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| Canadian Reach ~ Upper Columbia River |
Changes
Everything changes.
Back at winter camp. Got in
late. Home, the cats, restless since Paso Robles, scrambled over our laps &
poured from the truck ecstatic the moment we opened the doors. While unloading we
could hear the waves breaking down on the beach, over on the other side of HWY
1, reminding me to check the tide book first thing in the morning.
It was an odd year in our
part of the Northwest. Cooler temperatures this summer with rain, & not so
many forest fires this year. An arctic cold front curved down a week after the
last day of summer, & stayed, bringing us straight into winter. It snowed
in September. The outdoor shower froze & busted & the ground froze
solid before we could finish setting posts for a new garden fence, & stayed
frozen.
The cold weather didn’t put
much of a damper on the October Caddis hatch, & the imitations worked well
from the first week of September until at least the second week of November. Fishing
was good; Gary LaFontaine was right: October Caddis is the most important
big-fish insect of the West. And to that I would add: OC is the most effective
insect to imitate & proffer on a swing presentation – making it
particularly valuable to those who practice Trout Spey. The season past &
done, I’m already looking forward to next Fall.
But no need to rush things,
life is short enough. The mighty Columbia
has other sweet seasons as well. Like all rivers, it has seasons of peak
activity & also slow seasons of touchy, unreliable trouting. We won’t sell
anybody on a trip during the dog-days of August, for example. The health of our
fishery is #1 priority. Fishing only short seasons through the most productive periods
reduces stress on our trout. And guided fishing trips are expensive, for some,
the dreamed-of, anticipated trip of a lifetime, so we’re committed to making
that adventure the best possible.
Because we see a growing
interest lately, & because we happen to live beside the Mecca of Trout
Spey, the 2020 guided trip itinerary puts more emphasis on Trout Spey. Anyone
interested in meeting the U.S.
upper Columbia,
booking a trip, or just curious, get more info here: https://ucflyfishing.blogspot.com/
A Few Things I Like
From time to time SHJ includes
reviews of things I like. Mom said: “If you don’t have something good to say
about something, better to not say anything at all.” So, in an effort to do the
least harm possible, I only post the positive ones. Here are a few things
I’m liking:
The Red Truck Diesel Reel
I’ve always preferred the
simplicity & utilitarian longevity of quality click-pawl reels for trout
& steelhead fishing. I love the sound – & there is no drag system more
sensitive than a human hand against a spool rim. A thing I don’t like is: watching
somebody lose a good fish while faffing around adjusting the disc-drag setting
on the stupid reel, attention off the battle. Using a click-pawl, the angler
develops an intuitive skill set, applying just the right drag pressure with the
palm or fingers, eyes on the fight, not the drag adjustment knob. I & my
clients have been using the Red Truck Diesel click-pawl reels on the camp Spey rods for several
seasons now – the Chrome Spey on #5 & heavier Spey rods; & the Diesel
7/8 on the lighter two-handers (also good on 6-8wt single-handers) – & with
as many days on them as the average angler might put on in a lifetime, they still
perform as well as they did right out of the box. These are narrow-spool,
large-diameter reels, which I prefer, as they pick up line quickly, & the running
line coming off the reel in large, relaxed loops. A good kind of reel on the
UC, where larger trout are in the habit of charging you, requiring rapid line
recovery. In looks, the Diesel series reels very closely resemble the Hardy
Marquis; in construction, fit & finish, they are at least equal to the
Hardy – & with a larger, more user-friendly winding knob than the Marquis.
