Cold Steel: Chagrin / Haida Gwaii / Michigan City
THE FLY FISHING AUTHORITY
Hit The Salt • Giant Bonefish • Stripers at night • 200-pound tarpon • Permit . . . that eat • Cuda on the flats • Bluefish • the Beachcomber bar
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Features
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019 VOLUME 42 / ISSUE 1
32 WAY OUT IN HAIDA GWAII On this remote island, you are on your own, and often in the rain, while pursuing wild steelhead. —Greg Thomas
H I T T H E S A LT
36 MONSTERS OF THE MOSKITO COAST
These tarpon may top 200 pounds and test an angler’s resolve. —Matt Harris
44 GIANT BONES . . . EVERYWHERE An arduous journey to St. Brandon Atoll places the author in bonefish paradise. —Gary Kramer
50 THE BIG FOUR? Once you throw for cuda, there’s no going back. —Henry Cowen
52 OUT OF THE JUNGLE AND ONTO THE FLATS
Remote, stalking a fourth-quarter permit in Espíritu Santo Bay. —Rip Woodin
58 BACK IN BLOCK Every September, these anglers hit Block Island for stripers, albacore, bluefish, and fun. —Stephen Sautner
At certain times of the day, while fishing Alphonse Island, it’s possible to stand in one place for an hour or more as schools of big bonefish literally encircle you. Who wouldn’t want to be in this angler’s flats booties? Jim Klug photo. Cover: Photographer Nick Price captured a perfect moment, when an angler released a beautiful bone. WWW.AMERICANANGLER.COM
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4 SIGNATURE 6 OUT THERE
Permit, Alaska kings, Skeena steel.
12 HATCHES
Departments JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019 VOLUME 42 / ISSUE 1
You don’t need an exact imitation for every insect. —Dave Hughes
14 PROFILE
Jim Brown and one man’s giant influence on California bass. —Rick McNary
16 GUIDE FLIES
Sanchez’s Convertible can be modified for many situations. —Boots Allen
17 GRASSROOTS
Upper Black River Council, Michigan. —Joshua Bergan
18 MEDIA
Tim Romano’s Stilt Houses of Texas. —Chris Santella
19 EATS & DRINKS
The Beachcomber beckons. —Tom Keer
20 GATE CHECKED: SAC Stripers and wine in Napa. —Greg Vinci
22 DIY: BULKLEY STEEL
Visions of skated flies turn to sinking tips and “tanks” when the water temperature drops. —Chris Santella
24 HISTORY
Early salt anglers learned that flats fishing could involve finesse, too. —Will Ryan
27 PERSONAL HISTORY
Much to My Chagrin. —Andrew J. Pegman
28 CONSERVATION
The Mid-Atlantic Council revisits bluefish allocation. —Charles Witek III
31 PERSONAL HISTORY
Michigan City Surf & Turf. —Mike Tracy
66 FLY TYER : HOOK GAP FOR ®
LARGE TROUT
Want to hang on to large trout? Tie with larger hook gaps. —Scott Sanchez
72 WATERLINES
Don’t be quick to blame the theft of your tying gear on a friend. —Richard Chiappone
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Top Keys guides Bruce Chard and his son B. J. Chard share a big-time moment with a big-time fish. This tarpon, estimated at 150 pounds, took a black bunny pattern just off Big Pine Key. A little while later, the “boys” extracted the hook, posed for a quick shot, and released this beast to fight again. Jeff Edvalds photo. WWW.AMERICANANGLER.COM
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AA
SIGNATURE by Greg Thomas ®
M
Y SALTWATER journey started with an invite to join my father in Marathon, Florida, just to see what salt was like. I was a trout guy with no interest in other species, aside from steelhead and king salmon. But a free trip is a free trip, so I said, “Sure.” Then I packed an 8-weight and got on a plane. Later that day, I was in a fly shop in Marathon, walking the store and wondering what I might need for a day on the water. A kid approached. I told him I could throw line but knew nothing about tarpon or bones, or whatever else was swimming around there. He lined me out with some patterns and told me not to pull the fly toward or across a fish’s snout, adding, “Come back and let me know how you did.” The following morning, we were motoring out of a cut, just a couple hundred yards from the house, when my dad and our friend, who were standing on a flying bridge, said, “Tarpon on the right.” I was soon casting from the stern of a 28-foot cabin cruiser named the Water Lily. And yet, when that Cockroach landed, a fish peeled away from the others, and in seconds I was fast to a tarpon, maybe a 30-pounder. After a photo, I released that fish and said, “Hey, this saltwater thing is pretty cool.” About an hour later, I was hooked up to a permit that, inexplicably, ate that same smallish Cockroach. The following morning, the shop kid asked, and I replied, “Got a tarpon and hooked a permit.” He said, “You didn’t even have any of my best flies—we were sold out!” The following day, he asked the same question and I said, “I couldn’t get the tarpon to eat a Cockroach, so I tied on a Crazy Charlie and jumped three bigs.” He just shook his head. Over several years spent fishing in Marathon for up to a month at a time, I saw things and did things I never would have believed, experiences that seemed exotic and risky compared to my trout fishing in the Rockies. And it was addictive; it wasn’t as though I’d forgotten
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about hike-in trips and those campfires and cutthroats, nor spring fishing for big rainbows on windy lakes and reservoirs, or the nighttime drake hatches on Silver Creek and Trico madness on the Missouri . . . or so many other things that make trout fishing such an awesome thing to do. But the truth is, I considered trading the mountains for Marathon, where I’d buy a flats skiff, rent a shack, and turn out my writing with a saltwater slant. But during one of those trips, my appendix blew, and it wasn’t removed until 12 days later. After a week in Fisherman’s Hospital, I returned to Idaho about 30 pounds lighter and very tired—and somewhere in that mix, I’d lost my desire to pack up and leave. The next year, however, I was back in Marathon on the bow of a cigar-style racing boat (our friend had upgraded from the Water Lily), casting at Bahia Honda Bridge during the palolo worm hatch. During the hatch, our friend repeatedly cut off other boats while racing to pods of rolling tarpon and, in the end, my dad and I simply refused to throw. Our friend shouted, “But it’s our water, too, and you’ve got as much right to these fish as anyone!” That may have been true, but finesse and ethics have always been at the forefront for my dad and I. So the following night, we told our friend we wouldn’t fish at the bridge and would prefer to tool around the flats where nobody else would bother us . . . or be bothered. And what happened? We lucked into that worm hatch on a deserted flat and jumped several tarpon with nobody else watching, one of those unique experiences that, whether found in salt water or fresh water, burns into your memory. I don’t get to fish the salt as often as I’d like, but there’s something I think about often, which is this: Even though you or I may not live near the salt, it is our water, too. And all that separates us from a change of scenery and adventures galore is a plane ride and a few flies. If you haven’t tried salt, because you’re completely sold on trout or some other freshwater species, do yourself a favor and make for the coast. —Greg Thomas
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OUT THERE Location: Saltwater flats near Belize River Lodge and Belize City. Target: Permit Note: After taking shelter on an island during a major thunderstorm, the Becks returned to the flats and found the water flat and the air dead still. They immediately spotted three pods of tailing permit and were lucky enough to hook a fish on a Fleeing Crab—no small task in calm water. Specs Camera: Nikon D4S (handheld with image stabilization) Lens: 70–200 2.8 ISO: 1600 White Balance: Auto Photographer: Barry Beck, barryandcathybeck.com
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OUT THERE Location: Sapsuk River, Alaska Peninsula, outside Nelson Lagoon. Target: King salmon Note: Hoodoo Lodge is one of the best spots on the planet to target fresh-run king salmon on a fly rod. The kings arrive bright silver, strong, and often carrying sea lice, which means they are locked and loaded and ready to fight. The river is easily waded and perfectly designed for Spey casting; but single-hand rods produce well with Teeny 300 and similar sinking lines. The kings range from 15 to 50 pounds, and it’s not unusual to hook several a day between mid-June and mid-July. But they are not easily landed. All kings caught at Hoodoo are released and allowed to continue their spawning run. This particular fish, chrome bright and headed back to the river, weighed about 40 pounds—a real treasure. Specs Canon 1DX Mark II, 1/250 at f/10, ISO 640, Canon 16–35 f/2.8 lens set at 16 mm Photography: patfordphotos.com
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OUT THERE Location: Skeena River, British Columbia. Target: Wild steelhead on a dry fly Note: Dax Messett spent countless hours, over several years, trying to take an elusive mainstem Skeena River steelhead on a dry fly. On this day, this past September, it all came together. Messett hooked his fish, and Eric Jackson handled the netting job. With a solid fish in the net, Jackson’s expression says it all—mission accomplished, and a big night around the fire directly ahead. Specs Nikon D850 body; Nikon 24–70 f/2.8 lens; f/5.6 1/640s; ISO 400 Photographer: Darcy Bacha, bacha.photo
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AA
HEADWATERS / Culture, People, Experiences, Art … and Fish Dogs.
Hatches ALL IMAGES BY DAVID HUGHES
REDUCE THE CLUTTER You don’t need an exact imitation for every insect. by Dave Hughes AFTER A FALL FLY FISHING SHOW IN Salt Lake City, Utah, my wife and I rented a car and spent a few days on the upper Logan River, in the benched stretch that bounds out of the Rockies. It was beautiful up there, and we got into heavy afternoon hatches of size 12 flav duns—just as often called lesser green drakes (Drunella flavilinea)—that caught us by surprise, and for which we had tied no specific flies. I’d just spent a day fishing Slough Creek in Yellowstone, a gentle stream, with Nelson Ishiyama, owner of Henrys Fork Lodge. He’d armed us with size 12 olive Quigley Cripples for an afternoon hatch of Timpanoga hecuba, a close relative of and look-alike to the western green drake. The Timpanoga hatch, which is also reliable on the Lamar River, Soda Butte Creek, and a lot of other streams that I fish often, came off on schedule. An abundance of nice cutthroat trout rose reliably to those cripple patterns. 12 I AMERICAN ANGLER
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When my wife and I ran into flavs on the Logan, I frisked my fly boxes, and my eyes landed on those Quigley Cripples that worked so well on Slough Creek. We tied them to 4X tippets and cast to rainbow and brown trout rising to big duns that were having trouble achieving liftoff. If the trout showed any hesitation about the patterns, we were unable to detect it. In the end, we had several satisfying afternoons, saved by those emergers that were tied, in reality, for neither the Slough Creek Timpanoga nor the Logan River flavs. Bob Quigley first tied the Cripple to fish over May and June hatches of the more famous green drakes (Drunella grandis). I’ve found that the pattern works wonders on trout feeding selectively on rivers as disparate as the brawling Deschutes in Oregon and Idaho’s placid Henrys Fork. None of those trout, as it turns out, has studied any entomology or learned any Latin. Not one can distinguish between a grandis, a flavilinea, and
If you pick a pattern style that matches olive mayflies, say the olive Sparkle Dun (top) or olive Parachute (bottom), and tie it in a range of sizes from 10 to 20, you’ll have hatches covered from tiny BWOs through midsize flavs to the largest western green drakes.
a Timpanoga. Those duns are all the same shape, similar in size, and close enough in color that you can average them out with a single fly pattern, and trout will never notice the difference. A season later, I was wadered up and puzzled in Pennsylvania’s Penns Creek, faced with trout nipping at size 14 Hendricksons, a hatch that has never happened on any of my more familiar western streams. I had no clue what to do until I searched my boxes and noticed those same flies tied for the western green drakes. They were not an exact match, in my eyes, but they were close enough to fool a satisfying supply of fairly snotty brown trout. If you carry a green drake dressing in sizes 12 and 14, whether the Quigley WWW.AMERICANANGLER.COM
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Cripple or an olive Sparkle Dun, or an even more imitative green Paradrake, you’ll be able to match all sorts of somewhat large and largely olive mayflies wherever they emerge. You’re almost certain to run into one or another of them in a season spent on water. You’re also almost certain not to know in advance which one it might be. Concentrating on a suitable and versatile pattern is a way to quell the tangle in your fly boxes while assuring some success. The same focus works even better for the ubiquitous BWO, the famous mayfly genus Baetis with 21 species occurring in North America. Match those on an individual basis, and you’d need a couple of caddies trotting along in your backcast area, toting your fly boxes. Tie an olive Sparkle Dun or olive Parachute Dun in sizes 16, 18, and 20, with the color that every materials manufacturer lists as BWO, and you’ll do fine wherever you find them, which in my experience is everywhere in the world of fly fishing for trout. If you run into situations in which those flies fail, they’ll be on heavily attended waters, such as Idaho’s Henrys Fork and Silver Creek, or Montana’s Bighorn and Missouri, all with wrinkle-free surfaces. You might need something more specific for BWOs on those waters. But you’d also be crazy not to stop at the fly shop nearest to any famous river, buy a few of whatever is working at the moment, and probe for useful advice that helps you entice some local trout to those flies. I’ve also been fishing a famous stillwater hatch, the speckle-wing dun (Callibaetis in several species) for many years out of what I call my “March brown” fly box. All the flies in it are tied for that widespread stream and river insect (Rhithrogena morrisoni and R. hageni). But the speckle-wings are so similar in shape, size, and color that it makes no sense to tie separate sets of flies, and to carry them in two fly boxes rather than one. I carry mostly March brown Sparkle Duns and Parachutes, but you can tie whatever style fly you prefer for the one, and without much doubt, it will work for the other. Caddisfly adults, in their hundreds of WWW.AMERICANANGLER.COM
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(Above) The old and reliable Elk-Hair Caddis, tied in sizes 12 to 16, in colors tan, brown, and gray, covers nearly any caddis hatch you ever encounter. If you’re fishing smooth water, you can always clip the hackle to settle the body into the surface film. (Right) Carrying a condensed set of flies allows you to fish an increased number of hatches, not fewer, and might get you opportunities to hold more trout like this Rocky Ford Creek rainbow, caught in Washington State.
species, are an even riper field than mayflies when condensing patterns. They’re all the same down-wing shape, from size 22 microcaddis to size 4 October caddis. Most can be matched with a single pattern style, tied in three color combinations: olive bodies with gray wings, cream bodies with tan wings, and orange-brown bodies with brown wings. If you choose a caddis style, tie it in those three colors, and carry it in the central range of sizes: 12, 14, and 16. You might fail to match hatches on the caddisfly periphery, but you’ll find a fly acceptable to 70 or 80 percent of trout feeding selectively on one caddis species or another. I’ve found Hanss Weillenmann’s CDC & Elk most useful on the wide variety of water types that I fish, but you might prefer something else. The standard and reliable Elk-Hair Caddis can be tied in the same colors and range of sizes, or you might fish rougher water and desire a collar-hackled style. It’s worth remember-
ing that you can take nippers to a pattern with hackle and convert it quickly—with water surging around your wadered legs and trout thumbing their noses at whatever you’re tossing to them—into something more imitative. For example, if your preferred pattern is the high-floating Elk Hair, you can clip the hackle off the underside and in an instant have a dressing that floats with its body flush in the surface film, just like a natural caddis. Solving the stonefly clutter is easy. You need size 6 and 8 dark salmonflies, size 8 and 10 golden stones, and size 14 and 16 Yellow Sallies in most regions. Beyond that, tie something specific only if you run into a troubling little brown stone or olive sally hatch. You probably won’t. I prefer the simple Foam Stone for all of them, but you can choose any style your trout like. By matching more than one hatch with the same set of flies, you can greatly lighten the load you carry to the stream, which is something you’ll like. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019 I 13
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AA
HEADWATERS
Profile RICK MCNARY
Jim Brown One man’s giant influence on Southern California bass. By Rick McNary
JIM BROWN IS KNOWN AS THE LAKE Boy, a moniker he received when he was 12 and working at Lake Sutherland, one of 10 lakes managed by Southern California’s San Diego County Lakes system. Brown, a San Diego native, grew up fishing with his dad, an angler with a reputation for catching fish when and where no one else could. While working at the lake, Brown carved out a room at the Lake Sutherland store, which he shared with Pistol, a stray dog that wandered up to the lake and stayed. Pistol, on one occasion, killed a rattlesnake in midair as it lunged at Brown’s leg. “A fellow just kind of gets attached to a dog like that,” Brown said when I interviewed him last year. “I shared my bed with him and his fleas.” Brown became deeply immersed in all aspects of the San Diego County Lakes system; by 19, he was a lake manager for Lower Otay Lake; by the time he was 28, he was tapped as a manager for all 10 lakes in the system, a position he would maintain and cherish for nearly 40 years, a position that allowed him to heavily influence the future of those fisheries, in14 I AMERICAN ANGLER
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cluding the introduction of Florida-strain largemouth bass, and the preservation of California’s northern strain.
The Florida Influence “In the 1950s, there were three guys fishing on Lake Henshaw, and the subject of bass came up,” Brown said. “One guy was Ray Boone, a professional baseball player who wondered why the bass he caught in Florida during spring training were bigger than the ones he caught in the San Diego Lakes. The question was this: Is it the genetic nature of the Florida strain that allows it to grow larger than the San Diego area’s northern strain? Or is it the conditions of the environment they live in?” Oroville Ball, the lake manager at the time, was in the boat with Boone that day, and that conversation started a lengthy process to stock some of the San Diego Lakes with the Florida strain. The project began with Upper Otay in 1959, and it wasn’t long before Ball and Brown—and everyone else—understood that genetics were the chief influencer of size. Soon, Florida-strain largemouths
Jim Brown hoists a giant Lake Miramar bass. This fish, known as the Zimmerlee Bass, was caught by Bruce Smith—on a Zebco 100 spin rod and a worm—in 1973. Several anglers saw this bass floundering and speculated that it might not have been taken fairly. Smith said he saw the bass floundering, dropped a worm close to the bass, saw its mouth close, and set the hook. Then he reeled in the 20-pound-15-ounce monster.
were introduced to the other lakes, except Barrett. To this day, Barrett contains the northern strain only, which is considered more aggressive and easier to catch than its Florida-strain cousin.
