A Fish Tale for the New Year

When it is 5 degrees F outside, you need something to give hope and that will allow you to think about life after the next propane bill. So a fish tale. It is about the biggest trout I never saw.

I was new to Michigan, and a fellow grad student invited a bunch of us up north to his parent's cabin for a weekend in late July. We had a good time, at least they say we did. I had gotten back in to fly fishing, and was the proud owner of an LL Bean rod from the outlet store, and a Pflueger medalist. Six weight. My friend Ron S. and I got the idea that really big streamers at night would be a cool idea. The kind you use on Tarpon. We figured we would catch nothing, or one very big fish.

Took a break from the cabin debauchery (the usual stuff: beer and naked girls in a lake) and went out on a Saturday night. To our surprise, we started catching some 12 to 15 inch fish on a fairly regular basis. I was using a 1/0 platinum blonde (popularized by Joe Brooks) and shortly after dark had a massive strike that resulted in a 21 inch brown. I had no idea at that time that it would my biggest trout for some years, and this on my third trout outing ever as an adult (I had fished for trout as a kid, but not for years). This was so cool we decided to stay an extra night and fish again. Beginners luck, and beginner's stupidity.

South Branch of the Ausable. It was getting dark- too light for the streamer but I tied it on anyway. I came to a long pool that had a couple of risers, and decided to fish. I flipped the streamer out and gave a couple of strips. All hell broke loose. There was a sharp strike that literally ripped the line off the water as it came taught. Now, mind you I have caught my share of big fish, but I never heard anything like that sound, before or since. It sounded like a sheet being torn in half. The fish gave a few lunges toward the bottom, and then simply decided to head downstream. It was more like a bonefish run, and since the medalist did not have a counterweight it was shuddering in my hand as the spool rotated. Actually kind of cool but at that point I was scared to death of what was on the other end of that line.

The fish ran down to big pool that bent to the left. Not into the backing, but just a few turns of fly line left. I was sure it would take the turn and that would be the end of things, but it simply stopped. We played tug of war for what seemed like hours, but it was probably a minute. And then the line went slack. I was devastated, but vowed to reel in and keep fishing. As I reeled, it got strange. I could not tighten the line. It became clear that the fish was still on, but was headed back toward me. The line came tight about the time it drew even with me, and I thought for a stupid second that I had it beaten. It just kept going and there was no stopping it. It simply veered to the opposite bank and stitched the leader and about 10 feet of line through a logjam. I waded over and tried to reach down and free things, but at that point it was dark and I had become rather reluctant to put my hands close to whatever it was. The fight ended when I retrieved the broken tippet, but only after fighting a log for 15 minutes. And did I mention that I was doing all this on a 5x tippet? I thought you needed light tippets for trout or they would see the leader and not strike. Complete dumbness combined with inexperience.

What species? Only browns get that large in that river system, but a few folks have insisted that I hooked a giant northern pike. I object to the pike theory- the habitat was all wrong and it was so close to dark that I argue that all respectable pike (a diurnal species) had stopped feeding. And if pike were in that part of the river I would have heard of at least one person catching one once in a while. Never heard of any pike on the South Branch. And no, ye of little faith, it was not a beaver. It was light enough to see any damned beavers were they present.

I think it was a brown, and based on my experience since that time, it was easily 25 inches in length and likely bigger. It was the feeling you get when you hook a respectable Chinook salmon. Come to think of it, it has been far, far too long since the big streamers were let out at night for walk. Definitely an agenda item for this year.

Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war. Now, all trout get released, but night fishing with these things is a battle. You do little short casts until there is a sound like a dog falling in the water and the rod is wrenched from your hands. Strange things happen, like a monster fish throwing the hook and then making a torpedo run right between your knees. I don't know who was more surprised, but I was the one who ended up sitting on my ass.

The annual fly box disaster recovery act

Well, it is between Christmas and New Year's, and the annual panic has set in. Trout season here in Michigan starts on the last Saturday in April, and due to the vagaries of the Calendar that Means April 24 this year. Damn! Hardly enough time to get the flies tied and a new rod or two to finish before the opener. And it is worse than you think- quite a few of our more famous trout streams are open all year, and some of them have nice spring steelhead runs. So when you here the first spring peepers you need to be ready.

