28 minutes of carping, May 16, 2013

Take it when you can get it.  Meeting completed 4:56; participants sent on their respective ways.  One way was down the hill from the meeting location to the river.  For a reinforcing lesson regarding carp mood and behavior. 

(1)   Plenty of carp out deeper, in the main river flow.  Water clarity around 10-12 inches; these fish were not be seen beyond their periodic rolls, jumps and…     their rises: like the invasive brown trout.  They were eating something that I couldn’t discern; maybe midges.

(2)   Some carp holding steady behind current breaks; a couple big ones.  Neutral to negative.  They saw flies and faded away.

(3)   At 5:22 it was time to head out; gave up.  Walking back downstream, moderately fast but not sprinting, so as to reserve very small chance of a good encounter.  One fish showed itself in the rocks; not actively feeding or tailing, but clearly looking for something.  First flip put the fly up and the right maybe ten inches.  The carp slowed and made a subtle movement…   away from where I thought the fly was resting…   but it was just too convincing – the 1/8^th inch movement was too much of a tell and I was convinced so I picked up to find a lipped fish.  Can’t always trust where you figure your fly has fallen…   given geometry, tricks of water and current in general. 

It was the final eat for this  7 lb carp.  Heavy hammer blow to the head spattered blood on my arms and face.  Some carp will swim and some should probably be eaten.  Protein source to be considered.  A smallish fish like this, in spring; presumably a good eating option.  Each of its 1 lb fillets are now in my freezer.  And the remains are in the garden. 

If a guy had more time I think he could do some good work in the local carp fishery right now.  Things are moving; things are looking up.  As an aside, bass and panfish have moved into shallow water; abrupt difference with respect to one week ago…     they are gettable for any and all kids with spinners and twister tails; poppers.

 

10 foot leader down to 1x tippet.  And this fly.

Work that we do is work that we do.

Meeting today.  Out the window, carp trying to push their bulk up ephemeral riffles in wetlands.  Time to start paying attention.  Hamms + new rubber legs from Hareline.  Goodnight and good luck C. carpio.

 Fat Herringbone with No Medallion - E.S.

One hour came free today.  River is still relatively high and turbid.  Some ponds are showing life though.  This was typical MN carping situation: careful walking, few chances, make one work.  Did one lap.  40% into it and I hadn't seen a fish of any specie.  Figuring it was still busty.  [key choice number 1:] Kept walking though, ahead and not back out the way I came.  On the east side of the pond there was presented the first visual on a carp in year 2013.  May 8th.  Solo fish, moving slowly along the shore.  Catchable.  But also very wary.  Saw me as I saw her...   blown.  Continue on.  Windward side of pond, here were some fish.  Maybe 3-4 as far as I could tell (water not entirely clear).  First couple were moving; tough; no good.  Blew a couple without seeing the fish bodies.  Waited.  Found one fish, feeding, deep enough that I could barely see tail.  Nothing else.  Dropped fly.  Again.  Spooked.  More facets here and there but nothing too great.  I started walking out...    [key choice number 2:] but then I went back to basic precepts of carping as it pertains to state of MN: you don't get target richness.  You can't just keep walking the shore and find feeding fish.  So I walked off the water a bit and looped back.  These fish were not entirely put off.  Gave it to a fish again and couldn't get a take.  Looped back...   one more time.  The fish had settled.  Found one positioned parallel to shore, unaware.  Could just, just make out gray dorsal line and general fish shape.  Dropped the fly at the head-end and counted down.  Zero movement.  Zero indicators.  But the count was about right and the path of the fly looked pretty good.  So I picked up the rod.  There it was indeed.  Fly pierced lip to the bend.  Without a net, I played the fish a bit; approx five minutes.  Took off my shoes and socks while staying tight to the carp.  Waded to ankles or so and beached the sow fat mother.  Digital scale read 13 lbs.  This is what we have: few chances so damn-well make them count.  Trout are trout and we love you and everything else but man it felt good to battle a weighty fish to a handshake and release.



We had Five Days in April, Parts II and III

Before 15 inches of dense snow came on.  Smelled it moving in so we got out for a few days.  There were two parties in the campground loop: other being a band of wizened turkey hunters.

A few bugs in the air but no fish rising in consistent fashion.

