Introducing: Iso Hatch Exposures

No big, meaty blog post today, just a question and an announcement for my readers.

First the question:

About a year ago, I wrote the five part Erie steelhead guide that has become, easily, the most viewed, linked to, talked about, and shared pages that I've ever produced.  It's clear that this is something that people really enjoyed, whether you (the readers) were the novice steelheaders that the articles were aimed toward, experienced steelhead anglers that were nonetheless interested, or even folks with no interest or inclination to go steelhead fishing that simply wanted to see what it was all about.

This year, I got started in my steelhead season preparation a bit later, having a trip to upstate New York to prepare for (and go on, naturally) at the beginning of August.  From the day I got back, however, to the present, it's been Operation: Steelhead at my vise.

That said, I'd like to write another piece on some aspect of the Erie steelhead experience, and I'm hoping my readers will let me know what they want.

I've been leaning toward a multi-piece article focusing on the tying aspect of things, covering everything from hooks and materials to tutorials and applications for all of the popular steelhead flies, from eggs and nymphs to buggers, hairwings, and specialty flies such as modern spey and intruders.

If this is something that my readers would be interested in, the comments section is the place to let me know.  If you have a different idea, that's the place to sound off as well.

Second, the announcement:

Over the weekend, I took advantage of some free time to finally launch a second Blogger site, focusing on my photography.  Over the past two or three years, photography, for me, has grown from taking a few pictures a month with a ten year old basic Kodak digital, to a hobby that occupies nearly as much of my time and energies as my fly fishing and tying.  While you've seen a significant portion of that work here, there's plenty of other pictures that never make it to the blog, simply because there's no reason for these photos to show up in a blog about fly fishing and tying.  Additionally, I tend to feel bad, like I've somehow 'cheaped out' if I post pictures with little or no text.  This sometimes keeps me from posting when I otherwise might.

I wanted to share these photos and avoid that stigma by starting a dedicated photoblog where I could post photos of anything and everything, without much text at all to distract from the images.

This desire helped bring about my new photoblog, and although it's in its very early stages and still undergoing many tweaks and adjustments, I'm eager to share it with my readers here.

Please take a look at it and let me know what you think, as well as any suggestions either here OR there...

Iso Hatch Exposures

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A Good Day

I had a good day on the water.  Seems like the first in a long, long time.

Granted, I haven't been making it easy on myself, using most of my fishing time to scout streams that may or may not hold wild trout, and once I find them, finding access, parking, and a lack of "No Trespassing" signs.  It's a thankless endavour, but finding just one or two streams on your own in a season is extremely rewarding.  This year, so far, I've found one, which I wrote about in a previous entry, but since then, I've encountered nothing but dried up streambeds, slow streams of water over 3 feet of mud, frogwater that conatined nothing but 2" bluegill, sewage drainage, and my personal favorite, the cruel tease of a beautiful little mountain stream, chock full of crawfish and huge cased caddis...but for some reason...no fish.  No trout, no minnows, no nothing.  I suspect it's because the streambed occasionally gets extremely low mid-summer, but it's a horrible thing to do to a blue-liner.

Today, I took the dSLR out to photograph a very specific location, with the intent of fishing a well-known stream after I was done.  I got some good shots (not as many as I'd have liked, but the location was secured better than I was led to believe), then headed for the stream.

As I geared up, I grabbed my photo backpack, intending to log my fishing in photos.  Usually, I take my compact, but I figured since I have my SLR with me, why not bring it.  As I assembled my rod, I wondered if taking along my camera might be bad luck...a sort of arrogant confidence in my producing something worthy of a picture...

I always used to leave the camera in the car when visiting a place for the first time, considering that first trip to be just between me and the stream...and that photographing it was sort of like kissing and telling.  After that first trip, photograph whatever you like, but leave that first one just for your memory.

Obviously from the content here, I'd gotten over that superstition some time ago, but something in the back of my mind said to stick to my hunch, and leave it in the car.  As a typical superstitious angler, I put the camera backpack back in the trunk of my car, and even removed my waterproof compact from it's pocket in my fishing pack.