The Opening of Lake Barrett “Barrett was open until 1966, but the road leading to the lake was treacherous,” Brown said. “It was only a one-lane road, and in places, the drop-off along the sides was seven hundred feet. Basically, the sheriff’s office and the emergency responders told the county they didn’t want to go up there anymore, because it was too dangerous and costly.” During the lake’s closure, poachers were frequent visitors. There was one report of a poacher landing an ultralight airplane with pontoons on the lake. WWW.AMERICANANGLER.COM
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RICK MCNARY
“A game warden caught one poacher with a backpack filled with a hundred sixty bass fillets,” Brown said. “That’s eighty fish caught by just one guy.” Still, the fishery persevered. Over time, local anglers’ and fishing clubs’ support for reopening Barrett convinced Brown and the lakes committee that the time was right. With Brown’s influence, Barrett reopened in October 1994. “There were a lot of hurdles to jump in the process,” Brown said. “The cooperation of the San Diego Water Utilities Department, the San Diego Lakes Committee, and the California Fish and Game Department created a plan to allow limited fishing with restrictive measures.” Chief among those hurdles was access. The dangerous old road was not an option to access the lake, so negotiating with a private landowner was necessary. That responsibility fell to Brown, whose considerable skills in working with the public had gained him the reputation of being fair and honest. Another concern was protecting Barrett’s northern strain of bass. “We approached the Fish and Game department and asked that Barrett would be a no-kill fishery,” Brown said. And that’s what he got: “In addition to it being catchand-release, you can only fish certain times of the year, and only a certain number of anglers are allowed on the water at a time.” The season is May through September, and anglers must apply for dates through the San Diego Lakes Ticketmaster system. The lake is open on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays only. “Another obstacle we ran into was the placement of a boat ramp,” Brown said. “We had the funds, but the only place that made sense to put it was also the site of Native American ruins. We went back to the drawing board and decided to do it like we did in the old days, when few people even owned boats. Most guys at least owned a small motor, so the lakes would keep a small supply of boats available to rent, but you had to bring your own motor. Then we decided to rent boats with motors, and that’s still how you get on the lake, unless you want to do WWW.AMERICANANGLER.COM
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it by float tube. There is no boat ramp.” For more than 40 years, Brown’s philosophy as a resource manager was this: You can’t be all things to all people in the same place at the same time. “When you manage only one lake, it is difficult to accommodate all the needs, so you have to resort to zone and time management. You say, ‘Okay, X arm of the lake will be open for Y purpose’ or ‘You can do X on this lake during the time of Y.’ I had ten lakes to assign certain activities to. For example, you can ski on San Vicente, but you can’t on Barrett. When we opened Upper Otay for float tube only, it looked like a bowl of Cheerios. The quality of experience is paramount in our decision-making process. We didn’t want someone waterskiing worrying about running into a guy trolling for trout.” That management philosophy has paid dividends—the International Game Fish Association credits five of the top seven fly-caught largemouth bass as having come from Southern California lakes. Local anglers know who deserves most of the credit for that success. A local fly fisher, Bruce Smith, who recently caught 76 largemouths in an eight-hour day on Barrett, said, “[Brown] is a reminder of how important it is to have people in positions who care about people as well as the natural resources. It seems like access to water is becoming more difficult, and the need for leaders like [Brown] is greater now than ever before.” Brown is now retired but still gives an occasional tour of San Diego County, something this writer highly recommends. One of the stops on my tour was Lake Sutherland, the place Brown learned to work with people; he utilized its lessons while managing 10 different lakes for nearly 40 years. Somewhere on the property are the bones of his old friend Pistol. One can’t help but believe that the most important lessons he ever learned came from a stray dog that made Brown his home: the love of the outdoors and the virtue of loyalty. Check out more of Rick McNary’s work at rickmcnary.me.
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AA
HEADWATERS
Guide Flies
The Convertible By Boots Allen
The Convertible
HOOK: Dai-Riki 300 or equivalent, size 8 to 14. THREAD: Tan, black, or brown 6/0. UNDERTAIL: Moose mane or elk hair. BODY: Tan or Hexagenia dubbing. RIB: Brown tying thread. LEGS: Brown, black, or gray Centipede Legs, size to match hook. TRUDE WING: White EP Fibers or calftail. FRONT WING: White EP Fibers or calf tail. HACKLE: Grizzly and brown.
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THE CONVERTIBLE IS ANOTHER top-notch creation from the vise of Scott Sanchez. The pattern gained fame in the Jackson Hole One Fly Contest when Bob Slamal fished it to perfection, producing one of the highest ever one-day point totals. By choosing the Convertible, he was able to match various insects and stages of hatches while many other anglers were stuck with mimicking a specific insect or event. This fly is constructed with specific materials that can be trimmed away when desired, to form completely different imitations—it can, literally, be fished throughout an entire day and modified as hatches change. In my opinion, it is one of the most inventive designs ever to come from a vise. The Convertible starts out as a large attractor in the tradition of Guy Turck’s Tarantula or a foam-wing Chernobyl Ant. In this form, it can imitate early-morning stoneflies, such as Claassenia, and be used to prospect for opportunistic trout feeding early in the day. Later in the morning, the legs and foam wing can be trimmed away to produce a smaller Trude. This version of the Convertible resembles a grasshopper or can just be fished as a low-profile stonefly. When mayflies begin to emerge, later in the day, the Trude wing can be trimmed away to form a Wulff. If surface action slows in the afternoon, the Wulff wing can be trimmed away, along with the hackle, to create a general attractor nymph. Split shot, beads, or a degreasing agent can be applied to the leader to sink the nymph version of the Convertible. While spring, summer, and autumn are the obvious times to fish the Convertible, there can be decent action in winter as well. A size 14 or 16 version can be used to imitate the tiny black winter stones that populate many trout streams, and then trimmed down to the Wulff pattern to match blue-winged olives. If surface action comes to an end in late afternoon, the nymph version can be used to fish riffles, seams, and bankside troughs. It may be winter right now, but it’s time to tie a couple dozen Convertibles for the upcoming season. When hatches change rapidly, and other anglers search for a correct match in their boxes, you’ll be happy to have this versatile pattern at your disposal. WWW.AMERICANANGLER.COM
11/12/18 11:55 AM
Grassroots
By Joshua Bergan THE BLACK RIVER HOSTS ONE OF Michigan’s best wild brook trout fisheries. In an effort to maintain this important stronghold, governments, sportsmen’s groups, and landowners came together to form the Upper Black River Council in 1993. I spoke to Chairperson Carol Rose about the UBRC’s continuing efforts. Q: Why should anglers care about the Upper Black River? A: Brook trout and access to brook trout. The Upper Black River is unique [among] all other rivers in Michigan’s
Lower Peninsula; it is exclusively managed for its naturally reproducing brook trout fishery. No rainbows or brown trout [live in] the waters of the Upper Black. The Upper Black flows through vast acres of the wild Pigeon River Country State Forest, providing access points up and down the riparian corridor. Q: If you could go back in time and change just one thing that would make a difference in the Upper Black River watershed, what would it be? A: Build better road/stream crossings (RSX). Because the Upper Black flows through so much undeveloped land, the roads within the system tend to be unpaved. Historically, many of the RSX were created using sometimes rather minimalist techniques (undersized culverts, limited control of sediment runoff into the stream, etc.). Since its inception in 1993, the UBRC and its collaborative partners
have worked together on replacing the worst offenders in the watershed with proper engineering and construction techniques that save many tons of sediment from loading into the river. Q: What is the biggest threat to the Upper Black River watershed? A: Uncertainties associated with possible removal of downstream hydroelectric dams. There are currently three such dams at the north end of the river. The northernmost blocks Great Lakes lamprey from getting into the watershed. This is critical to the Black River and Black Lake, which is home to the endangered inland lake sturgeon. Should one or both of the other two be removed, it would provide access to the upper reaches of the Black River to more aggressive warm- and cool-water fish species, completely changing the uniqueness of this brook trout fishery.”
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JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019 I 17
11/15/18 11/14/18 11:11 9:05 AM
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Stilt Houses of Texas 2 4 0 PA G E S ; $ 7 5 • B Y T I M R O M A N O A N D M I C H A E L J . M E D R A N O LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION is the tired (yet often true) mantra of real estate agents. It’s also applicable to domiciles for saltwater anglers. I’ve booked more than one trip at a “strategically situated” lodge only to find on the first day of fishing that it was a minimum 40-minute run to the first wadable flat, often across choppy bays that left me wondering if I’d need a new kidney. Along the Texas coast—379 miles as the pelican flies from Galveston to Laguna Madre, but over 3,300 miles if you’re poling every nook and cranny—fishermen found a way to provide themselves with a modicum of comfort and easy access to the best fishing grounds, in the shape of stilt houses. Stilt houses are just what they sound like—freestanding structures set upon stilts in the midst of marshes or bays. Some are elaborate, with solar power, cable television, and air-conditioning. Others provide little more than partial shelter from squalls and the blistering sun. At one time, more than 900 stilt houses (also called cabins, bay houses, squatter’s 18 I AMERICAN ANGLER
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shacks . . . and much worse) dotted the Texas coast. In 1973, the Coastal Public Lands Management Act was enacted in part to lay claim to these structures that had been erected on public lands without permission. Currently, some 400 stilt houses remain, administered by the Texas General Land Office. Permit-holders for each house lease their cabins for five-year terms; commercial activity is prohibited. Stilt houses—and their often crusty denizens—are celebrated in a stout (and beautifully printed) coffee table book—by photographer Tim Romano and stilt-house aficionado and writer Michael J. Medrano—titled Stilt Houses of Texas. Anyone who’s perused a fly fishing periodical in the last 15 years has seen the work of Romano, who has carved a niche, making images that focus on the fly fishing lifestyle, those long moments in between the grip-and-grins. “Mike contacted me out of the blue, as he knew of my fly fishing work and love of the Texas coast,” Romano said. “He wanted to celebrate the cabin culture,
having recently secured his own cabin lease. Between the two of us, we had many contacts on the coast who could make introductions and facilitate our visit.” Romano and Medrano spent more than 100 hours motoring up and down the coast in a Maverick skiff over two weeks, some days running over 80 miles. (There’s that kidney ache again!) Overall, Romano shot 17,000 images to yield the stocky book’s 300-plus color photos, which range from dramatic 30-inch spreads of poling anglers to telling closeups of cabin decor and inhabitants. GPS coordinates and Permitted Cabin numbers are included for each dwelling. Is there a common characteristic for Texas stilt houses? “The stilts are the only common theme,” Romano said. “And maybe a barbecue. Another unifying theme is a love of fishing. If you had a stilt house lease and didn’t fish, you’d be considered a weirdo.”—Chris Santella Visit stilthouses.com for more information. WWW.AMERICANANGLER.COM
11/9/18 10:35 AM
Eats & Drinks
LUKE SIMPSON
The Beachcomber By Tom Keer
NIGHTS FOLLOWING A LENGTHY stint at the Beachcomber bar may leave anglers with hazy recollections. But I remember one night as if it were yesterday. It was over a decade ago, when I eased my rust bucket Jeep CJ-5 to the split rail fence at the Beachcomber. Here I looked over the Cape Cod ocean that connected with Cahoon Hollow Beach. Low tide during the day is the best time to scout for a night-fishing sortie, and the spring tides were enormous; every remaining drop of water was sucked out to sea, revealing every bar, ocean hole, and rip current. I hadn’t planned to fish for nine hours, but a flock of gulls and terns dive-bombed the crease near a bull-nosed bar. Large tails, wider than a kayak paddle, swatted the surface—a pod of big bass slurping sand eels like oysters on the half shell. I grabbed a rod and raced down the dunes, sidestepping neatly built sandcastles and a wayward volleyball. I quickly pitched a 30-foot cast. It swung into the current momentarily and then came tight. Twenty minutes later, I had a 22-pounder on the sand. “Nice fish!” yelled a guy from his beach chair. “Thanks,” I said. “I got dinner covered.” “Me, too,” he said, and pulled a 30-pounder from his cooler. Buy that man a beer. And because we were at the Beachcomber, I did. All we had to do was walk up the dunes to the parking lot, drop off my fish and rod in the Jeep, and walk inside. It couldn’t have been easier. Life is always easy at the Beachcomber in Wellfleet, Massachusetts. Its simplicity has made it a coastal institution for over 40 years. Bartenders, cooks, and waitstaff are long tenured.. They could work other places, but the real question is, Why would they? What can beat the sound of waves crashing in the background, the smell of salt and coconut oil in the air, WWW.AMERICANANGLER.COM
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and a cold beer or a frozen drink in hand? The Beachcomber offers an unparalleled beach vibe that fly rodders can’t find in places with high-rises. These backside beaches are pristine, and they’re as free of development now as they were in 1961. That’s when the native son, President John F. Kennedy, created the national seashore and protected 68.1 miles of some of the best fishing on Cape Cod. A glance from the Beachcomber’s parking lot, in either direction, reveals nothing but miles of pure yellow sand, surf, water, and fish. Bikinis and six-packs, too. Nautical decor from the late 1800s hangs from the Beachcomber’s century-plus-year-old beams. General Manager Dan Murray works the 5 p.m. to closing shift, the way he has since his arrival in 1991. “After opening a number of bars and restaurants in Boston, I came down here for a change,” he said. “The ’Comber is so much fun that I just stayed. Most of the customers are repeats, so every night it’s like old home week. I’m a fisherman: Where else could I catch bass and blues during the day and then walk up the dune to work? “During the day, the crowds are mostly families—but at night, the Beachcomber turns into a big party,” Murray said. “We host live bands every night during summer. Some bands are local, others are national, and the music ranges from
blues to reggae; other times we have DJs, rock, funk, blues . . . you name it. “Twenty years ago, folks were just interested in partying,” he said, “but nowadays, we’re becoming well known for our food. The raw bar is a huge hit, mostly because our oysters, littlenecks, and cherrystones come from a few miles away. They’re freshly dug every day. Lobster rolls, steamers, and clam chowder are always popular, and don’t miss out on the buffalo wings. Most folks think they’re the best in Massachusetts.” The Beachcomber is only a few miles from my house, so naturally, it gets my vote for a post-fishing stop. Judging from the ’Comber’s dozens of awards, there’s no local bias here. In fact, Esquire magazine voted the Beachcomber “one of the best bars in America,” and the Travel Channel ranked it number 10 in its list of “sexiest beach bars in the world.” You be the judge. Fishing is the backbone of Cape Cod. There are the rocks along the Elizabeth Islands, the salt ponds in the Upper Cape, the flats around Chatham and Brewster, and the beaches and rips all along the way. The Beachcomber is never far from any of ’em, so when you’re done fishing for the day, or you’re scouting for a night mission, take the time to visit. When you arrive, be sure to call it the ’Comber. Only visitors use the full name. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019 I 19
11/14/18 9:05 AM
AA
HEADWATERS
Gate Checked: SAC
Stripers Wine
&
IN NAPA
IT WAS A TYPICAL RUSH HOUR ON Sacramento’s I-80; I was just trying to survive bumper-to-bumper traffic and idiots in fast little cars. I heard the faint but recognizable sound of quacking ducks, which meant one thing—I had a call on my mobile. To extract the device from a deep pocket, I would somehow have to squeeze my hand under a tight seat belt while steering with the other hand, all while keeping my eyes peeled for cops. I managed that task and was soon talking with a friend, Brian, who said he would fly into Sacramento that Friday and stay for a business meeting on Monday. He wanted me to point him toward some fun for the weekend, all within an hour of the airport. My brain quickly calculated . . . he loves wine, he loves fly fishing. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to come up with a location for his base camp: Napa. When I told him my suggestion, there was silence. Then he said, “I love the grape, but fly fishing?” I explained that the Napa River flows through town and is one of the best striped bass fisheries in California. That got his attention, and after another short pause, he said, “Book it.” I did so,with Capt. Patrick MacKenzie, who lives in Napa and has guided on the river for several years. He told us to meet him at the Cuttings Wharf boat launch, just south of town, on Saturday morning. I picked Brian up on Friday afternoon and headed southwest on I-80. In 20 I AMERICAN ANGLER
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By Greg Vinci an hour, we’d booked a hotel along the Riverfront Promenade in downtown Napa, just a stone’s throw from the river. We dumped our stuff in a hotel room and set out for Riverfront Promenade, which follows the river for several miles. After passing under the Third Street Bridge, we spied an inconspicuous-looking watering hole called Downtown Joe’s. We sat down, only to find that it was a brew pub, which didn’t serve Brian very well. But we were so hungry, we said, the hell with it, and asked for menus. After some great burgers and too many beers, we headed back to the hotel and hit the sack—we were due at the dock at 6 a.m. When we arrived, MacKenzie was patiently waiting. After introductions, we hopped in and were off. During a quick run to the fishing grounds, MacKenzie told us that many of his clients are “boutique refugees,” meaning men who travel with their wives and need a break from shopping. South of the city, the river is marshy and flows slowly through a delta and a maze of tule-choked sloughs. Eventually it empties into San Pablo Bay, which is the northern arm of San Francisco Bay. This area is a nursery for juvenile striped bass. Larger, adult stripers spend much of the year in the ocean before entering the river in fall to feed on baitfish. September can provide good fishing, especially after upriver rains, but the fishing really perks in mid- to late October. Many of these fish overwinter and spawn during spring.
Traveling anglers can land in Sacramento and sip wine or fish striped bass (or do both) within an hour of touchdown.
