Covet: Tokhito Yoshida X Barbour Beacon 2012

Ask anyone, I’m a bonafied Barbour fiend. So my heart skipped a beat or two when I saw the new Barbour Beacon Spey Jacket for the 2012 Spring Summer Collection by Japaneses designer Tokhito Yoshida. I want one so bad I’ve got the shakes. Barbour, can you help a loyal brother out?

“Spring Summer 2012 sets the bar high once again, with outerwear creating the main body of the collection. Key pieces from the Autumn Winter range have been developed, none more so than the Spey Fishing Jacket. Constructed from Gore WINDSTOPPER Active Shell – a completely windproof, highly functional and breathable lightweight material – it is jam-packed with pockets, a signature of Yoshida’s unnerving passion for technical outwear that finds the balance between form and function with apparent ease. This can also be seen in the Mount Shirt, a brand new piece in the SS12 collection. Available in three materials; Waxed, Herringbone and WINDSTOPPER; the simplistic, ergonomically sound design makes it one of our favourite pieces from the range.”

Private Waters in the Blue Ridge

I was fortunate to be invited to fish some private waters recently in the Blue Ridge mountains of Georgia. On Memorial day, I got up early and left the suburban sprawl of Atlanta behind and drove about two hours north into the Chattahoochee National Forest, up into the Blue Ridge mountains, across the Appalachian Trail and down into the valley of the creek.

After getting some careful guidance on property lines from some local neighbors, I took a deep breath of mountain air, suited up and crept into the quiet river. It became obvious I wouldn’t see anyone else for several hours and so I just let my thoughts drift off and drank in the solitude of the waters. The flow was pretty low as summer was in full swing in the mountains and there was no visible hatch so after doing a little prospecting with a royal wulff, I quickly turned to my copper john and started searching for structure, holes at the bottom of riffles and deep bends. I was rewarded with several bows, about two every hour as I inched my way upstream, about 200-300 yards in about four hours.

Under one fallen log that stretched across the river, I pulled three bows that must have been stacked up taking nymphs as they rolled underneath it. I also caught the biggest chub of my life, easily 8″ long. However, the trout got progressively larger until I had a 15″ wild ‘bow to hand who I had to chase a bit farther down the pool and turn to keep him from going over the lip and into a riffle.

Further upstream, past a long meadow pool with high sides and undercut banks, I could have sworn I’d find a big trout lurking, but alas, they were all underneath a small dam that created highly oxygenated water and cover from the baby blue skies. A double nymph rig with an unweighted pheasant tail and a beadhead hare’s ear pulled three more ‘bows from below the rapid.

Finally, I wrapped up the day with the desperate need to take a ‘bow on the fly. I walked the entire length again scanning under every shadow, overhang and in every pool…surely by late afternoon there would be a hatch and a trout hanging out in the open. Even as late as six, there was still no hatch as I reached the very top of where I was allowed to cast a line. Swimming, all by his lonesome, was a trout above the dam, lazily taking midges from the surface. Just below him, a couple of suckers seemed to be following in his wake. I tied on a cahill, figuring that in the crystal clear water and bright sky, a light fly might be seen almost as an apparition, a ghost, to fool the trout. My fist cast was all that was needed. Landing about two feet to the right of the bow in a pile cast, the trout wandered over, wandered away, and thinking the better of it, wandered back and ate my fly. I could see the tips of his fins, white lined, a wild trout.  Ah…private waters.

Ravenous in Yellowstone

Two fish swam lazily on the leeward seam of a boulder just on the edge of the outlet of Tower Creek in Yellowstone Lake. One was very large, fat but stout, olive green with white spots, clearly he was a Mackinaw, the lake trout. His maw was full of sharp teeth and clearly he had just eaten because he didn’t seem to mind the trout holding next to him in the current. The trout was smaller and leaner, but had broad shoulders, and in the right light, he gleamed gold with an olive green back and black spots. He had great red slashes below his mouth, the mark of a cutthroat trout. The two fish eyed each other with caution, finally, the lake trout felt compelled to speak to the smaller trout and turned slightly to speak.

“Look at me brother and despair. In the waters of my ancestors, I was a great King. No herring could escape my hunger or my deadly attack from the deepest darkest depths.  My people are at war in our homewaters with the Salmon. But my people have been transplanted again and again and every where I invade, my instincts become a scourge. Here I dwell now, in my new kingdom, the mighty Yellowstone Lake. I have conquered you and now you are my subject. “

The cutthroat did not seem impressed, and he swam a couple of circles around the lake trout. He smiled politely before speaking.

“Yes, it is true, you have made your mark, you’ve taken many of my brothers and sisters, you have reduced us to mere food. We once roamed this lake and its tributaries in the millions. When the sun turned its great orb on Yellowstone, it often blushed with envy at the golden light we produced, and now we are diminished. We run and hide, far up the creeks to escape your armies.”

