Ryan with his first ChinookFirst off let me say anyone that has a stream or river large enough to fly fish on, get out on it as much as you can, and do whatever you can to protect it. Recently I decided to get away from my tv and computer and get out fishing. I started off doing some small panfishing, but after a week or two, I decided I wanted to get into bigger game fish. Now, I don't live next to a river that has an active trout stock, but I do live next to one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world, Lake Michigan. After about two months of fishing and my largest fish being a 3lb coho salmon, and the rest being yearling brown trout and feeder salmon, I finally had my first real hookup. Now, fishing the lake isn't like fishing a river, in that you really don't know exactly where fish are sitting. You can guess based on wind and water temperature and time of day, but its all really just guessing. The rest is about putting the time into it on the water. Anyways, about 6am half in a daze from working my spoon over various depths over and over, I nearly had my rod yanked out of my hand. Now, let me tell you, my expectation for fish was something in the 5-8 pound range, brown trout, young chinooks, maybe a coho. What I hooked into made my ears ring. Immediately I knew I had a good fish on, and what came after that spoiled me for life on panfishing. After about 15-20 minutes in a daze, shocked something could pull so much line out, I managed to get him close enough to net.
Just over 15 pounds, and let me say, I'm completely addicted. Nothing could have prepared me for what catching a king is like. I know they get much bigger, but this fish really put on a show. What a fantastic species of fish.
A Father-Son Canoe Trip by Nick Klever
My father and I met up at a small river on a picture perfect summer day in Minnesota. We had arrived at the starting point of our trip around mid-morning and the sun was already high in the sky and shining brightly with only a few cotton like clouds floating around. Our plan was to take our 16 ft. canoe that we called Big Red on a float trip down a three mile stretch of this river. Anticipation filled the air as this was our first fishing trip on the river and we knew that there were some trophy class Smallmouths swimming somewhere beneath the water's surface. We hurriedly loaded all of our gear into the canoe, including two fishing rods for each of us and we brought all of our favorite lures that we knew Smallmouth Bass couldn't resist. A cooler full of sandwiches and a few beverages would be all we would need to keep us going all day.
The first quarter mile stretch was shallow and fast with large canopied Oak Trees and Willow Trees overhanging the banks of the river. We floated down the middle of this river and casted to the shore hoping to coax a fish out of the shady retreats of the trees. I started the day using a hard minnow bait that was a favorite of mine in a color pattern that closely matched the local forage minnows. We could see large schools of minnows swimming in tight balls in slack water areas of the river, they had a black back with a shiny green stripe running down the middle of the body and the rest was a brilliant silver that flashed so brightly when reflecting the sunlight it could be seen from across the river. I was excited because I had my first strike within my first ten casts of the trip. I set the hook and felt the heavy weight of the fish for about a half second before the line went “ping” and then the line was totally slack. Retrieving my line I found that my line had been cut clean by the needle sharp teeth of a Northern Pike. I mumbled under my breath “ Frickin' pike cut me off,” as it had stolen one of my favorite lures. My dad just laughed from the back of the canoe and said, “better luck next time.” I quickly retied and put on another minnow bait identical to the one I had just lost, I always have duplicates of reliable lures because this happens to me more often than I would like.
We came to the first deep pool in the river we pulled our canoe off the the shallow sandy inside bend of the river. The clarity of this water amazed us, it was like floating on glass and the current was creating ripples that only partially obscured our vision. Still the bottom of this pool was deep and dark, we knew there would be some fish hiding in the depths. My first cast made it to the opposite bank directly across from me, as I started to swim the bait back to the canoe I was pleased with the enticing action that the bait was producing and as the bait reached the middle of the pool I stopped my retrieve and paused the bait and let it sit their motionless to trigger a fish into striking. I saw a bass charge up from the darkness and grab my lure and immediately turn and head back down for the safety of the deeper water. The fight had begun, and this bass was working with the current to try and free the hooks from his mouth. As the struggle continued, a school of other bass began to chase my fish in attempts to steal his meal. My dad had seen this and made a cast near where my fish was struggling and it did not take long for him to hook one of the fish in the chasing school and just like that we had caught two fish. A good start to this fishing trip.
