We are roughly 8 weeks or so into the off season. Or the midpoint. In 8 weeks I will start to get a lot more fishy. The boat comes back out regularly. I am riverside 4 plus days a week, plugging back in, and getting prepped for the guide season.
This off season has been shit. However, I will say lockdowns and quarantine have made cabin fever easy to bare. Broke as hell but honestly that’s not new being a troutbum and all. My previous blog post made it out like I was at this shit alone and I am not. I’ve have someone through it all, its private not a secret. But I have been good off river life wise, all things considered. Not seeing my kids has been the shittiest part.
I got a lot of comments and messages after that cranky blog. It was more venting the frustration and exhaustion. And instead of unload it on others who have their own trials and struggles right now….just throw it up and let the internet eat it. The biggest frustrations are work related. And there ain’t shit to be done until the new season at this point. Just stuck until the thaw.
Its the halfway point and usually I would feel this cabin fever riddled drive to be out. But 2020 sucked most of that out. I sleep. A lot. 10 to 12 hours some days. Hibernating like most other off seasons. But its quieter during the pandemic. And the exhaustion has taken its toll. And you can sleep through things that otherwise cause stress that cannot be fixed until the world gets right. So much outta my hands at this point. Sleep now work later. Or something like that.
While overlords argue about 600 bucks and cake, I just wanna make sure that I keep the internet on so I don’t have to sit with only books and flies until March. At this point the only thing that seems to fix shit is ourselves. So I get to wait until I can fix it the only way I know how…with trout and a boat. Thankfully we are in this together and there is help there. Its not all bad…its just sucks in general.
The midpoint of the offseason is usually a harder hurdle. Just not this season. I am in a hell of a hurry to get back to it in 2021. With a recovery plan in place for my business from the first trip to the last of next season. I don’t have a lot of faith in a national or even state economic recovery plan as this will be my third economic event in my life. Many of us are gonna have to get creative with making up the deficit of 2020. If trying to get relief during this shitshow is any indication….ya…its gonna be by our own bootstraps and on a community and local level. So getting the mind around what that might look like is essential moving forward.
The trout and the rowing take care of themselves at this point in my guiding. The nuts and bolts of the operation…troot and people….that shit is locked and I’ve worked very hard to get there. This pandemic changes how the business side looks. And with the surge in social media and its necessity for success in the 21st century business model driving a lot of what makes or breaks you…2021 is going to be a busy year to say the least.
So ya, I’ll sleep through a lot of the offseason. Because I can. Normally my body needs it but I think my mind needs it more this year. I’ll share time with the few people I can. I will prep for the offseason, and hold out like the rest of us. Still living day to day and week to week, still worried, but ready to move forward.
So ya, chill out. We all allowed to get mad bruh. Vent, sleep, try and see the good shit…watch Mandolarian…holy fuck! I mean we are all friggin’ stuck and its not like the headlines are making us feel any less stuck. So ya. Get ready for 2021…see if we can do a little better….(shy unenthusiastic yay, from the crowd). Fingers crossed. Let the countdown to trout begin.
I hate driving, with a passion. In fact I don’t much care for anything that is motorized really. Its just not my speed. My speed is foot speed. A good 3 mile an hour pace with a pack on my back, a fly rod in my hand, and a good pair of boots. Headed farther up the trail to secret fishing spots and undiscovered riffles and pools.
My speed is more around that of the river. A slow but powerful churn, that can be swift when needed but calms and ebbs just around the bend. More my speed indeed. The speed of a drift boat and a strong back row for one more cast, feels more right than most.
While most around the river enjoy the winter from the back of a snowmachine. I never cared for snowmobiling in the winter months. Far louder and too fast to enjoy the outdoors properly in my opinion. You miss the softness of the winter. The quiet fall of the snow, the light babble of the low river, the lack of wildlife noises opens a world of solitude and silence. I for one, find it utterly refreshing,
I found that the winter months were better spent skiing or snowshoeing into the woods and discovering the wonderfully different side of them, This winter has made that rather difficult but I have fond memories of past seasons. Winter also offered me something even more desirable and just as intoxicating.
