, and ruining our opportunity. Attempts to circle them and re-engage were futile.

Luckily, the fishing has been more fruitful. Ben and I headed down to the Little J the past two nights. The sulphurs were around, but no spinner fall to speak of. Regardless, we've caught about 40 fish in a total of 5-6 hours.

Mother's day brought a relatively uncrowded stream - suckers! - and we were able to cover a lot of water that hadn't seen guys in a while. The side channels proved most productive with some fat browns sipping our dries and emergers in little more than 5" of water. After I broke my rod (yep, shit), Ben and I shared his rod, alternating fish. Well, either one lunker or three small ones brought on a change in hands. The rod break was a blessing in disguise as we stood side-by-side all evening, guiding each other, talking flies and strategy and celebrating each perfect drift, each sip or strike, and each netted brute.

Last night was a little less productive - we had to work for each fish, but we managed to pull them from tricky locations across big runs, tucked in eddies, under branches, and to outlast those picky fish waiting several minutes before rises, waiting for the perfect bug. Again, the spinner fall was absent, but the sulphurs are definitely on. Hope this rain holds out for our trip to the Quehanna...

Westbound

It has been a long year. Quickly passing, but trying in indescribably ways.

Ben and I head to Colorado tomorrow to begin a 18 day tour of western waters, searching for angry browns. It is our hope that this trip meets a very pressing need for immediate escape from reality while marking the beginning of changed perspectives and approaches to life. Contradictions are obvious, but the experience of losing Dad so quickly has impressed strong desires to make meaningful contributions with our lives while finding ways to live life to its fullest and for today. Balance, harmony?, between these two approaches to life will be hard to achieve and examples are hard to find. However, the changes in my own perceptions and engagement with life, the world, are palpable each day. There is no going back - there is hardly any recognition, consciousness of how I used to think, be. I am confident this experience will make me a better, happier, and peaceful person.

I've taken trips before and often cursed my failing memories as I later tried to recall certain events, places. So, since this blog was started to catalog outdoor adventures (mostly), I think I'll try to keep a daily log of our activities, however briefly. Looking forward to the first post, tomorrow, from Denver.

South Platte escape from reality

I love waking up for fishing and hunting trips. No matter the alcohol consumed nor the few hours of sleep had, I always wake up before the alarm clock, well rested, eager to start the day. Today, being in Colorado, preparing to catch monster trout, it was especially true. Got up at 6:20 and started the bacon – a good breakfast was in order for our long day of fishing in the rain/snow and wind. With breakfast eaten we got the gear packed and headed out to meet our guide and the Conoco on Rt. 235 outside Swanee.

Walking down to the stream, we passed a clear, freshwater pond and watched the trout scurry away from us as we passed the inlet stream. We tied on our rigs at the stream's edge and let Ben take the first dozen casts - couldn't take much more so I jumped in and started working a small side channel. Felt bad, but had a fish on in the first few casts...sweet fish about 17 inches. I still have no idea how to gauge weight so I'll leave those guesses out. It was still pretty darn cold so there wasn't much of a fight from any of the days first fish - luckily this changed later in the day.

I caught four nice sized fish in that first section, Chrstine two...Ben none - luckily he moved up stream, tied on his own BHPT and caught a couple soon enough. As the photo documents, he also caught the biggest fish of the day.

The first part of the day was surreal; the weather was erratic with sun, rain, snow, and wind. Cold. Huge fish. Not a lot of fighting. And trying to listen to the guide who was determined to change our fishing styles. As the rain fell, Ben headed back to the car to get his raincoat and the guide took that as an oppotunity to move us downstream (via car) to a different section. A few more holes here. The stream channel in both sections seemed will manicured with huge boulders lined at regular intervals to set up riffles, pools, riffles, pools...beautiful, if manmade. Certainly made for great holding water.

Unfortunately, we didn't have any dry fly action, just nymphing. Caught most of the fish on baetis, black beauty, egg patterns, caddis larva, and bead head pheasant tails...all with indicators and weight to get them at the bottom.

