Michael Gracie

Noting if you drive 65 mph the whole way, you save a lot of gas

I spent Sunday night out. Green Mountain Reservoir was the spot, and casting double streamers into the Corey’s Slough (named after the joker who discovered it) runout was the game plan. Arrived, set up the tent, and then took the dog for a walk-n-fish. Caught 30+ 20+ little guys before realizing I didn’t forget my camera (it was tucked away in the vest - very unlike me to be prepared).

Finally caught some decent pics as the sun went down (and before the pup and I struggled back down to the fishing hole in the dark to knock off a few more rainbows).

House for a night - a green tent deserves Green Mountain Dam

Losing light - but we’ll fish some more anyway

Dog sees squirrel - dog frozen in his tracks, as he knows he is outmatched

Better than the city, and used less than half a tank to get there and back. But, it was windy as hell all night, and raining when I woke up. Combine that with a tired shoulder from double-hauling tandem streamers for four hours, on a six-weight, and it’s definitely going to be an afternoon nap day.

UPDATE: Heh…camping gear on sale! I don’t need any more gear in that department, and I’m not buying into the survivalist bit either. Nevertheless, I have been reading the SAS Survival Handbook: How to Survive in the Wild, in Any Climate, on Land or at Sea to brush up on the multi-night skills, and there’s certainly a lot of fun information within.

Wheels in the sky.

Bicycle components properly arranged on a metal table in your study will enhance wi-fi range.
Proceed to disassembly, and configure vast array of parts as follows:

Frame and misc. are getting an electro-shake-n-bake, that is after the shop finishes up the owner’s sloppy prep work.

On the way over to the pub…

I catch a glimpse of this:

This pup was looking way too serious about driving that SUV for me to resist a camera-phone shot.

It’s getting to be that time again…

I woke at 2:30 am last Tuesday, but knew immediately the day would be different than most. First off, I jumped right out of bed - I have trouble doing that at 5:30 or 6:30 when I know there is a work day ahead. Second, I got in the truck versus turning on the computer. Third, I drove almost 400 miles in the next seven hours, and caught a stunning sunrise in my rear view mirror. Yep, different - it always is with fly fishing. But one thing did become clear before the week was up - nothing has changed on the San Juan River. It’s still full of big fat rainbow trout!

I arrived and hit the water at approximately 11:00 - wandered around a bit just below Cable Hole before finding my groove. Started off by working some fast water, walking down stream slowly while a couple of fishermen below me cleared out (I took a shower the night before, so I don’t know what their problem was). Then I hit a big dropoff, and after adding a #22 gray/white foamback RS-2 I quickly pulled several piggies out of the hole in front of me. My neighbors were struggling, so I clued them into what was happening (thinking they might find me a bit too cocky, and leave - then I’d have the whole place to myself).

Clouds appeared, and so did wind. Things quickly cooled off, which didn’t bode well for standing in the 42 degree water. I tooled around a bit more in Cable Hole, but once the sunshine disappeared so did the action. I switched rigs - changed worms from red to tan, an egg from green to red, and added a blue thread midge. Mr. Blue Midge pulled in a few unmentionables and a couple more nice fish, but four o’clock hit - I was cold and hungry and a bit tired from the early morning trip as well.

The bar was the next course of action.

Wednesday Wind and Broken Down Friends

Wednesday brought cooling temps, howling winds, a little hail, and zero fish. Yep - for the third time in the year 2007, I got skunked. Out at 8:00, in for a jacket at 11:00 am, and back out until roughly 3:00 pm. No fish, no fish, and no fish. I’d like to blame it on the conditions, but the experienced angler knows that ugly weather often means better fishing. This time was not the case, and I suspect it had something to do with the front itself. Pressure changes do affect fish behaviour, and getting pelted by frozen rain, having your flies consistently hit you in the back of the head (requiring a ten minute break after each and every case for unsnagging and untangling), and generally shivering your ass off for hours on end doesn’t help either.

I had one foot in the door of the bar when I wondered “where the hell are Allen and Mark?”