They range between 18 and 30 inches long and hang in the river for an extended period, longer than other Northern California striper populations typically spend in fresh water. After a 15-minute ride, MacKenzie cut the throttle and coasted within 50 feet of a pair of large pipes spewing water into the river. He fired up the trolling motor and positioned the boat sideways to the current, so each of us could cast without tangling up or impaling the other’s ear WWW.AMERICANANGLER.COM
11/8/18 11:42 AM
Logistics Getting There Sacramento International Airport serves much of Northern California outside of the Bay Area. It is served by most major airlines.
Best Time for Trophy Stripers During May and June, adult stripers enter the river to spawn. They enter again, following baitfish, from late September through November, and often hold over until spring. During the rest of the year, smaller juvenile stripers abound.
Gear A 9-foot, 8-weight rod rigged with a 10-foot shooting head works well. A fast-sink integrated shooting head is a good choice, too. For flies, Clouser Minnows work well. Tie them on 1/0 or 2/0 hooks in chartreuse and white or brown and white.
Lodging
with a size 1/0 hook. We fished 9-foot, 8-weight rods rigged with shooting heads and Clouser Minnows. Brian made three perfect casts to the outlet, and after a four-second count, he stripped the line five times and paused. To no avail. But on his fourth cast, the rod bent and he played a 20-inch striper to the boat. Within a few minutes, I’d done the same. After catching a few more in the same size range, MacKenzie fired up the engine. Over the next four hours, we stopped at every pipe and pump and caught fish after fish, almost all of them being keepers, meaning fish over 18 inches. The largest fish we landed stretched to 23 inches. We WWW.AMERICANANGLER.COM
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released all the fish we caught. By noon, we’d made our way upstream to downtown Napa’s Third Street Bridge, where Brian caught a 16-incher. The fragrance of simmering garlic and olive oil wafted from restaurant vents along the Riverfront Promenade, telling us it was time to dock the boat and get some lunch. After three large plates of frutti di mare, and a bottle of chardonnay (MacKenzie was the designated driver), we headed back to Cuttings Wharf and called it a day. The next time you’re landing in Sacramento, you might book a day on the water and learn for yourself how good this striper fishing can be.
Lodging abounds in Napa. Booking a room downtown makes sense so you’re close to Cuttings Wharf.
Dining According to MacKenzie, you can’t go wrong with these: The Kitchen Door www.kitchendoornapa.com and Mango www.mangoonmain.com.
Guides MacKenzie on the Fly Patrick MacKenzie (707) 721-6700 mackenzieonthefly@gmail.com
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019 I 21
11/14/18 9:05 AM
MIKE MARCUS
DIY
Getting “tanky” on British Columbia’s Bulkley. By Chris Santella
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E
arlier this year, one of my steelheading friends turned 60. Given his youthful indiscretions, this was a milestone to be celebrated; when asked what he’d like to do, he didn’t hesitate—fish northern British Columbia’s Bulkley River, renowned for its free-rising steelhead, ever eager to grab a skated offering. A lodge was not in our budget, nor was it the group’s inclination. We like to do it ourselves, if possible. So after months of planning, packing lists, one canceling angler, revised planning, and more fine-tuned packing, we were off on the 950-mile drive from Portland, Oregon, to the village of Telkwa, on the banks of the Bulkley. I am not known for my detailed pre-trip planning, but took special pains to be ready for this adventure. Several nights before leaving, I assembled all my skating and dry steelhead flies on the dining room table, pinched the barbs, and sorted them in the one fly box I planned to take along. I also added a few smaller hair-wing patterns so I could go back to those fish that had revealed themselves to my skater and pick them up with the wet. WWW.AMERICANANGLER.COM
11/9/18 10:38 AM
(Just one fly box? you might say. As a seasoned Atlantic salmon and steelhead angler once told me, you need only two flies for success with anadromous fish: one is “Confidence,” the other “Doesn’t Matter.”) But the night before our departure, I dropped a Skagit head and a few sinking-tips into my dry bag, as well as a small wallet of winter patterns. It’s always good to be prepared.
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hen we arrived at the Walcott put-in on a Monday morning, the Bulkley was brilliantly clear and seemingly well suited to the surface presentations we’d envisioned for the last nine months. However, it seemed a bit cold. Undeterred, I tied on a Strung-Out Skater, a pattern that proved very reliable on the Deschutes, and began quartering casts downstream at the first run below the Walcott Bridge. No takers. This was the case as we fished several more promising runs that morning. When my raft passed our coconspirators, Tim, the birthday boy, said he’d measured the water temperature at 44 degrees. (It had been 55 the previous week, before 10 inches of snow fell in the surrounding mountains!) A little farther along, we floated alongside an amiable solo angler with a thick Quebecois accent, two bamboo Spey rods, and a handsome white dog. My raft mate, Mike, commented on the water clarity. “Yes,” the stranger replied. “It helps you see the deep spots in this low, cold water.” Deep spots? Low, cold water? We passed this angler several times that day as he fished rather nondescript water—not the typical tops of runs we fixated on. On several occasions, he was playing fish. Beyond one fish that took my fly as it dangled below me near a ledge, then spun the reel several revolutions and came unbuttoned, we had no encounters. Passing us toward the end of the day, our fellow angler casually mentioned that he’d hooked eight fish. I was left thinking that his dog likely outfished us as well. That night, we compared notes. Three anglers in Raft 2 had done slightly better than us, with one angler—who’d swapped his floating line for a 10-foot T8 tip by midday—hooking two fish and landing one. Not a terrible day by Lower 48 standards, but we were five decent rods fishing the Bulkley, one of the jewels of the Skeena River system. Summer-run fish should be more aggressive, I figured. Five visiting anglers should have at least reached half the output of one local angler. The French-accented fisherman’s words drifted back over WWW.AMERICANANGLER.COM
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dinner. The water was low and cold. Deep water, it had been implied, was good. These were conditions we’d experienced on more than a few occasions on the John Day and Grande Ronde Rivers back in Eastern Oregon, when balmy early-fall conditions suddenly gave way to wintry weather. It was time for tanks—slower, deeper water that we’d skip during warmer, higher water conditions, but where steelhead seemed to feel comfortable when the water and temperatures were low. Floating from the Quick put-in on Tuesday, we bypassed several riffle runs, scouting for the “tanky” water where we suspected fish would hold. We soon came upon such a spot, and a few minutes in, Mike’s Hardy reel was screaming with the first of two fish that came to a red tube fly on a T8 tip. It was a broadshouldered buck that we estimated at 12 pounds, a true test on Mike’s 7-weight. We were on to something.
F
or the next three days, as we floated different sections of the Bulkley and Morice, we focused exclusively on deeper, slower water. We’d float over the most promising sections to see if meaningful structure was present; where we found slowmoving water six to eight feet deep and either boulders or ledges, we were almost sure to encounter fish.Those without structure tended not to produce. My Strung-Out Skater was swapped out for a T10 tip and an unweighted purple Hobo Spey. Mike and I cast out at almost 90 degrees to get our flies a bit deeper. It was winter-style fishing in fall, not so aesthetically pleasing as throwing a dry line. But the violent grabs of those Morice fish more than compensated for any stylistic compromises. By the end of the week, Mike had hooked 15 fish; I’d hooked 12; the last two days, we each hooked 9. Our companions in Raft 2 did not fare quite so well. It may well have been luck, but I sensed they weren’t fishing deep enough or slow enough. On the last day of our trip, we pulled into a tank that had proved fruitful the previous day. Our French-accented friend was across the river, and came up empty while Mike hooked and landed another bright buck that cleared the river three times, the crash of its riverine return resounding against the far bank. Later, our friend passed us and called out, “Who got the big one?” If it hadn’t been for his advice, it likely wouldn’t have been either of us. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019 I 23
10/30/18 9:27 AM
AA
HISTORY by Will Ryan
Salt in the Blood The beginnings of saltwater fishing in America.
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ITH ITS FUSION of power and finesse, salt water has been fly fishing’s frontier for a generation. And the rush to sea shows no signs of slowing down. However, that enthusiasm wasn’t always present. There was a time when fly fishing defined itself by delicacy and restraint—impossible in the wind and sand and surf. Sometimes it’s a wonder fly fishing ever left the truck.
Do What Now? The power came first—not of the fish, but of their environs. Here is Robert Barnwell Roosevelt, fly fishing aficionado, writing about striper fishing’s elemental appeal in 1865: “Danger never deterred a sportsman, but rather seems to enhance his enjoyment; and there is just sufficient risk and enough cold water to make fishing from the rocks a pleasurable excitement . . . and the peril is more than counterbalanced by the sport. Occasionally, at these times, a fisherman will be lost, but more frequently he will capture the gigan gigantic fish that has been the ambition of his
life; and if he does perish, it is in a good cause, and he has the sympathies of all his ardent brothers of the angle.” Few fly fishers picked up such a gauntlet. Some intrepid souls fly fished the lagoons and flats. For example, James Henshall, of black bass fame, caught sea trout, snook, jack crevalle, and baby tarpon on flies, as he described in Camping and Cruising in Florida (1884). Most anglers believed saltwater fly fishing possibilities to be limited, however. In Basses, Freshwater and Marine (1905), for example, coauthor Tarleton Bean noted that, “Artificial flies are available for striped-bass fishing in fresh or brackish water only.” If you were deranged enough to try to catch a striper on a fly rod, bigger versions of brook trout flies were the go-to patterns. As Bean explained, “Trolling the fly is sometimes the only effectual method.”
Denizen Dreams Basically, that is where saltwater fly fishing stood at the turn of the century. But the 19th-century fascination with the sublime of an ocean death became a 20th-century
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fascination with creatures that haunted its depths. The idea of expanding sport to include the pursuit of the largest creatures on the planet was certainly in the air, with African adventures blowing up the outdoor press as former President Roosevelt, Carl Akeley, and others returned with some serious stories to tell. The first wave of saltwater angling writers made the most of the parallels, as in Zane Grey’s description of a leaping sailfish: “He would shoot up, wag his head, his sail spread like the ears of a mad elephant.” The union of trophy and the feathers centered upon the fish that would become known as the “silver king.” The man who ushered the tarpon into the fly fishing imagination was A. W. Dimock, a wild and crazy ex-businessman, suited to the rambunctious fish he pursued. As Jerry Gibbs notes in his rich series of articles on the history of saltwater fishing in The American Fly Fisher, Dimock made and lost a fortune at least three times. After his family was evicted following a lean spell, he lit out for Florida and got to know up close and personal every wild creature imaginable, from pirates and panthers
FISHING MUSEUM OF FLY
Early on, finesse was associated with fly fishing, and trout were associated with finesse. But when anglers started thinking of saltwater species as big game targets, tarpon fishing quickly caught on, with impressive results. WWW.AMERICANANGLER.COM
11/9/18 10:39 AM
to manatees and sharks. But tarpon were his favorite, and he wrote two influential books on them, Florida Enchantments (1908) and The Book of the Tarpon (1911). Dimock swam with the fishes—literally. He frequently found himself in a submerged canoe or attached to a 100-pound tarpon that might fly over his head. He may have been the first fly fisher with his own personal photographer, his son Julian. The results were spectacular pictures of ferocious battles in shallow-water settings, with Dimock perched in the same canoes used by trout fishermen of the day.
From Armchair to Shoreline One angler in particular carried on Dimock’s mission to spread the gospel on tarpon—George Bonbright. He wrote in a 1929 article that “in The Book of the Tarpon, Mr. Dimock tells thrilling tales of big and little fish taken on the fly. Being an ardent fly fisherman for salmon and trout, I was tremendously interested in everything I could learn on this subject.” That he did. Thanks to Bonbright and others, such as Tom Loving in Chesapeake Bay, the methods of fly fishing for saltwater game fish moved forward. Florida in particular had vast shallows, multiple alternative species, and big tarpon—all of which drew interest and allowed fly fishing technique to evolve. A good example is Bonbright’s article in the August 1933 issue of Field & Stream, titled “Fly Rod Tarpon.” Anglers of the day had rudimentary, at best, terminal tackle. Bonbright’s innovation, as it were, involved tying a wire leader straight to the line. And it held. After a fight that lasted nearly two hours, he landed a 136-pound fish. “When we finally got the gaff into him, he hadn’t a kick left,” Bonbright wrote. “To be perfectly honest about it, I was in much the same condition.” It is tempting to wonder, aside from Bonbright, who cared? After all, the article appeared at the very bottom of the Great Depression, with a third of the labor force unemployed. Only the wealthiest readers could hop on a plane for a spot of tarpon fishing. But all readers could go there in their imaginations, and apply the trophy hopes to the fishing close at hand. Sometimes inventions, techniques, inWWW.AMERICANANGLER.COM
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novations stuck. New Englanders Harold Gibbs and his brother, for example, dealt with the gasoline shortages of WWII by curtailing their salmon fishing adventures in Canada and fishing next door in the surf, as writer Bob Veverka explained in a story about innovative saltwater flies. Those experiences led Harold Gibbs to invent the Gibbs Bucktail—probably the first striper imitation—to imitate the silversides baitfish that filled the shorelines. If you want to hang your hat on any one innovation that marks the beginning of today’s striped bass craze, that could well be it.
Smile for the Camera If saltwater fly fishing entered our consciousness in the years before 1947, it became real in the post–World War II era, with a great expansion of mass culture, both televised and print, to say nothing of accessible air travel and new, synthetic gear. The pockets of isolated angling techniques morphed into the larger ideas on basic approaches. Fly fishers, such as Joe Brooks, began writing clearly and engagingly about the salt and how to actually catch fish. He also had great pics (of course). He wrote Saltwater Fly Fishing (1950), but also books such as Bermuda Fishing (1957), which highlighted the fishing available around that island, a darling tourist destination in the 1950s. Brooks was the ultimate avuncular ambassador of the long rod, at home with anyone anywhere, and that persona certainly came through in his books, articles and TV appearances on shows like ABC’s Wide World of Sports. He pioneered fly
fishing for bonefish, particularly important because it brought finesse to the salt. No doubt, many trout anglers saw him stalking bones on television and said to themselves, Now, there’s some saltwater fishing I could actually do. Such desire fueled the marketing for the postwar advances in fly lines, rods, and reels that we are still enjoying today. Here is Brooks describing his early days of saltwater fishing in Chesapeake Bay. “I was limited to a 9-foot stiff-action rod that weighed 9 ounces—a telephone pole if ever there were one. I would fish from dawn to dusk, cast after cast, and if I have a strong arm today, I can probably give a lot of credit to that rod.” Too bad he couldn’t make just one cast with our modern 10-weights. Or see some of the advances in lines, reels, and synthetic fly tying materials. Or get a chance to chase the multiplicity of species in all waters of the world. For many of us today, the ocean remains one place we can still catch fish without standing in someone’s waders. To paraphrase Robert Roosevelt from 150 years ago, the sea is where we can finally come face-to-face with “the gigantic fish that has been the ambition of [our] lives.” I suppose we should be careful what we wish for. Will Ryan teaches expository writing at Hampshire College. He is also a columnist with our sister publication Gray’s Sporting Journal. His most recent book, Gray’s Sporting Journal’s Noble Birds and Wily Trout, has been published by Lyons Press, an imprint of Globe Pequot Press. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019 I 25
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JOIN TODAY. PROTECT TOMORROW.
BTT is a membership-based organization,
and our members are our lifeblood. Since our founding in 1998, we have grown to include concerned anglers from over 20 countries, researchers from throughout the world, and guides committed to working with BTT in order to educate anglers and gather data while on the water. The generous support of our members is critical to our mission: Conserve and restore bonefish, tarpon and permit fisheries and habitats through research, stewardship, education and advocacy. We have celebrated many accomplishments, but there is still much more work to do. Please help us in our mission by joining and urging your friends, guides, lodges, and fishing clubs to join. Please go to www.btt.org and click “Join BTT” to become a member today.
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Much to My Chagrin By Andrew J. Pegman
It was late November, northeastern Ohio. On a cold and dark morning, a glimmer of sunlight pierced gray clouds. It was a perfect day to go steelheading. I can explain everything. I was to meet a group of novice fly fishers and expert guides to learn how to enhance my techniques and, hopefully, land a few feisty chromers from a nearby river. I had been fly fishing for steelhead on my own a few times over the years—okay, a few hundred times—but never with much luck. In fact, my lack of success caused me considerable chagrin, which coincidentally was the name of the river we planned to fish. Years ago, I looked up chagrin in an old encyclopedia, my preferred and only search engine at FW THOMAS the time. The definition was some combination of distress, failure, and humiliation. Although it was unlikely the scholars who penned that definition had fished the Chagrin, their description captured the spirit of most of my outings rather well. Other steelhead anglers seemed to do just fine on the Chagrin, but its fish always eluded me. Preparation for the trip began weeks in advance. I bought nice, new, insulated chest waders to replace my not-so-nice, leaky, old chest waders. Unfortunately, I didn’t try on the new waders before the trip. When the big morning arrived, I was dismayed to learn that my new waders were a tad large. In fact, they were enormous. Nevertheless, I tried them on in desperation, cramming the additional material into my new wading boots. But the boots were far too small to accommodate the many folds of neoprene designed for a much larger man. Frustrated, I left the new waders in a crumpled heap in a corner of my basement, where they would likely sit until I bought a new house. With a sigh, I searched out my old waders. There they were, in a crumpled heap in an opposite corner of the basement, right WWW.AMERICANANGLER.COM
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where I’d left them. I pulled them on, hoping that, over time, their leaks had miraculously improved. But that is not the nature of leaks. As I was running so late, I would have to make the best of it, so I threw them in the trunk with my gear. When I arrived at the river, the other anglers were dressed and outfitted as though prepared for an Arctic expedition. I was wearing a thermal shirt and ball cap. We met as a group and listened to the guides sharing years of secret tips and tricks. Unfortunately, I had to divide my attention between listening to their instruction and warming my increasingly numbing hands. It was quite a bit colder than I’d expected. This trip was going to be rough. When the huddle broke and others tied on flies and tinkered with their expensive fly rods, I had a singular focus. I quietly retreated to my car to find anything to take the edge off the cold. I rooted through my backseat and came up with an old sport coat, which I found crumpled in a heap along with a pair of old leather gloves and a threadbare winter hat. I couldn’t believe my good fortune, and happily rejoined the group. Although I received a few amused glances, I was much warmer. But I had a new problem—I’d snapped off the tip of my fly rod closing my car door. One of the more seasoned guides noticed my plight and offered use of a gleaming rod and reel. At that moment, the sun peeked from above the tree line. I took it as an omen, accepted the guide’s generous offer, and felt my spirits brighten. Perhaps the Chagrin would finally deliver the bounty to which I had long aspired. We trudged single-file to the river through a muddy, open field after receiving final instructions. We hit the water and spaced out to work different stretches of a deep run. Despite being the least prepared, I was handy with a rod and reel. My casts hit their mark accurately while other anglers struggled with (Continued on page 65) JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019 I 27
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CONSERVATION by Charles Witek III
Trading Quotas The Mid-Atlantic Council revisits bluefish allocation.
