Good Afternoon … Caddis

It had been far too long since I'd been out fishing. I'd started to doubt my credentials as an angler. Rains fouled the rivers on our annual early season trip, and they'd messed with my plans ever since. I started to worry that even the itch to get out fishing was starting to fade. Plus, it's May. There is no better time than the present when it's May in Minnesota.

I decided a slow start would suit me on this day. That was part duty calling and part weariness from a long short week. So I finished up a couple things I needed to get done, drank an extra cup or two of coffee, and finally got my stuff together after a brief incident with a misplaced reel.

I got to the river -- a favorite stretch of the South Branch of the Root -- around 1 p.m. (Okay, really slow start.) I cursed myself a little when I found a fellow angler in my favorite run. He was nice enough fellow, so I didn't curse him. And he had a fish on, so that gave me hope that the long walk to my second-favorite stretch of this river would not be in vain.

The river was a bit off color, but the flow was normal, and I could see trout rising almost immediately when I reached the riverbank. There weren't many risers, but there were some big tan caddis on the water, and there were more rises than bugs. Things were looking up.

I started with a ridiculous choice that nearly always seems to work for me on riffled water in a caddis hatch. I call it the Super Bushy Adams (or SBA, when I feeling especially ridiculous). It's really just a poorly tied Adams in size 14 or so. I started using this, um, pattern years ago on a day when my poorly tied caddis patterns weren't working and my attempts at an Adams pattern looked like they could work in water where the trout didn’t get a good look at the fly. And, I found that they skated pretty nicely.

After a few refusals, I looked more closely at my super bushy Adams and realized it had a preposterously thick tail. I clipped that off and started catching them. 

I lost what would have been my best fish of the day after a pretty good fight. I even had an audience on the bridge just downstream. I couldn't get the fish to the surface, so I can't exaggerate its size with any certainty, but based on its weight and fight, I'd guess it went at least 16 inches.

The fish rose easily to the dead-drifted SBA placed barely above its lie -- I didn't want to give him too good a look. It ran into heavier current and bore down. Then it ran downstream. It put on a good show for the guy who'd stopped on the bridge to watch, bending my Fenwick FF70 to the butt. I went somewhat easy on the pressure, not having full faith in my tippet. And the trout shook himself off in the current downstream. I apologized to the guy on the bridge for my performance.

After a bit, I switched to a proper Elk Hair Caddis and did even better. No surprise, I suppose. What was a surprise is that I was getting them on the dead drift. If I were a decent student of hatches, I'd probably understand this. At least I was educated enough to know to try skating the flies when the dead drift stopped working.

I caught 20-some trout (I'm a terrible counter) in a few hours on the water and missed many more -- especially while casting downstream and skating the fly. It was plenty of ammunition to taunt my fishing buddies who were working back home. I didn't even wait to get back to my truck to begin doing that.  

It's good to get out alone for any number of reasons. But I realized I desperately need to work on my solo fishing photography techniques. It's fun to take photos when fishing with friends. But when you have no witnesses, the need for good photos takes on a greater urgency. I mean, that guy on the bridge was only going to stick around for so long.

Closing it Down for the Season

My most memorable last day of fishing for the season was the last day of my first year of trout fishing. It was a foggy, drizzly day in late September. Minnesota's trout season shuts down on Sept. 30. I'm not sure if I made it out on closing day or the nearest weekend, but I do remember a feeling of satisfaction, closure and the beginning of anticipation for what the next season might hold. I probably didn't hurt that it was the best day of fishing I'd had that year, even though that's not saying much.

The conditions, remarkably, left the stream wide open that day. I was still new to hatches and what fueled them, but it retrospect, it seemed to be perfect conditions for a blue-winged olive hatch. I somehow ended up fishing a tiny black fly. I don't recall whether it was a black gnat or a tiny trico -- of some poorly tied version of something else -- but it worked better than I expected any dry fly to work. I landed seven trout that day. It felt like an amazing victory to someone who'd started the year with little fishing history and no fishing sense, relying on what a couple good books could teach me, along with trial and error.

This year's season-ending trip was hastily arranged, and it took a couple buddies and me to a different spot on that same river with a similar hope for great success to carry us through the dark months of Minnesota's off-season. We were pretty sure it would be epic. The weather was perfect for enjoying a day on the water and the early fall colors, at the very least. We may have found better fishing on a gray and drizzly day, but the river was in great shape after a good dry stretch, so it was hard to complain about sunshine and warmth. 

As it turned out, rising trout were few and far between. But I managed to scare up a few here and there with a reasonably well-placed size 18 blue-winged olive. After stopping briefly at the first good runs to see how the river was fishing, we moved upstream. I took to a favorite stretch of moody dry-fly water while the fellas moved upstream to a slightly less moody stretch of river that fishes well with a nymph but can really light up when the hatch is on. It wasn't, but that didn't stop me imagining they were making a killing when fishing was slow on my stretch. 

The slow, methodical fishing we did find suited the mood of the day perfectly. I worked my way up my stretch of river hitting every likely lie, and a fair share of unlikely ones. Each fish was something of a victory and a reason to pause and admire it, rather than hastily, greedily moving onto the next victim.

