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The Ten Thousand Sounds of the River

August 7, 2010 by Charlie Robinton

Fishing creeks lately has gotten me reminiscing about the good old days when I first began fly fishing.  I would spend hours exploring tiny little watersheds near my grandparents’ summer cabin near Lake Tahoe, CA.  It didn’t matter whether the fish were four inches or four pounds.  I thoroughly enjoyed watching each and every one rise to my skated elk hair caddis.  The only difference is that now I release all of my fish, while back then I can’t deny that a few ended up on the frying pan 😉

I wrote this poem a few years ago while waiting for summer days like the ones we have been experiencing here in Washington lately.  One of my favorite things about fly fishing is that it allows me an excuse to slow down, enjoy the little things that we so often pass by and really feel alive.

The Ten Thousand Sounds of the River

The ten thousand little sounds of the river
dance fluidly through the stillness
I dance along with them,
wading in the mist beneath sleepy mountains.
The sun yawns and stretches
his arms open wide
and twinkling fingers cast a waking spell
over the drowsy valley.
Several hungry rainbows have gathered
in a pool to feed on mayflies.
In the dance I am invisible,
as minute as a tiny baetis nymph,
as sinuous as the playful water.
The trout sip their meals
finning lazily beneath the surface .
With a slight wave of my fly rod
I shoot a serpentine loop out over the water.
The line unfurls, whispering to the river
and settles the fly on the surface film.
I count my heartbeats:
One…
Two…
Three…
One hundred and eleven…
My world is a bubble under an endless sky
with an infinitesimal dry fly at the center.
The ten thousand sounds envelop me
and my heart palpitates softly with the rhythm.
A swirling shadow rises beneath the fly
breaking the playful cadence.
With elegant swiftness I strike.
The rod arcs sharply
finding a life of its own.
The surprised trout streaks for deep sanctuary.
Line flies off my reel.
My bubble shatters,
pierced by the triumphant sound
of a stripping drag.
I hold on
palming the spool
keeping pressure
fighting back.
Gaining first inch by inch,
then feet and yards.
The trout explodes to the surface
cartwheeling into the air.
A circus acrobat
dressed in sparkling jewels.
The trout makes another hard run
stretching me to my utter limits.
Tired and reluctant she submits,
drifting in to land delicately
in my waiting net.
I remove the hook with care
and hold her up in the light.
she is a treasure surviving the vigor of time
her colors reflect the joy of the sun
and the sadness of the moon.
All the hues that fill the day
shine from her vibrant skin
resonating inside me
with life, love and health.
Gently I send her back to her home
and watch a sacred gem swim away free.
I breathe deeply and let out a long sigh.
My heart beats softly once again
and the ten thousand sounds of the river
rise up from the valley
vibrating in the sierra sun.

-Charlie Robinton

Filed Under: Emerald Water Anglers Tagged With: California, creeks, Emerald Water Anglers, Lake Tahoe, poetry, summer

Tough Stuff

June 2, 2010 by Charlie Robinton

P6010021

P-Line has been on the market for quite a while and hordes of gear fishermen can attest to the incredible performance of their copolymer CX and CXX fishing lines.  They are known for their low memory, abrasion resistance and superior breaking strength.  Relatively new on the market however is their CFX fluorocarbon leader material.  After listening to gear fishermen rave about it all season and watching it fly off of our shelves at work, I decided it was time to put it to test in some fly fishing applications.  While the line is too thick for use as tippet, it is ideal for use as a level leader for fishing larger bugs such as streamers and winter steelhead flies.

At $13.99 for a 25 yd spool it is cheaper than most other fluorocarbon materials, but what what about the quality?  Out of the box it is surprisingly supple.  Keep in mind that is comparing it to other fluoros… not tippet!  I’d rate it around the same as Maxima Ultragreen on memory and overall flexibility.  No breakthroughs here but better than some for sure.

Where this stuff really shines though is in its durability, knot strength and overall breaking strength.  Some fluoros are brittle and hard to tie knots with.  The friction from the material tightening on itself leaves your leader kinked and vulnerable to breakage.  Not P-Line!  I put it to the test on an all day streamer expedition and it performed admirably.

Fishing with a 7 foot tungsten versi-leader, the low visibility nature of the fluorocarbon allowed me to cut my tippet down to a mere 18″ of 10lb CFX.  Swinging through a shallow run my sculpin looked as if it was swimming all by itself!  I connected the versi-leader to my fluoro tippet with a perfection loop and attached the fly with a uni-knot with a 1/4″ sliding loop for more movement in the water.  I had no problems with the knots at all, in fact they tied butter smooth with no kinks or frays.

Breaking strength?  At one point I snagged up on a log and had to walk backwards up the bank with my rod pointed at the fly, pulling with all my might to break free.  My fly popped back into my face… the pressure had bent an extra heavy #2 streamer hook completely straight.  Did it say 10lb test on the package?

