Connections

Change is inevitable in a 45-year fly fishing career. The learning never stops.  Preferences change.  There's new discoveries, and uncovering older things that might have slipped by.  Take the connection from fly line to leader. 

I started, like most, with the simple nail knot. It worked, and I considered a long leader to be 12 ft including the tippet. There were a couple of different nail knot tools, one I settled on that worked very well, so it was also a quick solution.

Then there was the needle nail knot. Cleaner, because the end of the leader came out of the center of the fly line, but it still had the bulk of the leader wrapped around the fly line to secure it.  I could coat it with UV glue or Pliobond to make the lump smoother, but there was still that lump 12 to 18 feet up from my fly.  The little tag end of the leader always seemed to snag on a guide or tip top.

In most recent times, all the new fly lines come with welded loops. Hey, keep it simple, put a loop in your leader and connect the two quickly.  I even played around with trying to make my own welded loops in lines that I had previously cut the loop from to use the nail knot.  If you need to change leaders, the loop to loop is a quick easy change.  Since I use furled leaders, this connection is actually quite smooth, but there's still that lump there going through the guides. With my standard 7-8 feet of tippet connected to five or six feet of furled leader, I still have to wiggle the rod and pull to get the whole mess out smoothly

So some years back, there was an article in Fly Fisherman from the late, great Dave Whitlock about a knotless connection.  I can't remember, but I either skipped over it, or read it and poo poo'd it because I didn't need anything like that at the time.  Somehow earlier this year I stumbled upon a YouTube video from someone doing a demo of this connection.  It sort of stuck in my head, and I wanted to try it and see if it really worked. No knot, just a little super glue?

The video made it look easy, you simply run a needle up through the braided core of the fly line, then put the butt of the leader through the hole, super glue the end of the leader and pull it back into the fly line. Just like the needle nail not, without the knot. Does that really hold?  Just super glue a quarter-inch of butt section in the braided core of a fly line?  The kids in the video say it works. The idea comes from Dave Whitlock. That carries a ton of weight.  Gospel, if you will.

So far I'm liking it. I did it to one fly line, and the change was immediate. So smooth and easy.  Now I've done a second and third.  The connection is beautiful, I can hardly tell it's not one piece as I pull the leader and fly line through the guides and out the tip top. I'm going to give it a fair test. Big beaverhead browns on 3x.  Montana steelhead on the Missouri. A 2x nylon leader with a streamer on the end of it. What's the worst that could happen, I lose the fish of the season and the leader to go with it?  Life will go on, and we're not talking tarpon fishing here.  I'll report back, but for now, I'm all in on knotless connections on the four five and six weights. 😬

It's a thing of beauty I tell you. While fishing, it's hard to tell where the line and leader intersect unless I look.  The picture makes the expanded fly line look larger than it really is.

Jack

 

This is Jack.  That's short for Blackjack.  21.  Inches that is.

Jack and I became friends, or at least we got to know each other really well.  You see, I caught Jack today. I saw him in a foot-deep flat, and it only took a minute.  There aren't a lot of 21 inch fish in here. He makes my day.  But, . . . the story is only beginning. (Man I wish I could have Keith Morrison reading this!)

Fast forward a day.  I'm staring into the same riffle, 6 feet lower, and Jack is back. There's no mistaking him, the largest I've seen all morning. It's noonish and he's on the feed. He lets no other fish near him in his riffle. He eats on the surface, then underneath, chases an intruder away, and returns to eat some more.  This pattern continues endlessly.  About 20 minutes in, he eats my CDC pmd emerger. Nothing but air. Strike one.

An hour or so and some fly changes later, he eats my grizzly hackle dun. Strike two. I think he eats a Timmy too. He certainly refuses it a couple of times. We're a couple hours in now, getting to know each other very well. More fly changes.  There's really nowhere to reposition on the little creek. He keeps rising in range. Perfect range. He's very careful, moving left and right, up and down. 

I've spent the better part of my afternoon with Blackjack. One of us is going to win, the other defeated. I'm sore and getting tired, taking 5 minute breaks to rest, retie, and come out for the next round.  He has some decent sized friends rising around him, but for now it's just me and blackjack.  At precisely 2:30, Jack eats my TTPT.  Tom Travis Pleasant Tail. The emerger version, half-in, half-out, down to 5X.  It's pretty quick, I win, and we shake hands. I love jack. He, and others like him, are the reason I still do this.  The day is complete.