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NGLERS, AND MOST particularly fly fishermen, know that catch-andrelease is a good thing. The adage “Limit your catch, don’t catch your limit” has been repeated so often that it has become a cliché. Yet, on the East Coast, bluefish anglers might soon be penalized for following that advice. That’s because an original bluefish management plan, drafted by the MidAtlantic Fishery Management Council in 1989, allocates 83 percent of all bluefish landings to anglers and 17 percent to commercial fishermen, based on each sector’s supposed landings in the years 1981 to 1989.
But since then, angler behavior has changed. Anglers released only about 20 percent of the bluefish that they caught during the 1980s, but because the fish were always valued far more for their fight than as food, the percentage of released fish steadily increased. Today, about two-thirds of all recreationally caught bluefish are returned to the water, to help maintain the spawning stock and provide additional angling opportunity. Fishery managers responded to anglers’ decreasing landings by transferring some of each year’s unharvested recreational quota to the commercial sector. Although such transfers are authorized
by the management plan, they don’t sit well with anglers, who are unhappy to see their conservation efforts compromised. Capt. John McMurray, a fly fishing guide from New York, said, “Many of those fish we throw back, for conservation reasons and so that we or someone else can presumably catch them again, are technically all given to the commercial users. And that is certainly not the intent of those releases.” Captain McMurray has often argued that anglers need an abundance of fish to effectively pursue their sport. In the case of bluefish, he believes that “managers could consider recreational encounters and availability, instead of just yield. . . .
Most anglers believe that a bluefish swimming in the ocean—and available for catch-and-release—is way more valuable than a low-priced bluefish sitting on ice at a seafood stand.
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On the recreational side, this is a fishery that is valued for sport rather than meat. There should be an analysis regarding the value of keeping fish in the water.” Such arguments may seem logical to an angler, but they have less appeal for the Mid-Atlantic Council, which is now moving forward with a Bluefish Allocation Amendment that could, among other things, permanently reallocate unharvested recreational quota to the commercial sector. Yet commercial fishermen have shown little support for such reallocation. In 2017, 2,266 commercial fishermen held permits allowing them to harvest bluefish in federal waters. There is also an undetermined number of commercial fishermen who harvest bluefish only in state waters, where no species-specific permit is needed. When the Mid-Atlantic Council released a “Scoping Document” last summer, seeking public input on the Allocation Amendment, it received just 61 comments. Only two of those comments BOTH IMAGES BY TOM LYNCH
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supported increased commercial allocation, while 50 supported the status quo. A handful of comments supported different actions, such as reducing the recreational quota while leaving the commercial quota unchanged, reducing the commercial quota while leaving the recreational quota unchanged, or obtaining additional data before making any changes. Greg DiDomenico, executive director of the Garden State Seafood Association, explained why he, as a spokesman for the commercial fishing industry, opposes any such reallocation. “I don’t see anything constructive coming from it. Why would anyone want to create acrimony between two or three groups? We don’t need it.” According to DiDomenico, the current bluefish allocation is working well. He feels that any benefits that might accrue from a reallocation of quota would be far outweighed by the increased tensions between recreational and commercial fishermen that would result from such reallocation. Dr. Christopher Moore, executive director of the Mid-Atlantic Council, says that the Allocation Amendment is largely being driven by administrative concerns, and not by commercial fishermen. He notes that the National Marine Fisheries Service has an allocation review policy that requires regional fishery management councils to periodically examine recreational and commercial quotas. Although that policy does not establish a strict schedule for such review, the blue-
fish allocation hasn’t been examined since 1991. A reconsideration is well overdue. Dr. Moore also observes that, while anglers are focused on a possible reallocation of recreational quota, the Allocation Amendment will also revisit the commercial allocations awarded to each state. Those allocations, too, are based on landings during 1981 to 1989, and some states’ commercial fisheries have changed since then. North Carolina, for instance, was granted nearly one-third of all commercial landings, based on historical harvest, but filled only about half its quota for the years 2013 to 2017. During the same period, neither Virginia nor Florida, which had each been awarded about 10 percent of the commercial allocation, were able to land even one-quarter of their state quotas. States that fail to land their entire commercial quota typically transfer some or all of their uncaught allocation to another state that has exceeded its share of the harvest. However, every time a quota transfer occurs, whether made between states or between the recreational and commercial sector, state fishery managers must prepare and submit paperwork documenting the transaction. According to Dr. Moore, such paperwork can become a substantial burden, causing some state officials to support the Allocation Amendment in the hope that the burden might be relieved. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019 I 29
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CONSERVATION Two recent developments suggest that this is the wrong time to discuss reallocating recreational and commercial bluefish landings. In July, the National Marine Fisheries Service released a revised estimate of recreational bluefish landings, based on an updated survey that showed recent landings were four times greater than previously believed. Increases of lesser, but still substantial, magnitude extend back to 1981. According to the revised estimates, anglers were responsible for far more than 83 percent of all bluefish harvested between 1981 and 1989, while higher estimates for more recent years cast doubt on the assertion that anglers aren’t landing their entire quota today. Then, in August, Dr. John Boreman, Chairman of the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s Science and Statistical Committee, expressed concerns that many state and federal surveys suggest that too few young bluefish have been recruited into the population in recent
years. Based on that information, bluefish abundance may have declined substantially since the stock was last assessed, and declared to be healthy, in 2015. If that’s the case, managers may have to reduce landings for recreational and commercial fishermen, an action that would render the case for reallocation moot. The effects of higher landings estimates and lower recruitment won’t be known until April, when an update to the bluefish stock assessment will be completed. The Mid-Atlantic Council will not release a draft of the Allocation Amendment until an update is available. In the meantime, two things are known. Commercially caught bluefish are one of the lowest-priced food fish on the East Coast, selling, on average, for about 70 cents per pound. At that price, 1,000 pounds of dead bluefish have the same economic value as the bluefish caught, and probably released, on just one guided fishing trip.
And the Magnuson–Stevens Fishery Conservation Act defines the “optimum” yield from any federally managed fishery as “the amount of fish which will provide the greatest overall benefit to the nation,” based upon “the maximum sustainable yield from the fishery, as reduced by any relevant economic, social or ecological factor.” Such economic, social, and ecological factors can play a role in allocation decisions, too; it’s not all about prior landings. When the draft Allocation Amendment is released this coming spring, East Coast anglers concerned about bluefish allocation will have the opportunity to remind the Mid-Atlantic Council that an abundance of bluefish isn’t just fun to have around. Such abundance of fish, supporting catch-and-release fisheries, has economic and social significance, too. From there, they might take the next step, and make it clear that, contrary to what some might believe, the recreational bluefish allocation is already fully utilized, even if all the fish do not die.
CAPT. JOHN MCMURRAY
Bluefish are great sport on a fly rod, whether fishing Decievers, poppers, or nearly anything else.
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Michigan City Surf & Turf By Mike Tracy
In November 2007, at the beginning of the Great Recession, my uncle Paul informed my brother Joe and me that we were to join him in the purchase of a cabin in Michigan City, Indiana. Being in our late 20s with five young children between us, Joe and I let him know he should maybe lay off the whiskey—it was making him daft. I was a young journeyman carpenter on a crew working in downtown Chicago. Joe was a newly licensed stationary engineer on a crew at a skyscraper. Both of us had pregnant wives, young children, and new houses. So we did have the pot, and the window, but we would not be joining the summering class of Americans just yet. But Paul, being an Irishman with pure Connemara marble for cranial tissue, recommended we “grow up and figure it out.” Joe and I, being well schooled in this particular brand of love, and knowing he might exert some obscure levy power over our paychecks, reluctantly agreed. The place was a joke: one bedroom, one and a half baths, no storage, overgrown with thorny vines at the base of a sand dune. Inside, it had been treated like a hostel. Joe and I grumbled and complained, but we all went to work that winter and FW THOMAS spring, making it habitable, adding two more bedrooms, then installing nine beds and the various cribs and playpens required for our clan. The cabin sits unassumingly within two blocks of the beach, a zoo, a casino, an outlet mall, Washington Park, and the Michigan City lighthouse and pier. The house was never the point. We were smack-dab in the middle of what, for us, became paradise, all within view of the Chicago skyline. After the Fourth of July, my wife and I were driving through Michigan City, headed back to our neighborhood just outside of Chicago. With our kids in the backseat—all a lovely shade of rouge that our Irish skin gets after 10 minutes in the sun—I saw WWW.AMERICANANGLER.COM
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something that would change my life. Along a busy road in the middle of town, in the shadow of suburban streets, next to a car dealer and concrete plant, I saw two guys climb from under a bridge with what looked like a Florida vacation trophy stolen off the wall of some bait shop. Risking lives, as well as a book worth of tickets, I immediately pulled a Dukes of Hazzard stop to find out what those guys were doing. That’s when I was introduced to Trail Creek, and the Skamania summer steelhead run. The two men showed me the creek, and a pool where I could see silver behemoths just sitting there, in the midst of a city, two blocks from my little cabin. That encounter began a two-year string of outings that went something like this: get up at 4 a.m.; go to the creek; get stuck with thorns and bitten by a thousand bugs; fall in creek (at least twice per trip); get skunked while breaking rods and losing gear; come home with nothing and get laughed at by my uncle and brother; get yelled at by my wife for being gone for six hours. What did they expect? I’d been a bass-and-panfish guy my whole life, so when locals showed me their gear, I didn’t pay much attention. Instead, I went fishing at least 100 times with my Zebco setup and did not catch one fish. The only thing that fueled me was a single hookup with a fresh summer buck that vaulted four feet in the air and was gone before I knew what happened. The third summer was equally painful. My ego was battered. On Labor Day, as my family made dinner after another glorious day at the beach, I was in the dumps. I’d spent the day on the sand, telling anyone who would listen that steelhead fishing was for witches and warlocks. I was sure all the fish I’d seen people packing away from the water were bought at Al’s Supermarket. I’d made up my mind: I was quitting steelhead forever. Kids were bathing and adults were drinking and cooking when my lovely bride pulled me into a quiet corner. “You can’t (Continued on page 65)
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Way Out in Haida Gwaii
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On this remote island, you’re on your own and often in the rain while pursuing wild steelhead. By Greg Thomas
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’m not bothered by the rain, likely because I grew up in Southeast Alaska and Seattle, where you just dealt with gray skies or you didn’t survive. It wasn’t always that way; as a kid, I dreamed about fastback Mustangs, trips down I-5 to sunny Southern California, and building a new life there. But as I grew older and wiser, that dour weather trumped traffic, taxes, and a 70-degree daily average. Basically, the Pacific Northwest, including its quirky characters, dark art, and somber sports history, became part of my DNA. As my fishing morphed from saltwater salmon off Point No Point and Possession to fly fishing rivers for anadromous species, that rain was something to look forward to—a freshet meant bright steelhead pushing into rivers, carrying sea lice on their flanks and bad attitudes in their brains. What more could anglers ask for? Uh, maybe some fish?
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I fished the Skykomish, Stillaguamish, Sauk, and Skagit rivers in the rain and with zeal, but the steelhead were few and far between and I longed for the glory days that my father (and many other anglers) recounted . . . back before the 1974 Boldt Decision gutted Washington’s rivers, back when a two- or three-fish morning on the Sky and other streams was the norm. So I packed my gear and headed north, across the border, into British Columbia, Canada, to prowl the big islands for steel, meaning Vancouver Island in the southern portion of the province and Graham Island to the north. Vancouver Island was impressive, but salmon farming and its sea lice infestations decimated the island’s east-side steelhead populations. What was left on the west side wasn’t, by all accounts, what it used to be, although the Gold and the Muchalat occasionally doled out some great fish. I decided to trek farther north, past Vancouver and far up the coast to Haida Gwaii, which rests just south of Alaska off the northern British Columbia coast. Formerly known as the Queen Charlotte Islands, Haida Gwaii is covered with deep spruce forests and littered with small streams that, during fall, winter, and early spring, host sea-run cutthroat trout and steelhead. The run starts sometime in November and ends in late February. Over time I’d heard about the area, but gaining reliable intel on its waters was seemingly impossible. Other anglers had heard about it, too, but nobody in my circles made the commitment to fish it. I viewed Haida Gwaii as that mysterious island off Prince Rupert where the steelhead motherland might be found. One year, I left the kids in Seattle with my parents, loaded my bags, and caught a flight from Vancouver to Graham Island. I borrowed an acquaintance’s F-250 pickup, accepted a hand-drawn map of the Yakoun River, and set out each day in the dark from Massett. The drive was an hour and a half each way, each day, over a labyrinth of confusing gravel logging roads. I’d visited
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during a record cold spell, and the river was tremendously low— which meant the fish were tucked under logjams and cutbanks and weren’t exactly excited to play. But I managed a half dozen steelhead in six days, including a nickel-bright 10-pound hen and, later, a slightly blushed 14-pound buck. When I climbed onto a plane for my return to Seattle, I wondered, What would a month of steelheading on this island look like? I’ve wanted to discover that answer, but finding time is the issue. Instead of waiting for a miracle time slot, I recently decided to revisit the island for another weeklong run. This time, I took a friend, Randy, and rented a house closer to the river, cutting my drive time in half. I also rented a pickup truck, with a warning from the owner of the rental company, who, I was sure, had been burned many times. She said, “This truck is my baby. I know what you’re doing here, and I know where you’re going. If you even get a flat, it will cost you a thousand dollars.” I don’t believe she was joking. The following morning, Randy and I “tiptoed” down those logging roads, trying to find decent access to the river. That’s not an easy proposition, as the Yakoun is really visible only from the main road in one place, just outside Port Clements. The next easy access is a 45-minute drive later, just off the main road, at a bridge crossing. The area between those two places, meaning 20some river miles, is accessible in a couple spots but only by those willing to negotiate smallish, overgrown logging roads, or those who own boats and are willing to float the length of the river. That is, at the very least, an overnight commitment; if you want to actually fish, you might spend a couple nights in a tent along the river, which is all good, until it rains. Haida Gwaii, when you think about it, is just an extension of Southeast Alaska’s Alexander Archipelago, which harbors the largest temperate rain forest in the world, the Tongass. When it rains in this spruce forest, it does so as if someone opened a spigot. And once it starts, there’s no telling when it might end. That renders tent camping a moot point unless you enjoy wearing wet waders, wading jackets, and clothing for days on end—eventually, that rain penetrates your gear, no matter what you paid for it and how much technology is built in. And drying those clothes, in the rain, around a smoldering birch fire, is darn near impossible. I’ve done that kind of camping, mostly in my teens and 20s in Alaska, and survived. But I don’t know that I’m up for it in middle age. At the start of our trip, we found perfect conditions, meaning the river was up but not blown out, and on the drop. The fish were grabby, and we hooked a half dozen in a couple days. I hooked one hen just off a clay bank, under overhanging birch branches. I landed it a hundred yards downstream, on a mid-river gravel bar, after it nearly broke me on a giant, halfsubmerged spruce and its wicked root ball. I figured it weighed 16 pounds. If I had to guess, only half the fish hooked on the Yakoun are landed, mostly because this medium-size river is loaded with debris. Randy hooked three fish one morning in the same run, one that he lost when his integrated shooting head failed (I won’t share the language that spewed from his mouth), and another, perhaps a 10-pound chromey hen, that he tailed on the same mid-river gravel bar I’d landed my fish on the day prior. For a couple days. we parked on the main road and bushwhacked through the forest to find fishy runs. I hooked one fish, just above a drop, but barely raised it from the bottom; WWW.AMERICANANGLER.COM
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Balanced rock (previous spread) is a must-see when visiting Haida Gwaii, as is the native coastal art scene. But the fish are what bring hard-core anglers here and these steelhead are eager to please. Here, Randy Johnston fights a nice Yakoun River metalhead to shore.
