Hog-Wrangling

Geez, where did the time go? It seems like forever since I was last able to post. With a massive project approaching it's deadline, the start of a new school year for my son, Tiger Scouts, fundraisers, a water heater that needed replacing (with several ice-cold showers to boot), and the in's and out's of the day-to-day routine...I haven't been able to post for quite some time. I suck.

As it was, this past Labor Day weekend was supposed to be a relaxing way to end the summer - a few days in the back country spent fishing and hanging out with Eva was the original plan. Also, I was going to hook a pig - if I only nailed one fish the entire weekend, so be it, as long as it was a BBF (big beautiful fish).

That was my sole intent - to hook a freakishly-large fish for 2009, so I made sure to pack some extra OCD before I left the house.

"Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents’ beds, unerringly I rush! Naught’s an obstacle, naught’s an angle to the iron way!"

So reads a verse in Herman Melville's epic masterpiece, Moby Dick. A fine metaphor and one that resonates with me, being that I'm mental.

As it turned out, Eva was unable to make the trip, the weather was less than favorable, and the water was fishing slow. How slow? "It's like casting to a painting..." replied one older gentleman as he was coming off the river.

Ouch. That didn't bode well, especially if it was a Warhol. Too cliche' and over-rated for my taste. I'm not a fan of 'pop art'...which is not to be confused with 'pop tart', which is far more palatable than the former, if you ask me.

Um....yeah...

...so I geared up and walked my way down to the water's edge which, upon inspection, seemed to be chock-full of fishy goodness. And most of them were huge. The middle seam of the river had more jumbo's lined up in a holding pattern than O'Hare on a Friday afternoon. Granted, they were hugging the bottom tighter than a pair of Daisy Duke's, but at least there were fish. And when there's fish, there's always a chance of hooking one.

While I casually changed out my tippet and fly, I was studying the water and coming up with a battle-plan - the depth that they were at would require an Oprah-sized serving of lead, (which is not fun trying to cast on my Finesse 5 wt) unless I could get my fly upstream, into an eddy, which would then pull my line down for me.

Hopefully, the current would then straighten my line, and drift my fly directly between 5 of the bigger fish in that section. Of course, an indicator would be moot at this point, being that my entire line would be submerged - so precise execution would be key. Or, to paraphrase a line from the movie, Big Trouble in Little China - "This is gonna take Cracker Jack timing, Wang."

The cast itself was absolutely ridiculous, and I was thinking to myself that this was starting to look like a twisted fly-fishing version of a Rube Goldberg Machine - I was dropping my fly about 15-20 feet upstream, and about 2-3 feet to the left of the middle of the river, followed by a hard mend to the left. As my line came down with the current, it was then pulled under, and driven to the right (with a subsequent mend in the same direction), at which time, I had to tight-line the hell out of it. Whew.

Fortunately, my theory worked and I wound up pitching strikes over home plate. Now if I could just get a fish to swing...

As my fly approached, there must have been a subtle twitch on the 3rd fish in line - something that my sub-conscience registered, because instinctively I set the hook and was rewarded with the sound of my reel un-spooling line as the fish took off to the far side of the river.

And it was a nice fish - and as such, it took some patience on my part to avoid snapping my line before I could net him - which I eventually did, to the excited yells of some small kids that were spectating (with their mother) from the over-pass. They got a serious kick out of seeing me haul this whale out of the water - which made this catch a little more special.

On the bank, were a couple of folks watching as well, and in my haste I asked if they could run the video camera for me - had I had my wits about me, I would have taken some shots of this fish before handing the camera off - it was big, fat, healthy and had some brilliant colors.

So, as I tried to pull this slab out for the money shot, he bucked and wiggled his way to freedom. Ah well. It was the big one that I was looking for - 25 inches (?) and a good 6 or 7 pounds. I've got no complaints.

After that, I managed one more (which popped the hook) before I made my way back to Buena Vista for some grub from the Pizza Works (awesome pies, by the way) and some college football. As a side note, when in Buena Vista, check out the Great Western Sumac Lodge. It's reasonably priced, locally owned and operated, very clean and the folks there are as friendly as they get. Especially the resident dog. Although I would recommend avoiding the big white cat.

Tangent: the pic below is of Taylor Res. It's about 5 in the morning and the view is from the west side of Cottonwood Pass. The fog bank had formed directly over the reservoir and as the morning progressed (and the wind picked up) it blew the mist directly down the canyon, along the river - which made the first hour of fishing a little more interesting.