The great lake trout practically swooned in his power.

“Then why are you not hiding from me now my morsel? Is it because I’ve just eaten and you can see I have no more room for you?”

The cutthroat replied, “No, we no longer need to hide, for we’ve found new allies and I’m here to deliver a message. Your own ravenous hunger will be your downfall.”

The large lake trout was troubled by the message, but only momentarily, for his hunger had returned and so he turned and snapped-up the cutthroat trout. Suddenly he felt satisfied, even pleased that he had once again let his instincts guide him. In his reverie, he turned and headed back for the deep, but found that he couldn’t move. There was something around his neck that grasped at his gills. In a panic he gave a shove but was held fast. He tried to breath and found he could not. He tried to swim down to the depths but the turn only made it worse. He began to see spots and blackness, his vision was fading. It dawned on him then, the other trout’s prophetic warning had come true. His last thoughts were, “Perhaps if I had spared my brother, I would not be stuck fast in this net, but then, I rule here, do I not?”

———–

America’s first park is under siege, not by armies, but by a fish, a non-native from the char family, the Mackinaw, commonly known as the lake trout. Since its illegal introduction in the mid-90s, Lakers have devastated the once millions-strong native population of cutthroat trout. Voracious predators, lakers kill the fry and adult cutthroat and crowd out every other species of fish, removing a vital step in the ecosystem that supports more than forty other species in Yellowstone Park, including otters, bears, wolves, foxes and various raptors. Unlike cuthroat, lakers dwell deep and avoid predation. Today, the National Park Service, local chapters of Trout Unlimited and other partners are joined in a battle to restore balance to the lake and its tributaries, with an aggressive lake trout reduction plan, involving tagging and gill netting. Because of their size, lake trout can be netted, allowing younger smaller cutthroat to escape.

In my growth as a fly fisher, I have rekindled a deep and passionate commitment to our environment and its protection. Here in NY, the laker is a prized fish pursued by trolling, seldom taken on the fly. However, the “Mack” has no place out west, not when we have the science and knowledge to protect our native species. However, this battle is about more than science. Reducing the lake trout population and restoring cutthroats in Yellowstone is symbolic. In an era when every pristine habitat is under threat from mining, development or climate change, the seemingly immovable forces of business and man, the challenge of restoring balance is under our control. Individuals can make a difference. By entering the 2012 Outdoor Blogger Tour contest I hope to be able to witness first hand the efforts of the National Park Service in protecting Yellowstone and returning to NY to think, write and talk about it with my local TU chapter. Though I know conservation begins at home, the protection of Yellowstone’s native species stands as a special effort that can inspire us all.

This is my submission for the Trout Unlimited, Simms, the Yellowstone Park Foundation and the Outdoor Blogger Network – Blogger Tour 2012 contest.

Sulphurs at Twilight

I decided to get back to the river and see if the sulphur hatch I had experienced last week was going on–and force myself to stay late enough to really experience it. Seemed the word had gotten out and the river was loaded with guys, but all at respectful distances. Greetings were given, smiles were shared. Oh yeah…it was still going on, just had to wait til nightfall. I amused myself by hooking a 17″ brown on a barr emerger but in a lapse of focus he broke off. Later I walked in the exact opposite direction of the guys to go far downstream where trout were rising under overhangs to nymphs and emergers in the film. I couldn’t quite figure out the pattern and so in frustration tied on a big white cahill, maybe a #14 I think. Within a couple casts a big brown came out of nowhere, not even in the feeding lane, and chomped it. He was a handful to land and after several good runs, I got him in the net.

Later, I caught his little brother on a Royal Wulff (my first on that type of fly). He was spastic–and I suppose had never been hooked in his life, because he fought like mad with several jumps. Very spirited.

Since my last visit, it seemed that the hatch had slowed or rather, pushed later, because trout didn’t really start rising until after the sun set. I had a HARD time tying on the light cahill to imitate the sulphurs that started popping off in fits and bursts. It was magical because they seemed to glow in the twilight as they rose off the water. Way upstream, an angler must have caught THE fish of the night because he started yelling for help and a net. I myself cast only once or twice before an enormous brown took my fly and decided to run first upstream, then downstream. I forced myself to remember to keep an angle and play him back and forth. Finally he tired and I slid him almost backward into the net–but HOLD on, he wouldn’t fit. I was looking down at one of the biggest browns of my life.

Easily, 22″, maybe 23″, right then I should have cried out for help myself–so I could get a good picture. He was just too large to pick up in one hand and get a good pic. AND OF COURSE, I didn’t have the camera light on so none of my pictures of him in the net came out. More than the image of him though, his weight is imprinted in my memory. I put my hands around the back of his neck and felt a chord of muscle and determination as I slid him back in the water. I’ll admit, I was haunted for a day or two by not getting a good picture, but only for a day. We’ll meet again my friend, we’ll meet again.