Allen and Mark are two friends of mine from the East Coast. They planned a trip to New Mexico to bag some elk, and were supposed to be headed over to Navajo Dam by Sunday. Well it was now Wednesday afternoon, and no Allen and Mark. Sometime after coming to the realization that the fishing was blown out (literally, by 50 mph wind gusts), I decided to go looking for some cell reception - didn’t take long to find it once I drove to the top of the dam (and I’ll add that the road across the dam would be a perfect place to hold winter drag racing championships). After weeding through dozens of emails, I checked voicemail. A rental car was broken down in the middle of nowhere and two outdoorsmen were sitting in the middle of a field someplace trying to negotiate for a replacement. This particular situation is nothing new for these two, but that’s a story for another time. Luckily, I wasn’t asked to go try and find them!

About 9:00 pm they finally arrived. I ordered everyone straight to sleep so we could get up early and negotiate some positions on the always crowded waterway.

Light, Camera, Action, Dark

We spent Thursday morning picking apart the Upper Flats, and there was plenty of action. We had but two fellow fisherman on the stretch, and as there was wavering sunlight none seemed interested in stepping in chest deep. We, however, obliged - several hours were subsequently spent knocking off rainbow after rainbow on blood worms, eggs, black and grey RS-2s, zebra midges, and various UV-winged emergers.

We grabbed some grub, and then moved over to Baetis Bend/Lunker Alley for some evening delight. The placed was packed at first, but as the sun set our neighbors disappeared and we wound up with the whole section to ourselves. I hunkered down between two deep trenches to swing some nymphs - Mark spent his time dropping gnats on rising fish in the quiet water across from me, and Allen wandered upstream about a hundred feet to do the same. Allen had met consistent action, or at least that’s what I call it when every time I looked over someone’s rod is bent double and they are reaching for their net. Meanwhile, I popped several tippets and pulled several hooks, undoubtedly from a combination of strong currents and hogs hell bent on sitting on the bottom instead of letting me coax them towards the surface. Mark had some of the same issues, but for a different reason - he was now playing with fire in the form of 8X tippets, and the fish rising on his flies looked slightly bigger than that generally suitable for catch on line the thickness of a human hair (i.e. minnows). I wound up the night stripping double streamers (something Mark had previously exclaimed he’d never seen done before). My patented leech followed by egg sucking leech method produced some poundings, and we laughed about it until well after struggling to find our way back to the truck in the pitch black darkness.

Thursday night was calm, cool, and collected, with a dose or two of Jose Quervo.

Finale

Friday morning we packed, checked out, and headed back to the Upper Flats. Allen picked up where we had left off the day before with a catch on the first cast, followed by a pulled hook, followed by a catch, followed by a popped tippet, followed by yet another catch - that was probably all in the first thirty minutes after arrival (and much to the chagrin of the ten sum-odd fishermen we were sharing the area with). Mark moved over to a back channel to try his luck on dries while I struggled between pulled hooks and playing camera man.

No fish in the net for me that final morning, but no matter - its only the fourth time this year I’ve been had by trout, and everyone had smiles on their faces and long roads ahead of them. For me, it was back to Colorado; for my brethren, it was a trip to pick up some elk meat, and then 250 miles to a hotel for the night followed by 2,000 miles by air back home.

My waders and boots were finally rinsed midday Saturday, and I think all my gear is now back where it shouldn’t be - in the closet.

There is something about the San Juan that leaves you wanting. I’ll feel fulfilled in that desire when pigs fly.

Particularly if you are hanging with a motley crew like us!

October 6th, 2007 is a day that will go down in the annals of fly fishing (in the world according to my cohorts and I) as a day full of wonder. We wondered why Bill wanted to stop at this godforsaken crowded place and try salmon fishing with lead cores and barrel eyed streamers. We wondered if good photography and stupendous fishing action could go hand in hand. We wondered why people get so worked up about fly fishing. And we wondered why fishing couldn’t be this easy all the time.

Why Salmon?

