Trip 9 - Searching for Shad

Went fishing today on the Russian river, in search of Shad. Dredged the bottom for about 5 hours, had one hookup of this ugly thing, which actually put up a decent fight.

A "skunk" is when you don't catch any fish. I think I'll start calling a day where I catch the wrong species a "sucker".

Reminds me of a day that Michele & I floated a section of the Henry's Fork. All day, we had a running conversation with a couple that were fishing with a guide. We passed them when they were at anchor, and vice versa. At the end of the trip, Michele was frustrated that we didn't catch many trout, mostly whitefish. At the takeout, we asked the couple how their day was. The woman was all excited, telling us how many "white trout" they caught.

White trout. Suckers. Perspective.

Trip 8 - Bluegill at dusk

Friday at dusk, an iPod, fly-rod, Budweiser, and rising bluegill on a small pond. What a way to unwind the work week and bring in the weekend. Excuse the photo, I only had my cell phone.

Fly Fishing camera

The Olympus Stylus 770 SW is a great camera to bring while fishing. Its waterproof to 10 meters, shockproof to 5 feet, and compact (size of a small fly box). The camera is 7.1 mega-pixels, and has a 3x optical zoom. The only drawback is the lack of an optical viewer (you have to use the screen to compose your picture). The battery life is also compromised, but that compromise is worth the other features in my opinion.

Being waterproof and shockproof makes me more comfortable bringing it fishing. Before having this one, I would carry my camera in a zip lock bag which added time to take a picture. Also, being waterproof, it allows taking photos from an interesting perspective like the cutthroat.

Trip 7 - Trout Season is open

Trout season opened today in California. Fred and I fished a small creek in Mendocino county. We thrashed the water to a froth from noon until 6:30, then the fishing came on. I caught the first trout, but Fred out fished me for the day.

Book Review - Hunting for God, Fishing for the Lord

For Christmas, my parents gave me a book, Hunting for God, Fishing for the Lord. Father Classen, a priest in St. Louis wrote this book, an autobiographical book describing his evolution as a sportsman and relationship with God.

I enjoyed this book. It reminded me of the spiritual aspects of fishing or just being in nature. While fishing, I think we all think frequently how perfect God made this world. It reminded me of the evening where Michele and I were alone at our favorite spot on Henry's Fork, and I felt completely at ease (preview of heaven?)

At least, this book legitimatizes some of our favorite jokes for fishing on Sunday mornings:

• Its better to be fishing and thinking about God than in church and thinking about fishing.
• Are you going to church on Sunday? No, I'll be acting like the disciples and "casting upon the deep".

Like the opening paragraph to "A River Runs Through It", by Norman Maclean:
"In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing. We lived at the junction of great trout rivers in western Montana, and our father was a Presbyterian minister and a fly fisherman who tied his own flies and taught others. He told us about Christ's disciples being fishermen, and we were left to assume, as my brother and I did, that all first-class fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were fly fishermen and that John, the favorite, was a dry-fly fisherman."

You can buy your own copy of Fr. Classen's book on Amazon or through the parish web site.

Salmon Collapse

The salmon fishing season will be closed this year. NBC news ran a story on this problem. See the story at the MSNBC News site. I feel a bit angry over this, but even more sorry for the 1000 of fishermen that make their living from salmon here.

Spey Casting Class - Review

Summary

Last fall, I went Steelhead fishing in Maupin, Oregon on the Deshutes. I used a Spey rod for the first time, and highly recommend using spey casting for this type of fishing (swinging streamers on large rivers). I also highly recommend starting with a class - the learning curve is a bit steep.

Why learn spey casting?

Fly fishing for Steelhead is about searching for migrating fish, swinging flies though likely holding water. You don't know where the fish are, so a large part of success in steelheading is covering the most water.

