I am the worst deer hunter in the world. There are a couple reasons for this, among which I never took it seriously. I thought that it was really about dumb luck, and not about skill. I tended to buy a license the night before, and sort of throw together some gear. This changed somewhat as I got to know skilled hunters, and I shot a few deer over the years. But never a decent buck. The one buck I took in a late season hunt was a running shot at 50 yards, and by the time he went down he had shed his antlers and there was no finding them in the deep snow.
I moved back to Michigan in 1998, and promptly shot a doe the first time out because I was hunting with my fried Mike B., who is a wildlife biologist and set up our strategy. He then moved away and I went deerless for years. Fast forward to 2010. I vowed that this would be the year, but the night before the opener my stepdaughter decided that she wanted to try deer hunting. We actually saw three, but she became frozen solid by about 1000 and that was it for the opener. I hunted pretty diligently that season but saw nothing. When it was over, I was not ready to quit, and vowed to get a muzzleloader to extend the season into December. In Michigan our firearm season is November 15-30, and muzzleloader starts on December 2 and runs almost to Christmas.
The 2011 opener was the antithesis of my prior hunting. I had gotten to know Dave D., and he is one of the best hunters I know. He can find game anywhere and anytime he hunts and became my guide. I had a tack driving shotgun, excellent gear, and I had learned how to pick a stand that deer liked, and not one that I liked. And best of all, I had a muzzleloader. It was a lightly used Thompson encore that I had picked up over the summer, and it would be my fallback if the firearm season did not pan out. I even got load data and some sabots that looked like the gun should have been advertised in a field artillery forum rather than the "used guns for sale" website.
The 2011 firearm season was a bust. We hunted public land in SE Michigan. The opener had too few hunters to push deer, and fog. No one saw deer, but there was enough pressure to push them into the puckerbrush, unharvested corn on private lands, and the odd places that no one could get to without spooking them from a hundred yards out. We did stands, swamp hunts, ridge hunts, pincer movements, still hunts, and every other trick known to deer hunters to no avail. We did see one buck that jumped into the swamp rather than moving in one of the any other directions that would have offered a shot, and I missed a small buck that popped up in front of me as I was huddled in a fetal position in the rain trying to stick it out for just a few more minutes before throwing in the towel. The season ended with a whimper, and not even a sighting during the last week.
The muzzleloader season started the following Friday, and of course I was back at work trying to catch up from all the time I was not in the office. And there was another issue: despite my best intentions I had not done a thing with the muzzleloader other than go to Cabelas and have the helpful hunting guy point to stuff I needed. OK, I did have some powder charges weighed out, but had never even loaded the thing. I decided to sleep in on Saturday, but woke up at 0400 out of what had become habit. I thought about the muzzleloader sitting on the workbench and decided that it needed to be used otherwise my wife might start to question its purchase. The following timeline is true and accurate, and the events will be reported with integrity as they actually happened.
0500 decide to load the gun, and wonder how hard to actually push the sabot into the barrel. Is it all the way in? How hard are these things supposed to seat?
0600 breakfast, coffee, sloth, stumbling around trying to find gear. Take muzzleloader jiggery pokery out of shopping bag, look at it, etc.
0700 arrive at the state game lands. Note that the woods resemble a sea of blaze orange and there are more guys out with muzzleloaders than on the opening day of firearms season.
0705 Arrive at the one place where I had seen deer, only to find it filled with pickup trucks and guys with muzzleloaders.
0715 Legal shooting time begins. I am, of course, driving around aimlessly.
0730 I am still driving around looking for a pulloff that I can get the little fish car into without getting stuck in the 4 inches of new snow.
0745 Find a bare spot that I can pull into. A place I had never hunted.
0800 Finally start hunting after figuring out the primer thingy, reorganizing pack, locating accoutrements and possibles, and deciding which way to head in.