It didn’t take long to answer that question. Bill walked downstream with a 6-weight and enough lead to sink a medium-sized cruiseliner. Meanwhile, Todd and I decided to avoid the crowds and wandered up. As we rounded this bend we saw nothing but super fine trout water - off came the lead cores and on came the beadheads. It didn’t take long to figure out what the trout were into…eggs! I started with the usual, a #16 Prince, and followed it up with a green egg pattern. As expected, my first two casts produced hookups that I subsequently lost - that happens to me every time, despite warnings from my colleagues to pay attention from the get go. The action persisted from then on - I split my catches between the Prince and the egg, and things slowed a bit about ninety minutes in. But Todd came to the rescue, after discovering the fish had simply decided to go pink versus green - thank goodness I carry plenty of pink eggs. We still wonder whether the fish actually key on a particular color as a natural inclination, or whether the changing light spectrum as the sun moves higher has something to do with it. Nevertheless, we were quick to realize that despite the crowds most of the folks were both giving us our space and spending most of their time gawking at us instead of fishing (always nice). We’ll never wonder why Bill bagged the salmon chase and joined us.

Why is Michael such a crummy photographer? Don’t worry - he has plenty of excuses.

It was hard to get a good close-up of Bill in action. Everytime I looked over at him with camera in hand he was casual as could be. Every time I glanced over when my camera was in pocket he was hooked up and I was too! Combine those facts with a new camera and a photo dummy such as myself and you see the result. Something tells me nobody minded.

I didn’t get much chance to test the new camera’s underwater features as I wasn’t carrying a net. It’s a bit difficult to hold a rod, snap an underwater photo of the fish on your line, and then get the camera back into your pocket so you can grab said fish and release (particularly when you are pretty convinced the next cast will likely produce another catch). Call it no net, not enough hands, simple procrastination, or all of the above. I did, however, get a little better with the electronics as the day progressed, but it took a lunch invitation to get me there.

Bill brought food. Who’s taking a break?

The lack of photog flurry had a lot to do with the fact that every time I put my fly in the water some trout would grab it and go running for the closest rock/merry-go-round. You simply didn’t want to leave your flies in the river unless you were concentrating specifically on them. If you strolled over to another hole and your rig was dragging behind you, a fish was likely to follow it with eating on their mind. At one point, my colleagues declared the morning over - it was time for lunch. Bill wandered my way and sat on a rock directly across from the hole I was working. He made a quick flip out with the intention of straightening out his line and leader on the way back in. Unfortunately for Bill and his meticulous gear care habit the trout had other ideas, and he was quickly back on his feet trying to get another pesky rainbow off his line. Here’s Todd having to deal with the same issue - reaching down for yet another fish when all the poor guy wanted to do was pack up and go munch a ham and cheese sandwich and some chocolate chip cookies. I was smart enough to take my rig completely off (after wondering whether a fish would have it in them to actually try jumping out of the water after dangling flies) and had the camera ready.

Results are facts. What you make of the rest of your day is up to you.

Feet were wet at about 9am. By noon we had roughly 50 fish between us, ranging in size from 10 to 16 inches. The trout were primarily rainbows, and a few scattered (and quite beautiful) cutbows. We ate lunch as planned and then ventured north for an afternoon on the Colorado. The production up there paled in comparison to the Blue morning. We also had a run in with some guy who thought he owned the place, screaming something about etiquette and “the 100 yard rule.” We wondered who the heck can maintain 300 feet of distance from fellow fishermen on a public stretch of river roughly a third-mile long, particularly when there are a dozen vehicles in the trail head lot. Personally, I think he and his cohort were “overly geared” and weren’t catching anything. We, on the other hand, were still dancing from the morning, and the fact that I hooked a decent fish roughly ten seconds after we arrived which subsequently ran me downstream to within an eye-shot of him didn’t exactly add to the camaraderie. Nevertheless, we wound up wondering why people get so stressed out about fishing, particularly fly fishing, and concluded that those who do probably need to find another sport.

My new Garmin Vista HCx was cranking away all day, tracking our progress across Colorado from Denver and then up through the Blue River Valley. I downloaded the track info as Keyhole Markup Language using GPSBabel for OS X, and laid it into Google Earth. Here is the result:

The day covered 232.1 miles, including a little foot traffic, on a minimum altitude of 5,226.5 feet and maxing at 11,088 feet. We made a few stops and marked some waypoints. I’ll give those to you for ONE MEEELLLIIIOOON DOLLARS. I wonder if anyone will take me up on that offer, particularly considering I’ll just tell you where we were at if you ask.