Don't ask me how to catch trout with spinning gear.  Just horrible at it.  I can't get my kids on fish.  Granted this is not a warmwater scenario in which bass and panfish come from miles at the drop of any fly or lure.  Trout are tougher than that and these guys are kids; attention flits here and there.  But you'd think casting spinners into these deep corners would get some strikes.  Must not be getting down enough.  I just can't do a damn thing with that gear and I feel bad for it.

Each morning we went to the same cobble bar.  Sat in the sun.  Wet-waded.  Physics of rock skipping.  Geological anomalies.  I was the only one who would actually hit the corner hole full immersion.  Painfully cold.  But the drying in the sun was sufficient payoff.  On a couple occasions I put a Wilted Spinach on some sporadic risers, less than twenty feet from our setup.  Caught maybe 6-8 smallish trout.  Hadn't presented a soft hackle downstream in a while.  Enjoyed the subtleties of it.  Few more fish nymphing here and there.  There wasn't a rush to fish.

First time I've seen this guy attempt high-sticking.  And he did it well.  Flipping a tandem rig up into the riffle and following it back down.  This water was somewhat worn by the time he hit it, or I think he would have picked up a strike.  Still can't figure out which way to go for the kids: spinning or fly gear.  Plus/minus is there.  Fact is, kids catching trout out of streams is moderately tough, regardless of gear.

First trout stream catch on his own...   Izaak Walton true grit.  All his approach, his casting, retrieve and landing.  Semotilus atromaculatus.  In the same riffle/run configuration, he had an invasive brown trout flash at his spinner.  No connection though.  Kid saw it; liked it.

Heck of an image right there and that has nothing to do with the person taking it or any quality with respect to the taking.  Rather the content.  Tough to beat it.  Step off a county road 50 yards and there you are...  go deeper, find more.  Pretty important place.

We had five days in April, Part I:

Trees around here took it pretty hard past few days; especially the conifers.  Fifteen inches of snow in Rochester MN on May 2.  To the west in Owatonna and Blooming Priaire, around eighteen inches.  Heavy, high-water-content stuff. One of the funny little remnant cedar decorative trees along the back fence line snapped in half.  No big loss.  But telling.  Man in a mask straight out robbed us of April and now a weekend in May taken too.  When the windows come, they must be addressed.  Lest this entire spring and early summer slip away.  April 26 through May 1 were pretty damn nice days.  Enough time had passed since previous rain events.  Water was in good shape going into that stretch.  One must strike.  Must get out and forge some memories.  Forge some bonds.  Thus we came upon a period of approximately 102 hours during which I was not further than 100 feet from a coldwater segment of the Root River system for 60 hours.  Part I of this episode was a single day of fishing with a coworker, approx 830 AM to 600 PM.  Piscator Fontinalis is the handle.  Here are the notes:

The criteria for a big trout day are pretty straight-forward, in my opinion:

(1) Weekday.  Unless later in the summer when the crowds have moved to lakes.  Fish a weekday.  Tuesday is nice.  But any of them work.  You don't want to be fishing behind someone.  Sure you can catch fish doing that, but it limits you.

(2) Water in decent shape.  Doesn't have to be perfect.  

(3) Fish the right size of water.  Don't a plan a day trip on a small stream.  Unless you want to go Izaak Walton on the bit and eat fish at streamside and meet merry maidens.  A day trip needs long stretches of good water.  There are a number of options in SE MN, but to be honest there are not dozens that fit the bill really well.  I used to fish small water a lot.  Now I like medium sized water.  Good day trip water.

If you have those three criteria in place and you DO NOT catch 30-50 fish, something is goofy.  And you could easily catch 50-80 fish.  Just being honest. Tongue is loosening and honesty is flowing.  Two guys or one guy; doesn't matter.  The total fish to hand should be about the same.

In this case, we set out to nymph like hell.  We could have done it; would have worked pretty well.  But we quickly discerned that it was going to be a streamer day.  For the fish, a sword day, a red day.  Ere the sun sets.  

(1) Every shadow had fish laying up.  Smacking these waters, even little triangles and small woody debris...  would draw packs of linebacker fish out, all showing after the streamer, smacking at it.  It was a bright day; this was notable.  A lot of water was lit up.  So the shadows were good.