At about half the price of a Hardy, I think anyone seeking a reliable
click-pawl with classic good looks would be more than happy with the Red Truck
Diesel reels. https://redtruckflyfishing.com/product-category/all-rt-fly-reels/
My favorite read this past season was Goodnews River (Stackpole), a collection of short fictions by Scott Sadil. Scott has published several worthwhile collections of short stories but, I think, flexes his writing chops with Goodnews River, & in the process stretches angling literature beyond the more familiar first-person tropes. A teacher of English & Literature, Sadil knows the rules – & in knowing them is able to break them to affect. Rare in angling lit, which is most often delivered as first-person narrative (like Gierach, the cool, well-traveled gentleman you meet in a cabana bar, telling you a story over a beer), Sadil’s narratives are written in third-person-omnipresent, a literary approach, if done well, affording the writer the greatest opportunity to create cinema in the reader’s mind (Cormac McCarthy; Genesis). Sadil pulls it off well, no hint of author judgment to skew the narrative. Readers experience the story through character dialogue & actions. Descriptions of the natural world are fresh, sometimes stunning, reflecting the author’s canny powers of observation. Characters inhabiting Sadil’s tales are fleshed, nuanced & true to life. Protagonists are existential, flawed & multifaceted, not entirely lovable, some not even likeable. There is angling in all of these tales, though it isn’t the principle subject, rather, a reality touchstone where Sadil’s troubled protagonists find reprieve from the human struggles they are dealing with. The nexus of the stories is not fishing, generally, but a twisty exploration of human relationships & foibles. Sadil pulls no punches here – we meet a steelheading English teacher who arrives at work hoping nobody notices the rug-burn rash beneath his lower lip, the result of his face spending too much time between his skier girlfriend’s muscular thighs. Each story in Goodnews River is a quirky postcard of sorts, a slice of life offered unabashed. Sadil abuses the traditional story arc. He jumps you into a story without preamble. Details present themselves. There are no clear, neatly resolved endings – as in life, events of the Goodnews River stories fractalize, sometimes to obscure, unrealized futures, sometimes to chaos, unresolved, yet poignant reminders that, in the end, we really can’t resist the stream in all of its ambiguous funkiness, its unconditional majesty. With Good News River, Scott Sadil masterfully demonstrates how literary fiction, possibly better than memoir, dissects reality, exposing the truth of things.
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| Steelhead Zulu ~ Mark Hagopian |
Steelhead Zulu ~ Mark Hagopian
Another thing I like.
Couldn’t wait to share this one it looks so fishy to me. Longtime SHJ supporter
& Northeast correspondent, Mark Hagopian, sent us this take on the old
Zulu, a pattern deserving its longevity. Mark tied this version for
steelheading on the Salmon River, in New
York State.
A good bait for Columbia River trout too, so
we can see that the Zulu travels well. Originally fished by the English as a
much smaller fly, I really like Mark’s large, steelhead version of it. I tie a
version in #6-#8 for Trout Spey on the UC & it does work well on the big
redbands, in the larger hook sizes.
Steelhead Zulu
Hook: #2 TMC 7999
Thread: claret/wine
Tailing: red American opossum
fur twisted in loop, topped with red holographic Chroma Flash
Rib: flat, medium, silver
French tinsel
Body: black, dubbed, a
mixture of Senyo’s Fusion & Diamond Brite
Palmer: black saddle
Collars: burnt goose, rear in
black; front, kingfisher blue
The Reel News
Jim Harrison / Poems / Love /
Life
Hesse on hope.
Can we live with nuclear?
A win for steelhead.
Whitman on being.
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| Duncan River ~ British Columbia |
American Masters of the Wetfly ~ Jeff Cottrell
Our tier this issue is Jeff
Cottrell who, as a kid, won a fly tying contest & a fishing trip with Dave
Whitlock & Ernie Shwiebert. For better or worse, that served to boost him
toward a lifelong career in fly fishing, including guiding stints in California, Colorado, Wyoming, Tierra del Fuego,
Russia, & Washington State, where he now resides, working as
lodge manager for the Evening Hatch. Jeff is an angler’s angler. When not busy
with The Hatch, he is a handy builder/carpenter & interior designer, his
artist’s eye & attention to craft certainly reflected in both his woodwork
& elegant wetfly designs. In Jeff’s flies we see familiarity with
traditional design frames & the talent & knowledge to combine their
elements to create great baits.