The river typically goes through the winter with little angler presence. The few die hards and anxious trout bums like myself will venture out when conditions line up, or even when they don’t. Sometimes just being on the river casting a rod to troublesome and sleepy winter trouts is all that is needed. The winter brings a stillness, peace, and absolute quiet that cannot be found any other time of year.
I have always enjoyed the lonely winter months along the banks of the river. A nymphing rig set up on a fast rod, a double haul with a big open loop, a 30 foot cast to the top of a deep trough, and that sweet sight of an indicator going down, the powerful tug of a hungry trout at the end. I have never been much of a streamer angler. While I love to strip flies for bass, and occasionally when the time of year or conditions demand it for trout, but I have a deep love for nymphing. A high stick drift, over the cross currents into that small soft spot between the boulder and the seam, the trouty place that only a large winter trout would hold in, ya…thats the stuff.
Tricking the quarry of an angler on the nymph requires patience, determination, and damn fine mending skills. A small bit of insanity is also needed. While dry fly fishing is…well dry fly fishing, nymphing is a game of fine tuning and dialing down to the result of tricking the trout. A proper dry fly placed in the correct lane with a excellent drift will entice a strike. A nymph through the fishiest water 300 times may never produce a thing and you would never know the difference, and miss an opportunity at the pod of 12 fish 2 feet deeper below your rig. An understating of current and hydrology helps immensely, spending time observing fish feeding on nymphs with a snorkel also opens up an entire world of enlightenment to the nymph angler.
Studying how the nymphs run through the water column and how they react to water temperature, air temperature, pressure, and the time of year all factor into where the trout will hold in order to feed. Try fishing the Salmon Fly Migration before the hatch, so many fish are left uncaught by the dry fly fisherman because they are full on nymphs. Some of the larger smarter fish as well. During the winter this process becomes a slightly tougher game mostly because less fish eat and fish need to eat less.
Trout slow down and almost hibernate during the winter. Typically in pods in deep slow water, trout hang out and literally chill while the winter months pass along. The fish all eat, but depending on the day they may eat just enough, not eat at all, or eat very little. This means anglers must pay close attention to temps and flows as well as sunlight. Warmer days with warm nights keep the water temps up which means fish need to feed. The greatest thing about winter fishing, especially on the Yakima, is that the larger fish are much easier to catch during the winter months. This is because the biggest fish need to eat more. The little fish may only need a small helping of nymphs to keep their energy levels at nominal for winter time. Larger fish need to eat, and therefore are easier to target.
During the regular season fish will gorge themselves on naturals, mostly because they require more energy to keep up with higher water temps which fuel their metabolism and they expel enormous amounts of energy during faster currents. Factor in fattening up for spawning in the spring and holding for the winter; and the regular season fishing is fairly straight forward. Winter fishing is an exact science surrounded by absolute frustrating chaos within the mind of an angler. A process of whittling down the sections of fishy water until the river takes the win or the angler gets a chance to prove oneself.
The typical single and double nymph set ups work just fine. I find myself light line nymphing with midge and pheasant tails frequently, but a large stonefly nymph and a zebra midge usually will result in success during the winter. I enjoy taking a piece of water and working it out fully. Picking lanes 6 inches apart from each other and casting through them, adjusting my depth every few casts looking for that sweet spot where the trout are holding.
Hitting them on the head is the best method and if you have ever seen trout feeding under water during December, let me tell you, they move very little most of the time, even for food. Working and entire section of water patiently and methodically will usually result in a proper winter trout. Winter nymphing is a matter of working all the variables out until you get that trouty result. You may only get one shot at a trout in the winter. Mostly due to time, the window for good fishing most winter days is under 3 hours. Fine tuning and finding the trout can take up most of that time but an ambitions angler with a good mind set can get the job done.
