“Spend the afternoon. You can’t take it with you”. — Annie Dillard
AUTUMN. A HEAVY SKY AND CHANCE of rain. Low wind. Cooler. Much cooler. A possible afternoon appearance of Blue Winged Olives. It all suggests opportunity…
Autumn
Tag Archives: brown trout
When light fades
BROWN TROUT LIKE COVER. They like to be undercover: Under a cut bank; under the shade of a streamside tree; under overhanging tree branches, logs; under a bridge; in the shadow of a big rock; tucked in a tight weed bed channel; etc. These locations mean safety. The river I was recently on has Brown trout but not much cover. It’s a wide open prairie river.
The Brown trout below was spotted feeding on tiny Pale Duns and Emergers, size 18 and 20 in open relatively flat water where the little mayflies were collecting. Seemingly no cover except the low light and rain and drizzle which dimpled the river’s surface. That was its shield of safety. The dark inclement weather above was its cover. Its complete attention to feeding and the low light conditions allowed me to get close to it without being noticed. In bright light the fish would have never been surface feeding in the location it was in.
It was caught on a size 18 Pale Dun. A parachute pattern with a black post which showed-up on the grey surface and differentiated it from the hundreds of other small natural/real Pale Duns. The black post helped me see where it landed and if it was in front of the cycling/feeding trout. It was a rare (for this summer) decent hatch and with all the natural mayflies on the surface (a lot of competition) I was lucky that even with repeated casts, it ate my impression.
rain, springtime green, and some river gold
It was their shoulders, the top of their heads or noses that were breaking the surface. Rarely did I see a mouth gulp or sip the Olives or Pale mayflies. They were mainly on Emergers. It made for challenging angling. I stuck to one fly. No dropper. Low riding and surface piercing patterns: a soggy Usual, Klinks, some soft hackles. Many drifts were ignored/ rejected. Luckily many chances and with that some success.
Everything was green. And the warm sun mixed in with the occasional shower/spring storm made for some amazing lighting on the land and water. It was spellbinding. And the daily weather transitions often kick-started or augmented the hatches.
What was suppose to be a fairly long trip turned into a short five day one as my car engine indicator light came on and stayed on. Kind of unnerving. I was advised to put duct tape over the light so as it wouldn’t bother me and to keep on trucking and fishing. In spite of that “sound advice” I decided to make a premature run for home. I didn’t want to get stranded on some muddy back road, with poor or no cell coverage in the middle of nowhere. Frustrating as heck as the river was alive. It was buzzing. And the wind was never an issue. And because of that I got to explore and fish the lower river more.
On the drive home from this place I always say to myself: “It’s the best hatch river I’ve ever been on”. It’s also incredibly beautiful.
Visible flies
” Black: the absence of light; the absorption of light”.
The clouds rolled in. Just for one day. So I took advantage of it as the dry fly season is winding down in my region. Soon local Brown trout will be on redds. Maybe some already are. With the overcast sky I was hoping some trout could be found rising to Olive and Mahogany mayflies. There were quite a few bugs on the water in the afternoon but unfortunately it was windy. I didn’t see a lot of fish surfacing but did find one decent one feeding just off of the edge of a current line. It ate a size 18 Olive tied with a black wing. The black wing allowed me to see the small fly from some distance even in the low light, high glare conditions. I was able to get the tiny impression on target.
When fishing wide open places I tie at least one third of my small dries/emergers with a black wing or post. I can’t fish what I can’t see. Flies that become invisible once casted are useless. When tying dry flies for rivers that tend to produce a lot of small bugs I pay attention to size, color, attitude (how it sits) in the water but just as importantly, or more so, visibility. I need to see where the fly lands to know if my cast is accurate; I need to see it tracking (drift) to the fish; and I need to see the trout’s response if I’m going to fish effectively. Put simply, I need to see it…
When I glance over various online fly tying forums I see many exquisitely crafted fly patterns (beyond my skill level) but many would be hard or impossible to see on a lot of the rivers that I fish. Maybe these tyers fish a lot of small water with streamside foliage and shadows that darken the water and therefore their dry fly patterns, even small ones, contrast well and show-up. A lot of the tailwater rivers I fish are not like that. They are broad and flow in wide open terrain and their hatches are generally small mayflies and caddis. And the dry fly fishing is usually best on overcast days which often means a grey, silvery surface and eye straining glare. That’s when a black wing or post can be helpful.
Surprisingly it’s hard to find fly shops even in big broad river destinations that have small fly patterns in their bins with black wings or posts. Most have some High Vis patterns in fluorescent colors but my eyes simply don’t pick them up as well in extreme glare as solid black.
Here’s an Autumn colored Brown trout that I caught on a size 18 Olive pattern with a black polypropylene wing.