This year is typical. What started as a the beadhead box, the nymph box, the wet box, the streamer box, the dry box, and the pray for death box (anything less than size 18) somehow turned into a massive jumble of matted hackles, flies floating loose in all corners, and a streamer that was somehow still damp from last summer. Go figure. It was pretty clear than any fly that wasn't producing that day was snipped off and tossed in the first box that came out of the vest. Such sloth. There were other affronts- those stupid-ass Hendricksons with the overhackle of wood duck that were supposed to be killers? The entire dozen still sitting in a neat row, all but one intact. The one I used is a bit matted and still had a leader knot, but clearly it had not been touched by a single fish. They get removed and sent to the redo box where the materials will be removed with a razor blade and retied into something that will catch fish. Yeah, right. That box has been receiving flies for 10 years and I have yet to get into it. And a half dozen size 12 nymphs, all untouched, but the half dozen size 14's in that pattern are gone. And the 4 black weed seeds that I tied before I figured out that natural deer hair was the way to go. What am I going to do with all this crap? And worse: the slim Borcher's that I know will never work.

And I finally realized that if you carry a dozen of each pattern, you can only carry about 20 different kinds of a particular fly in a box. So except for the obvious producers, I am going to cut back to 4 of each pattern and watch my backcast. Except for obvious proven patterns, and flies that tend to have short life spans, either because they are fragile (pheasant tails) or spend life near the bottom (I carry a dozen Walt's worms and seem lose them every 3rd or 4th cast).

This year, I have decided that wet flies are a lost art, and plan on fishing them extensively. Look for some future posts on the McGinty, blue dun, picket pin (a top seller in the orvis catalog about 1980), and the Alexandria (reputedly banned in some English waters because it it too effective). Gotta get tying, and right fast. It will be here before you know it. Of course, this is what makes fly fishing so cool. The season never really ends, and Michigan winters simply fly by. Or are at least tolerable until March 15.

The Hiatus

I have been besieged by my readers (all two of them) as to why there was a lag in posts. The answer for this is seen to the left. He is a rat terrier, and has required considerable time and attention.

There was another issue as well. I wanted my fly photos to be better, and was too cheap to buy a new light for illumination. Instead, I obsessed with getting the three dollar garage sale light to work. It finally happened today.

The Mickey Finn has its day

This classic streamer gets it's name from the Chicago underworld, where a Mickey Finn was a bar drink laced with chloral hydrate- the concoction would render the drinker unconscious enough to rob. It is a truly classic streamer pattern, and has appeared in every fly tying book, magazine, web site, and collection as a "must carry" pattern. Even Earnest Schwiebert wrote about it in "Trout".

Presumably, the pattern was such a knockout on trout that it just had to be called a "Mickey Finn". Since everyone who is anyone carried the pattern, I dutifully tied up a dozen in 1999 and always carried three or four in the corner of the streamer box. However, the pattern had a distinction; it was the only fly pattern that I ever tied that never once caught a fish. Part of this was that I never tied one on unless it was one of those cold cloudy desperate days where the stream seemed lifeless. I would usually put on one when I came to big dark pool, make a few desultory casts, and snip it off in favor of something that might actually work. It became a joke- I knew guys that would fish the Mickey over any other streamer pattern but I hated it.

I actually consider the Mickey Finn not as an attractor pattern, but a very good imitation of a redbelly dace. But redbelly dace are pretty scarce in most of their range, and creek chubs, black nosed dace, and sculpins are far more widespread. So although it was good, dace just weren't important.

So this went on for 25 years, until a fateful sunny summer day on the Ausable River. My friends Jim J. and Jaime S. and I were doing a hopscotch float and there was the inevitable discussion about what they might be bitin'. Jim and Jaime both suggested that the Mickey Finn was a pattern worth considering, and I scoffed. They looked at me like I was an idiot. I scoffed again, thereby adding to my future misery and shame. We were catching fish on dry flies until about noon when it sort of drizzled out. I was in a post-lunch stupor and not getting anything. One of those, "well at least the morning was good" days. Somehow, I decided to tie on a stupid-ass Mickey Finn, go fishless, and then make fun of my friends for their bad advice. A good plan, but it went bad on the first cast when a nice brookie smashed the fly. I then had one of the most eye opening experiences of my fly fishing career, but it wasn't about the fish that were smashing the Finn about every third or fourth cast, it was what the pattern taught me.

The Mickey Finn is a great pattern because of all the flies I have ever fished, it is the one that is most visible from 30 feet away when it is swinging through the darkness of deep pools and runs. Because you could see the fly, you could work it within inches of stumps, and watch how it was responding to your strips and mends. But the craziest part were the strikes. I would watch a brook trout (and occasional brown) fly out of their lairs, eat the fly, and then turn back toward the stygian depths. It was only after they had moved 6 to 12 inches that I could feel the strike. That day, I was fishing graphite because we had all agreed that three guys in a canoe was not a good situation for cane rods, and it made me realize that cane rules because of its sensitivity. Next year, I am going back with a cane streamer rod to see if I can detect strikes better, and I think I will.