(2) Slow water was good.  Dead looking reaches produced fish.  It was like casting and stripping in ponds sometimes.  Not the giant pools, but slow stream reaches.

(3) Stomach contents played right into the streamer story.  Almost zero bugs.  Leeches, crayfish.  And a lot of empty stomachs.  Pursuing clarity on this one.  Why were the stomachs last outing stuffed to bursting with all varieties of bugs, and these trout empty?  Reflex answer is that these fish were coming of prolonged turbid water; slow feeding time.

(4) No hatches.  We saw sporadic risers. Very clearly we could have fished dry flies all day and caught a fraction of the fish we caught, seen a fraction of the cool tackling takes we saw, and in general caught smaller fish.  But we did not do that.  At the end of the day I put on an Adams and prospected in riffles and runs.  Caught exactly six fish, in maybe half an hour or so.

(5) PF can fish.  Great to be on the water with a salty veteran.  One who grew up fishing BKT.  A guy acquainted with steelhead; someone who thinks hard about our natural resources.   We didn't go too crazy with respect to fishing intensity and without counting can say we easily touched 50.  Can practically remember that many fish.  

(6) Kept nine thick fish, of which eight were between 11-13 inches.  Perfect for eating. Some Biblical parable was in play; my creel strap broke under the weight.

Crossings at Carnegie

Zumbrota Minnesota

Poet & Artist Collaboration, April 19th

From Crossings website: In its 12th year, Crossings’ annual Poet-Artist Collaboration celebrates National Poetry Month in April by bringing the written word and visual arts together. The exhibit of poems and the art they inspired is on display from April 1 to 26. A free public reception and reading takes place at Crossings and the State Theatre on Fri., April 19, at 6:30 p.m.

Some 150 poets and artists participated in this year’s event by entering up to three poems each, or submitting artistic work samples. Jurors winnowed nearly 300 poems down to just 26. Other jurors halved the artistic pool to match the number of poems. For this exhibit, each selected artist chooses one selected poem from which to create an artwork. Poems and the work they inspired are displayed together.

Point #1: this is a unique and stunning event.  Examining artists' interpretations of poetry.  I think everyone in the theater would have stayed for two more rounds, into the night.

Point #2: two days left...   if you can manage to get there, do it.  Seeing this art in person; especially that depicted below...   is highly memorable.  Further: just a really cool place.

Li Bai at the South Fork

A bright glass late summer moon

Rocks push the water up toward the light

The dragon-jawed spotted trout lays silent

In the sliding sheet below the riffle

I hold a length of cane over the water

Trailing a silk line and a feathered fly

It spreads a small v-wake in the current

Offering a connection between our worlds

In a sudden fury, the fish explodes at me

Hanging a deep bass note in the falling dark

As fireflies begin to rise at streamside

Like lanterns above villages of grass

Point #3: this guy nailed it.  Mike Schad is a local fisherman and artist.  He read this poem perfectly and translated it to the pastel pictured above.  I thank him and I thank Crossings for making this work.  

Catch and Keep Opener 2013

[in captions]

Day one: we were afforded exactly 90 minutes of free time between appointments on Saturday (opening day).  We were in the vicinity, so we stopped in on a popular river reach.  Kid wanted to press for a creel of ten; we had to stop at seven to meet our next obligation. 

Every kept trout showed a stomach near-bursting with a notable mix of bugs.

My field eye was a bit rusty and I underestimated the length of every trout we kept.  The offset was approximately 1.5 inches.  I think this fish was 13 or maybe 14.5 inches.  Biggest BNT I've ever kept.

This cat already has the one handed pose; it came naturally to him.

Still can't hook fish on his own; main lesson on this day was pinching the line with one hand, stripping it in with the other.  The casual stance in this photo; I like it.

The receding water is often great to fish, in my opinion.  It's clear or clearing, and the extra volume provides more camouflage for both audio/visual facets.  We beat up this riffle in every way.  We worked the tail: first three drifts produced fish.  Then the far side; beauties there.  Then the main riffle and the head.  More fish.  Look at it.  Tandem nymph rigs.  Big black leading and a scud trailing.  Knocked all over the water.

First creel of 2013.  Smallest fish is 11 inches.  Feels good to keep fish.  To eat them.