I definetly learned a lot from the guide. First was his set up - a split tippet approach with two flies and lots of weight instead of a tandum set up with all the weight in the lead fly. Worked very well and has inspired me to find some more appropriate sinkers. Second, it was clear I need to think a bit more about drag than I have been. I've always been conscience about not letting my line drag my fly around, but I doubt I've been as meticulous about it as may be needed. Wonder how many fish I've missed simply because of drag? Going to try keeping less line out and be more deliberate about my drag in the future. Similarly, the guide was very good at reading and targeting different "lines" of water. It was eye opening to see such a (again) deliberate approach to hitting each line of water with a few casts - definitely thougth about this, but may have got lost in my eagerness and missed certain areas. Won't let this happen again. Lastly, it was good to have some reassurace about landing large fish. I've lost a few large fish in the past and now have a more defined strategy for landing these big boys: put them on the reel, reel them in as you move closer to them when they're not running...lift their head with your pole as you scoop with the net. Some of this is intuitive and I've done in the past, but never quite put it in order in my head for easy reference :)

All told, it turned out to be a great day. Great to catch so many large fish, great to be surrounded by the foggy, rainy mountains, great to see Ben with those shit-eating grins on his face.

Why do western fish have to be so much bigger?!?

Labor Day Fishing

As the tenant upstairs noted, this damn blog doesn't get updated very frequently. Mostly, I think, it has to do with the nice weather; who wants to be typing while it's sunny and 80 degrees out? Least of all, those of us trying to type paper after paper to finish a dissertation. Yuck. Regardless, this weekend's outing deserves a post. So, too, do other trips this summer, but we'll see if as the weather cools I have motivation to properly log the experiences here.

As for this weekend, Ben and Christine came up and Dad surprised most of us (Ben excluded) by showing up late Friday night. Guess he couldn't bear missing another trip out to the little J. We parked in Barree and hiked in to a huge fire ring and spent the night fishing, eating, building a huge fire, and dodging rattlers. Ben and Libby both just about stepped on the thing. He was pretty big - biggest I've seen in PA - but not huge. His coloring, however, was beautiful - super black head and tail with gorgeous brown, black, and tan markings. Thankfully, he wandered around our campsite for only a while before heading up the ridge to warmer weather (I assume).

We had more luck fishing this time - a few mid-teen inch browns and a bunch of small mouth bass. The spinning rods were great, but I'll never leave the flyrod behind again...

Green Drakes

Ben came into town last evening to help finish the current kitchen progress. We hit the stream almost as soon as he arrived and ended up in the middle of the infamous green drake hatch. Penn's was alive with millions of drakes, sulphurs, caddis, crane flies, march browns and cream midges. The sheer size of the green drakes, however, is overwhelming. The bodies are easily two inches long and their tails can be 2 or 3 times that length. The coffin flies were falling, littering the stream, and the fish were rising everywhere - places I've never seen fish rise were just boiling with fish. By dark the bugs were so thick I had my shirt buttoned to the top and my collar up just to keep them out. The caddis were out like crazy, too, covering the stream bank, rocks, and our legs and arms...kinda gross after a while. I ended up with four fish, one bruiser; Ben with two. But once the coffin flies started to fall, the stream was literally littered with bugs and our flies were lost in the smörgåsbord of bugs. So despite fish rising everywhere, and rising violently, splashing, thrashing, catching fish is almost like winning the lottery. Can't wait for tonight.

A Perfect April Day

April 26 - opening day of turkey in PA. Paul and I met at prospectors at 4:00am and headed to weaver. Original plan was to stalk the monster bird at the nursery, but one of Paul's co-workers "claimed" the spot first. No way he shoots that bird - we'll get 'em later this season...

The morning started off with a long walk to the back of the weaver property, a little over a mile. Unfortunately, the property is bordered on all sides by private land and some jackass had driven his truck through the woods and parked it, literally, right on our spot - the exact spot where I'd shot a huge bird a few years ago. So Paul and I sat down about 150 yards away and decided to wait and hear how the morning started before changing positions. This genius in the truck proceeds to walk right toward us in the dark - we whistle at him and he changes direction, but sits down about 60 yards away, just inside the new exclosure. These guys are asking to be shot. We tried to relax and just see how things would go - it was too late to change position without screwing up that whole side of the property.