It's easy to lose yourself in this kind of fishing, although on this day, the absurd number of bikers crossing the bridge downstream was a bit distracting. It seemed like the whole population of Southeast Minnesota was pedaling their Schwinns on the Root River Bike Trail that day, many of them stopping to snap photos of the fly fisherman just upstream. (Maybe my casting looks more picturesque at a distance.) It was a relief to reach the first bend and get out of sight of the bridge.

I fished that day what has become my go-to trout rod — an old 7-foot, 5-weight Fenwick fiberglass rod that's perfect for small-stream fishing. In the shade, it's flat brown. But it lights up when the sun hits it just right, as it was wont to do that day. My cousin Jeff calls it a "glow-stick," which kills any possible pretension. It casts beautifully but is nothing fancy. Jeff had a couple of classier rods along on the trip that I could have fished if I had the inclination, but the simple, plain-spoken Fenwick seemed like the right choice to close out the season.

There's something about shutting things down for the year that I like. I wouldn't mind the chance to get out another time or two, but hanging it up for the year and starting to look ahead is not without its virtues. I could go on about anticipation, taking stock (and restocking), and seasons of life, but mostly I just like what a certain note of finality does to that last day on the river. It feels important, somehow.

However the fishing had turned out, it was good just to get out with old friends, enjoying one last shot at our favorite river and the hope that a fish will rise. 

(Not Quite) Putting the Sage Bluegill Rod Through the Paces

I have a go-to fly rod for smallmouth bass fishing that generally relieves me of any fears of covetousness. It's an old Fenwick Feralite fiberglass rod, 8-foot for 7-weight line. It casts nicely, has the slow action that I love, but isn't noodley like many fiberglass rods. It also has a nice brown color that glows when the sun hits it just right. It's right in my sweet spot -- plenty good, but nothing fancy, and likely enough to get strange looks from other anglers. But my cousin Jeff has this Sage Bluegill rod from its Bass series that gives me the urges.

I'd worked it out with Jeff that on a recent outing, Aug. 25 in northern Wisconsin, I'd give the Bluegill a whirl.

It's a sight to behold, with a gold-green hue that Sage calls Treefrog, because that apparently sounds a lot cooler than gold-green. It comes in at 7-feet 11-inches, which is designed to make it legit for bass tournaments. That fact took a little of the high-gloss sheen off the thing for me, but I am a sucker for odd-sized rods even still. I have an old Abbey & Imbrie glass rod that is clearly marked as 6 2/3 foot, which is probably the main reason I bought (and keep) the rod.    

I planned to fish the Bluegill, catch many large (smallmouth) bass, and live to tell about it. There was just one flaw to my plan. I was floating down the river with my teenage son, and fatherly instincts would kick in, meaning I'd spend all my energy putting him in casting position and only make a few casts myself, on the odd occasions where we anchored or got out to wade fish a bit. That didn't lessen my enjoyment in the least, but it meant this would amount to a brief test drive rather than a day of full-on casting and, ideally, catching. 

When I did get a chance to cast -- whether seated in the canoe or standing in the river -- I can say I was more than impressed with how the Bluegill performed. These rods are built to eliminate the need for false casting in many circumstances, and false casting or not, I could easily throw 50 feet of line without working at it. A better caster on a bigger river would scoff at those casts, but it was all I needed on this water, and with my casting prowess, it's probably pretty close to my limit on any rod anyway.

I like the fact that while it's often not necessary to false cast, it's easy enough to do when you need to. Or when old habits kick in. Sage bills these rods as fast action, but I found that my casting improved when I slowed down my pace a bit. (Not surprising.) I guess I'd call the Bluegill's action medium-fast. That probably makes sense as the lightest rod in Sage's Bass II series. It weighs in at 3 3/8 ounces. As all rods in the series do, it comes with a line built for the rod. This one comes with a 230-grain Sage Bass II Taper line. My guess is that translates to about a 7-weight, although I didn’t do the research.

I was casting a size 8 black wooly bugger with green flashback, my go-to fly on these waters. The rod chucked the bugger easily. Later, I'd try a size 4 swimming deer hair frog, since my friend Eric, in another canoe fishing (Jeff's) Sage Smallmouth rod, was doing quite well on the frog. The deer hair frog was castable with the Bluegill, but the Smallmouth rod appeared to handle it much better. As Eric reminded me at several points throughout the day, it sure would have been nice to be able to switch between the Smallmouth strung up with a frog and the Bluegill, with a wooly bugger. I think he meant it would be nice for him, but I wasn't budging.

The first smallie I hooked up with was, in fact, small -- maybe 10 inches. It felt like a much bigger fish. The rod seemed to transfer every bit of that fish's fight to the full-wells grip and fighting butt. The rod obviously has a lot more than was necessary for that little guy, but the quick contest telegraphed the fact that a bigger fish would be amazing on this rod. Unfortunately, I wasn't the guy catching the big ones on this day, fishing mostly after each spot had been fairly pounded by three other anglers. The biggest fish I hooked up with went around 13 inches and was a riot.

The brief test drive left me with a great first impression of the rod. And it left me making plans to give it a better workout in the near future. But with a price tag north of $500, I'll have to stick to stealing the Bluegill from Jeff's arsenal.