Day two was a steady rain all day; should have fished it but couldn't.  Day three was a  bust as a result of day two: we looked at all the small streams within 35 minute radius; every one was less than three inches clarity.  We didn't fish; called it and went home.  Did something else.  So we've logged 90 minutes thus far in keep season.  April continues to drain away...    Man, could use a good week without hard precip and then a solid day of nymphing.  I think it might be coming soon.

April is Slipping Away

...and we've been moderately robbed thus far

Probably the last instance of April 1 meaning much to trout fishermen in SE MN.  Next year, things should be somewhat less detailed in the way of seasons.  As it stands though, that date marks the open of catch and release trout fishing for nearly every stream in our corner of the state (I believe that Dakota County is not included and there is a segment or two of trout water in that polygon).  This year, flexibility was a required attribute for anyone who ventured out.  Streams were charged with meltwater, meaning temperatures dropped and water clarity decreased.  And not like rain events, which can generally be fished with decent success as the hydrograph recedes…     snowmelt is a little different, in my opinion, because nearly all or all of the “extra” or “event” water that reaches the channel gets there running over the ground.  Meaning if I drive up the road to the stream 35 hours after a rain event and the water is receding, I expect it to be very clear if not dead clear, and I expect it to fish really well.  But it is not a given that you’ll find those conditions as snowmelt-driven peaks recede.  More variable.  I looked at many streams that had come down 3-4 feet by Monday and they were nearly all less than six inches clarity.  Tied up some slightly bigger, somewhat flashier nymphs; some black streamers too, for good contrast.  I found one stone clear BKT stream and caught a few pretty fish.  Best part about this reach though was stumbling onto a totem that marked someone's extensive sugar bush.  But that was early on and I believed I’d find better water.  Turns out I should have stayed.  I fished turbid water for a while and caught a couple BNT, one fairly nice one, on streamers.  But I got to the point of asking myself: why do I want to stick around here and fish either (a) turbid water of the size I like, or (b) really small streams – the few that are clear right now?  I like to nymph.  That’s a fact.  I’m out there to beat up on seams and nymph.  That and catch some fish to eat (in season).  My conclusion was that I’d do neither of those things on this day.  And I don’t have to fish; no one making me do it.  I like it and I like tradition of April 1.  But hell, when things ain’t right, you don’t have to stick with it all the time.  Fold up and head home.  Maybe I’m getting old.  But more likely cranky: more and more I like to fish what I like to fish; not just fish to be doing it.  The fish are there; I'm here; God willing that will always be the case. So let it be now and then.  And yes - you can almost always find water; some water, to fish.  We love you and everything else but that is not a revelation of any sort.  That is a known fact.  But again, ratio of work to time to enjoyment to enthusiasm is in play.  Hell with it.  Drove away around 3 PM and abandoned the 2 inch clarity, have-to-hit-a-fish-with-streamer-bit and went home.  Other days are down the road.  As a consolation, I stumbled on about 6-7 old jellybeans in the crotch of my chestpack.

 

Day before opener we climbed around the park and fished some of the winter streams.  Should say the kids attempted the winter streams; I didn’t string up a rod.  I knew it was a 10% chance for them, but I gave them bright jigs and spinners and just let them cast for half an hour or so.  Zero hits.  But new line helped JD out quite a bit. And DM really has the casting down now.  Couple notes on this outing:

 

(1)    When Dad says do not step on the ice, there is moving water there over that hole; and then brother says do not step on that ice…    it’s good to not step there.  But lessons are learned in various manners.  DM fell through to approx. thigh depth early on in the trek.  To his credit, after emptying his shoes and brushing him off a bit…   he carried on, for 2-3 more hours…    without a single word of complaint.  If it’d been cold, I would have called it.  But no chance of any damage, so we went ahead.

 

(2)    We picked up a Primus backpack stove on sale for $19.  You see how small it is there…    and the two mugs and the fuel fit into the kettle.  So this is something that even a small daypack can carry with ease.  It boiled ~1/3 of that volume in 3-4 minutes.  Ice pellets hit us while the little stove was ripping away.  May sound silly to have tea out there on the sidehill, but it was a highlight.  Kids dig the idea of going out and setting up some such thing in the woods.  In the way of gear review, I’d say plus on this…  but only used it once thus far.  Coolness factor pretty high.