As I said, it was slow - the rest of the weekend I managed one small brown (on a leech pattern) and an average rainbow that I foul-hooked (which doesn't count) near the eye - I hate that. Even more-so, being that the hook was so close to his orb - that freaked me out a bit and left me feeling dirty and guilty inside. Not a pencil in sight, he wasn't running (initially) and yet he STILL almost lost an eye.

But, I can rest easy - I got my White Whale for '09, and all is good.

Taylor Revisited

Ah, the high country. Nothing quite like it, especially at 4 am, being that it's still dark. And really cold. Due to a 'slight miscalculation' in timing, we wound up at the C&R section of the Taylor at about....oh....'WAY TOO EARLY' am.

Had I been the navigation officer for Columbus, he would have 'discovered' the America's around 1480. That's Christopher's loss, I guess.

So once the sun did start to rise, and we managed to thaw ourselves out, the fishing was pretty decent - the flows were down, though, and a lot of the fish were parked deep.

Which wouldn't have been too much of an issue, had my drifts not been skewed (which I want to attribute to ice crystals in my blood stream).

From the start, things just didn't 'feel' right...I was missing a lot of potential sets (or what I thought were sets) and it wasn't until later in the day, while drifting a San Juan, that I actually saw my fly outpacing my indicator by a good foot - which really tweaked my melon (not that that isn't easy to do - I get mesmerized by bright, shiny objects on a regular basis).

As for Eva, she did well, hooking her first Taylor brown and getting him to the net - along with some other fish that she hooked, but lost - which seemed to happen quite a bit for a lot of us on the river Saturday. But, that's part of the fun, right? RIGHT?

Around 9ish or so....I can't really say for sure, being that it already felt like we had been on the river for the better part of a year....Jeff Allen, of the Fly Fishing Mind of Jeff Allen and the Allen Brothers Quality Hand-Tied Flies met up with us - and being able to hang with him for the rest of day really made this trip a little more special.

His knowledge of fishing is vast, and it's really a pleasure to be able to watch a guy like Jeff get down to business. I'm more of a 'slash-and-burn-scorched-earth' kinda angler, meaning other guys send someone like Martin Sheen upriver to 'exterminate me with extreme prejudice' - I know enough to be dangerous and I have my own methods and style - 'Guerilla Angling' at it's finest (or worse, depending on your point of view).

Jeff, on the other hand, is the consummate angler - and it was really great to see him on the water, and talk to him about the finer points of fly fishing. Plus, he's just an overall great guy and it was a pleasure to get to meet him and throw a line together. If you're going to be in the area, and need some flies and/or information on the local waters, Jeff is your man.

He's also the one that bit into a genuine SUB. And when I say sub, I'm talking in the 30-35 inch range. This thing was huge. No kidding, when this thing made a run downriver towards me, I saw the water levels rise as it displaced the volume around it. It was so big, it had little fish orbiting around it.

To make matters even more interesting, Jeff was using 8x - which is a fine balancing act to make even the Ringling Brothers stop and take notice. Unfortunately, this hog made straight for a rock and wrapped his line, which snapped it clean. I would have really loved to have seen that fish in the net...yeah, like it would have even fit in the net. I would have had to make a full-body tackle on this thing to bring it in.

Aside from the constant wind, it was a really fine day on the river - great company in Eva and Jeff, and a lot of other friendly anglers that we happened to meet throughout the day (like the guys that ate our cookies with their beer - you two kick ass!). The sun was out, the sky was blue (I'm purposely avoiding mentioning the gale-force winds we had to contend with for much of the day)....what more could you ask for on a weekend in August?

Towards the end of the day, fatigue was really starting to hammer me - throughout the week I was getting about 5-6 hours of sleep a night - with the Coup De Gras being Friday night and the bountiful 3 hours of sleep that we managed to get. Water-boarding has nothing on the rigors that I seem to put myself through.

After 12 hours on the river, in the sun and getting assaulted by the wind, you can maybe relate when I say that the drive back on Saturday was a study in torture.

Hell, I was exhausted at noon...let alone at 6 pm...I kept going thanks to copious amounts of energy bars, caffeine, sugar and 'dip'.

The drive back was surreal, to say the least, including the three large bucks that ran in front of us on Cottonwood Pass (I think this may have been a shared hallucination due to exhaustion). That's right...three large bucks that were running together - which is never a good sign. Obviously, they had been up to no good, and after they passed, I waited a little while longer to make sure there wasn't a police car chasing after them.