the hooked pulled free before I saw that fish, and my imagina imagination says it was a giant. At another spot, I swung up a fish, again above a small falls at the tail of a pool, and nearly had it to hand before the hook pulled. I never really saw that fish in the tannincolored water, but believed it could have pushed 20 pounds. That’s not really uncommon on this river—20-pounders are taken each year, and there are rumors (again, rumors) of 30-pound fish being landed. But most of these steelhead are perfect 8- to 15-pound fish that give you everything you want on a smallish river. The Yakoun, actually, is a little small for Spey rods, especially when the water is low. When the water is up, Spey and switch rods are great choices. The Yakoun isn’t the only good stream on Graham Island. There are numerous smaller waters holding decent numbers of steelhead; one night, while playing way too hard with the locals (paid dearly the next day), one guy said he’d hooked 14 fish the day prior on a small stream that Randy and I had considered fishing. The next day, after fishing the Yakoun, we stopped at a random spot on that stream, glanced down at the water, and saw a steelhead finning along the near bank. I slugged down another five Advils with a galWWW.AMERICANANGLER.COM
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lon of water, fought through the forest, and waded across—only to blow a cast and send that fish scooting upstream. With a couple days left, the rain arrived. The Yakoun rose quickly and the fish went off the bite. We saw them rolling in the accustomed places, and watched them swimming upstream past our legs, but they paid our flies absolutely no attention, which made Randy and me cut our fishing a little short one day so we could explore Massett, Skidegate, and Queen Charlotte City. At Skidegate, we checked out the Haida Native Heritage Center, which houses an amazing collection of historical images and Northwest coastal art, priceless carvings, baskets, clothing, and canoes that demonstrate the Haida’s creative talent. Along the beach, we hiked to Balance Rock, which is a giant boulder that sits perfectly on top of a rock, and has done so since being deposited by receding glaciers about 100 million years ago. All good, but there was a day left to fish, and we were out the door early the following morning. Unfortunately, the river remained high and the steel wouldn’t bite. When we drove out in the rain, through that seemingly endless forest, I couldn’t help but wonder what might have been if water conditions were consistent through the entire trip. How many fish might we have hooked? How big might they have been? Before flying out of Massett, Randy and I hunted for a car wash only to discover that none exist. We drove around town and finally located a spigot and hose. While I acted busy, Randy washed the white Dodge pickup truck by hand. When we returned the vehicle, the owner said, “My baby is back,” then gave us hugs and handed us agates, special pieces of Haida Gwaii to carry home for our kids. She said, “Come back during summer, when the salmon are in,” but I was already trying to figure out how to steal a full month out of my busy life. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019 I 35
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HIT THE SALT
Monsters of the
These Nicaraguan tarpon top angler’s resolve. Ar 36 I AMERICAN ANGLER
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he Miskito Coast
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T
he Miskito Coast stretches from the Costa Rican border all the way up Nicaragua’s Atlantic seaboard. The region is named not for insects, as is often assumed, but for the Miskito Amerindians who are indigenous to this remote part of the Central American isthmus. The vast region is an extremely wild, half-forgotten corner of the world. But don’t overlook it; Nicaragua offers one of the most exciting fly fisheries on the globe. Tapam is the Miskito word for Megalops atlanticus—the tarpon. The name is now synonymous with a remarkable fishery that was discovered only a few years ago by a pair of intrepid young European anglers, Daniel Goz and Jan Bach Kristensen. Tapam is a maze of interconnecting rivers, lagoons, and one intriguing man-made canal. These watercourses are packed to the rafters with shrimps, sardines, mullet . . . and, most intriguing, mobs of absurdly large tarpon. Don’t come here if you want numbers. The fish are found in deep water, and for long hours they skulk out of sight in dark, tannin-stained current. Anglers use fishfinders to locate tarpon and then employ sinking lines to reach them. However, for short periods, Tapam’s monster tarpon come to the surface and go hard on the feed. The lagoons and rivers can provide astonishingly exciting fishing, but the tarpon that frequent the canal are surely the most exhilarating of all. In the lagoons and rivers, these tarpon favor shrimps and small sardines as their regular plat du jour; the canal fish feed on big mullet, fish that often weigh two or three pounds. To watch these giant tarpon erupting out of the glossy, golden waters, tossing mullet skyward and then catching them in midair is a rare and un38 I AMERICAN ANGLER
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forgettable experience. Fattened by an almost inexhaustible food supply, and with few, if any, natural predators, these fish turn into giants. A 200-pounder, or heavier, is a very realistic proposition here. I think there is every chance that a new fly-caught record could come from this remote little corner of the jungle. To catch these magnificent fish, you need your A game: make sure you have sturdy, bulletproof gear and all the right patterns, as these fish are stubborn and almost unbelievably picky. When you are fishing the lagoons and rivers, small, flashy blue and silver sardine patterns and, later in the season, black and purple and salmon-pink shrimp imitations are the go-to flies. But in the canals, you need something that mimics mullet. Forget trying to imitate big baitfish: the larger the pattern, the more there is for the tarpon to find fault in. In addition, big flies are much harder to throw accurately and quickly. There are mullet of all sizes here, and the best way to go is to present a fastto-cast pattern representing the smaller fish. My great friends Tomasz, Tomek, and Rafal (at Pike Terror Flies, based in Poland) tied me a pattern developed by Jaap Kalkman, an experienced Dutch angler and a veteran of the Tapam fishery. The fly is a perfect copy of the natural. Even when retrieved at ultra-high speed, it swims straight and true, and it is exactly the pattern you want when targeting the mullet-feeders of the “cut.” Crucially, it is tied on a 4/0 Tiemco 600SP short-shank hook that doesn’t lever its way out of a tarpon’s mouth. The pattern is a snap to cast and sinks fast. This is important, as the fishing is all about speed— get that fly in front of the fish, and move it fast. A fast-sinking line of around 400 grains is perfect, as it quickly loads the rod WWW.AMERICANANGLER.COM
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When fishing Tapam, anglers aren’t looking for numbers. Instead, they’re hoping for a few solid hookups and the potential to land a new world-record tarpon. These fish commonly range between 150 and 180 pounds and test anglers, and their tackle, to the core.
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and gets the fly down a foot or so in very short order. Imitate the terrified mullet that streak across the surface by putting your rod under your arm, and strip the fly back as fast as you can, hand over hand. You can’t fish the fly too fast, and the fast-sinking line keeps the fly tracking just subsurface. Once a fish takes, get yourself together, very quickly, because mayhem is about to ensue. Forget the notion that big tarpon don’t jump—these brutes almost always light up the jungle with flashing silver cartwheels that leave anglers speechless. If the hook stays in after the initial mayhem, you have a chance. But be warned: the canal has a powerful tidal flow and is 30 feet deep. Many battles are lost with these behemoths—even if you survive the first, spectacular aerial blitz, the game isn’t won. Hookholds give out at any stage of the fight with these bony-mouthed brutes, and even the stoutest leaders are often fatally abraded. Be assured, the rewards are worth every last ounce of effort. If you do get lucky, and everything holds together, you may eventually get up close and personal with a big—possibly very big—Megalops, maybe even a world-record fish. Weather plays a role in your success. Wind and rain are almost certain to put the fish down, but some mornings, when the wind dies down and the water turns to glass, your odds are good. Just such a morning greeted our small group on a recent trip to Tapam. A little after 5 a.m., as we paddled silently across the canal’s glimmering, mirror-bright surface, I knew we would have a shot at a big fish. The water was untroubled by even a breath of wind, and the air was already heavy with the warmth of the coming 42 I AMERICAN ANGLER
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day. As we reached a spot where tarpon had been active for the last couple of days, I took up my rod, carefully laid out the coils of line on the deck, and stood ready on the bow. For long minutes nothing showed, and then abruptly, a big boil materialized to the left. My excellent young guide, Bismark, quietly paddled the boat around, and suddenly a mullet shot high into the morning mist. An instant later, a monstrous tarpon climbed high in the air, gleaming in the first rosy hues of the dawn. For an instant, at the apex of its jump, it seemed to balance the wretched mullet on its nose, and then both fish crashed back into the water. It was a long cast, but I got a good shot, just to the left of the commotion. Tucking the rod under my arm and retrieving the fly as fast as possible, I felt a subtle tremor come down the line. I kept the fly moving. Suddenly, in a magical moment, everything came up impossibly tight and heavy. Fumbling the rod out from under my arm, I jabbed back hard and watched as line knifed through the surface and a vast, chrome-plated colossus shot high into the air in a spectacular silver cartwheel that I will remember until the day I die. That fish gave me three impossible jumps before towing us almost a mile upcurrent. A long time later, after two torrential downpours and with the sun now high in the sky, I finally jumped overboard in the shallows to embrace my adversary. Bismark and I briefly cradled it, just out of the water, for a couple of quick pictures. And then we watched in awe as the fish glided back into dark water and was gone, hopefully none the worse for wear. We estimated its weight—perhaps a little conservatively—at around 160 pounds, although a number of extremely experienced Keys anglers have since told me that, in view of the fish’s tremendous girth, it may well have weighed more. Whatever. It was, by a distance, my biggest tarpon to date and a fish I will cherish forever. There are fish here that would dwarf that tarpon—I’ve seen them. One, a fish that took my fly just three feet from the boat, would surely have obliterated the current IGFA fly-caught record, held at this time by Jim Holland with a 202-pound fish. Heartbreakingly, that fish spat out my fly after a few seconds. No problem. I’ll be back next year. And I know that my chance will come again. Matt Harris is a globe-treking angler whose writing and photography appear in various publications. See more of his work at mattharrisflyfishing.com.
Logistics
NOT FOR NUMBERS: Be warned, the fishing at Tapam is potentially very rewarding, but it can be tough. And accommodations are very basic. But the food is excellent and there is plenty of icy beer and sticky-sweet Nicaraguan rum to keep the party going in the evening. There are also fish here that will make your hair stand on end. There are also huge snook to well over 30 pounds. If you want to discuss whether you think this trip is for you, feel free to contact Matt at mattharris@mattharris.com. Or simply join the author when he heads back to Tapam this year. FLIES: Source the perfect Tapam patterns from Pike Terror Flies at facebook.com/piketerror/. MORE INFO: tapamthelodge.com/ WWW.AMERICANANGLER.COM
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(Previous spread) The wall of fame speaks to Tapam’s potential and suggests these fish eat a variety of flies. (Left) These tarpon may eat three-pound mullet, but you don’t have to throw big flies to get their attention. (Above) If you can survive a tarpon’s initial take and its first run and jump, you have a chance. (Below) Tarpon aren’t the only game in town—fishing at Tapam means you’ll get shots at some giant snook.
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An arduous journey to St. Brandon Atoll places the author in bonefish paradise, with bonus shots at Indo-Pacific permit and giant trevally. Story and photos by Gary Kramer
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eep in the Indian Ocean, due east of Madagascar and 268 nautical miles northeast of the island of Mauritius, lies St. Brandon, a remote atoll that provides some of the best saltwater flats fishing on the planet . . . and the best bonefishing I’ve encountered in 30 years of chasing those fish.
In fact, after a week of fishing, I’m convinced that St. Brandon’s bonefish are plentiful unlike anywhere else and they are the biggest and baddest you can tangle with—the world over. They average an honest five to seven pounds, and 10-pounders are caught with regularity. The largest bonefish on record here weighed 15 pounds. Consisting of 50 small islands, coral ridges, and vast sand flats, St. Brandon is a place where fishing for bones, Indo-Pacific permit, and a host of trevally species is simply world class. St. Brandon (also known as Cargados Carajos Shoals) is one of the most remote and least fished flats destinations in the world, a last saltwater frontier and a wade fisherman’s paradise. Don’t expect spooky, leader-shy fish here—only six anglers per week are allowed on the atoll, and only the most adventurous and committed travelers make the trek to the Indian Ocean—for U.S.- and Canada-based clients, this includes 20-some hours in the air and another 24 to 28 hours on a boat, which can rock at times in 10foot waves, like a proverbial cork. Our first day on the water substantiated rumors of big fish and lots of them. We teamed up with guide Craig Richardson, a South African veteran of five seasons on St. Brandon. As we did every morning for a week, we boarded a 17-foot skiff powered by two small outboards and headed to the flats. Some runs were close, meaning within sight of the lodge; others were up to 40
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minutes. That first morning we ran 20 minutes to Julie’s Flat. Once anchored, we grabbed our gear and started walking as the tide flooded in. The first shot came quickly, and my fishing buddy, Alan Sands, made a couple of false casts then dropped a Gotcha about eight feet in front of a bonefish that was tailing in skinny water. He let the fly sink, then started stripping. It took only seconds for the fish to rush the fly and grab it—Sands responded with a strip-strike, and at least 100 yards of line raced off the reel. After the initial run, Sands coaxed the fish close, but the bone responded with another burst that took out backing. A few minutes later, Richardson finally netted the fish, a bright bone that weighed 6.5 pounds. My turn came less than 15 minutes later when a dozen fish appeared, like gray ghosts against a white-sand bottom. Several false casts with the 9-weight gave me the distance needed, and I dropped the fly a few feet out in front of the pod. Three fish darted toward the fly. The fastest sprinter made the grab, and I was hooked to a good bonefish. After a couple of strong runs, Richardson netted a fine 7.5-pound bone, one of the largest I’ve caught. This would be a recurring scenario; we caught dozens of fish every day, and Sands and I both landed bones that weighed 8.5 pounds. The largest of the trip, landed by a fellow guest, was a 10.5-pound brute.
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Accommodations may be a little spartan at St. Brandon, but the fishing more than makes up for it. Anglers who make the journey get shots at scads of large bones, Indo-Pacific permit, and a variety of trevally.
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While the bonefishing was outstanding, the most pleasant surprise was the number of opportunities for Indo-Pacific permit. Everything I’d read before the trip indicated that shots at permit would occur, but I did not anticipate multiple shots every day. The initial permit opportunity came the first afternoon as we waded a flat within sight of the lodge. I’d just landed a bone, and we were in the process of photographing it, when Richardson spotted a permit headed our direction. We aborted the photo session as Richardson grabbed Sands’s fly rod, quickly snipped off the bonefish fly, and tied on a crab imitation. I stayed back a little as the boys walked toward the fish. After closing the distance, Sands stripped line from the reel and cast. His aim and the trajectory of the fly looked good, but the fly dropped too close to the permit and the fish spooked. Disappointed, we joined up again and continued walking. Before we moved 100 yards, a permit appeared. It was quartering away and tailing like crazy. The guys moved toward the fish, paralleling it until they were close enough for another shot. This time the fly placement was spot-on and the fish came to the fly, then suddenly made the grab. Sands set the hook, and the permit sprinted toward deeper water. With the rod held high, he followed the fish, and after several wrist-wrenching runs, the first permit, a fine 10-pounder, was in the hand. As the trip unfolded, we had multiple shots at permit, and both of us hooked fish, lost fish, and landed a few. Like their Atlantic cousins, Indo-Pacific permit are plenty finicky, and refuse flies and easily spook. However, because this atoll is so vast, and the fishing pressure so low, most of these permit have never seen a fly, let alone felt the sting of a hook. As a result, I would say that while not easy, these Indo-Pacific fish are easier to hook than permit in Florida, Belize, or Mexico, where they see flies almost every day.
In addition to the abundant bonefish and the somewhat cooperative permit, we landed several golden trevally to 10 pounds and had shots at bluefin trevally but did not connect. I also hooked and landed a giant trevally that weighed 38 pounds. It was a smallish GT by St. Brandon standards, as the fish caught here are generally over 50 pounds. Mine was the smallest caught last season. St. Brandon isn’t the best place for GTs, but they are frequently seen, and during a typical week, anglers get a couple of shots at them. Fishing at St. Brandon was formerly from a mother ship. In 2016, the operation switched to a comfortable but somewhat spartan guesthouse on Île Raphael, which is part of the atoll. Four anglers are housed in double-occupancy rooms with the other rooms available for individual anglers. There is a guide for every two anglers. There are two fishing seasons—September 1 to November 20 and March 25 to June 10. These time frames offer the best weather and optimum tides. However, not all weeks are fished— guests are invited only during the best tidal cycles, which amount to about 10 weeks per year. Ten weeks at six anglers per week makes for very light fishing pressure. When fishing at many saltwater flats destinations, you might worry each day about being the first on the fish, but here it’s the last thing on your mind. Hard to reach, lacking cell service and Wi-Fi, and far from anything, this is not a place for the common angler. But if you are searching for a remote, off-the-grid, and nearly untouched flats fishery that offers some of the largest and most plentiful bonefish on the planet, along with shots at Indo-Pacific permit and other desirable species, St. Brandon Atoll is an ultimate destination. Gary Kramer is a full-time outdoor writer and photographer based in Willows, California.
Logistics Getting There: It took me three days of exhausting travel to reach St. Brandon. My travel consisted of nearly 24 hours of flying time from California to Johannesburg, South Africa, then a four-hour flight to Mauritius, an overnight there, followed by a 24-hour boat ride. Lodging: St. Brandon was a mother ship operation, but anglers now stay in a four-bedroom guesthouse at the northern end of the atoll. This is not luxury living, but it is comfortable and offers more room than the mother ship. In addition, there are two full indoor bathrooms and two outside showers. Boats: To get from Mauritius to St. Brandon, anglers used to make the crossing in two 50-foot boats. Beginning this spring, crossings will be conducted in larger, more stable, and comfortable 65-foot-
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long boats with air-conditioned cabins. During seven days of guided fishing, anglers are transported to various flats in wooden skiffs with outboard motors. Fishing is walk and wade. Length of Stay: Ten days with seven days of guided fishing. However, some anglers, due to time and effort it takes to reach St. Brandon, opt for longer stays, meaning up to 14 straight days of pure flats-fishing bliss. Rate: Get ready to pony up—the typical 10-day stay is $8,500; a 17day trip runs $14,000. Book It: FlyWater Travel, flywatertravel.com; Yellow Dog Fly Fishing Adventures, yellowdogflyfishing.com; Frontiers, frontierstravel.com.
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Walk and wade is the way to go at St. Brandon, which puts anglers at water level with their targets. When not fishing, anglers explore the atoll and retire at the end of the day for a hard-won drink.
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BIG FOUR?