0801 Set off car alarm as I try to lock the car, letting every deer within miles know that something is up.
0802 work my way about 150 feet into the woods, get tangled in a mass of autumn olives. Really cloudy and dark, so decide to stand there for 15 minutes until it gets light enough to look for a proper stand. Only shooting lane is a narrow keyhole between two giant cedars down at the edge of a wooded swamp.
0802:30 Totally wishing I had not had that extra cup of coffee. Decided to wait it out a bit longer.
0803 Hear a noise, and turn to see a squirrel. Immediately notice a 6 point buck walking along the edge of the swamp behind said squirrel. Realize that buck may walk between the cedars. Gun up, hammer back, deer sashays into the dark opening about 30 yards away.
At this point, it was the strangest thing. It happened so fast that I had no chance to get buck fever. I squeezed the trigger, there was a recoil, and I see the deer go flying sideways and crumple into a heap. But there was no smoke! I thought that the primer had not ignited the charge, but there in front of me is a dead deer. I had not realized that Blackhorn 209 is a smokeless propellent.
0803:30 Violate every rule by not reloading and charging down to the now dead buck. It dawns on me that this is a nice buck, and my days of patterning my life after Escanaba in the moonlight are over. Pretty much have to sit down and stop hyperventilating for a couple minutes. A true 6 point with no brow tines and a big body. Not bad for the most heavily hunted public game land in the State of Michigan.
Tag deer, field dress deer, drag deer 75 feet to the road, and get the car which is only 100 feet further down the road. At this point it dawns on me. The little fish car is VW sportwagen with a panoramic sunroof and a teeny roof rack that can support about 150 lbs. This deer weighs more. I had honestly never considered that I would get to this point. Call wife for assistance and a big drop cloth, she is game but prefers to have nothing to do with this unless all other strategies fail. Finally realize that I can boost it in upside down with the old mouse-chewed vest put into service as a sacrificial garment to prevent leakage. Drive home in triumph, then on to deer processor. Call everyone on my cell phone, post to facebook, etc.
1200 Dogs enjoying boiled deer liver. Big mistake, they followed me around for weeks after.
In restropect, it was a strange thing. As I dragged the deer out to the road, I saw its tracks and realized that it had been probably been standing there watching me screw around for 10 minutes. It could have gone anywhere, but took a path to the one spot where I had a shot. It was dumb luck, but I did not get buck fever, remembered to cock the hammer, I followed it in the scope until it stepped into the one good place for a shot, I squeezed, and remembered to aim low. And I had put in my time and paid my dues with many hours in the field. I have decided that deer hunting is not about luck, it does require some skill, but it is really about being worthy enough to receive what is sent to you by the Great Manitou.
The venison salamis were greeted with joy at many Christmas parties, and saturday morning backstraps and eggs have become the breakfast of choice. And I find myself haunting the crossbow counter at Cabelas so I can start hunting the bow season on October 1 and not have to wait until November 15.
Time for bed, the mystery of spring turkey season starts tomorrow at 0605. I suspect it will require more than two minutes ...
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Sunday, March 25, 2012
The long absence
This blog of sorts has been, uh, nonexistent for two years. Most of the folks I have links to abandoned me, with good reason. But it is only now that I can write. You see, the blog was about two things: 1) the odd corners of fly fishing, and 2) tormenting my sister. She passed away in July 2010 from an aneurysm, and almost two years later I am still pissed off about it. She was young (40), with no family history and the week before had run one of those warrior-women steeplechase things. It was sudden, and by the time I got to the hospital the transplant team had been called in. She helped a lot of people but that somehow is still little consolation.
What made it all the worse is that our last fishing trip together was perfect. We headed up into the mountains of north Georgia to a stream that is known as a great place to catch stocked rainbows on corn, but it also harbors giant browns that rise to a green drake hatch. We stole a bunch of flies from her husband's fly box, hiked in to the really wild part, set up on two perfect riffles, and waited. As the sun set the coffin flies (the spinner phase) started to flit about. I had no luck other than a brief glimpse of a set of massive jaws that sheared my 3x tippet, took the fly and descended back into the stygian depths. But that was not why we were there.