As light came the song birds started around 5:30 and were in full swing at 5:45. 6:00 came and brought with it the first gobble - it would be the first of many. There were at least three birds, just over the hill, inside the exclosure. For the next 40 minutes they must have gobbled 60 times. One would sound off and the others would gobble right behind him, four, five, six gobbles on top of each other. We thought something might materialize and sat still, guns ready and waited, listening to the horrible calling of the jackass down the hill. Two hens came over the hill, but the jakes wouldn't make the trip - they headed away from us and the gobbling stopped.

After sitting tight for a while we decided to move - a slow walk along the fence finally proved fruitful as we heard the same rally of gobbles from the back corner of the property - maybe 500 yards in front of us. We got as close as we could and set up along the fence. The birds were inside the fence and we had a nice knob between us so we set up paul's decoy on the fence line, I set up in the brush to call, and paul sat against a tree with his gun trained. We thought the birds (if they came) would come around the contour of the knob, but instead (yeah, they came) they ran right up over the top of the knob directly at us. I never saw them, but paul said the first bird crested the hill and stopped, the second bird came over the top and did a double-take at paul - one eye, two eye, "yep, that doesn't look good," and he bolted. Paul let two shots go in hopes of knocking one down, but to not avail; we watched as the two of them flew away. He was kicking himself a bit, but there was nothing else to do except watch them run away - fine decision. The only bad part was he didn't quite get the gun shouldered before firing and his bicep was killing him the rest of the day.

It was pretty late in the morning by now so we circled the property boundary for another 3/4 mile and found a nice ridge to take a nap on. Slept for 30 minutes or so until I found a couple ticks on me and got us back up moving. The plan was to stick to the property boundary and hit a couple known hang-outs on our way back to the truck. Coming up on the back of white pine corner a gobble halted us - 100yards. We dropped to the ground and donned the camo - that was close. After a quick discussion we decided I'd be the shooter - I crawled on my stomach up to a small ridge and slowly peeked over, gun leading. After only a second I saw a bird - big, dark body; bright red and blue head: A Gobbler, and a big one. He was headed to the right so in the quick moments as he was hidden behind trees and brush I readjusted and waited. A couple of those moves later I noticed the bird wasn't alone - there was another one, equally big, and closer, back to my left. I readjusted on this one, but he was headed right as well. Couple putts and some leaf scratching managed to turn him back left. They were moving closer, but they were nervous - maybe they had been screwed with earlier that day, or last season. The bird in my sights was staring hard at me - one move to the left and he would be in a clear line of sight. He moved left. And here's where my long day of fishing the day before screwed me - I'd forgotten my turkey choke. The modified choke in my barrel spread my 4 shot too thin - the bird was gone before I could even reload a shell. The other bird wasn't so lucky. I swung right and shot...missed, but lifted the bird into the air. Another pot shot did nothing to stop his flight. Fortunately, the bird was flying directly over Paul. He rose and unloaded, knocking that bird out of the air - DEAD BIRD!! Not pretty, but successful. And to think, if I'd had my proper choke, there would be two birds. Won't make that mistake again...

20lbs, 9.5" beard, 1 1/8" spurs. Real nice bird. Had some of it grilled up this evening at Pauls house while entertaining his boys. Can't wait to get back out during the week when all the bozos are sleeping and at work.

When I got home, Ben and I headed to Penns. We'd had some serious action on the stream the previous night and couldn't wait to repeat. We stopped in at feathered hook first to figure things out - turns out we had likely witnessed trout gorging themselves on rusty spinners (dead BWOs and Hendricksons). We spent a few bucks on flies and headed out. A long walk down from tunnel road and nymphed until about 5:30. I caught one and then took a nap in the sun on the bank...long day. Ben nymphed the whole afternoon and didn't catch squat - that is the worst. And I figured I'd make it worse by hooking a rising fish he'd been trying to catch on my first catch. Luckily I didn't land it.