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Anglers pursuing the flats’ “Big Three” should take a close look at barracudas, too. By Henry Cowen
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hen I first fished the flats around Andros Island back in the 1990s, I had tunnel vision and could see only bonefish through the glare. Ditto for my Bahamian guide; when he saw a long shadow about a hundred feet away, he told me to get ready for a shot at a big fish. As we poled within range, he dejectedly said, “Forget it, mon, it’s a big cuda,” and we turned away to look for more bonefish. Since then I’ve wondered why we passed an opportunity to toss a fly at such a big fish. And since that day, I’ve told guides, ahead of time, that if we see a big barracuda, I want to throw. Having done just that, many times now, I can tell you without hesitation that barracuda are one of the most amazing flats fish to target, ranking right up there with the Big Three, meaning tarpon, permit, and bones. Here’s why: They are big and strong and willingly attack flies. In fact, they are the most aggressive fish you’ll encounter on the flats. And once hooked, they’re no pansies—they may jump repeatedly before greyhounding you into the backing. I’m not sure why any angler wouldn’t love to tangle with that kind of fish in knee-deep water. Cudas can be found on tropical flats around the world. Florida, Mexico, Belize, and the Bahamas are just a few places where
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anglers might hunt those fish. And slowly, barracuda are shaking their “second-rate” image, with many anglers now realizing just what they’ve overlooked. In addition, catch-and-release barracuda tournaments are popping up, including the Cuda Bowl, which is held in Key West, Florida. That tourney attracted 75 anglers in 2018. The winning angler caught a total of 247 inches of fish, with the largest specimen stretching to 49 inches. Try matching that tally in a permit-fishing tourney. Anglers who target barracuda find them cruising slowly along the shorelines or laid up near mangroves, waiting to ambush their next meal, their favorite quarry being needlefish and juvenile bones. I remember fishing Abaco Island many years ago and having an opportunity to throw at a big cuda laid up near the mouth of a creek. I put down my bonefish rod and quickly picked up my cuda rod and made a cast, which landed less than 10 feet from the fish. Before I could get the slack out of my line, the 20-pounder exploded on my fly and we were off to the races. I set the hook, but the cuda immediately popped my rig. I assumed it grabbed the fly well past the wire bite guard and bit through my 20-pound tippet. The cuda lazily swam back to its laid-up spot to await its next meal. I tied on another fly, with a wire bite guard, as my guide poled me back into position. The cuda was resting next to a creek with my fly dangling from the WWW.AMERICANANGLER.COM
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The author’s Cuda Killer fly (left) mimics juvenile bonefish and is a go-to pattern on the flats. These fish grow to large size—the all-tackle record is 87 pounds—and, once hooked, make blistering fast runs across the flats.
BARRY & CATHY BECK
left side of its jaw. I made another cast and in a matter of seconds was hooked up to that superaggressive fish, which now had both my flies in its mouth. Once we landed it, I was able to retrieve both flies. I remember another cuda occasion, for not-so-pleasant reasons. Back in the mid-1990s, I led a group trip out of the Andros Island Bonefish Club. My partner in the boat that day hadn’t caught a bonefish over five pounds, so we headed to the fabled West Side to target large bones. I told my partner to stay on the bow and take all shots at bonefish. I asked only one thing in return—if we saw a big cuda, I wanted him to step off the bow and give me the shot. After two hours of poling, the guide said, “Big fish, mon. One hundred and fifty feet ahead.” My partner readied himself, and as we got within 75 feet, the guide said, “No, huge cuda laid up.” I stepped to the bow, stripped out 60 feet of line, and held my goto Cuda Killer fly in hand. Those West Side flats are milky white, which creates a fuzzy haze, and makes spotting fish a challenge. In fact, I didn’t really see that cuda until we were within 50 feet of it. I made what I thought was a damn good cast, the fly landing within four feet of the fish. I made two long, quick strips and expected a take, but to my surprise, the fish didn’t move an inch. I was stunned. This was, after all, my go-to fly that is never reWWW.AMERICANANGLER.COM
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fused. And I thought I’d made a perfect presentation. Moments later, I heard the guide giggle. I gave him a questioning glance, and he said, “Great cast, but he don’t eat with his ass, mon!” I’d cast to the wrong end. Over the years, I’ve learned that you fish cuda as you would any other predator; always have your fly land in front of a fish and move it across its path; always represent a fleeing fish and don’t allow the fly to swim at your target; once the fly lands, get it moving fast with a series of quick, long strips or a hand-overhand retrieve. Put those elements together, and a cuda will bolt 10 feet for a fly and inhale it in a nanosecond. When it comes to flies, cudas can be selective, but there are a few can’t-miss patterns. Big cudas are extremely opportunistic and will eat many things on the flats. Shad, needlefish, and especially small bonefish are some of their favorites. I developed my go-to cuda pattern many years ago, and Umpqua Feather Merchants dubbed it the Cuda Killer. In my opinion, it is a musthave fly on the flats. It imitates baby bonefish and large shad. Place this fly within eye distance of a large cuda, and you are nearly guaranteed an eat. Given the opportunity to sight-fish for barracuda on a shallow, tropical flat, any angler will be hooked on this mostly under-the-radar fish. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019 I 51
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e and onto the Flats Remote, stalking a fourth-quarter permit in EspÃritu Santo Bay. BY RIP WOODIN
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It was the last hour of the last day. Over the past week, six out of seven anglers combined for 16 permit ranging in size from frying pans to fried elephants. Even three newbies to tropics fishing had multiple permit under their belts. But on the invisible scoreboard, there remained a big fat zero next to my name. I wanted a fish, badly. I was fishing out of Espiritu Santo Bay Lodge, which opened in April 2017 and is located just down the coast from Mexico’s Ascension Bay, on the southern Yucatán Peninsula. It’s known as a very remote destination with very few anglers and relatively unpressured fish. From his perch on the poling platform, my guide, Alejandro, says, “See those black rocks?” He points to a distant dark spot and adds, “That’s permit.” His monotone is calm, as if saying something as inconsequential as, “The sky is blue today.” Not me. I head for the bow, already stripping line off my reel. I am so amped up, I could power a generator, which isn’t exactly the calm needed to lay out a 60-foot cast in a headwind . . . with a noticeable goose egg hanging over me. As we ease closer, I see white flashes as the sizable school of permit changes direction. “Cast,” comes the quiet command from the back of the boat. One false cast, a haul, and the fly, a Squimp, is on its way. Five feet short; the school veers left. Alejandro poles and I cast again, punching it to add another 10 feet of distance. But I hesitate, allowing deadly slack into my backcast. The school turns again, heading away. I reel in my mess and switch places with my buddy Paul Lombardi, who throws 20 feet past me. “Eat!” Lombardi yells after dropping his fly on the edge of the school. The fish lazily swim another 20 feet out of range. I changed to an EP crab; I’ve painted red tips on the claws with fingernail polish. Will this one do the trick? I wonder. It draws about as much interest as the Squimp. Now I see a boat racing up the channel toward the take-out. We don’t have much time.
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ombardi and I heard about Espíritu Santo Bay while fishing Ascension Bay. Although half the size of Ascension, ESB has an ample supply of the super slam fish (bones, permit, tarpon, and snook), plus barracudas, snappers, and triggerfish. When considering our next trip, we vacillated but finally chose ESB, the clincher being a relative absence of angling pressure when compared to Ascension Bay; there are 270 permitted boats, including ecotour vessels, for Ascension Bay, but just 14 skiffs are allowed in Espíritu. In addition, Ascension Bay has more than 6,000 people living along its shores, people who access the same fish that anglers are
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after. Espíritu, on the other hand, hosts one small community, Punta Herrero, which is home to just 95 lobster fishermen and their families. When you get right down to it, Espíritu provides one of the most remote fishing experiences in the Caribbean. When booking the trip, our agent whispered the words incredible, awesome, and unknown. We whipped out the plastic before the spots filled. Four months later, we crammed into a 10-passenger Kodiak bush plane and flew south from Cancún, 3,000 feet over the jungle. When the pilot throttled back and began the descent, I looked for an airstrip. The jungle canopy hid the runway until the pilot turned on his final approach. “El Chapo International,” the pilot said with a grin, later explaining that the gravel strip was supposedly built by Joaquín Guzmán, who flew in drugs to distribute in Cancún and elsewhere. After our landing, a squad of stern Mexican marines—donned in camo shirts, flak jackets, Kevlar helmets, and carrying automatic weapons—met us at the ramp. We didn’t object to them spot-searching our luggage. A blond-haired kid with several days of reddish whiskers, wearing rumpled fishing clothes and flip-flops, handed us cold water, then loaded us into several vans for a 75-minute ride to the lodge. We wound down a sandy goat track, where speeds rarely exceeded 10 miles per hour. The “kid,” we learned, 29-year-old Dane Emerson, wasn’t just a driver—he owns Espiritu Santo Bay Lodge. As we caught flashes of the barrier reef on the right, impenetrable jungle brushed the van on the left. Some squatter shacks, which looked as if they might blow away in a stiff breeze, dotted the beach between a few fenced properties. “We’re off the grid,” Emerson said with a smile. Emerson is used to creating something out of nothing. As a young 20-something who thought college was boring, he sold trout flies out of the trunk of his car in Crested Butte, Colorado. At night he worked as a sous chef and bartender; he’d get five hours of sleep, then start all over again. He and his wholesale fly partner cobbled $50,000 to open Crested Butte Anglers. Over a handful of years, Emerson built a client list that would play a key role in the creation of ESB Lodge. Every year, he’d taken clients to Ascension Bay and was eager to host a group at nearby Espíritu. Browsing the internet, Emerson found Paradise Lodge, just north of Chetumal Bay, and took a group there. “So I came down here [ESB], fished the bay, and it was fantastic.” In a lucky coincidence, Chiara de Tomaso also was spending time at the lodge, which her father, Alejandro, owned. D Tomaso is Argentinian and holds a master’s degree in industrial engi-
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JIM KLUG
Above: Dane Emerson and Chiara de Tomaso carved Espiritu out of the jungle shortly after they married. Right: Espíritu’s permit see far fewer flies than their cousins in Ascension Bay, but that doesn’t mean they’re easy. Below: Hey, it’s Mexico, so your bags are going to be checked by gun-toting marines. Here, Emerson stands watch.
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neering. Emerson and Tomaso hit it off, and after trips to Australia, Colorado, and Argentina, they decided to build a lodge at Espíritu. That’s where Emerson’s client list came into play. “I saw some land for sale [at Espíritu],” Emerson said, “so I talked to a group of clients who had invested in my shop in Crested Butte—they got me going.” Emerson and Tomaso built the main lodge first, four very comfortable double rooms that accommodate eight anglers, plus a main dining area and kitchen, all complemented by a thatched-roof deck that’s perfect for sipping cocktails and telling fishing stories. Midway through construction they were married. A second building included the couple’s living quarters and staff housing. Emerson speaks very little Spanish, so Tomaso dealt with most of the inevitable issues. “The first year was the hardest one for me,” she said. “I dealt with a lot of the construction—buying materials, planning the logistics of getting them into the jungle, and dealing with contractors. Mexico is a really machista country, and I guess they are not used to seeing a woman in her twenties doing those kinds of things.” Emerson’s job is handling the fishing, the guides, and the locals. He was able to secure four permits to fish ESB (from Tomaso’s father when he closed Paradise Lodge in 2016). The lodge puts him closer to the action than anyone else. And he was able to “inherit” some of Paradise’s seasoned guides, too. “One of my guides used to be the head guide at Playa Blanca,” Emerson said. “His brother used to be the head guide at Casa Blanca. They all worked for Chiara’s father at Paradise. I kind of grabbed them all and got them going here. They’re all related, so it’s a really tight unit, always working together.” Ascension and Espíritu Santo Bays are part of the Sian Ka’an biosphere reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage site. It’s a very remote location, and that seems to please anglers—most of ESB’s anglers are already repeat clients. “What people don’t understand about this bay . . . this isn’t like the honey hole with zillions of fish,” Emerson said. “It’s not more fish than Ascension Bay, but there’s not as much pressure. The fish you come across haven’t been pounded.” In 2018, the lodge opened from the third week in January to July 1, then August through November. The best time to fish ESB is anytime there is no wind for three or four consecutive days. “That’s always the famous question,” Emerson said. “If you’re a die-hard freak about permit, the hurricane season is the best time for numbers. In August, September, and October last year, we landed about sixty permit with a full lodge. May is a good
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month for snook and bigger tarpon.” While permit are the main attraction at Espiritu Santo Bay Lodge, there are lots of worthy targets. Lombardi and I spent a morning probing two-foot-wide openings in the mangroves, looking for big snook and juvenile tarpon. Another afternoon, we poled through hidden bays and jumped several tarpon. I even wrestled with a four-foot-long barracuda. Later, Lombardi battled a stubborn triggerfish of substantial size. He got the fish boat-side, but as the guide reached, the trigger’s teeth chomped through the leader, the fish thereby avoiding a spot as the guest of honor at dinner.
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ack on the skiff, Alejandro poles after that mercurial school of permit like a determined bird dog following a covey of quail. I cast over and over; Lombardi casts over and over. We are well past the 5 p.m. return deadline. The other lodge guests are thirsty, we’re sure, eager for that first margarita. They’re wondering, I’m sure, where we are. I can’t keep them waiting any longer, even though I know we’ll get one of these permit if we keep after them. “Okay, that’s it,” I say. “Next year.” That night, between bites of lobster, all of us commented on the week of fishing. “I witnessed something I’ve never seen in forty years of fishing Mexico,” said a guest named Henry Haizlip. “Our guide caught a sleeping permit with his hand.” Another veteran angler, who’s caught more permit than he can remember, said, “I’ve never seen so many big permit.” As the dining room warmed with good cheer and good wine, Emerson said what many of us were thinking. “When I wake up and look at what my wife and I have built, I’m amazed,” he said. “We live on one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, off the grid.” Tomaso added, “We created our own reality. It was a crazy amount of work, risk, and stress to get here, but I feel really proud of what we’ve achieved. I’m not sure I feel that way about what I’ve achieved here. It’s just fishing, but being the only guest not to have landed a permit is hard to swallow. But my experiences on the edge of the jungle, in a very remote location, with a variety of fish, mean I’ll likely come back for more—as soon as possible—trying to wipe that goose egg off the scoreboard. Rip Woodin is a retired journalist in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, who fishes the state’s mountain and coastal waters when he’s not traveling.
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JIM KLUG
Logistics Book It: The Fly Shop, (800) 669-3474; Yellow Dog Fly Fishing Adventures, (888) 777-5060 Length: Seven nights, six days Season: January to July; August through November Capacity: Eight anglers per week Species: Permit, bonefish, tarpon, snook, barracuda Nearest Airport: Cancún, Mexico; private charter takes anglers from Cancún to a private landing strip
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Back in
Block
Every year, in September, these anglers hit Block Island for stripers, albacore, bluefish, and good fun. By Stephen Sautner
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lock Island. The remote New England outpost located some 12 miles at sea—a place where rugged surf casters heave enormous lures into surging waves, where tales of 50-pound stripers hang in the air like salt spray crashing over its rocky shore. This is not one of those stories. Since 2005, 15 anglers, including myself, have descended onto “Block” every September for a weeklong gathering known as StriperKamp. We board ferries and private boats and head due south from Point Judith, Rhode Island. Some travel from as far away as Alaska and Hawaii. We rent a large house, and for a week we live like Vikings, venturing to sea and then gathering each evening to eat, drink, and regale. Our group represents walks of life as diverse as our fishing techniques. Among us, there are 70-year-old Vietnam vets, 20-something software engineers, waterfowl biologists, dock builders, and fisheries managers. There are trollers, jiggers, eel slingers, plug chuckers, spearfishers, and bait drowners. And one serious saltwater fly fisher. That’s me.
In certain situations, as the author found at night, stripers congregate and crush baitfish on the change of tides. Hit it at the right time, and you can be tight on nearly every cast.
JIM LEVISON
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BOTH IMAGES BY JIM LEEDOM
Block Island is small, less than 10 square miles. But among striper fishermen, its fishing provenance looms like Everest. During the early- to mid-1980s, large bass—true giants, with some weighing over 60 pounds—would stage every November off its rocky points. Mere 35-pounders were sneered at by locals and dubbed “Block Island schoolies.” Plugs like the needlefish, which imitates the large sand eels bass gorge on, were perfected here. Eventually these huge fish mostly vanished, the last of the great year-classes born in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Today, with a few exceptions, all that’s left from those glory days are faded Kodachromes and a few skin mounts of bass the size of third-graders gathering dust in bars and basements. But that was all purely plug and bait fishing. In all the accounts I have read about those magical few years, there is nary a mention of a double haul or a Deceiver. Admittedly, Block Island is not set up for fly fishing, unlike its more famous neighbor, Martha’s Vineyard, which lies some 50 miles to the east. The much larger Vineyard is blessed with many salt ponds, cuts, and gentle beaches, which are perfect for fly casting. Block, on the other hand, consists mostly of rock-studded shorelines blasted by relentless creaming waves. It’s a place where hard-core surf casters look and say, “Oh yeah,” while most fly fishers say, “Oh crap.” But there are places to punch a fly if you know where to look. And if solitude outweighs hard poundage of fish, you’ve come to the right place—particularly if you venture there after the summertime tourist crowds dissipate. Each year, these few fly-friendly spots shift like Block’s restless shorelines. Last year, on the island’s normally more placid western side, I found a cobble bar awash with white water from a distant
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tropical storm. Though it was midday and under a bright sun, the spot—no bigger than a large trout pool—erupted with breaking stripers whenever a large wave broke. You could wait for a series of rollers to pass, and behind them, bass up to 28 inches long would charge in, chasing silversides and other baitfish sometimes right at your feet. My plug-casting friends watched with envy as I matched the hatch perfectly with a size 1/0 Surf Candy and hooked three fish to their one. The fishing lasted for three delicious days, ending when the storm finally spiraled away. Other times, in a place known locally as the Coast Guard Channel, where Block’s lone salt pond drains, schools of false albacore streak through bait schools, guns blazing, sending anglers running to and fro like Keystone Cops. But those albie runs are notoriously mercurial, and more times than not, you stand around like a wallflower waiting for a dance partner who never shows up. Still, other times and in other places, toothy bluefish viciously grab streamers cast for bass, surprising me with their savagery and tail-walking leaps. Schoolies dominated our most recent trip—meaning striped bass from 18 to 24 inches. But what they lacked in heft, they made up for in sheer numbers and aggression. Nearly all my shore-bound fishing friends, regardless of where and how they fished, racked up large numbers of them. For me, it would be the year that stripers briefly morphed into bonefish. I discovered this phenomenon on the first night of our trip. The evening began with a typical StriperKamp overthe-top feast, starting with appetizers of smoked salmon, jumbo shrimp, dry salami, and assorted cheeses. Then came lamb chops cooked rare along with fresh string beans from a Kamper’s vegetable garden, followed by heaping dishes of warm apple pie, all chased with a dram or two of single malt. Afterwards, I reluctantly pried myself from a table filled with fishing friends and the kind of laughter and conversation that comes only after a truly great meal, and stepped into the night air. The moon, now two days off the full, rose over the island while I quietly pulled on waders, strung my 8-weight, and clipped the belt of my stripping basket around my waist. With bursts of laughter emanating from the house’s open windows, I followed a path through a bramble that led to the salt pond. The path continued to a low marsh, and I squished through a wet meadow that ended at a series of grassy islands that in turn opened up into the pond itself. The silhouettes of a few moored sailboats stood ghostly a few hundred yards away. On the far shore, I saw the twinkle of lights from distant houses. At first I mistook the slapping sound for breaking waves on some unseen shoreline. But on this still, nearly windless night, the pond remained glassy calm. The slaps turned out to be bass, dozens of them chasing peanut bunker in less than a foot of water. As the marsh behind me drained with the ebbing tide, stripers had set up on a broad flat, where they strafed fleeing bunker schools at will. Over the years, I have seen and heard plenty of bass on tidal flats chasing bait, but never so many and in water so skinny as on this night. And, as it turned out, never were so many willing to take my fly. I started out with an old Farnsworth fly—a type WWW.AMERICANANGLER.COM
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The boys at Striperkamp put many long-standing myths to bed, including the one that says big blues aren’t good on the table.