Thank You Jack.  I loved our engagement. Sorry about the mouth.  I do love you.  Hope you have a great summer and there's plenty of bugs.  Maybe you'll have some other fish too. Watch out for them pointy things. Bon appetite.

After I temporarily relocate Jack from his room, some of his younger brothers move in. You know how siblings are I guess.  I think that is rude of them, so I remove a few of them from Jack's room on my way out the door. 

As a postscript, I revisit Jack's house a couple days later and he's still there.  I do serve him a Timmy for a short while with no eats.  I stick one of his smaller brothers, and move on.  He gave me more than I could ever ask.

This is Timmy.  He's messy, floats well, and is very visible.  Everyone  likes Timmy. (Charlie Craven pattern.)

Drakes and Drakes

Well, I damn near don't make the opener. But the night before, I'm able to re-load and head north after burning rubber home from Craig four days ago and tending to the Fort. There's no traffic this time of night, just antelope trying to hit me as I crawl through Wyoming. What a roller coaster week.         

I pull the late-nighter and make the Millionaires parking lot by 7:00 am on 2-3 hours sleep. Not recommended, but in a blur, I'm here. Half blind and wore out before I ever slip on the waders.

My head is still somewhere else besides the Ranch. My body objects to every step. My fly isn't in clear focus.  On this morning I don't belong anywhere else though.  

Just a few steps in, I look down, and what the hell? It's a big brown drake. I even see a few more. Must be leftovers. That's promising, but there's little else. I stay at the downstream tip of the upper island for a while then proceed to work my way down Main Street. Perfect. Nobody else here. There's already some . . . guy . . . fishing the sweet spot between the lower islands. But a couple hours in, all I've caught is cold. Its nippy this morning. No bugs, no heads.

A little before 11 there's a few big bugs. This time green ones. I get a couple of big eats and blow those. A couple of beat up smaller ones salvage the morning. This isn't green drake water, but I don't have it in me to move up river to the faster water where all the gulls are going at it.

The warm clear evening brings the other big drakes, brown ones, on opening evening. I can't recall the last time I've had both drakes in the same day, and never on opening day. There's some fish up for about 3 hours before dark, though not as many as one would expect given the number of bugs. I blow most of these too, but manage a couple to hand. So not a bad opener given how I got here. 

The second morning starts out looking pretty nice, and when I hit the water at 8:00, there's dead pmds in various stages all over the water. Some fish occupy the lane between the two lower Islands and I get some eats before it's over by 10:00. The wind rips, and that takes care of that. The gulls work green drakes later in the morning, but I never see a fish take one. It's a blowout until evening. 

The wind lays down, and here come the brown ones again. Quite a few of them. Again, there aren't a ton of fish taking them, but enough. And then there's this one. The gulps are different than the other eats I'm seeing. I get the eat and it's instantly obvious it's a different class of fish. Two complete empties of the reel, and I get out of the current to shore.

22 heavy

So this third morning I'm not going to be late and miss those pmds. Right. I'm on the water at 7:00, but it's a different hatch. Brown Drake's are all over the place at 7:00 in the morning! What the hell is this about? The fish aren't on them other than a couple of smaller ones splashing around, but the gulls are making a scene and the water is really loaded. Must be leftovers coming out of the trees from the big hatch last night. I see no sign of pmd's like yesterday. The brown drakes are done by 8:30 or so, and I'm done by 10:00 because the wind has come again.  

This evening there's a light to medium west wind blowing across the pool. The gulls are finally beginning to get active about 7:00 pm. 7:30 and the water is covered. The wind won't lay down and the surface stays choppy, so only the gulls are eating. 9:00 and it finally lays down a little. There's some one-timers. The bugs are as thick as I've ever seen them. It's surreal. No steady rising fish though. Its just weird. Sure has the appearance of low fish counts. 

I get up a little late this morning, but make it to the river at 7:45. Not a breath of wind. But, not a breath of bugs either. No brown drakes, no gulls, no pmds. A quiet, glassy, dead river. I struggle to understand, but I guess no one ever will. Maybe that's why we do it, because we'll never quite figure it out, not even close.