I spend the winter months tying and chasing the larger 4 and 5 year old fish that live in the deep pools and runs of the Yakima. The river is peaceful, and nothing is better than a soft snow and a quiet river. The silence being broken only, by the sound of a reel slowly fighting against a deep pulling trout.
Our destination is only a couple hours now, I look forward to a change of scenery, a different river, and a new quarry.
Yet again we are given a dose of warm weather and rain. The river has jumped up a few hundred cfs. It should settle by the end of the week again. That seems to be the mode of operation for this winter. No snow, lots of rain, and a fluctuating river. Why doesn’t it just be March already, without any consistency its like a precursor to Spring.
UGH! MEH! BLEH! Its kind of a downer really, all this pretty great weather in between all the rain and frozen H2O particles coming down, and no fishing. Water temps are still topping out around 39 degrees which is damn cold but fishable, so when the river is in shape it is worth it to nymph or streamer fish some holes. I am not getting my drift boat out until it decides to officially be spring and with February looming and big snows still anticipated for that month, it looks like it may be a late one.
If I have learned anything about the winters here its this (this is applicable to the months of November through March): “Winter is Coming…eventually…maybe around February 4th…but maybe next week…I don’t know…get back to me.”
DAMNIT!
Where is the bloody snow!? Literally everywhere else in the country that it is supposed to be snowing it is, but not here. While I have no doubt that it will snow, and it will probably be one of those miserable snows that just never stops, causes problems. Then when it all settles it will be March 15th and everyone will be bitching about how the winter was too short. Dude, the winter was shot like two weeks ago. Its so late now anyone that has a weather dependent business has already took the hit and is just playing the waiting game like the rest of us. The upper elevations are finally starting to get better but with crummy snow, warm winds, and rain mixed in, the conditions just plain suck. I haven’t even got my skis or snowshoes out of storage and at this point I may never this season. It’s too late to be playing in the snow, too much stuff to get ready for the spring…if it ever shows. My fear is that the winter will finally arrive…and then never leave. Like a few years back when the damn snows up high didn’t melt until late July.
I keep looking longingly at my fly rods all secured in their tubes propped up in the corner by the door. My wading boots have a permanent spot next to the heater in the bathroom where I dry them between wade trips. I say permanent because I have been out two times since November. Its driving me bonkers really. The saying, “Winter is Coming,” can suck it as far as I am concerned. Pretty sure Winter got lost and when it does show up its just gonna make everyone mad with its tardiness.
The tying has been my salvation. Without the ability to unplug from the day and the world by visiting the river, my cabin fever gets the best of me. Anglers everywhere know what I am referring too. That need to be outside, in the river, the smell of trout on your hands, bugs in your beard, a strong tug, a tight fly line, and a filled net, its becoming overbearing now. Late February is so close but the weather may have other plans. The vise is the only refuge I have, besides youtube videos of New Zealand and the Lapland. I have been taking my time and relearning a few techniques, fine tuning a few newly acquired ones, and getting creative but simple with my patterns.
I love developing new patterns, trying different materials, working out different ways to replicate and imitate the natural. My need to get into a decent fly shop with a plethora of tying choices, and a wad of cash is increasing dramatically as we get farther into this snow-less winter. My supplies are dwindling which is a good thing, I get a kick out of perusing the feathers, hair, and synthetics for flies, much like some anglers look at the fly bins. The other thing that short supply does is it forces you to try new things. Shit, I ran out of that, well lets try this instead. Then, bam! I have a sweet ass new fly to try. That’s how a few of my more productive patterns came about.
Is this the river of my dreams? No seriously I found this pic and don’t remember what river it is.
For me the trip starts at the vise. Every time I tie a new March Brown Emerger, or Skwala Stonefly Nymph I fish it in my head. With each turn of the quill or wire I cast the fly into another riffle or run. When I head cement the fly at the finish, in my head, I am releasing the fish and casting for the next. Sitting at the vise didn’t use to be that way. I sat at a vise before I ever picked up a rod, but now, every time I tie its like a little dose of fly fishing on the river. It gets so bad sometimes I tie flies in my sleep and come up with new patterns for the rivers of my dreams. It sounds super dweeby but hey, I am a nerd for fly fishing.