The coolest part of the day came when I spied a small deep hole with big stump at the tail end- the pool was a depression about the size of your office desk. I thought, if I were king of the brook trout, that would be my spot. It was, he was big, and was released. About five minutes later the fishing ended when the last of my three Mickeys ended up in a tree, but it was fun while it lasted. I now love the Mickey Finn, and will never be without it again even though Jim and Jaime will undoubtedly make fun of me every time they see me fishing the pattern. I don't care.

Another interesting thing about this pattern is that there are almost no published variations. About the only variation I have seen in tying books is the addition of jungle cock eyes, or small painted-on eyes. I do know of two varations though that were developed by friends: William M. of Berks County PA used to add an overwing of grizzly hackle and claimed the pattern was far more effective. My friend Jim J. Ties his with a pink fur body ribbed with tinsel, jungle cock, and a topping of peacock herl . It works.

And by the way, every fishing story I have ever read that discussed this pattern as a fish catcher described the same weather pattern: Midsummer, sunny and hot. That was my case, and it may be most effective that time of year. Why? I have no idea.

The weed seed

This pattern was stolen from Mike Schultz, resident sage, fly tyer, guide, and employee/manager of our local fly shop: Colton Bay outfitters on the west side of Ann Arbor. Mike is a brilliant fly tyer, and like all brilliant fly tyers does not realize how brilliant he is. If you can steal one of his patterns, you should. I first came across the weed seed as he was tying a bunch of them for a guide trip. I was looking at them, and he explained that he needed a fly that floated well but was simple and inexpensive to tie. He guides a lot of beginning anglers, and they tend to lose a lot of flies. I liked the look of it, and bummed one from him. It had no name, so I christened it the weed seed because it did look a bit frumpy. The weed seed is also a term used by A.K. Best to describe poorly tied dry flies. I did not know Mike then as well as I do now, and I thought that he may have been pranking me by giving me a pattern that was an "A Number 1 Hat Decorator", so I pranked him back by giving his creation a derogatory name coined by one of the most influential tyers of our generation. As is per usual with these things, I was paid back in spades.

I am still ashamed, and this is why. Fast forward to the following weekend on the Ausable River. I was fishing, and waded past a cabin where breakfast was being prepared. A bunch of guys boiled out and refused to let me pass their dock unless I showed them what I was using. One comment: you have released more fish in the past few minutes than we have caught all week. And what, pray tell, was I using? The weed seed. I had tied it on first thing, and it was catching every riser that saw it.

The weed seed is brilliant because it is easy to tie, and it looks like everything under the sun. It could be a mayfly, a caddis, a stone, or even a small hopper. I have messed with different colors, but natural seems to work 90% of the time. There have been times when it doesn't work, but those are pretty rare. It floats so well that it is a good searching pattern, which is the way I use it. It is a great pattern for those days when nothing is really rising, but you feel like fishing dry flies anyway even though subsurface might produce more fish.

The recipe:
Tail: two strands of krystal flash.
body: a clump of deer hair. Lay the clump around the hook shank, spiral back, then spiral forward.
Wing: a clump of deer hair. Leave the butts stick up like an elk hair caddis to form a small head.
Hackle: non, but you can leave some of the body or wing longer to make a few legs.

Takes 30 seconds, lasts and floats forever. And it catches fish. It has got to be the ultimate in impressionistic patterns. It is now one of my go-to flies, especially on new water. And the truth is that I asked Mike if it would be OK to write about it. He is very gracious about sharing his knowledge, and gave permission.


Update: I now tie the pattern with an antelope hair wing. It really flairs out and makes it float better and longer.

The night I could do no wrong

I went fishing with my friend Jim J. . This is generally an intimidating experience, because no one outfishes him. Ever. He is one of the most observant guys I know, has the patience to work a pool until he catches the largest fish, and has a knack for figuring out what they are doing and when they are likely to do it. And he can work flies so the fish come rocketing out of their lairs to strike.
So I was prepared for complete and abject humiliation.

We were on Michigan's Pine River, and I had decided to go for broke. The night before the Brown Drakes were hatching. I saw four risers all night, and got all four on a Robert's yellow drake. The next night had to be the big night, so I took only a small box of dries and a 7 foot four weight cane rod that I had made myself. And of course, there were no rises. I poked around in the one fly box I had, and discovered a small muddler. It was a double error- I usually keep all the dries in one box, and the pattern was a bastard muddle that I had tied from memory. It had a black chenille body, a ragged deer hair head, and a couple of strands of crystal flash. Since it was an hour until the brown drakes, I greased it up and presented it as an early season grasshopper. This produced nothing.