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TOM LYNCH
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LOGISTICS
Block Island is 12 miles south of Point Judith, Rhode Island. There is regular ferry service from Point Judith, and seasonally, New London, Connecticut, and Montauk Point, New York. Reservations are recommended, particularly during summer months. There is also regular commercial plane service from Westerly, Rhode Island. Accommodations on Block Island vary from expensive hotels to simple cottage rentals and range in price tremendously, depending on location and time of year, with summer by far the most expensive time to visit.
FISHING: Block begins to fish well in June, when bass move into the shallows, chasing sand eels. Some
years, depending on baitfish populations, bass over 15 pounds are caught by fly fishers in spring. Fishing continues throughout summer, but is mostly a night or boat fishery. In September, fishing picks up with bass, bluefish, false albacore, and occasionally bonito all coming within casting range of fly fishers. Bass sizes vary from year to year, but most fish caught by fly casters are under 10 pounds. Bluefish range from “snappers” of less than a foot long and weighing under a pound, to “gators”—beasts weighing into the low teens. False albacore average six to seven pounds, and bonito—which are an occasional catch—a pound or two smaller.
EQUIPMENT: An 8-weight fly rod takes care of most of your casting needs, though a 10-weight would be handy if the wind is blowing. A simple intermediate line works 90 percent of the time, though you can use a floater for shallow-water pond fishing or a fast-sinking line if you are trying some of the deep rips around the island. For leaders, I keep it really simple: just a straight shot of 20-pound fluorocarbon for most of my fishing. If albacore are around and they ignore my flies, I add a tippet of 10-pound test. For big bluefish, a shock leader of 40-pound mono, or even wire, may be in order, but know that blues eventually destroy your flies. Standard baitfish imitations work fine, such as the Surf Candy, Gummy Flies, Deceivers, and Snake Eels. Try to match whatever bait is prevalent. Some years, the fish are on sand eels, other years silversides, and still other years peanut bunker.
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JIM LEEDOM
We all know that a good trip is about the fish. But the downtime, surrounded by good friends and great food and drink, is treasured time too. It doesn’t hurt when the view looks like this.
of balsawood slider—that came from a late friend’s fly collection. On a steady V-waking retrieve, a bass crashed it, missing several times before finally gulping it down nearly off my rod tip. In water little more than 10 inches deep, the fish ran particularly hard, briefly spooking several others cruising nearby. A minute or two later, it came to hand, a perfectly proportioned 22-incher. Bass continued to gorge, and my fly rarely went more than a yard or two without at least a miss or a swirl, and more usually a solid wallop. A half dozen more quickly came to hand. Eventually, when the fly began to lose its charm, a quick change to a white Tabory’s Snake Eel prompted more strikes on nearly every cast. It was nothing less than magical out there. The fishing had an intimacy that transcended the brutality that can typify saltwater fly fishing: grunting double hauls into 20-knot gales, finger-burning runs, and fish so powerful, you are almost scared to wrestle a fly from gaping jaws. Instead, this shallow nighttime bay became as intimate as a native trout stream. The spartina grasses could have been rhododendrons, whistling oystercatchers singing warblers, and the silvery September moonlight the late evening sun of June. And the bass, with their pen-and-ink stripes, looked as beautiful as native brookies. It was a glorious place where the size of the fish became truly irrelevant. And all the while, with our rental house no more than a few hundred yards away, I still heard an occasional eruption of laughter—a sort of chorus to the joyful drama of fish and tide playing out in front of me. Eventually, the fishing slowed and the house grew silent. By the time I walked up the path, well past midnight, with a baker’s dozen bass released and twice as many hooked or missed, all I could hear was the breaking surf somewhere in the distance. The fishing continued like this for the next few days. Each 64 I AMERICAN ANGLER
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morning, our group would go their separate ways—the boat guys jigged delicious sea bass and scup off deepwater ledges; the surf casters found more bass and some enormous bluefish on topwater plugs. Even a few false albacore came to a lucky few throwing metal. One of the big bluefish—a freshly bled 10-pounder— found its way to my fillet table, where I sliced its shoulder meat thin and served it with picked ginger, wasabi, and soy sauce. The group surrounded it like tuna around a baitball, thus debunking the myth that large blues are subpar on the table. The rest of the meat went into an electric smoker I lugged along, and became the main ingredient of a simple pâté made with softened cream cheese, chopped shallots, and lemon juice. There were no leftovers. Then, after another fine dinner, and warmed by a finger or two of brown liquid, I would join the bass again as they chased bait across the flats. Eventually, two of our group tagged along with me, dusting off the fly rods they sneaked along “just in case.” We all caught fish. On our last full day, I was casting alone once again. This time I fished until last light and watched scattered bass schools briefly erupting here and there under hovering gulls. Most were well out of casting range. I knew in a few hours, when the tide dropped, they would stage once again in the shallows, where I could reach them. But I decided to leave them alone. I reeled in and headed to the house for laughter, food, and drink. The celebration continued long into the night, under the waning moon, surrounded by feeding bass and Block’s rushing tides. Stephen Sautner’s latest book is A Cast in the Woods, published by Lyons Press, about a fishing cabin he owns near the Upper Delaware River. Learn more at www.stephensautner.com. WWW.AMERICANANGLER.COM
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Much to My Chagrin (Continued from page 27) their presentations. The conversation was good-natured and upbeat, but I was more determined than ever to catch my first steelhead. We alternated positions for the first 30 minutes or so, working our way up and down the river, but nobody got a strike. I worked back upstream to the top position and felt an increasingly steady flow of ice-cold river water seeping through my waders, soaking my socks and legs. My discomfort shifted from mildly annoying to increasingly painful, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to stand in the river much longer. Nevertheless, I kept casting. Suddenly, I felt a slight tug and tried to set the hook. Missed. “I think I had a bite,” I called downstream to my partners. They looked up briefly from their casts, then returned to fishing.
Michigan City (Continued from page 31) just quit after all of this,” she said. “You’ve put in too much effort, and you’ll scar our children for life. We’re eating in an hour. Come home then or at least when it’s dark. We are not quitters.” A better woman has never lived. At the Johnson Road public access point, the air was thick and humid and jungle-buggy. I had about an hour of fishing at best. As I walked along the trail, I saw one of the guys who’d helped me over the past two years—meaning he’d let me stand next to him while he landed steelhead (clearly a warlock). He told me that fish were moving, and that someone had gotten a hog only minutes before. Inside, I wished deep paper cuts to whoever had taken that fish, because now I was sure the pool was wrecked. I had a fly rod by this time and tied on a Voodoo stonefly nymph with pink fuzz, for no reason other than I thought
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A few casts later, it happened. I had a strike. I set the hook. I saw a flash of silvery chrome swirl beneath the water. The rod doubled over. “I’ve got one!” I called. At long last, I thought to myself. “Let him run!” yelled the guide. Although my heart was pounding, I played the fish skillfully and calmly as it acrobatically broke the water and swam furiously upstream and down. For some reason, I knew I wasn’t going to lose the fish. The guide now stood at my side. “It’s a nice one,” he said. I worked my way to the bank as the guide got the fish in the net. It was a beauty. Long, lean, and colorful—a nice buck. The fish—and the moment I’d waited two decades for—finally come to fruition. It took all my self-control to keep from jumping for joy, but I played it cool. “That’s a nice one, huh?” I said. “It’s a beauty,” the guide replied. We took some photographs and returned the fish to the water. My fishing
partners congratulated me, then continued to fish. I made a few more casts, but the cold was getting to me, and in the interest of saving some of my toes, I decided it was time to roll. I returned the rod and reel to the guide with a hug and my sincere gratitude. One of the anglers called out to me, “Oh sure, catch a fish and then bail.” At that moment, a bald eagle soared majestically above the river. The moment could not have been more perfect, and I said a silent prayer of thanks, not just for the fish, but also for the experience and for the Chagrin. “Good luck, fellas,” I said as I returned to my car. I couldn’t wait to get those leaky waders off and warm my feet. I considered throwing the waders away, but instead, I left them in the trunk. Never know when I might need them again. I took one last look back at the river and turned the heater on high. I was finally at peace with my Chagrin.
it looked cool. There was a middleaged woman just down the bank with a French accent, and it was easy to see she was way better at fishing than me (obviously a witch). As my fly drifted through a patch of water that held one of the last beams of light, I saw a silver bullet streak through the column and nail the fly. It was a fresh steelhead, just in from Lake Michigan. I was terrified that my leader would snap. I tried landing it near a little sandbar right underneath the bank on which the witch was standing, but like a knucklehead, I’d left my net 30 feet away and now I didn’t have a plan. The fish ended up beaching itself on the sandbar, in about an inch of water, and then to my horror, it spit the hook. So, as any levelheaded, well-adjusted father of three would do, I jumped on top of the chromer and pinned it between my shins. I was sitting on its square tail. We were nearly eye to eye. I had it. When I pulled into the driveway after being gone all of 25 minutes, my mother
called out from the garden. “Did you forget something?” “No, Ma, I got one!” I said. She dropped the hose and screamed. Kids’ heads popped out of doors, windows, and bushes, and the cry went up: “Uncle Mike got a fish!” I held my prize high, and we spent 15 minutes high-fiving, with the kids taking turns holding the steelhead for photos. Over the last eight years, I have taught my brother and all our children to love steelhead fishing, and just this summer, both mine and Joe’s sons—11 and 8—hooked and landed their first steelhead . . . with help from their dads. Nowadays, we practice catch-andrelease 99 percent of the time. But back in 2010, that first fish was the pièce de résistance on the back porch. My aunt Joan, resident master chef, grilled the steelhead and stuffed it with garlic, vegetables, and plenty of butter, while the rest of us grilled burgers for the ultimate Michigan City surf and turf: Skamania steel and cheeseburgers.
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FLY TYER® by Scott Sanchez
Big-Gap Hooks When you’re getting bit, but you need more bite, big-gap hooks do the trick on large trout.
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FLY IS ONLY AS GOOD as the hook. This past spring, I was fishing a trophy trout lake with a friend, Randolph, and he was getting action, but his standard, size 14 nymph hooks were an issue. The strikes weren’t converting to hookups and when he did hook up, these large fish bent the hook. He asked me, “Are these bad hooks?” I said, “No, size 14 hooks aren’t meant for wrestling large trout on 3X and 2X leaders.” I gave him some of my shorter-shank size 10 and 12 nymphs, which were the same length as the 14. His hookups and landings changed big-time. That was one example of why tying your lake flies on a bigger-gap hook pays dividends. Another occurred at the 2018 Jackson Hole One Fly contest. I tied the winning fly, which was a size 18 Loop Wing Trico, tied on a shortershank size 16 hook. Greg Case of Team Skwlala caught 47 trout with that single
fly—many of them of a nice size—using 4X leader. The hook didn’t bend, and the fly held together. Most size 18 dry fly hooks would not have handled that workout. We can use the best materials, execute perfect tying, but if the hook doesn’t function, all is lost. When fishing smaller flies, I’ve run into many situations where standard premium hooks were not reliable for hooking fish, and they didn’t have adequate strength. The need for stronger hooks correlates to waters that have larger fish but require smaller flies. I would say that working on my hook selection for smaller flies has been as important as anything I’ve done in tying. Whether you’re fishing a size 20 on a 17-inch trout, or a size 10 on a 27-incher, a bigger gap and a shorter shank are desirable assets. Saltwater and big game anglers have been doing this for years; in my opinion, it’s time trout anglers join in. As a tier, you have the wonderful option of modifying your flies, and it’s time to
start doing so, because losing the trout of a lifetime ain’t no fun. Having strong hooks is emphasized by outrageously strong modern leaders. I’m looking at a roll of 5X tippet right now that is six pounds, and not so many years ago, it would have weighed three pounds. Advances in copolymer nylons and fluorocarbons keep happening, but the same is not true for steel hook wire. Where you used to break tippets, now we open hooks.
Open Space and Mechanics Probably the simplest way to increase hookups and strengthen flies is to tie them on a hook with the shank length we need, but with a bigger gap than we’d typically use. For example, tying a size 16 fly on a shorter-shank size 14 hook. Hooking ability comes down to the gap. You need enough gap for the hook point to extend over fly materials. Soft materials, like marabou or CDC, aren’t much of an issue, since they compress and
Tying delicate drys, like these Parachute PMDs, on wider-gap hooks increases your odds of success.
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slip out of the way. But the less compressible the material, the more important hook gap is. The biggest culprits are beads. If you want to hook fish, the bead and the hook point need to be separated. On bulky flies, like Chernobyls and hoppers, long-shank hooks work well, but as you shrink flies down, the long hooks are a liability. MiniChernobyls and hoppers fish much better on standard-shank or big-gap hooks, and they also act as a ballast to make the fly land on the water correctly. The other factor of gap is a fish’s mouth. Large trout have tough mouths. It is hard to take big fish on small flies unless you get the hook perfectly in the corner of the mouth or inside the mouth. You need to get a hook solidly and deeply into the hard edge of the mouth for it to hold. Otherwise, the hook pulls out or opens up, since only the tip has penetrated the jaw. With more gap, it is easier to hook into the softer interior of the mouth or wedge around the inside edge of the jaw. There is also more metal to hold. Sound like tarpon fishing? Larger gap hooks of the same shank length are generally stronger than shorter gap hooks, since wire diameter is usually matched to the hook size. However, this is usually just a slight increase in diameter, not a big jump as in a heavy-wire hook. The functional strength of shorter hooks is that there is less leverage on the hook, meaning it’s less likely to bend or pull out. That is a reason most saltwater flies are tied on standard or short-shank hooks.
Possibilities In basic hook reference, we have a standard hook-shank length and a standard diameter wire size. Variations from standard are usually designated by an X-denomination. A 1X fine wire is finer than standard; a 1X heavy is heavier; a 1X short is shorter; a 1X long is longer than a standard-shank length; and a 2X long is longer than that. That being said, hook designations change by brand, model, and size. This is complicated in many standard dry and nymph hooks, as their proportions change in smaller sizes. Hooks that have an ideal hook shank-to-gap ratio in a size 14 may have a 2X long proportion in an 18. How does this help you? It is a starting point to determine which hook is right for you. To WWW.AMERICANANGLER.COM
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measurements verified. For a dry fly, a TMC 921 is about a 1.9 ratio and a TMC 3769 nymph is a 2.1 ratio. Similar models in a specific brand are the best way to start comparing. You don’t need a set of calipers to measure hooks—just set hooks out on a table to match them up.