We were stalling, trying to catch the few rising fish we could see and wait for the witching hour when the spinners would start...maybe 7? Maybe 7:15. We made it until about 6:15 when the gathering, black clouds finally made us decide to give up and head back to the car. About halfway back it hit - strong winds and a downpour; we were soaked. Great, though, to be in the woods and on the stream with Ben during a wild storm, drenched and happy. Dinner at the Red Horse topped off the day. Not bad to start off turkey season and spring trout :)

Skunked

Libby and I got skunked on Penn's today. Fished some new sections - one down the rail trail from the end of tunnel road and the other at the beginning of tunnel road. Very flat and fast water at the first place and very bouldery and deep at the second; odd fishing. There were grannoms everywhere and blue quills, too (large ones, size 12) but I saw no fish rising. A guy in the parking lot said he caught a bunch (he said 13 or 14) on blue quill dries under the trees - not sure if I believe that or not, but i did notice the bugs were sticking in the trees and getting blown out by what was a fairly stiff wind. Flow is 365 cfs at the gauge right now - very low, 42 degrees, and gin clear - obviously a bad recipe...

Bears and Flies

Took the dogs for a run today up on Greens Valley. Ran out some new trails toward the end of the road and ended up on top of the northern ridge in back of the new deer exclosure. There were three or four turkey vultures on the knob behind the fence and we jumped a hen turkey as we walked along the upper side of the fence. But the real surprise waited for us on our way back down toward the car: three bear, a mother and two cubs. The mother and one cub had just scaled the fence and headed into the thicket of black birch to our right, but the second cub was still inside the fence. I called the dogs off and with them by my side, we watched the cub scale the fence, seemingly without effort, and head off into the woods with mom. We waited a few minutes and proceeded down the path, the dogs on heel, me yelling to keep the bears informed of our presence.

It's also the first day the grannom caddisflies are hatching on penns. Headed out tomorrow afternoon with Libby - looking forward to it...

Opening Day of Trout '08

Trout opened this past Saturday. Drove up to Whig Hill, PA near Tionesta with Paul to fish with Primo and all Erie crowd. Lots of people there this year: Primo, Don, Scott, Daryl, Rob, Ron, Ben, Steen, Barry, Niles, Vantassle, Jay Johnson, and a couple visitors. Lots of inappropriate humor, obnoxious amounts of meat grilled to perfection, booze, and cards. Oh, and we went fishing, too. We pulled in around 30 fish between the 10 of us fishing. I ended up hauling in a nice fat rainbow to win the biggest fish pool ($50, sahweeet) - never did getting around to measure it before it was cleaned; maybe 17"? Fried and smoked most of the fish for consumption Saturday night along with four chikens on the spit, ribs, salmon, and various sausages from various animals. Started the De-tox today with a run with the dogs up on Greens Valley, but it was good to get away from reality if only for a few days.

Guilty

Mailed in my guilty plea today. The lovely town of Ithaca welcomed this tourist with a speeding ticket. 37 (supposedly) in a 20 school zone. Ouch. The State of New York doesn't tell you how much these damn things are until you plead guilty so I won't know what the damage is until I get the bill...my guess: $250. And no fish to show for it....this is sitting badly.