The strange part came when the fly got waterlogged. Toward the end of a cast it finally gave up the ghost and sank. There was an immediate strike and I landed and released a nice brook trout. Next cast, the now-slimed fly sank again, and a nice rainbow was hooked and released. I thought, OK, if that is the way they want it ..., and pulled the fly under water and did some short strips. This time it was one of those browns that make you wish you had brought the net.

Thereafter, it was a glorious and inexplicable insanity. Toss out the fly, strip or twitch it once or twice, and a fish would be on it. Nothing huge, but an honest 10 - 12 inch fish on nearly every cast, and every once in a while a 13 incher. Mostly rainbows, but a few browns. It went on and on. I came to long deep pool and put the fly in a log on the opposite bank. Way too deep to wade to it. I did a roll cast, it popped out and landed in the water where a respectable fish ate it. A few minutes later I sent my lone precious emissary way up into a poplar. It looked like a cat's cradle about 25 feet up. I pulled, the fly popped free, and the entire mess slithered out of the branches and down into the stream where, you guessed it, a fish hit it.

I began to wonder if the fish were crazy, and tried other patterns, including a black stone that I had overlooked in a corner of the fly box (the only other subsurface fly with me). Nothing. Dry flies. Nothing. Back to the weirdo muddler and there would be a strike. Before I knew it, it was dark and we met back at the canoe launch. Jim had been throwing everything in his box with nary a strike. He had even dropped his favorite mouse pattern while tying it on and had to watch it drift out of sight. And although it was hot, still, and humid, neither of us saw a single brown drake.

I have no idea what happened. There were no rises, and the fly did not imitate anything that I could imagine. Caddis swimming to the surface? No caddis hatch. Sculpins migrating? It was black, and being being dead drifted at the surface with an occasional twitch or strip. All fish in the entire watershed concentrated at the canoe launch? Hard to imagine. I came to the conclusion that I will never know.

And flushed with success, that little black muddler was used on many following trips. It never caught a thing again.

The flat bodied nymph

This fly is largely about hypocrisy. With the exception of the Hex and white fly hatches, most of the dry fly patterns in my fly box could best be described as impressionistic at best, and more honestly, freakish parodies. Tangerine hackle sulfurs? Hendricksons with bad case of morbid obesity? Yep. But when it comes to nymphs I go for exact.

The flat bodied nymph is not completely original- I am sure that there are other patterns like it out there. But it works, and I can't recall seeing anything exactly like it. This one started when I was reading "Chauncy Lively's Flybox". The dude was brilliant. He tied with natural materials exclusively, and used technique and creativity to make very close imitations of natural insects. He had a Hendrickson nymph I was trying to imitate, with no success. The first problem, of course, was that the pattern required condor quills. Jeez, I thought I had some somewhere. The other thing was that I just could not make my bugs look like his bugs. Probably a hand-eye issue but that is my problem, not yours. I also had recently seen an internet web page about a fly called "the muncher" which looked like a Hex nymph. I sort of combined attributes of the two patterns to come up with this thing. It also takes a page from A.K. Best, who emphasizes different colors between the top and bottom of a nymph, or the abdomen and thorax.

I have a love-hate relationship with this fly. Useful patterns should not be a pain, and no fly should require so much time to tie that you become emotionally involved with it. This one fails on both counts. But it is so productive that every year I tie a dozen and use every one. It is "the fly most often stolen or begged from my fly box by skunked fishing buddies" so that is worth something.

The pain:

Use a size 10 or 12 Mustad 9671 nymph hook, or any hook that is 2x long, and 1x heavy.

Begin by lashing two strips of lead wire along side the hook shank. Lash them on about 3/4 of the way back. Then carefully bevel them with a double-edged razor blade. This gives you a fat, flat abdomen that tapers to the rear.

Tail: Three wood duck fibers, or mallard if you failed to shoot a wood duck.
Abdomen: Turkey tail fibers reverse ribbed with copper wire.
Thorax: peacock herl.
Legs: out to each side, a small partridge hackle. You will have to root through the pack to find a small mottled one.
Wing case: grey duck primary, or something similar.

Do the wire, tails, abdomen.
Tie in the wingcase, then the partridge hackle by the tip so that both are pointing backwards over the top of the fly. Tie in the herl and wind it, tie off. Then pull/bend the partridge feather forward so that it creates legs that stick out on both sides. The pull the wingcase over the top of the whole works.

This pattern is opposite that of many patterns in that it has a distinct top and bottom. It's very unlike the western patterns tied by Charles Brooks- he believed that the fly should look the same at no matter what angle the fish saw it. I think that fish get a much better look at nymphs than dry flies, so that is my justification. Tie up a few and try them. I also use a lighter version with a light mottled turkey wing feather and grey-brown dubbing instead of herl. Tied in size 14 it seems to be a good sulfur nymph.