The real reason we went all the way up into the wilderness was to see a phenomenon that I had heard about but never seen: the fairies and the twinkies. They are real, but it's not what you think. The fairies are a firefly, and the twinkies are sort of a glow-worm that resides in the wet places along the stream. I have not looked them up, and there were no twinkies streamside that night, but as the woods became dark the fairies came out with a vengeance. Now Michigan fireflies are pretty tame: they fly around and blink on and off with sort of a yellowish light. I have seen synchronized flashing, but rarely, and have never bothered to think about them very much. Georgia fireflies are different. They maintain a constant light (no flashing), the light is an ethereal blue-green, and they stay low over the ferns. At one point, there were hundreds of them streaming down a hillside, all no more than 2 or three feet above ground. If you did not maintain rational thought, you could drift into an observation of hundreds of little Tinkerbell like beings all headed right at you. They were everywhere, and it was beautiful. And really spooky.
But the best part of the night was still to come, because I knew that my sister had this inane phobia about bears. Once in Wyoming, she saw a herd of black angus cows moving down a hillside and thought they were all black bears trying to eat her. The cows got close enough so that no normal person could not perceive their platonic cow-ness, and her response at that point was to scream louder and burrow under the gear in the back of the jeep. So I waited until she brought up the inevitable as it became dark enough to turn on the headlamps. This was the moment I had been waiting for, and decided that her fear should be quelled by objective biological facts.
Julie: I hope that there aren't any bears around here.
Me: Well Julie, I googled Georgia bear densities and there are about 2 per square mile in suitable habitat. So we have hiked through the territory of only, say, 6 to 8 of them.
Julie: ^&#^&$(&&%%!!!
Me: Hey, I read a neat article about eastern cougar sightings. It seems that they may be recolonizing the appalachians. Western cats are moving into territories that have not been occupied for nearly a century.
Julie: ^&#^&$(&&%%!!!
Me: You don't need to be frightened. Bears forage constantly because they subsist on small prey. Large prey are rare in their diet.
Julie: ^&#^&$(&&%%!!!
This went on and on like the mighty Ganges until I thought she was going to clock me. Fortunately, we arrived back at the car and drove home sweaty and exhausted.
Damn, I miss her and I wish we had fished together more.
I did get her started, but distance and the usual constraints of modern life limited our trips together. And I will always remember her casting style that I described as "Sweetheart of the Rodeo".
The postscript to all this is that my Mom informed me that I was to lead her memorial service. Told her that I had no idea what to say. Her response was that I was a college professor and by definition always knew what to say. Among other things, I needed to write an obituary and put together a wee brochure for the guests. There was all the usual stuff you write, but the last page was blank and despite my Mom's confidence I truly knew not what to say there. I think I googled trout poems or something like that and stumbled across a poem by William Butler Yeats entitled "The Stolen Child", about a child who is taken by, of all things, the fairies. Aside from the relevance of the title, which pretty much described the situation to a T, I was struck by the last verse:
What made it all the worse is that our last fishing trip together was perfect. We headed up into the mountains of north Georgia to a stream that is known as a great place to catch stocked rainbows on corn, but it also harbors giant browns that rise to a green drake hatch. We stole a bunch of flies from her husband's fly box, hiked in to the really wild part, set up on two perfect riffles, and waited. As the sun set the coffin flies (the spinner phase) started to flit about. I had no luck other than a brief glimpse of a set of massive jaws that sheared my 3x tippet, took the fly and descended back into the stygian depths. But that was not why we were there.