And here is one of the fish of the day - a 20 inch female rainbow who from her appearance was definitely having some tough goings heading upstream - we named her the “bone of contention,” and hoped she remained happy:

We wondered how many of her future offspring we might have the opportunity to catch in our lives.

Editors note: the word “wonder” was [over] used precisely 12 13 times during the construction of this post, much to the readers’ wonder. Oops, that makes 14 - add the tag, and its 15 (but still less than the number of fish we each caught over the course of the day).

I spend a lot of time outdoors, and most of that standing knee deep in rivers. I’m also semi-famous for doing faceplants while wading, and getting soaked doesn’t bode well for digital cameras. Hence, I’ve kept the camera I have, a little Olympus 435, in a Pelican case tucked away in a pack. I miss a lot of shots because it’s tough access (particularly if you have a rod in one hand and a net full of fish in the other).

I wanted a waterproof compact, but choices were slim - then I found the Pentax Optio W30. I checked out the reviews, and it seemed to fit the bill (and used regular SD cards instead of xD cards like the Olympus Stylus). American Express came to the rescue for roughly 50,000 points (and delivered it in two days flat - I was impressed).

I’d like to say I’m just as impressed with the camera, but the thing has so many bells and whistles it is going to take a few outings to figure them all out (don’t say read the manual - it just won’t happen). Meanwhile, I caught this photo just after dusk yesterday…

Not too bad, I guess (for someone who doesn’t have a clue).

The real test will be if it can catch trout pics while the fish are still “at home”…

The person who snapped this photo was more impressed than I was.

After the release, I was coined a “trout guru.” I could only laugh. While catching a healthy brown on the second cast of the first hole you step into isn’t a bad way to start the day, you won’t be the bodhisattva of trout fishing until you actually become the fish. As it turns out, we all caught dinks for the remainder of daylight, and night-time streamer stripping turned bust when everyone forgot their headlamps.

Later, I was asked to “guarantee” some bigger fish on the next outing. Ha. All you can guarantee in fly fishing is that sooner or later you’ll leave a rod in a door jam. Nevertheless, I retorted…

“You mean one of these?”

I gave someone an update on my Sunday’s crummy fishing, and they proceeded to send me a reminder of the weekend before (with enclosed compliments on my release technique):

I remember the mud on my fingertips.

The picture does this beautiful wild brown trout justice, but it doesn’t portray what I remembered being pretty poor handling skills. I was holding this fish gently while unhooking, and she squirmed out of my hands and onto the the muddy bank. I gave plenty of time for relaxed revival in the cool water, and she darted away nicely. But I still felt a bit bad about it. Keeping them in a net and in the water while unhooking, grabbing a quick pic and then getting them back in the water just as fast is the preferred methodology.

I’m sitting on the side of a gorgeous stretch of river Sunday. Yea, I’m loafing - we’d been hiking and casting all morning long, and already had a dozen plus fish each - I was using “changing rigs” as an excuse to take a break. And while fiddling with my flies, I look over and see two curious shadows just below the surface about fifteen feet out and across. My buddy is bugging me - throwing jabs because I’m sitting on my butt. I tell him “shut up and go catch one of those fish lying over there!”

He thinks I’m kidding, but goes ambling cross-river and tosses out a cast. I watch as he throws again. And again…then, wham! A 4-weight rod doubles over, and all I can think is “oh shit.” Off goes a fish, bolting downstream like a bat out of hell. As I was the only one carrying a net, my break was over.

This 22 inch wild brown trout will live to feed another day (and yes, the photo is unretouched, so don’t give me crap about the slight overexposure):

There’s an epilogue too…

After the two of us scrambled downsteam chasing this beauty like monkeys in the circus, we watched a guy upstream from us walk off the river. We assumed he was miffed and leaving (that happens sometimes), but he showed up in front of us just a minute later. We had a nice chat, exchanged some flies, and wished each other good luck. Later, we bumped into another fisherman that commented on how all the fish on the stretch “were in the eight to ten inch range.” At first we chuckled - then we set him straight by pointing out some portions of the waterway he should check in on during his next visit. The lesson here: fly fishing is often called the “quiet sport.” I’d rather call it the “social sharing sport!”