As I walked to the water, I briefly considered going back for it, but I never did.  Instead, I tied on a streamer and headed for a promising riffle.

Three casts into things, I landed a fat wild brown trout...about 14" long, on my 000wt.

Three casts after that, I landed a wild rainbow of similar proportions.

And this is why anglers remain a superstitious lot.

Over the remainder of the afternoon, I only took one more trout, another rainbow, but this one slightly larger and up top on a stimulator.  I missed two more in that manner, but it was my fault for allowing too much slack line.

Also, I got bombed.  No, for real.  I was fishing under a few trees and heard something crashing through the branches overhead. Moments later, just upstream there was a big splash in some shallow water.  After I calmed down, I walked out from under the trees and looked up.  High in the sky, a huge bald eagle soared overhead, circling.  A beautiful sight.  Putting two and two together, I walked back over to where the splash was and saw a big rainbow trout, very dead, with three big talon wounds in its side.

Well, dead was dead, I decided, and there was no point in the fish going to waste, so I picked it up and placed it on the shore out in the open, where (hopefully) the eagle would see it and come retrieve his dinner. If not, at least it would be accessible for a raccoon or some other animal, rather than rotting on the stream bottom.

All in all, it was a great trip.  No photos, though. The sights I saw today were just for me.

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Fly Shop Ethics (or When Is It Okay To Not Support Your Local Fly Shop)

Hi everyone.

It's been a while since I've made regular posts, but that's to be expected of any self-respecting fisherman in the warm months.  As the kids head back to their desks, and mother nature starts to think better of broiling us alive, though, I should be back here more often, taking up your free time with more nonsense.

On that note, I'd like to pose a bit of a moral dilemma to my readers.  It's not the typical 'Should I continue to buy at my FLFS (friendly local fly shop) when I can get it cheaper online?' dilemma...but in fact, maybe the opposite...

You see, I'm blessed with no fewer than five fly shops within a reasonable drive.  One is an 'Orvis approved corner' consisting of bits of dead animal seemingly added as an afterthought in a store clearly wanting to sell you only high-ticket items at ridiculous prices.  I don't like this shop much, but their sales are worth checking out from time to time.  The other four shops, however, are all much better than that.

One shop in particular, though, is the subject of this post.

See...this shop...a small affair, run by a couple (which constitutes the entire staff), out of the finished garage and basement of their home, prides itself on providing that brick and mortar X-factor in droves.  The 'remember your name' familiarity, the local knowledge, the unbiased personal opinions...and that last bit has become the fly in the ointment for this customer.

So the fly shop (for the owners) is a labor of love.  They aren't in it to get rich (wisely), and they enjoy the freedom of being able to run their business however they like.  That's great.  I applaud that.  I've been to their shop many times and never had a bad experience.  Never bought any high-end items (rods, reels, vises, etc.) but plenty of hooks, materials, fly boxes, etc. Over the past year or two since a friend and fishing buddy suggested their shop.  Being on their mailing list is a mixed blessing, as you get a healthy dose of political rhetoric with every product release announcement or shop gear review, but I've always been one to say of the music industry "If you don't like what you're hearing, change the channel!", so I feel that it's up to me to unsubscribe if the rhetoric ever outweighs the positives of the mailing list.  To this point, I'm still getting their emails.

One of those emails, however, is what has put me in my dilemma.  You see, this fly shop posted a review of something...a rod or reel, on their site, and made a facebook post to announce it's presence to their fans.  I saw  the post, but i'm not in the market for a big purchase right now, so I didn't really give it much thought in my internet travels.

A few days later, I received a short, tersely worded e-mail, to the effect of: "A few days ago we posted a review.  Since none of you could be bothered to share it with your friends, we went ahead and posted the story to all of your walls.  Heaven forbid you'd try to help us out."

My first reaction was confusion.  Maybe I'd received this by mistake?  But no.  I checked with the aforementioned fishing buddy and he confirmed that he'd received the same email, along with everyone on the mailing list, most likely.  So at that point I was pretty ticked off, and removed the story from my wall and ceased following their page.  After that, I decided to give myself some time to mull things over before doing anything rash...and now, a few weeks later, I'm still not completely sure where I stand.  (Which is part of the reason I'm sharing this with you.)