Spey casting allows you to cover more water. The casts are longer, with less physical effort, and I could fish closer to the bank, which better covered the edges. A couple of other benefits:

• I didn't lose any flies - with no backcast I didn't have the opportunity to get hung up
• I could wade closer to the bank, better able to cover the shallow water and a bit safer wading

Casting Class

Fred and I started the week by taking the spey casting class from the Deschutes Angler, taught by Jon and Amy Hazel. This was my first time touching a spey rod, so I was a rank beginner. We met another student, who was taking this class for the 3rd time. In the back of my mind, I though, wow, she must be a slow learner. However, if I go back next year for a week of steelheading, I will plan to start the week with taking the spey casting class for a refresher. That is exactly what she was doing.

The class was taught on the river. We floated downriver for about a mile before touching a rod. We learned the switch, circle, and double spey casts on river left. Then, after lunch, we went downstream and learned the same casts on river right.
"Lecture" was in river, with either Jon or Amy demonstrating casting, and common errors (plus how to fix the errors). The practice portion had both rotating between each student for personal lesson. There were 6 students total.
We also had on stream lessons on steelheading with spey rods. Where to cast, which flies to use, detecting strikes and what to do if the fish was on (fighting and landing), and what to do if it was a miss (hint: if you miss a strike, try again )

Overall, the class was a very effective way to get up the learning curve for fishing with a spey rod. The 8 hours was definitely not enough time for me to become an accomplished caster, but I had the basic knowledge down and ability to diagnose my cast myself. After the next 3 full days of fishing, I was making decent 70 foot casts with the double spey at least 4 out of 5 casts.

At first, I was very frustrated with my inability to cast spey. I knew, though, that I would catch on and stuck with it. To make your first casts, there are about a dozen things you have to remember (lift line off the water, sweep over for the setup, finish the setup with rod on left shoulder at a 45 degree angle, sweep rod to right keeping 45 degree angle until D loop forms, keep anchor in water, make sure flyline is off water, pause, cast vertically - in the correct direction, power with bottom hand..._) you get the picture. This was not easy to start.

Repeating a couple of things for emphasis:
Spey casting was very frustrating for the first day. Stick with it, power through the frustration - its worthwhile in the end.

However, once getting the basic cast down without having to remember everything, I could fish and practice while improving only one thing at a time. I think it was helpful that for the entire 3 days of fishing, we fished from the same side of the river, with the same wind profile. That allowed me to build my skill with one cast (double spey)

Good thing with steelheading, I had plenty of opportunities to practice casting

Equipment

I took the class, but did not immediately purchase a spey rod. I tried to fish with my 1 handed 8 weight. I found myself being more effective holding the fighting butt and spey casting anyway. At the lunch break that first day, I went back to the Deschutes Angler's shop and purchased a Beulah 7/8 which is 12 feet, 7 inches long. The Beulah was the rod that I was using during the casting class, when I finally "got it" (just after lunch). I don't know if the rod matched my casting style, or more likely, it was what I was using when I built enough muscle memory to get 1 cast correct. It didn't hurt my choosing either that the Beulah was about half the cost of the Sage and Winston rods available in the shop.

Along with the rod, the shop configured a Vision floating shooting head, custom cut to match this rod.

A cool service of the Deschutes Angler fly shop is matching the fly line to any of spey rods on the market. The Hazel's have purchased one of each model spey rod, and found the correct match for the shooting head fly line. They customize each line to match the rod by cutting back so the remaining line is the perfect weight.


Fishing Report

Fresh casting lessons and with a new Beulah spey rod, we fished the Deschutes for steelhead. I was skunked the first day and a half. The next full day of fishing, though, I fought 3 fish, landing 2. Two of the fish took green butt skunk, and 1 a rusty orange skating fly. The photo below shows my first steelhead, a hatchery hen.

This trip opened up 2 new worlds to me, steelheading and spey casting. Spey casting is definitely the way to fish for steelhead on the Deschutes, and taking an in person class is definitely worthwhile for learning how to spey cast.