The real reason we went all the way up into the wilderness was to see a phenomenon that I had heard about but never seen: the fairies and the twinkies. They are real, but it's not what you think. The fairies are a firefly, and the twinkies are sort of a glow-worm that resides in the wet places along the stream. I have not looked them up, and there were no twinkies streamside that night, but as the woods became dark the fairies came out with a vengeance. Now Michigan fireflies are pretty tame: they fly around and blink on and off with sort of a yellowish light. I have seen synchronized flashing, but rarely, and have never bothered to think about them very much. Georgia fireflies are different. They maintain a constant light (no flashing), the light is an ethereal blue-green, and they stay low over the ferns. At one point, there were hundreds of them streaming down a hillside, all no more than 2 or three feet above ground. If you did not maintain rational thought, you could drift into an observation of hundreds of little Tinkerbell like beings all headed right at you. They were everywhere, and it was beautiful. And really spooky.
But the best part of the night was still to come, because I knew that my sister had this inane phobia about bears. Once in Wyoming, she saw a herd of black angus cows moving down a hillside and thought they were all black bears trying to eat her. The cows got close enough so that no normal person could not perceive their platonic cow-ness, and her response at that point was to scream louder and burrow under the gear in the back of the jeep. So I waited until she brought up the inevitable as it became dark enough to turn on the headlamps. This was the moment I had been waiting for, and decided that her fear should be quelled by objective biological facts.
Julie: I hope that there aren't any bears around here.
Me: Well Julie, I googled Georgia bear densities and there are about 2 per square mile in suitable habitat. So we have hiked through the territory of only, say, 6 to 8 of them.
Julie: ^&#^&$(&&%%!!!
Me: Hey, I read a neat article about eastern cougar sightings. It seems that they may be recolonizing the appalachians. Western cats are moving into territories that have not been occupied for nearly a century.
Julie: ^&#^&$(&&%%!!!
Me: You don't need to be frightened. Bears forage constantly because they subsist on small prey. Large prey are rare in their diet.
Julie: ^&#^&$(&&%%!!!
This went on and on like the mighty Ganges until I thought she was going to clock me. Fortunately, we arrived back at the car and drove home sweaty and exhausted.
Damn, I miss her and I wish we had fished together more.
I did get her started, but distance and the usual constraints of modern life limited our trips together. And I will always remember her casting style that I described as "Sweetheart of the Rodeo".
The postscript to all this is that my Mom informed me that I was to lead her memorial service. Told her that I had no idea what to say. Her response was that I was a college professor and by definition always knew what to say. Among other things, I needed to write an obituary and put together a wee brochure for the guests. There was all the usual stuff you write, but the last page was blank and despite my Mom's confidence I truly knew not what to say there. I think I googled trout poems or something like that and stumbled across a poem by William Butler Yeats entitled "The Stolen Child", about a child who is taken by, of all things, the fairies. Aside from the relevance of the title, which pretty much described the situation to a T, I was struck by the last verse:
- Where the wandering water gushes
- From the hills above Glen-Car,
- In pools among the rushes
- That scarce could bathe a star,
- We seek for slumbering trout
- And whispering in their ears
- Give them unquiet dreams;
- Leaning softly out
- From ferns that drop their tears
- Over the young streams.
- Come away, O human child!
- To the waters and the wild
- With a faery, hand in hand,
- For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
And when the previous verse mentioned trout, I knew that that poem was so going in. And I read it more often than I care to admit, and I would so take Yeats fly fishing if he were still around.
So, I knew that some day I would fire up this blog, but that I would have to write about this before I wrote anything else. But I just couldn't. It was too sad. It still is, but I had a moment of epiphany. I realized that if Julie found out that I had neglected a perfectly good fly fishing blog for this long because I was still moping about, she would be pissed off, and probably more so than when I was tormenting her about bears. I can just imagine the lecture, and she would probably have clocked me over this and the bear story.
It is time to move on, and no serious stuff. The next story will be the annual hunting installment, and I guarantee hilarity and mirth. It will be about how the worst deer hunter in the world takes up muzzleloading.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
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.
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.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
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.
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.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
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.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
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.
Monday, November 2, 2009
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.
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