Make no mistake, I'm completely disgusted by that kind of guilting/shaming/badgering of one's customer base.  So you're running your business as you like?  Fine, that's your prerogative, but don't expect me to tolerate that kind of abuse and still hand you my money.  In this time of e-commerce, big box, and direct to consumer sales, I'd think that the mom and pop shops would be bending over backward to maintain (let alone expand) their customer base.  As much as it's a bad time to be a small local shop, it's a great time to be a buyer, with e-commerce and the economic quagmire putting the squeeze on retailers, the fly angler with a bit of disposable cash has no shortage of options when it comes to parting with it.

While I think that sure, it's a kind gesture to help the little guy promote their business, I also feel it's more than a little rude to expect your customers to provide you with free advertising. Especially (in this case) to expect me to implicitly vouch for a product I've not seen or handled personally.  The way I see it, the customer's continued business is, ultimately, what fair prices and good service is rewarded by, with any recommendations or testimonials serving as icing on the cake for a truly outstanding experience that exceeds expectations.  If you want the free advertising, that's fine, but let em do it on my terms, and at the very least ask, don't force.

Now, as we progress toward steelhead season, I find myself in the market for a few specific items that I'll be needing soon...that I know this shop carries, and sells at the going rate.  So it's kind of the reversed situation of the classic 'online or brick and mortar' debate: it's faster and (considering shipping) cheaper for me to buy locally...but after this experience, I sort of feel like I'm selling out by doing business with them, and I'm seriously considering buying online.  It's not any huge order...tying materials for steelhead, some leaders and tippet, maybe as big as a pair of wading boots...but it's business.  And in my mind, I'd rather give that business to someone that, while they may not have done anything to earn that business, they've also not done anything to lose it either.

Your thoughts, readers?

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Summer Rainbows

Last Saturday, I managed to free up an entire afternoon for some trout scouting.  I keep a Google map of locations for fishing as a sort of 'To Do" list, with little markers in green identifying places that have been good fishing spots in the past.  Yellow markers indicate places that I've heard about or had recommended to me, or simply found on the map and thought that it might hold wild trout.  These markers are usually accompanied by short notes such as, 'Look for parking and access.' or , 'Low water mid-summer, check back in spring and fall.'

Usually, I don't have the luxury of time to plan out a scouting trip to check out these places, but when I do, it's always a learning experience.  Saturday was one of those days.

I had made plans to attend a picnic later in the evening in a somewhat remote area.  Lucky for me, that remote area was host to several yellow markers on my map.  I picked out four markers and planned out a rough route in my head connecting them.  I wanted to hit the most promising ones first, even though that often means I won't get to the entire list.

When I got to the first location, there were big yellow posted signs every ten feet, making it abundantly clear that visitors were not welcome.  Some guys will track down the landowner to get permission, but I take the signs to mean that they really don't want people in there.

The second area simply had no convenient location to pull off the road.  A steep drop-off to the stream would have been a challenge to navigate, but there were no spots where I'd feel comfortable pulling off the road and trusting that nobody would slam into my parked car.  A bit frustrated, I went to the third spot.

The route to this spot took me on a bridge over my 'backup option': a large, rocky creek that has managed to humble and stymie me repeatedly.  I know there's big trout in it.  Hell, I've seen the big trout...but with just one notable exception (a chunky brown), this creek has limited me to nothing but smallish 6-7" fish.  For a small stream, that isn't bad, but when I know that an 18" trout isn't terribly rare on a given stream, six or seven inches of trout isn't much of an accomplishment.




The third spot looked like a good spot on the map, but in person, it was little more than a few damp rocks in a ditch.  In fact, the bridge over it was the only place that it wasn't completely covered by weeds and saplings.  There might have been a trout in there, but even dapping was impossible with the thick vegetation.

Finally, the fourth spot seemed worthy of a try. Actually the same stream as the backup option, this was simply a point much farther upstream than I'd ever fished, where the waterway was much smaller.  There was a handy pull-off just before the bridge and I quickly got out and walked down to the water.