This is where…
This is where I covered many miles of river the other day. Mostly along its bouldery edge. Walking on round rocks all day is an art. I usually take shortcuts between river pools on the softer ground through the Cottonwood forests, meadows and brush in the river valley in order to get a break from the boulders. However, I didn’t this time as it’s wild berry season. There’s a bumper crop of Saskatoons this year. And bears love to feast on them.
The pools on this river are far apart and there’s not much fishable water between them, so you have to cover ground. You keep telling yourself “maybe the next distant pool has a good fish in it” and you rock-hop onward. The river holds a few quality trout so that’s the incentive to keep going mile after mile. It’s kind of like fishing New Zealand. There can be great reward for your effort, or sometimes not. That’s the deal.
I spotted a few fish with the sun overhead but mostly “fished the water” (prospected). I tossed a large black foam beetle. I had to twitch it to get the best one of the day to take notice and rise off of the bottom.
Before I know it my water bottle is empty, lunch and snacks are all gone, my shadow lengthens, and Harper, my dog, curls-up and naps riverside. It’s the sign(s) that it’s time to turn around and head back downstream; back to my vehicle.
While walking back I remind myself this is where Dinosaurs once roamed. This has long been the home of the Blackfoot. This is where giant prairie Grizzly bears wandered. This is where Buffalo once lived and travelled freely.
This is where I spent my day…
“It might happen”
” When preparation meets opportunity, luck happens”.
Nine days of wandering around rivers. We went east, west and south. We never went north. It’s kind of a gong-show up there anyway. Too many campers, too many camping riverside, too many 4-wheelers, too many anglers, too many casting treble hooks, too many mangled fish, too many… For six of the nine days there were few bugs around; no real hatch. The insect apocalypse theory remained intact. It was mediocre dry fly angling in the beautiful sunny weather. Then the Weather Network and Environment Canada predicted a few days of cooler weather, cloud cover, rain or at least thundershowers. I checked a third source, AccuWeather. It reported the same. All weather sources were aligned and it meant a very strong possibility of daytime low-light conditions with precipitation. I thought, “It might happen”: the chance of a solid daytime hatch and fish up. Trout generally feel safer rising for insects when the dimmer switch has been dialed down.
So on the first cloudy day I put on my rain jacket and headed for a river where I felt there was potential; where “It might happen”. I had not been on the one I selected for a month. Around mid-day birds started swooping and darting over the river. It looked like a hatch was developing and then shortly after it exploded. The main insect: Pale Morning Duns (Pmd’s). And the trout responded. They were up everywhere. Boils and bulges at the head of pools and sipping fish eating duns in the mid and lower pool sections. I got lucky. I got more than lucky as the event lasted for 3 or 4 hours.
On the next cloudy day I returned with a friend, Roman. It was cooler and wetter. There was also thunder and some lightning. We got there just before noon. We waited and waited. There were showers all afternoon. We walked from pool to pool in order to stay warm. I wondered if it was ever going to occur. An old Yiddish adage came to mind, “Man plans, and God Laughs”. Then at around 3-3:30 pm, three hours after our arrival, the birds started working the river, Pmd’s began to emerge and fish started to rise. Big guys and gals. A repeat performance. Just delayed and briefer probably because of the cooler weather. The fish continued to surface even when the sun occasionally broke through late day. The brown trout glowed golden in the late afternoon light. After being wet all afternoon we appreciated the sun’s warmth. Then when the river became fully illuminated by the sun, it all stopped. The trout disappeared: “Now you see me now you don’t”. Like magic.
If you fish a lot you know it doesn’t always happen this way. Some rivers are easier to predict than others but in the end when dealing with Nature there are many uncertainties; many unknowns. Sometimes everything seems perfect but you don’t get a solid hatch, you just get wet…but that’s all part of it.
So, “It might happen” ended up “happening” and we caught and released some wonderful trout on size 16, 18 Pale Mornining Duns…here are a few images…
Tailwater tour
There are three tailwater rivers in my region. On Opening Day I visited two of them to see what kind of shape they are in. Due to another low snowpack year the reservoirs that feed them are low. Early season fishing will be okay but late season it might get ugly: minimal flows, and if reservoirs come close to bottoming-out then silt will be in the water which will affect the sight-fishing.
One tailwater had no insects so I went to the other. PMD’s started in the afternoon on the second river and there were some large Caddis flies skittering on the surface. Both hatches were weak but there was just enough activity to get a few decent rising fish. The water was low and clear and the fish concentrated. I caught a couple of decent Brown trout on dry flies. One cooperated for a photo, the other didn’t. Here’s a photo of one and the type of flies I used. One pattern breaks the surface and dangles (emerger/dry). The tuft of white is simply Snowshoe Rabbit to keep the head of the fly afloat so it can be seen when riding in the current/riffles while the body hangs (unseen) below. Instead of rabbit I also tie them with polypropylene, deer hair or CDC. Some people use foam. The other pattern has the hackle clipped on the bottom and therefore it sits or rides low on/in the water. Kind of a Quigley cripple pattern. That’s the inspiration. Both are easy, quick flies to tie.