So it's 8:15 am. Waiting on a morning hasn't worked yet. I can wade out and make Vernon by 9:00, and I do. It's a 20 minute, one mile walk up to the rock, which puts me there at a perfect 9:20, when the hatch started daily last year. I make it to the minute. It ain't happening.  I guess the red flag was that I was the only vehicle at Vernon when I got there.

My final night back at millionaires, and the gulls make a 7:20 appearance en masse. Out of nowhere, there's a hundred. Then quickly several hundred. They coincide with the first bugs. The hatch comes off pretty good, but it's short-lived. Tonight it's over at 9:00 despite perfect calm conditions. Bugs gone, birds gone. There's a couple of one timer small fish rises, and that's it.  

I guess there's worse places for shitty fishing.

This is the flow at Vernon. A little elevated, but still clear and wadable most places.

And this is the Ranch.  Higher than the last couple of years, but about a normal flow. And it's been steady since the opener.

So the mornings are slow except the second one. Every day except the opener and day four is windy. The brown drakes are getting thicker every night, but it doesn't work in any kind of wind. But then again, it didn't work on the last night with no wind either. There aren't a lot of fish showing up around Millionaires. I probably missed the green drakes at Vernon last week. Seems like I've pretty much missed everything for the last two weeks.

Ashton

I've been coming here more this year. March, mid-May, and now kicking off early June.  It's less than 6 hours from home, just far enough to be a "trip," but not quite the long haul to Montana. Plenty of fish.  But, I can't say it's been stellar. I scratch out some fish most days, but it's one thing or another dashing my hopes to repeat some of the great days I had exactly a year ago.  Yeah, yeah, that's why they call it fishing, and all those other malarkey cliches.

Lots and lots of wind in the current continental pattern we're having this spring and early summer.  The strong pressure gradient persists.  I move to the Missouri after four days for some guaranteed fun and to get my game on for the ranch opener next week.  I get called home for an emergency before I ever get waders on. 

So I see the salmon flies, but not much for fish on them over Memorial Day.  This trip starts with some evening caddis fishing, but the days are pretty weak for bugs, and no sign of any drakes.  One day is fishable, the next is blowing 30 to 40.  I fight through for the morning or evening windows, but the struggle is real.  

My favorite place to sit and wait.

Not a bad backdrop.

Quickie

Had an extra day off this weekend so decided to take a first-hand look at the Fork to see what's really happening. My clients reported salmonflies a week ago, and I've wondered if it's too early for drake's.  What I found out was I'm a little late for salmonflies, early for the drake's, and everything else hatching was blowing to Yellowstone.  The two mornings were calm to windy fishable, but after that it was gale force in the 30 mph range.  I caught some fish on caddis, and had a few eats on a salmonfly.

Perfect low water

Bright and sunny first day

In the house, but not being eaten

Judging from this, I missed the hatch last week.

Still a cool place to be

Perfect cloudy calm morning on day two

No risers here despite perfect water

Fish were mostly in the middle of the river.

Farewell to Midge Season

Spring has fully sprung in my neck of the woods.  Green grass sprouting everywhere, spring winds howling, and time to put the midges away until fall.  This sunny day off pulls me to the river for one more session of little bugs.  

It's been a long and productive midge season, one that started for me back in October at Silver Creek. The mildest winter anyone has seen made for 6 months of fair-weather midge fishing.  This river in particular, 45 minutes from home, provided steady fishing all season pretty much whenever I wanted it.  No snow.  No ice.  Rising trout daily.

Today the fish rise for several hours on a shallow flat tail-out that everyone else passes by.  The flat is a spring feeding area, with faster current than the slow pools of January and February.  At times there's rings of rises clear across it.  They're not Missouri River sized fish, but cookie cutter 15-16 inchers, give or take.  Browns mostly, with some non-spawning rainbows thrown in.  The fair weather crowds have emerged, so this is my last stint here until late fall.  Well, probably. 

Steady flows, low and not spiking once or twice a day for power.  This has sparked a revitalized dry fly bite.  The fish just seem more comfortable when their world is more stable.  At this flow I can even cross the river at the tail outs.

Knee high and full of fish.

Hanging / Captive / Hatched.