On our subsequent casts into this pool we found the larger fish were not as interested in our baits. Many of the fish would follow the bait as it was swimming chasing just behind the lure. As soon as we would stop the bait to try and trigger the fish into biting but the fish just stopped and looked at it as the lure sat there. Then the bass would loose interest and begin to swim away and as soon as we started to swim the bait again the fish would resume the chase and be there right behind the lure again. We observed this behavior with at least a half dozen fish. It was like an epic game of cat and mouse and each time the Smallmouth won. As we continued to float down the river, through a deeper and slower moving section, we would see shadows of fish behind our lures and at the last minute we would see a golden flash as the fish turned away and swam back to the depths.
Frustrated and seemingly out smarted by these fish my dad and I stopped to re-evaluate our plan of attack. It was obvious that the fish were active and chasing baits but there was just something wrong with our presentation. We concluded that the extreme clarity of the water was causing the fish to be more selective and gave them the ability to discern a real soft minnow from the hard plastic minnow imitations that we were offering them. We had to make a decision because we knew that we needed something as close to the real thing as possible if we hoped to catch anymore fish, but we had no live bait with us. I had brought along a few soft plastic swimming minnows, the best artificial likeness of a real minnow that I could find. We each tied one on and traveled onto the next deep hole.
My first cast landed next to a tree that had fallen into the water and was half submerged at the head of the pool. After a few cranks of my reel handle I saw a fish crush my lure. This bass came up from the bottom with such speed and ferocity that he cleared himself straight up out of the water by two feet with my lure in his mouth. My dad's scream of excitement, “Whooooo”, reinforced what I already knew, this was a good sized fish and could possibly be the largest Smallmouth Bass I have ever caught. The notorious fighting of the fish tested the limits of all of my tackle as I tried to keep him from diving into trees or grass beds and loosing him. My dad expertly guided Big Red downstream from the back of the canoe and watched as this tug of war continued for several minutes. We landed the fish safely and I was elated with a huge smile when posing for a picture with this magnificent fish. We took some quick measurements to document the size of this fish before releasing it back to the river. I was relieved because I knew that this was the start of something good and we had found a solution to the loosen up the tongues of those bass that earlier had a case of lockjaw. My dad and I each caught at least a half dozen more nice Smallies and enjoyed the afternoon.
To end our canoe trip we had to go through a section of river that had once been dammed up to reach the landing where our other car was parked. This dam had been abandoned for almost a century, it had two different parts. We could hear the fast rushing water as we approached the first section . Looking at the rapids we could see the whitewater as the river dropped over the first section of the broken down dam. We pulled off to the side to observe, saw waves as high as 2 ft continually wash over the rocks, and searched for a way to portage around the rapids. The high side of the bank was too steep to safely carry a canoe and all of our gear, the low side was covered in Poison Ivy and Poison Oak. Neither one of us wanted to end up with a nasty rash, so we opted to shoot through the rapids. We got back in the canoe and aimed for a calm spot where the waves came together and cancelled each other out. As we approached the rapids we began to pick up speed. I was in the front of the canoe to to provide power so my job was to keep paddling and pulling us through the rapids as quickly as possible. As soon as we hit the rapids and the canoe started to fall a three foot wave hit squarely on the front of the canoe and wall of water came rushing up over the bow and I was instantly drenched. I fearlessly continued to paddle to keep us on a safe course through the rapids as waves sent more water into our canoe. In less than two seconds it was over and the white waters had calmed. We quickly checked to see what had happened and and instantly we knew we were in trouble. The canoe was completely filled with water and the gunwale of the canoe was floating at the waters surface, dad and I were sitting in water. We made a quick change of course and headed for the nearest bank, as the canoe slowed down it became more difficult for the two of us to keep the boat up right, all of the weight of the water in the canoe made it rock back and forth. Each of us was shifting our weight around to balance out the boat, moving at the same time in the same direction only made things worse. As soon as we reached shore dad bailed out of the canoe to make sure the boat didn't flip over.
We emptied all of our gear out of the canoe and placed it on the shore. We were glad that we had made preparations and stored all of our valuables in water tight containers and strapped everything to ourselves or to the bracing of the canoe so that nothing got lost. We tipped the empty canoe on it side and lifted it over our heads to drain all of the water out. After repacking Big Red with all of our gear we prepared for the second part of the dam, which was a 10 ft concrete wall that stretched across the river. The main river channel had carved a canyon into the concrete that was just wide enough for a canoe or kayak to pass through. Luckily the drop on the other side was only a few feet and there were no obstructions on the other side so this was considerably less difficult that the rapids.