Preferences
Wide-gap hooks come in a variety of sizes, and the scud style is recommended. When you are fishing large trout on small flies, these hooks make the difference between a big one lost and a trophy in the net.
find the right hooks, you can use designations, but for the best results, you’ll need to physically compare hook length, gap, and wire size. Do this at your fly shop, club, with friends, or look in your own boxes. Here are my recommendations. I’m going to use the TMC 100 standard dry fly hook and a TMC 3761 1X-long nymph hook as standards. I’ve done some proportion measurements on hooks, comparing the gap to the shank, and this will give some insight into options for more gap. On both these hooks, the shank is about 2.3 times longer than the gap. If we want to get a bigger gap, we need a hook where the shank is shorter than 2.3. Pretty simple. My eyes knew this, and the
For larger-gap hooks, these are models that I’ve found to be consistent in proportions as they change in size. For dry flies, stick with models that are designated as standard, fine, or 1X fine, and make a judgment call on actual wire size. I want the strength. On wets, match the wire to the strength and weight desired. All things being equal, hooks with longer points tend to hold fish better. Standard Dry: Daiichi 1310, TMC 9300, TMC 113BLH—2.15 ratio. This is what I would call a standard-length dry fly hook for smaller flies. I think they are a much better proportion than the TMC 100 hooks on flies below size 14. The TMC 113BLH is listed as a nymph hook in the United States and as a nymph/dry in Japan. Short Dry Fly: TMC 921, Fulling Mills Short Shank—1.9 ratio. These are great hooks when you need gap and strength. These are “standard” wire. The Fulling Mills Short Shank was the hook on which I tied the winning Loop Wing Trico, the one that won the One Fly. Emerger/Dry: Dai-Riki 125, TMC 2488—1.5 ratio average. These are some of my favorite small dry fly and emerger hooks. For dry flies, simply ignore the slight bend in the hook shank. The 2488 is available down to size 26. These are good all-purpose small hooks for emergers, drys, and nymphs. Heavy Nymph Standard to 1X Short: DR 075, Daiichi 1530, TMC3769, TMC 107SP—2 ratio. These are great hooks when fishing for trophies and especially when using heavy tippet material. Many steelhead nymphs are tied on these. Scud Heavy: Daiichi 1120, Dai-Riki 135, TMC 2457, TMC2488H—1.3 ratio. Curved-shank hooks are standard on scuds as well as many nymph patterns. People like the looks, but more important, they hook and hold big fish. Curved imitations, like scuds and caddis larvae, JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019 I 67
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10 Going On 14 Nymph
This fly isn’t really a new fly, just a variation of the Pheasant-Tail Nymph. However, it has a few twists on the standard. First, it is tied on a heavy-wire shorter-shank hook for more gap and strength. You want to use a hook that has the same shank length as your standard fly, but a size or two bigger. Dubbing replaces the pheasant tail, so the fly holds up better when clamped in a large trout’s teeth. The fly is also tied to ride like a jig, but it isn’t tied on a jig hook. To make the fly flip over, a slotted bead is wedged down on the hook shank so that there is more mass on the top of the hook. And, after winding on soft hackle, that hackle is trimmed, which creates resistance. That combination of mass and resistance makes the fly flip over with the hook point up. This fly works just about anywhere, but really shines on lakes.
Tying the 10 Going On 14 Nymph Hook: TMC 107SP, sizes 10 to 14. Weight: Slotted tungsten copper bead to match hook. Thread: 8/0 rusty brown. Tail: Pheasant tail fibers. Rib: Small copper wire. Abdomen: Pheasant-tail-colored Antron dubbing. Thorax: Peacock Ice Dub. Hackle: Dark dun hen.
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Crimp the barb and slide the bead on the hook. Invert the hook. Align the bead so the slot is beneath the hook. This will put more of the bead under the fly.
Start your thread and wrap behind the bead. Make sure the slot of the bead stays down. Wedge the bead in this position with your thread. Cement the thread wraps. Rotate the fly upright. Tie in a few strands of pheasant tail fibers to make a short tail. Secure a strand of copper wire for the rib. Dub the abdomen. Rib the abdomen with wire. Dub the thorax. Tie in a soft hackle by the tip and make a few wraps.
Whip-finish and cement. Trim the hackle off on the top of the hook, which is actually the bottom of the fly. This helps it ride inverted.
are obvious patterns to use these hooks on, but most nymphs can be tied on these hooks. They are produced in a huge range of sizes, from 6 to 20. Heavy-Wire Egg Hook: TMC105, DaiRiki 155, Gamakatsu C14—1.2 ratio. If you want a small hook for big fish, this is it. What other size 10 hook can land large anadromous fish? A short shank, big gap, and heavy wire mean big trout, salmon, and steelhead in the net. Competition Dry: Fulling Mills Grab Gape—1.9 ratio. Competition Nymph: Umpqua C300BL, C260BL, C550BL—1.2 to 1.4 ratio. Competition-style hooks came from European nymphs fished in international competitions. They are similar to a scud or curved emerger hook, but they are barbless and have slightly longer curved-in points. The point helps hold fish on a barbless hook. Most of these hooks have a very large gap. This style of hook also crossed over into dry fly and nymph models. Czech companies, such as Hanak and Knapek, make the bulk of these hooks, but Japanese companies also produce them. The most common competition hooks in the United States are sold through Umpqua and Fulling Mills. I have had good luck using the Fulling Mills Grab Gape hook on drys and emergers. Unfortunately, many of the competition hooks are found in limited sizes and in limited distribution. Olive Scud, standard hook and large gap: size 12 TMC 3761 1XL nymph hook and TMC size 12 C550BL competition hook. The bigger gap helps in hooking and landing big fish. Parachute PMDs: standard dry fly TMC 100, size 16, and/or Fulling Mills Grab Gape, size 12. Same shank length, different gaps. Which holds big fish better? You know the answer. Dry Fly Hooks, all size 14: TMC 100, traditional length; Daiichi 1310 (my standard length); TMC 921, short shank; DaiRiki 125, emerger/dry hook; Fulling Mills Grab Gape, competition-style large gap. Wet Fly Hooks, all size 10: TMC 3761 – 1XL standard nymph hook; TMC 107SP, short heavy nymph hook; TMC 2457, heavy scud hook; Dai-Riki 155, egg hook; Umpqua C300B, competition nymph hook. Scott Sanchez lives in Jackson, Wyoming and is one of the most creative fly tiers in the West.
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WATERLINES (Continued from page 72) eggheads for high school, college, and productive technical careers that would keep the country ahead of those sneaky Russians. Not all experiments are successful; I flunked out of my first year of college and became a housepainter, more interested in fishing than in contributing to our Cold War effort. But I would pit my skills with a 2½-inch angled sash brush against any communist housepainter anywhere. In the fifth-grade experimental class, I met Pat B. Each afternoon we rode the bus home from the magnet school, and Pat would get off at my stop with me in
We would fondle the chrome spoons and spinners and bass plugs we couldn’t afford, ogle the dusty stuffed walleyes and muskies hanging on the walls, and then go to my house to tie a few flies before dinner. front of Cruickshank’s Tackle Shop on Buffalo Avenue. We would fondle the chrome spoons and spinners and bass plugs we couldn’t afford, ogle the dusty stuffed walleyes and muskies hanging on the walls, and then go to my house to tie a few flies before dinner. Pat B. was not a fanatic fisherman the way I was, but he was intrigued with the fly tying process on a scientific level. Unlike me, he was a genuine intellectual. In our 20s, while I was painting steel in the factories along the Niagara River, he became a doctor. And, if the folks at my 50th high school reunion are correct, he eventually became personal physician to the leader of a nationally known religious cult. But, of course, we knew nothing of all that in fifth grade. What I liked most about Pat WWW.AMERICANANGLER.COM
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was the Gray’s Anatomy book the future doctor carried around with him even then. It contained clinical photos of naked female medical patients. What can I say? I was 11. One Friday afternoon after Pat left, I couldn’t find my whip-finishing tool. I tore the desk apart. Nothing. It was gone. Pat had been admiring the clever mechanics of the device and the elegant knot it produced. I was sure he had stolen it. What other conclusion could I come to? I spent the weekend tormented by the idea that a friend would do such a thing. What kind of person was he? And how would I ever face him again, knowing of his horrible betrayal? I went sleepless, couldn’t eat, couldn’t even fish. I wouldn’t tell my parents what was wrong. It was all very dramatic, a major psychic storm. Monday morning, I sat hunched over my Shredded Wheat, thinking about faking a life-threatening disease to avoid facing the duplicitous Pat B. on the bus. Then my mother said, “Richard, do you know what this is?” She was holding up a strange contraption made of twisted metal. My curious baby brother had snatched the whipfinishing tool off my tying desk, wandered away, and left it somewhere in the path of our mother’s endless housekeeping patrols. I don’t use that tool anymore, preferring to whip-finish with my bare fingers. And, as with so many things from that time period, I don’t even know if I still have it. But, as I said, I do still use the remnant of my original beeswax. With modern prewaxed threads, my nearly fossilized specimen is not needed most of the time. But there is something seductive about making a dubbing loop and rubbing what’s left of that old, threadscarred wax lump back and forth inside it before setting the fur; something that brings back memories of hunkering over my old Herter’s vise, preparing to tie a Black Ghost or a McGinty wet fly with Pat B looking over my shoulder, his Gray’s Anatomy under one arm. I can almost smell my mother’s spaghetti sauce simmering on the stove. And once again I remember what it was like to be 11 and a fisherman. Call me sentimental. I dare you.
STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT AND CIRCULATION (required by Act of August 12, 1970: Section 3685, Title 39, United States Code). 1. American Angler 2. (ISSN: 1055-6737) 3. Filing date: 10/1/18. 4. Issue frequency: January/February, March/ April, May/June, July/August, September/October, November/ December. 5. Number of issues published annually:6. 6. The annual subscription price is $21.95. 7. Complete mailing address of known office of publication: MCC Magazines, LLC, PO Box 936, Augusta, GA 30903-0936. Contact person: Kolin Rankin. 8. Complete mailing address of headquarters or general business office of publisher: MCC Magazines, LLC, PO Box 936, Augusta, GA 30903-0936. 9. Full names and complete mailing addresses of publisher, editor, and managing editor. Publisher, John Lunn, PO Box 936, Augusta, GA 30903-0936, Editor, Ben Romans, PO Box 936, Augusta, GA 30903-0936 , Managing Editor, . 10. Owner: MCC Magazines, LLC; Wholly-owned subsidiary of Questo, Inc., W.S. Morris III, , Mary E Morris, W.S. Morris IV, J Tyler Morris, Susie Morris Baker, THE MORRIS FAMILY LIMITED PARTNERSHIP, PO BOX 936, Augusta, GA 30903-0936, PO BOX 936, Augusta, GA 30903-0936. 11. Known bondholders, mortgages, and other security holders owning or holding 1 percent of more of total amount of bonds, mortgages or other securities: None. 12. Tax status: Has Not Changed During Preceding 12 Months. 13. Publisher title: American Angler. 14. Issue date for circulation data below: September/October 2018. 15. The extent and nature of circulation: A. Total number of copies printed (Net press run). Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 36,498. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 33,493. B. Paid circulation. 1. Mailed outside-county paid subscriptions. Average number of copies each issue during the preceding 12 months: 19,682. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 18,274. 2. Mailed incounty paid subscriptions. Average number of copies each issue during the preceding 12 months: 0. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date:0. 3. Sales through dealers and carriers, street vendors and counter sales. Average number of copies each issue during the preceding 12 months: 2,732. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 2,496. 4. Paid distribution through other classes mailed through the USPS. Average number of copies each issue during the preceding 12 months: 0. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 0. C. Total paid distribution. Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 22,414. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date; 20,770. D. Free or nominal rate distribution (by mail and outside mail). 1. Free or nominal Outside-County. Average number of copies each issue during the preceding 12 months: 1,169. Number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 1,113. 2. Free or nominal rate in-county copies. Average number of copies each issue during the preceding 12 months: 0. Number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 0. 3. Free or nominal rate copies mailed at other Classes through the USPS. Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 0. Number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 0. 4. Free or nominal rate distribution outside the mail. Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 0. Number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 0. E. Total free or nominal rate distribution. Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 1,169. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 1,113. F. Total free distribution (sum of 15c and 15e). Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 23,584. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 21,883. G. Copies not Distributed. Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 12,914. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 11,610. H. Total (sum of 15f and 15g). Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 36,498. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing: 33,493. I. Percent paid. Average percent of copies paid for the preceding 12 months: 95.0% Actual percent of copies paid for the preceding 12 months: 94.9% 16. Electronic Copy Circulation: A. Paid Electronic Copies. Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 1,026. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 957. B. Total Paid Print Copies (Line 15c) + Paid Electronic Copies (Line 16a). Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 23,441. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 21,727. C. Total Print Distribution (Line 15f) + Paid Electronic Copies (Line 16a). Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 24,610. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 22,840. D. Percent Paid (Both Print & Electronic Copies) (16b divided by 16c x 100). Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 95.2%. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 95.1% . I certify that 50% of all distributed copies (electronic and print) are paid above nominal price: Yes. Report circulation on PS Form 3526-X worksheet 17. Publication of statement of ownership will be printed in the January/February 2019 issue of the publication. 18. Signature and title of editor, publisher, business manager, or owner: Scott Ferguson. I certify that all information furnished on this form is true and complete. I understand that anyone who furnishes false or misleading information on this form or who omits material or information requested on the form may be subject to criminal sanction and civil actions.
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WATERLINES by Richard Chiappone
Beeswax
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AM NOT A SENTIMENTAL guy, especially about material things. Ask my wife. She cherishes furniture that belonged to her ancestors when mine were probably still dwelling in unfurnished caves in the mountains of Sicily. My disregard for old things extends to fishing memorabilia. I don’t have my grandfather’s lovely bamboo fly rod, as some of you may; my grandfather never fished, and if he had, he would’ve used an octagonal steel casting rod capable of handling the heavy sinkers needed for the mighty Niagara River where I grew up. I don’t even have the early tackle I first fished with those many ages ago when I was in grade school. I do remember my first Ocean City fiberglass baitcasting rod and reel (only because there is a photo of me holding them), but I have no idea what became of them, and I don’t care. I realize this attitude is contrary to the stereotype of the aging angler, nostalgic, even maudlin about missing his old wicker creel and sheepskin fly wallet. Sue me. I was born without that chromosome. Not that I don’t treasure the many memories of my 60-plus years as a fisherman. It’s just that I don’t have a lot of physical mementos from those early days, when thinking and dreaming about fishing were my fantastical escape from the industrial environs of Western New York. One of the few museum pieces from that ancient epoch is a copy of Ray Bergman’s seminal Trout, a gift from my great-uncle, who stole it from the library of a mental institution in Buffalo, where he was a guest at that time. I believe he liked the photo plates of all those old fly
patterns. I’m very fond of that book and I think it’s around here someplace. There is one thing from my early fishing days that I actually look at and handle almost daily, a small chunk of beeswax about the size of a cough drop now, all that’s left of the wax puck that came in a beginner’s fly tying kit I got when I was in fourth grade. The kit came in a box, about the size of a shirt box, with colorful drawings of a Fan-Winged Royal Coachman and some classic streamers and old-style wet flies on the cover. Along with the wax,
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THE PERFECT PATTERN, BY ADRIANO MANOCCHIA
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it contained a stamped white metal vise, a pair of tin hackle pliers with rubber tips, and a whip-finishing tool. The tying materials included goose quills, barred wood duck feathers, and a few packets of hen hackles. For fly bodies, there was chenille, peacock herl, silk floss, and a wooden spool of flat silver tinsel. I lived many miles from trout water and wouldn’t fish with insect imitations for years to come. In lieu of that, I taught myself to tie the big (size 2 or 4) yellow or orange wet flies, which we trailed behind Indiana spinners for smallmouths and walleyes, their hook points adorned with fat night crawlers—for extra luck. Not having a bobbin, I would secure a hook in the simple lever-handled vise, cut
a foot-long piece of thread off the spool, attach it behind the eye of the hook, and clamp the hackle pliers to the tag end to keep it dangling straight down. Then I’d apply a healthy coating of the beeswax to the thread. All the trimming was done with one of my father’s Gillette doubleedged razor blades, one dangerous edge safely covered with adhesive tape. As time went by and I read more about fly fishing and fly tying, I started sending for materials needed for trout patterns not at all suited for the fetid Niagara River, but patterns I was sure I would get to fish with one day, somewhere a bit more idyllic. This was the late 1950s, and the wonderful Herter’s catalog still offered fabulous (and probably no longer legal) materials, such as seal and polar bear and bat fur, jungle cock feathers, even whole monkey skins. Whenever a package from Waseca, Minnesota, arrived in the mail, I’d tear into it with a frantic anticipation unmatched on any Christmas morning. In fifth grade, I was sent to an experimental grade school program: one of many in the Sputnik era, as our panicked educators became convinced that Soviet children were designing nuclear submarines in their spare time while we indolent American brats were watching TV, playing Little League ball, or maybe tying flies. An aptitude test was given to all the students in each of our city’s elementary schools. Kids showing a predisposition for science or math were bused downtown to a magnet school. There, a seminar-style class promised to prepare us brainy little (Continued on page 71) WWW.AMERICANANGLER.COM
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NAUTILUS PRO GUIDE DATA SHEET
Scott MacCalla 5 th Generation Native Floridian, Began Guiding in 2000. Guide the BIO: Mosquito Lagoon, and other waters around Central Florida and Louisiana TARGET SPECIES: Mostly Redfish and seasonal Tarpon. Sight fishing nearshore for Cobia and Big Jacks. But, Largemouth Bass and the seasonal American Shad on the St. John’s River can’t be forgotten. BOAT: Hell’s Bay Waterman 18 and Action Craft 2210 Coastline FAVORITE FLY: No Name Shrimp FAVORITE KNOT: Slim Beauty FAVORITE PLACE TO FISH: No one favorite place, everywhere I’ve fished is special. FAVORITE TYPE OF FISHING: Any type of sight fishing with f lies FAVORITE FISH: Tarpon and big Seatrout FAVORITE NAUTILUS REEL: Just got an XL MAX and I’m “reelly” digging how light it is, how easy it is to palm, and the drag is super smooth and has plenty of stopping power. WHAT DO YOU LIKE BEST ABOUT NAUTILUS REELS: I’ve been fishing Nautilus for around 10 years now and haven’t had a single issue with any of the reels... Zero, nil, nada. Probably equates to 2500 days on the water or so. You have to rely on your tools, and I have 100% faith in my Nautili. DREAM DESTINATION: Florida Keys in the 1960’s BIGGEST FISH EVER LOST: Hooked a mystery fish on the Dean River in British Columbia that I couldn’t turn or stop. Either a big Steelhead or a King Salmon, but it was the first and only that I have ever hooked and had no idea of what to do. AND ONE TIME A CLIENT: My buddy Jim “T he Greek” went out and slam fished in the North Indian River in Titusville. My goal was sight fishing a Redfish, Tarpon, and a Seatrout. T his is what the State of Florida recognizes as our slam. We also got Snook, Black Drum, and a Tripletail all by 10 am Lots of moving around and lots of luck! NAME:
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