While it was obviously low, the creek looked fishable, and I returned to my car to gear up.  A few minutes later and I finally got to my first cast of the day, hours after I left home.

This was the second outing for my new ultralight rod (which I'll discuss more fully in a later post), and I was still having trouble adjusting to the fast action in such a light stick.  Still, I managed a few decent casts and drifts...but failed to persuade any fish.  Twice, I was rewarded by quick, splashy rises, but I suspected they were minnows, not trout.

As I worked my way upstream, I was disappointed again, as I happened upon a deep, wide, slow section, too deep to wade and to steep and muddy to go around...just a few yards from where I entered.  Disappointed once again, I headed back for the car, and from there, my backup option.

Blue-lining, or searching the map for possible wild trouting locations, then following up with visits, is a venture often met with heaps of disappointment, but it usually pays off just enough to keep a few of us coming back for more.



Well, eventually, I got back to my backup creek, got my pack, and headed for the water.  Just as I entered, though, I heard a noise and looked up to see a guy and his young boy fishing and playing in the next pool up.  Had it been a lone fisherman, I might have been annoyed, but I was glad to see the young kid out with his dad.  Still, I had to make yet another decision.  To fish the lower reaches meant walking downstream then fishing my way back up.  Upstream would mean getting out and skipping over where the guy and his boy were, but would take me to water I'd only ever fished once before, so I decided to go that route.

As I walked along the train tracks that paralleled the stream, I noticed a small feeder creek that I'd only ever seen at the mouth where it emptied into the main waterway.  At this point, the light bulb came on and I decided to fish the feeder instead.  Dropping down from the railroad tracks, I started drifting the tricky currents in the rocky streambed, methodically covering every drift in a pool or riffle before moving up to the next.  Although I didn't realize it until later, I must have started to really get the feel for my new fly rod, because I noticed myself getting the drift I wanted more and more often, without the exasperating misses and splashdowns.  Another quick way to improve your casting is to fish any small stream.  You'll either improve, or lose every fly you carried in to trees, roots, branches, and shrubs.  Speaking of shrubs, the wild rhododendron was in full bloom...

As I went up, I started getting a few rises, and as I got used to the rod, rises turned into fish landed...and jus tlike that...I'd discovered a new stream for wild rainbows...

First trout on the new rod.  Not a bad way to break it in.

I love the fins of the wild bows...maybe even more than those of the wild browns and brookies.

Love the pink stripe that looks like someone painted it on there...

As always, the surroundings are beautiful...

A little farther up, I came to a bend in the stream.  At this bend, there was an extremely large, deep pool for a stream of this size in this rocky terrain.  It also had a unique feature: a rock island out in the middle of the pool.

Almost no spots on this one.  More than the browns and brookies, I think wild bows display the most variance in appearance from fish to fish in the same stream.

Terrible photo, beautiful fin.

This may be a personal best wild bow...not sure.  He was pushing 8".  Not sure what happened to his gill, though.

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Personal Best Wild Trout

Short post today, but it's one I'm proud of.  I got out to chase wild trout over the weekend, and decided to revisit a small but nice stream I hadn't fished since the pre-runoff conditions.  I really like the lower sections of this stream because it has all the challenging characteristics of a typical small stream, with one major difference: as it enters the lower section, the stream widens and passes through some mature forest, meaning there's plenty of room for casting.  This is a luxury that a small stream fisherman doesn't often enjoy.

Still, that isn't to say that the stream is easy, by any means.  A good one to take a beginner to?  Sure.  There's no shortage of textbook riffles and pools.  But between the obvious spots lie some tricky undercuts with low-hanging branches, hard-to-reach seams, and those drifts that would be easy, except you can't position yourself in the logical place because you've got to be stealthy.