We reached our vehicle safely and loaded the canoe on top. Afterwards we had a good laugh and sharing stories about memorable parts of the trip. We would not soon forget this trip and were already planning a return visit with a slight change of our route to avoid the broken down dam on our next trip.
Good Fishing To All,
Nick Klever
Fly Fishing with Harry, the Osprey-Mike Siena
I don't know what compelled me to return to that river after getting skunked 3 days in a row, but I do know that I prefer to be in the woods than lazing around at home. On my way to the river I was thinking back to the past couple days. I had not gotten a hit, nor had I even seen a fish. But there was one thing that stuck out. Harry.
That is the name I picked out for the osprey who so boldly claimed this river as his own. Each day I fished I saw Harry. And each day he would fly downstream and returned with a fish in his talons. As I strung up my rod and walked to my spot, I wondered if I would see Harry again today. A half hour into my fishing I did. He came, as he did everyday, from upstream and continued past me. I remembered how each day he had returned with a fish, and that's when it occurred to me. When fishing Harry's river, do as Harry does. And so I set out to find this fish supply that Harry had already tapped into.
Being mid July, the river was very low waist level at most. I began to move right down the middle of the river, checking behind large rocks and looking for feeder creeks that bring in colder water. After moving down river about a half mile I heard Harry's cry, and he flew over head, trout in hand. I was getting close. In another quarter mile I found what I was looking for. I came up slowly around a large boulder and couldn't believe what I saw. I had found the mother load---30 plus trout were holding in the shade of this gigantic pebble.
Being a noob at fly fishing (I took a class only one month ago) I was still iffy when it came to fly selection, so I went with a generic size 14 adams parachute. Being able to see the fish from my vantage point I watched as a few rose to the fly but stopped just as they were about to take it. With the water low and clear I diagnosed the problem to be my tippet. I swtiched from a 5x tippet to a measly 7x. On my first cast with the 7x tippet a 14 inch rainbow nailed the fly. I played him carefully and brought him to the net. This was my first fish on a dry fly, and my first fish on the stringer. I was able to to bring 1 other fish to the net on a self tied san juan worm, a major achievement for me at the time.
At about 4 o'clock there was a minor hatch of light cahills and I land 4 more on a #16 CDC cahill pattern. An hour later I met a man named Jim with whom I fished and exchanged stories with. From watching me cast and catch fish he guessed me to have been fly fishing for 5 years, and was rather surprised to learn it had been less than a month. As darkness set in I moved myself and my stringer full of fish out of the water and I sat. I Simply sat on the bank of the river and watched the gentle rise of the fish, content with myself and with nature. I brought home a stringer of five fish and a memory of a day that would forver seal my obsessive love of fly fishing, and I have Harry to thank for it all...
-Mike Siena
73 pound Grass Carp-Zach
It was a rainy Saturday morning... Me and my Dad were out fishing at the ten acre lake in Linn Valley Lakes, Lacygne Kansas. Like most Saturday fishing trips, it was the worst possible weather. It was about 45 degrees, a 30 to 40 mile per hour wind, and sleeting. I was fishing worms, he was fishing an antique Heddon Zara Spook that we had found the previous trip. Throwing into the wind he cast to the middle of a small cove. A backlash in his abu garcia black max bait caster let the spook lay lifeless on the surface for about 40 seconds. I threw my plastic worm out and as I jigged it through a large grass bed I saw the popper go under. I then heard the whirr of my dads reel spitting out drag like a dragon with fire. He fought the fish, thinking it was a giant bass. A flash of silver gave the illusion of a giant minnow zipping back and forth. He wrestled the fish to the bank, grasping the chunk through the gill plates. It was a 73 pound grass carp, landed on a bass set up with 10 pound test. After releasing the fish we found that it would have shattered the previous kansas state record by about 8 pounds... Bummer... =)
Zach's 73 pound Grass Carp-well done Zach!!!
-Zach the Fisherman
Buddies, Beer and Boat-no Bailer-Jeff
...Well my adventure all started while out on a lake in the interior of British Columbia on a sunny afternoon. The lake was, and still is called Okanagan lake.