Personal Best

I’m beat. I’m exhausted. My hand hurts, my eyes sting, my back is sore….

But yesterday I had the BEST day of fly fishing since I’d taken up the fly rod last May… I took the day off and hit a local river thinking there might be something happening given we’d had a couple of days of rain, 72 degree weather and the forest canopy was finally full… I headed for a particularly pressured stretch of water on a fork of a river that I had avoided all season.  I should have known it would be a special day when I bumped into some regulars from last season who gave me a nod, wink and smile. I walked up to a well-known challenging pool to see what could be seen. Suckers, carp, oh and rising browns…everywhere. I tied a pheasant tail nymph to a caddis as a dropper and on the second cast and I hooked into a 15″ holdover brown, my biggest from that pool so far. I was so surprised that I almost forgot how to play him in.

I thought it was a fluke until I bumped into another fellow angler whom I’d met last season who told me that he’d had some of the best fishing EVER on the this fork in the past week. The trout were fat and happy from the mild winter and there’s been some epic hatches to boot (caddis, BWO’s, sulphurs).  Seems the big reservoir browns moved in to eat the sucker and carp spawn as well (reservoirs gleam gold and silver, the holdovers are more buttery brown from a life in the river). He said he’d caught three 15″ fish on the previous night and broke off two… I thought, well, that’s HIM, he’s been fly fishing this river for 40 years, of course he gets the big ones…but maybe something was going on…

Then I moved out of the pool and upstream, to see, dozens of wild browns rising, no stockies–just clear bright scales, a full blood red adipose fin and tell tale white stripes on their anal fins. They were small, about 9-10″, but mixed in were some brutes. I spent an hour trying to raise a 18″ brown who was eating nymphs as he defended a depression bowl under the rocky tailout of a pool under a bridge. I threw everything at him until he finally started to rise to my parachute BWO which he finally ate on maybe the thirtieth cast. I was particularly pleased that he did so right in front of two other anglers too who were catching the smaller trout hand over fist… Unfortunately, after five minutes of playing him, and nearly falling in, I let too much slack and lowered my rod tip, and he broke off, but not before I felt a deep connection to him.

Happy, already satisfied to tell the truth, I decided to move up the river, past the bridge. I’ve had some luck in the eddies, nymphing, but in a particularly long run below a dam, I always got skunked, despite rises–or at least I did last season. This time, with much more confidence, I waded on in, right up the center, casting to the bubble line and up under trees near the banks, and immediately starting hooking-up with browns. I could see caddis popping off and sulphers struggling on the surface so I fished those, and alternated back and forth with a BWO and light cahill and caught a few 10″ers but as I moved upstream of the tailout, the fish got bigger.

I would catch a big 16 or 17″ fat brown on the rise, and then it would take several minutes to play him back downstream so he didn’t mess up the fishing upstream. I’d snap a pic and then wade back, this time just a little further than before, wait for another wave of the hatch and cast and hook up again. I did this about eight times, each time hooking up from about 5pm to 8pm. I landed six out of the eight and each was 15″+, most 17 or 18″, and bright with gleaming bronze colors, blood red spots and the tell-tale white anal fin markings of wild fish. A couple had a blue dot just behind their eye. One buttery brown just spazzed out on me completely and jumped once, twice, and then again. Another bull-dogged and just dove for the bottom like a ton of bricks. Each one was a different experience. A couple had lazy takes, others were ferocious rises and scared me half to death. I heard the famous toilet-bowl flush several times on the river. All up and down the run, the slap of rises and slurps of takes and flushes of big gulps was like a slow drumbeat that seemed to slow time, putting me in a trance.

In the fading light, I tied on a light cahill and as I waded back, casually tossed it at rises here and there–the fish were nosing it–and then one last ferocious take and I was hooked up again, with what I think was the biggest of the day. I could feel his mass below the water. My rod bent over immediately but before I could put a proper angle on it, I was so tired, I dropped the tip and the brown made a run which broke me off. I smiled and turned downstream to wade to the edge of the pool. As the sun set casting the river in deep shadow, I didn’t need to see any more trout come to hand today, I could hear them all around me, and that was more than enough.

Paul Greenberg’s Fish Tale

From the author of Four Fish, which I’m currently reading, comes a quick down and dirty talk about aquaculture (fish farming) and the misnomer “sea bass.”

 

Dan Barber’s Love Affair With a Fish

Simply brilliant. Nice to hear about a positive sustainable fish farming solution for once. Now, can we get to saving our Striper population and ban commercial fishing for it?