The one thing that I am missing is that angler to angler connection. My Lady listens to me talk about trout, flies, rivers, and everything in between all the time. We stay up after the minions go to bed and talk about fishing. Well I talk and she listens. She thinks its cool. A little nerdy but she has been watching me develop into an angler and tier closer than anyone. While I love talking to her about fish, she doesn’t share the same passion for it that I do. She wants to travel with me to rivers, learn how to better row the drift-boat, and there isn’t another lady I know that can rough it in the outdoors like she can. She’s the best kind of fishing partner…the one that doesn’t fish, but can row. My Lady is not an angler and that’s cool and she knows it.
I do miss tying with a group of anglers, talking shit and telling lies. I saw that the local fly shop is having tying on Sunday mornings and I will try and hit it, but work gets in the way. I should look into a group of anglers getting together somewhere like a coffee shop or something and tying for an hour or two one day a week. It would be cool to be amongst other anglers, share patterns and techniques, talk about fish and the river. I don’t get a lot of that in my tiny little room under the stairs where my vise and materials sit.
I love to tie, but I love to fish even more. With tying for guiding now its a bit more fun because I am tying a huge amount of flies that I normally wouldn’t. For myself, I typically tie a set of flies at the beginning of the season and that’s all I need. A set being 6. I do not intend to tie all of my flies but a majority of them will be tied and not bought. Why not? I still tie a set at a time, but I was taught that tying the same pattern 24 times in a row can make tying really boring and mistakes happen when you get lazy after about the 20th fly. I switch between two and three patterns until I have 2 sets of each. The next day I may repeat the same patterns or move on to the next hatch. It keeps it from getting dull or feeling like a chore. I finish a set of March Brown Emergers, I get tired of tying tiny little mayflies, and move onto a large Salmon Fly Dry, then maybe a Green Drake nymph, and then back to the Emergers. I get special requests from friends for sets of flies, Craneflies are a big one, as well as my super tasty October Caddis Pupa, and those also give me an excuse to change it up as well.
A little troutsnack party.
The other plus side of tying for the guiding season is I feel like I am working. Not just tying for myself but tying for clients is a big push for me. I have tied for anglers and sent sets of flies off in the mail from time to time but never the amount I’m tying for guiding this season. The guides at the shop I used to work for would have me tie certain flies for them. It saved them having to buy a few before their trip. We also used to tie for each other all the time. Carp flies, for trout flies, a particular guide had some amazing bass flies that I still use, and we all shared patterns and tying lessons. They were notorious for stealing flies from the table before heading out on trips though. So don’t leave flies hanging around. I always got very critical but always constructive feedback on patterns of mine so I welcomed the less flies in my box.
There is something quite satisfying to hear a guide or angler praise a finely tuned, personally tied fly pattern. It always made me feel like I was doing something right when my flies were in other anglers’ boxes. I never got nervous about my flies being out there, but I have always been laid back about my flies. Fish eat ’em for me.
It’s cool that not everyone can tie them, you can’t find them everywhere, and just because you have one doesn’t mean you are fishing it right. I have met a lot of anglers that just put the fly on/in the water. Its always a riverside treat to meet an angler or anglers that see you catch a decent fish and ask what you used and you show them something they wouldn’t have in their box. I am always handing out flies on the river. I never want someone to get off the river with a bad taste in their mouth. If a few of my flies help make their day better than of course I am gonna hand them out. What really get’s me is when they ask how to fish it! Oh man, yes, lets talk about that.
Flies do a lot of things besides catch trout; they inspire anglers, help concoct stories of grandeur, enlighten and educate on the ways of the river, and each one is a tiny work of art. Such simple but intricate things; much like the trout they catch, much like the anglers that tie them on.
Tamarack's Guide Service 