We have a lovely cabin right on the lake, where I have spent many summers with the family. There's a motorboat that we use to tour around the lake during the hot summer days. We also have a canoe and a tin boat that sits 6 (but if you must, there is enough room to fit 8-10 people), which in my adventure, is exactly how many people we had in the tin boat or “tinny.” The tinny is ideal for rowing out into the middle of the lake and dropping a line to try and catch dinner for the night!. Doing this in the middle of the day is much safer than at night. This is where I hope my adventure can help you make better future decisions regarding whether or not, night fishing, without a flash light, wooden paddles, not enough life jackets and enough to drink to drown a baby whale is a good idea or not?
It was a beautiful afternoon the day myself and 7 of my friends went out to try and catch some food to put on the table, so we wouldn't have to have toast and jam again. The sun was yet to set. We still had about 2-3 hours till it was too dark to see. Once we got a couple hundred meters off shore we stopped rowing and started to cast out a few lines into the deep blue. Right off the bat, the two inexperienced fishermen tangled their lines so bad, we had to cut loose one of the lines to save the other (not myself of course, I casted off into the opposite side of the boat of dumb and dumber). With only 2 hooks in the water and the sun setting, we think it is safe to say we got out smarted by the tricky trout swimming beneath us.
It was windy but not too windy. However, it was still strong enough to cause the tin boat to drift quite far off to the left of our cabin. Still being a couple hundred meters from shore we packed in the poles (making sure no one got hooked by a stray hook) and started paddling. We weren't able to find the wood paddles, so we had a pair of plastic paddles instead. The wind had pick'd up as soon as the sun set and we realized after about 10-20 minuets of paddling we weren't getting anywhere because we were paddling against the wind. My friend and I were paddling and everyone else in the boat said it was our fault that we weren't getting anywhere, so the fishing crew decided that we should give our paddles up. I handed off my paddle to the biggest guy in the boat, a 6'2", 240 pound man, whose power should easily be enough to get us to shore. We were out of booze (which a lot of people tend to bring with them while they fish). We didn't have a light and it was getting cold. So we starting to make our way back to our cabin. We were around a hundred meters off shore, almost in reach of the dock. We were so happy with our new paddler, every stroke getting us closer and closer to our destination, power after power, stroke after stroke, pushing the water behind us.
I was becoming more and more excited, as were the rest of the crew to get into the warm cabin. We stared to sing a sing a long to keep our motor (the 6'2" man rowing our boat ashore) going. We didn’t get through a full song when the unthinkable happened! The plastic paddle made for 12 and under broke! With one paddle left there was still hope, but not much. We quickly handed the plastic paddle to the strong buck and sure enough the paddle folded under the power of our rower. We had to think quick!
I grabbed one of the 3 life jackets we had aboard and jumped into the water grabbed the rope that was attached to the tinny and started swimming towards the cabin. Two of the other crew members grabbed the remaining life jackets and joined me. We were going to live. We made our way towards shore, the cabin getting closer and closer.
Without a light, we knew it was unsafe to be out on the lake, when it was dark out but we all had a bit too much to drink, due to the fishing. So none of us thought too much about how unsafe it really was, we were just trying to get home. The two swimmers and I were getting quite tired from pulling the tinny with 5 other men in it, and were getting slower and slower. We were about 5 minuets from reaching the cabin when a group of people from a campsite started waving their hands and yelling at us. I thought they knew what we were going through and were cheering us on, since we were so close to our destination. Little did I know what they were trying to get through to us. There was a speed boat heading straight for us! With very little time to react, every fisherman still in the boat stood up and jumped out of the tinny to the left. I slipped out of my lifejacket and got as far as I could below the surface. The speed boat didn't see us till the very last second and just missed us by a few feet! When I got back up to the surface I realized everyone was ok and that it was just a close call. Getting hit by a speed boat can cause serious injury or even death, so we were all so very lucky to be all right. The boat took on some water, so much in fact, that none of us could get back in without sinking it. We all grabbed on to the side of the boat and escorted it and our selves to safety. Once on shore we realized how lucky we were to be alive. Going through this ordeal, the only thing I thought that could come out of this adventure as a positive is if I told my story to other adventurers, so as to make sure that other adventurers don't make the same mistake we did.
Fishing can be a lot of fun and a great adventure, but make sure you make a check list and go through a safety procedure before heading out on the waters.
Cheers,
Schwing