Opening Day… always special no matter how many you have experienced.
open road
Stetson named one of their hats, Open Road. Probably paying homage to the wide open West. Here are some images while fly fishing out on the Open Road… eleven days, three rivers in search of brown trout, a growing pup and a roof top tent on my truck. No Stetson or Cowboy boots. Instead, a ball cap and aging Simms wading boots. All trout caught on foot, with my eyes and on dries…
Self-Guided Fly Fishing New Zealand-5th Trip
Photo by Roman
Sight-fishing in New Zealand is simply the best. Endless Rivers with clear water and robust challenging brown trout and some rainbows too. All you have to do on most flows is be willing to walk, sometimes significant distances, and search for them. You use your legs, and you use your eyes. If you are pretty good at spotting trout you’ll probably find one or two in a day, occasionally several. It depends on the river. Fish numbers on average tend to be low in comparison to home (North America). You have to cover water in order to find them but at the same time you have to go slow or you might scare the few fish that inhabit the water that you have selected. Choosing where to fish in New Zealand can be overwhelming as there is so much water: rivers, streams, lakes and ponds. In the past I’ve used John Kent’s book: South Island Trout Fishing Guide. Anglers consider it the Bible. Even though I have an older and well travelled edition (2002) I find its description of rivers and their fish populations amazingly accurate. There are newer (updated) editions which can be purchased and of course there is a lot of information online. Maybe too much…
The fish I encountered on most rivers were wary. This is often the case if you go late in the fishing season (as I did) when there has been angling pressure for over several months. The trout season in New Zealand is a long one: from October 1st to the end of April. One river I fished this year in the North Canterbury region had some of the most cautious/vigilant trout that I’ve ever pursued. Stumble or slip a bit when wading into casting position even in rumbling fast water 30 feet behind a fish and their lateral line would detect it. They’d respond by moving-up into the deep fast flow at the head of a pool for cover. Crawl down a bank in order to get behind a good fish and a rock rolls and careens off of another, even at great distance from the targeted trout, Adios fish! Slap your line a bit when trying to punch your fly into a fierce wind and fish gone…bye-bye! Unforgiving.
There was a noticeable absence of terrestrials on this trip, including Cicadas, even though it was late Summer, early Fall. I became aware of this as I spent a lot of time crawling on my knees and belly streamside in order to avoid detection while stalking fish. Getting trout to take a surface offering was at times challenging. Sometimes a strange New Zealand dry fly pattern called a Blue Blow fly or Blue Bottle fly did the trick. I also caught a few on beetles and ants but not consistently. On some rivers the fish were “locked into” feeding on nymphs. I saw very few mature mayflies or caddis on the surface in spite of angling a variety of rivers and rising fish were a rarity especially higher up on some flows (not unusual). New Zealand is always challenging. It’s why I come here to sight-fish. It’s the walking. It’s the hunt. It’s demanding. Each connection very special.
Roman with great brown caught on willow grub
Very few fly shops in NZ, South I, this had some basics: flies, tippet, a line or two.
Some imagines. Some connections made by Roman, a friend, and I on a thirteen day self-guided angling adventure in beautiful New Zealand, South Island…
brown caught on ant, photo by Roman
searching upper river, photo by Roman
canal sipping brown on ant
swing bridge crossing river
working dogs in town on back of pick-up
Roman’s, beefy 7.5 lbs plus brown, best of trip, photo by Roman
Roman’s brown, check out girth, photo by Roman
many miles of tough walking and wading
small creek near campground/holiday park
brown on beetle
intact banks, good place to hunt for large trout
they are always thick…
freestone water
big head on one of Roman’s great browns, photo by Roman
Some color:
Ankle Deep
Ankle deep water… that’s where I have been angling the last several years. That’s where I search for fish. It’s in the thin water, the skinny water, the almost nothing water. Just a foot or so deep, sometimes just inches. Catching them in the clear nothing is never easy. In the shallows absolutely nothing goes unnoticed. Angling mistakes get magnified. Your mantra: Stay low, go slow. Sunlight helps you search the shallows for that elusive shadow that is gliding in from the deep to feed.
The shallower the better. The closer the better. The more visual the better. The more challenging the better.
Ankle deep…
Here’s a fine brown trout caught in the shallows on a simple (flat) black ant pattern (size 16) I tie. Local rivers have dropped and most are clear. Trout are starting to look up and take dries…
trout on dries 