And what trip to the Taylor would be complete without a stop at Coney Island in Bailey? Jay, I know I promised you a picture, and I made a sincere effort to get one of some loaded dogs for you...but it was too little, too late. So this will have to do (I'll post the pic as soon as Eva sends it to me). Bon appetite.

The Agony and the Ecstasy

Sure, the late Irving Stone would not blink an eye at the events of Saturday, but then again, I doubt he was a fly fisherman either - but we, having been out on the water, know better, so it will be up to one of our own to write about it sometime in the future...

It's been eight months since I've last had the chance to fish the famed waters of the Taylor, so pulling into the parking area in the C&R section essentially sent my 'Angling Pleasure Receptors' through the roof.

Yeah, this river is a kick in the pants for fly fishing addicts everywhere - it's like (insert your politically-correct winter holiday here) for big people that fish.

Having bunked-down in Buena Vista Friday night, we were up at 3:30 am to make the drive over Cottonwood Pass and into the Taylor Park area, hoping to beat the horde of people that this river attracts (and for good reason).

The point was to get a good spot and hold it for the day - yeah, I know, to get the really big fish you need to walk the river and hit the holes where they're parked.

Since this was Eva's first time fishing this river, I thought it would be good to find an open section, with good seams that she could work on and hone her drift. Plus, I kind of liked the idea of staying put, given the heavy traffic that is on this river.

So, we wound up picking a section on the water, and worked it over good through the course of a day. On future trips, I promise that we'll play nicely and let others hit the section that we were on - Eva learned a lot, so next time I think she'll feel a little more comfortable walking the river and working more varied water.

Anyway - fish? Oh yeah. There was a ton of them in there - in the section in front of us, there were too many to count.

What's really cool is that, on the HD video, you can actually see all of fish in the water - and they're everywhere. It looks like a freaking fish hatchery, there's so many of them. But here's the catch: yes, the fish are plentiful, but they're not always so accommodating.

Watching a handful of 20+ inches of actively feeding trout, three feet off the bank in a foot of clear water and they're not hitting a damn thing you're throwing their way? Agony in it's purist form.

Even more hurtful is when the fish actually move out of the way of your fly as it drifts past, and then, just as smoothly, move back into place after it's gone. That goes beyond being 'snubbed' and is downright hateful on their part.

However, move downstream a few feet, throw your line in and you hit a bruiser on the first cast. Confusing, frustrating and pure excitement all wrapped up into one - a roller-coaster ride of emotional highs and lows, and I love every minute of it.

With that many targets, it didn't take long for me to hit my first trout. The second one I nailed was a certified Taylor hog, which I pulled from some deep water a little upstream from where Eva was. After about 10 minutes of fighting, and a scenic walk down the side of the river, my line broke and I was left with....not disappointment...but exhilaration. He was a beast of a fish and it had been a rush trying to get him in the net.

As for Eva, she did well for her first time on a very tough river - she bit into some nice-sized fish, but the line either snapped or they popped off the hook. Also, the environment is not the most relaxing to be in when you're still trying to get your feet under you - lots of spectators and heavy traffic along the dirt road can make one feel overly-exposed, so she's earned another badge of respect for braving that testosterone-soaked Angling Gauntlet.

Me, I set and lost more fish on Saturday than I have in a long time - snapped lines, bent hooks, etc. seemed to be the norm. And I did it using only ONE fly and a pea-sized indicator. Josh, I know that makes you cringe to hear that, but you know my philosophy - find the depth, nail the presentation, and there's no need for multiple flies and gimmicky set-ups. Maybe sometime in the future, we'll hit some water, and you can try to teach me the errors of my way...

Up until mid-afternoon, the weather was fantastic, but then the 'storm' came in. And it came in with bad intentions. The initial gust of wind damn near took me off my feet - I had to kneel to keep from getting blown over. And the grit (from the dirt road) that it was carrying was brutal - I felt like I was staring, point blank, into the nozzle of a sand-blaster - and when you mix that with freezing, stinging (horizontal) rain....it made for a very unpleasant experience.

Overall, it was a well-earned break - sexy company, beautiful scenery, good fishing, some hooks embedded deeply into fingers and a seriously wicked storm. Yup, I'm living a dream. Oh - and loaded hot dogs from Coney Island in Bailey? Yeah, that's a great way to round out the weekend if you ask me.