I was working my way up to a pool that had a pool that was long enough to create one of those stealth-related difficulties.  The head of the pool has a few boulders scattered through it, making for great fish-holding water, but while it'd be easy to cover that water from up close, you'd spook every fish to get there.  So the alternative is fishing from the bottom of the pool and making 35-45 foot casts (do-able, but a tricky proposition with a short 1wt nonetheless) up into the boulders, making 2-3 foot drifts, and casting again.  Making things even more interesting, most of your drifts here are only visible for a foot or two before the current takes your fly to the opposite side of a rock from where you're standing.

It was on one such drift, toward the outside of the pool, that my fly drifted to the opposite side of a moss covered boulder.  Just as I was about to lift my line for another cast, I noticed a few drops of water and ripples coming from behind the rock, so I set the hook with a quick snap and my hunch was proven by the resulting head shake.

The head shake assured me of something else, too: this was not another 5" native, which usually come splashing across the surface.  No, this fish immediately pulled me the the bottom of the pool and stayed there, the green blank of my 1wt flexing deeper than it has in months.

After a spirited battle, I pulled the fish up to a partially submerged rock for a few quick photos...

And soon after, his release...

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Want Wild Trout, Will Travel

As promised, here's some photos from recent outings with my buddy Sam, in search of wild trout.  While some like to add narrative, often, I find that the photos speak for themselves.  So without further ado, here are the goods:

In this hole, Sam found a stocked brown that had wandered up from the creek that this blue line emptied into.  We were there primarily for wild trout, but who could resist the opportunity to take a larger fish on a light line?  Sam managed to turn the fish, but never did bring him to hand.  There's always next time, I suppose.

This is what we were after...check out that yellow spot at the corner of the mouth.  That's on the fish, not a trick of the camera.  Not sure what's going on there, as I didn't notice it until I uploaded the photos from my camera.  I took several shots of this fish, though, and the spot is consistent throughout.

Brook trout are way prettier than strictly necessary.

This was as far upstream as we went on this particular stream.  That hole is surprisingly deep, considering the typical nature of the streams in the area.  We'd have gone farther, but there were some posted signs about (even though according to sources, it should be public land...and anyone renting has no authority to prevent passage...still have to look into that one...)

A few days later, Sam and I met up again to further explore some water we'd only briefly visited in our last adventure.  I had to take care of some errands at home first, but Sam got a good early start, so I found myself hiking to the water to find some indication of whether he was up or downstream from the access.  Along the way, I found some interesting fauna...

I think this guy is a millipede as opposed to a centipede, but being unsure, I wasn't about to risk a painful sting by disturbing him.  I saw a few more like this later in the day too.  Pretty exotic-looking for southwestern Pennsylvania.

Far less exotic, this is still the biggest snail I've ever seen in the woods.

Cahills were hatching sporadically, which is perfect for a small stream, as the naturals are big enough to get the trout looking up for food, but not so heavy a hatch that they really key on anything specific.

Not sure what left this shuck, though I suspect it's a dragonfly, from the shape of the head.

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Back in the Saddle Again

Well, it's been over a month since my last update, and for that I apologize.  It's been an (un)interesting start to the summer, with precious little fishing (until very recently), and mostly 'box filler' tying.  Still, at this point, I've got plenty to write about over the next few months.  Here's a quick look at some of the coming attractions:

• Shenandoah River Trip Report: I spent this past weekend in Virginia with small group of friends, smallmouth fishing on the south fork of the Shenandoah river.  As with any fishing trip, there's plenty to share.
• Icelandic Sheep Dubbing (Part 2): Now that I've had the chance to fish the flies from my product testing, I need to tell you how they fish!
• Fishing for Wild Trout: Up in the Laurel Highlands, with a light line...this is probably my favorite type of fishing.  I managed to get out fishing with Sam twice since my last update.  Plenty of pics to go along with it.
• A New Vise: I picked up a second vise, to complement my Regal Medallion.  While the Regal is by no means getting replaced, this new one adds a few new key capabilities to my tying.

Unfortunately, all of the new pictures I've taken are still on my camera(s).  So I don't have any of my totally awesome pictures of fish or flies to show you here.  Lucky for you guys, Jerry is a great photographer, and not nearly as much of a slacker as me, so I'll jack one of his pictures that he's already posted.

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