Steelhead Fishing

Rich Stedman, one of my committee members, invited me to go steelhead fishing with him during their spring break. I didn't get to go up then, but finally made the trip this past week. A friend of Rich's joined me in Centre Hall at 4:45am on Friday morning, April 4th and we drove the three/three and a half hours up to Ithaca, NY to pick up Rich. After a quick tour of their new house we headed out to Auburn to pick up another friend and grad student of Rich's, Kieth. Another hour or so in the car and we were looking at the Salmon River, north of Watertown, NY. Rich had fished this river extensively while in grad school (15 years ago) so we drove around quite a bit trying to get our bearings and decide on the best place to fish.
It is an incredible stream and unlike anything else I've ever seen or fished. There is a large reservoir upstream so the flow is irratic and often there are dam releases that fill the river to its banks and beyond with raging, but crystal clear waters. So was the case on Friday - the water level rose all day, getting harder and harder to fish, but stayed clear, tricking you into believing the fishing should be good :)
There is a fish hatchery a few miles down from the dam which raises rainbow and brown trout and salmon fingerlings. These fish are released from the hatchery and make their way downstream to the lake, live for a few years and then make their way back up their stream, returning to the hatchery where they were released. We visited the hatchery and the "entrance" to the hatchery from the river was chock full of steelhead anywhere from 20 to 40 inches. Huge fish.
We started the day at a bridge just downstream from the hatchery. Kieth and I fished near the bridge while Rich and Lou headed a bit downstream. Despite throwing a number of streamers, egg patterns, and nymphs, the only action I had was watching an angler downstream lose his footing and swim downstream 100yards or so before he got his footing back. Lou, on the otherhand, pulled a nice 25" fish out of a side hole downstream. Rich caught a couple suckers out of the same hole.
Long story short, we fished in the pouring rain and rising waters from about 11am until 8pm. Lou's was the only fish, but we were all exhausted from fighting the current, walking to various access points, and casting with the hopes of hauling in a lunker. All went well, save for our inability to find the "sportsman's hole." We parked at the access point and walked down the trail toward what we thought should be the water, only to find ourselves back on the road with no sign of a trail leading anywhere but back to the vehicle. So, we walked back to the vehicle and went to a different spot! There were a few guys around who caught fish, but for the most part, it was a slow day given the high flow. Many guys said, "Oh, yesterday was amazing." That's what we get for fishing only one day.
It was really good to get up there and see steelhead fishing first hand. I'd been with Paul once to Erie, but the season was all but over and although we wrestled (literally) one fish from Walnut Creek, I didn't get a chance to witness true steelhead fishing. Big rods, big reel, small stream - and big fish. Crazy combination. It was amazing to see guys roll casting massive weights on fly rods: a small flick of the arm and these weights fly upstream, splashing into the current and quickly sinking to the bottom, where the fish look for food. Others had huge spey rods stripping streamers across the current. Spinner rods throwing huge bobbers dangling egg patterns.
It was also nice to spend some time getting to know Rich better and meeting Lou and Kieth. I don't get to spend much time with people who are true academics and true sportsmen. It's a good combination - one that I've tried to make with my life and it was refreshing to see others who have successfully made the merge :)
Now that I know where this place is and have a sense of how to approach the fishing, I suspect this won't be my last steelhead trip. It's probably an hour's drive from Aunt Suzie's house and may make a great holiday excursion - the fishing is best from late October until late March. Hopefully, I'll pull one of those monsters in sooner rather than later.

March Fishing

Hit Penn's today; caught four rainbows. CFS was 950 - a touch high, but fishable. Air temp 57, water temp 45. Sunny and lots of midges coming off although no surface action. Crazy erosion along penns creek road from all the flooding, but no worse for the wear. Some guy stopped by and said that the penn's creek road section isn't open until the first day of trout - going to have to check on that before next time...

Snowy Stream

The temperature was in the mid thirties yesterday and the sun was shining - time to go fishing. Headed down to Coburn and parked just past the intersection of Penns Creek and Long Roads. Changed into my waders amid the roadside slop and tied on a green woolly bugger and a woven stonefly nymph. My leader was in poor shape having been slowly shaved down at the end of last year, but the deeper holes proved fruitful - four rainbows; one small, two around 10" and one pushing 13. Had a fifth one on, but I couldn't set the hook well as it hit right in front of me and lost it after a brief fight. Never had to change flies - caught two on both. It was great trying to cast along snow covered banks and hemlocks. The stream was at about 600cfs and a touch off color - perfect. The water was cold and my stripping hand got pretty cold in the wind - have to bring a glove next time. Now it's raining/snowing/sleeting outside and I've got a lot of work to do. Guess I'll be at this computer again for most of the day.

The Itch to Fish

Freezing rain yesterday. Frigid winds today. Is it possible that having less snow on the ground makes cabin fever worse? All those winters in Vermont seemed a lot more bearable even if they were much longer - I'm convinced a few feet of snow makes winter much more enjoyable. So as hunting seasons draw to a close and winter gets a good grip, I'm getting serious urges to hit the stream. Pictures of clear streams shrouded in greenery aren't helping. I think tying a fly after every article I read for my comps is my only outlet...for now.