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| Jeff Cottrell |
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| Jeff Cottrell |
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| Jeff Cottrell |
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| Jeff Cottrell |
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| Jeff Cottrell |
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| Jeff Cottrell |
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| Jeff Cottrell |
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| Jeff Cottrell |
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| Jeff Cottrell |
Why do men have nipples?
They're actually tattoos. Indicating
the man belongs to a woman somewhere.
At The Tying Bench
Haven't been tying a lot of variety lately. Until leaving to come South for the winter, been pretty much working through the bunch of October Caddis that are the staple of autumn where I fish. There are a lot of #16 ginger sedges on the river from September into November, trout are keyed on them, & I came up with a decent spider this year for fishing over them, posted it below. The flatwing sculpin has been featured in SHJ before, but I'm revisiting it because it was a good fly this past season.
Flatwing Sculpin
Hook: #4 Mustad 3366
Thread: UNI mono
Tailing: yellow bucktail
Flatwing: 2 brownish grizzly saddles
Topping: peacock herl
Collars: pheasant rump fronted with 3 brahma hen hackles
Bucktail for Dollies
Hook: I like #2 Mustad 3366
for these. Fly should be about 4-5” long.
Thread: olive or clear mono
Gills: red tinsel wound on
the hook shank
Topping: bucktail: white;
yellow/chartreuse lateral; olive
Ginger Sedge
Hook: #14-#16
Thread: yellow silk
Hackle: honey dun hen
Body: light ginger seal
twisted on a loop of fine silver wire
Dirty Blonde
Hook: #4 salmon-steelhead
Thread: tan UNI 8/0
Tailing: turkey tail swords
topped with a pinch of light tan SST dub
Rear Collar: chukkar body
spade
Rib: copper wire
Body: light tan SST dubbing
Palmer: light honey dun
saddle
Collar: honey dun hen
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| Jenny Spinner from Pritt |
Anthropocene Memory
Contemplating Tung Po’s poem & the peace
is broken. The rumble of an approaching wave & a
fighter jet making the daily border run vaults from behind the ridge hunting low. Tilted to a diving arc
the jet claws down the smoky sky & roars down the swollen river
course – pines on the bluffs turning red from the
beetles. The river writhes bearing the loosened
detritus of country ragged & worried at the edges -- traumatized landscapes & topsoil
of the Pend Oreille & Flathead valleys, the wracked & splayed medusas of
upended roots carried on the spate’s silver
tipped shoulders. A
fallen tamarack. A
drowned mouse. An emptied & crushed
beer can & a spent condom. The severed jawbone of a slaughtered
wolf inchingover bottom stones. Secret poison & the quicksilver
dream of a tiny mayfly – the stained river a canticle of heartbreak whispers hinting
shadows passing like the memory of fish –
like the muscle memory of arms & hands. Resurrection lays hidden asleep
beneath the shifting silt awaiting a
word that cannot be written or spoken. Everything passes. And who resists the ambiguous
torrent even knowing? Sidestepping a
dreadful dream, careful to conceal my
executioner heart,
repeating a gesture, I lift the rod & hurl an offering
to the dazzling void.
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| Summer Memory ~ Watercolor by Doris Loiseau |
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| Ounaniche |
Tailout
The latest issue of Swing The Fly magazine is just out. STF speaks straight from the authentic core of our game. Simply the best angling magazine out there. Click on the pic in the upper RH column to check it out.
The latest issue of Swing The Fly magazine is just out. STF speaks straight from the authentic core of our game. Simply the best angling magazine out there. Click on the pic in the upper RH column to check it out.
Special thanks to you ladies
& gentlemen who’ve generously donated or contributed to SHJ over this past
year. Your support makes this bit of art possible. What a joy it would be to
fish with each of you. Wishing you health & all the best through the
holidays & the upcoming new year.
~Steve