Needless to say that little test gave me the confidence to put the pressure on every big fish that I hooked in and around the same logjams.  I didn’t give a trout an inch, and my leader saved me more than once when an angry lunker drove head on for a big rootball or tangle of limbs in heavy current.

All in all I am very pleased with the way this stuff performed.  At the end of the day I had caught several very nice fish and didn’t break off once despite getting in some pretty hairy situations.  As for applications, i’d say CFX is perfect for anything where big flies, big fish, heavy cover and clear water are involved.

Thanks P-Line for a great day in the river and some wonderful memories of the ones that didn’t get away 😉

P5310008

P-Line CFX helped me land large fish like this cut-bow quickly to ensure a healthy release, even in heavy current and snaggy structure!

Filed Under: Emerald Water Anglers Tagged With: Emerald Water Anglers, fluorocarbon, leader material, P-Line, streamer fishing, tippet material, Washington

Recycled Beadheads

May 28, 2010 by Charlie Robinton

Recycled Beadheads

Recycled Beadheads

While tying nymphs for an upcoming trip I ran out of beadheads.  Why I procrastinate and wait until midnight the night before I go fishing to tie all the flies I will need is beyond me.  All I know is that in this particular circumstance I was in a bit of a pickle.  Faced with the terrifying thought of having no flies for the trip I began frantically searching through old boxes hoping to find something, anything that might work.  I found out that I have a habit of keeping lots of junky, useless flies!  Unwinding threadwraps, missing legs, tattered ribbing, dull, rusted and broken hooks.  None of them could be put to use, unless….  Of course!  They all had perfectly good beadheads.  I took a pair of pliers and started ripping flies apart.  Before long I had several dozen beads in all different sizes, and from flies I was never going to use!  Now I never throw away old, worn out or otherwise useless beadhead flies.  I even find myself picking rusty flies out of bushes on the river.  Why not?  Beads are expensive and seeing as how I go through flies nearly as fast as I tie them it is nice to get some re-use out of them.  If you like to tie a lot of flies like I do then recycling your old beadheads is a great way conserve your resources.  Happy tying!

Put your old junky nymphs to use!

Put your old junky nymphs to use!

Filed Under: Emerald Water Anglers Tagged With: beadheads, beads, Emerald Water Anglers, Flies, fly tying, nymphs, procrastinating, recycling

No More Training Wheels

April 27, 2010 by Charlie Robinton

Hoh_4-2010-Guides

I recently took up spey casting, and in doing so I learned a great deal about why fly fishing is important to me.  The ideas manifested in this article have been swimming around in my mind for a while now, finally developing into a single cognizant flow during a recent steelhead trip to the Hoh river which proved to me that simply catching a lot of fish is highly overrated.  Achieving a true appreciation of the sport of fly fishing and experiencing the awesome level of fulfillment it can add to one’s life involves a depth of understanding that goes far beyond feeling a fish throb at the end of your line, dragging it onto the bank and snapping a few photos to show your buddies.

Before I get any deeper into this, let me start from the beginning…

I learned to fish for steelhead with a single handed rod using a strike indicator and a team of nymphs.  In my mind this setup will forever be known as a set of training wheels.  There are several reasons why a person might choose to bobber fish for steelhead, and very few of them have anything to do with mastering the art of fly fishing.  I utilized this tactic because I wanted to catch steelhead.  I was already well aquainted with nymphing for trout so there was almost no transition at all.  Apart from reading water to find steelhead holding lies as opposed to feeding lies that trout prefer, there is no difference between nymphing for trout and steelhead.

Is it an effective way to steelhead fish?  Damn straight!

But I digress, even though my new set of training wheels allowed me to catch many large, hard fighting fish I was left feeling empty, like my success had been unearned.  I didn’t feel like a “real” steelhead fisherman, just a guy who caught a lot of steelhead.

When I think about images synonymous with fly fishing for steelhead I picture a frostbitten sunrise on a sprawling river like the Skagit.  I imagine wading deep into the river’s flow feeling for purchase on the cobble rocks with numb feet.  I can hear the line rip free from its anchor point on the waters surface as I swing the thirteen foot double handed rod wide to form a D-loop, and then up and out over the river.  I make a big mend to let the sink tip do its work and then tighten on the line.  The fly swings across the current searching for a fish.  Nothing.  Cast, mend, swing, step, repeat…_MG_3525

A steelhead fisherman covers water while searching out his quarry.  Patience, persistence and meticulous attention to detail are his key virtues.  Countless hours spent on the water have given him a keen sense of his surroundings.  He is aware of the subtle changes in current speed caused by variations in the river bottom.  He has faced the disappointment of arriving to a raging torrent of a river after a fresh winter rain and the challenge of tempting a large silvery fish from the bottom of a crystal clear pool under the midday august sun.

This is the depth I was lacking, and in learning to fish with a two handed rod I was taking my first step to becoming a “real” steelhead fisherman.

This idea was driven home for me when Ted and I drove out to the Hoh river to fish it one final time before it closed for the season.  Like any fishing trip it began with high hopes and giddy, sleepless nights in anticipation of that electric surge when a fish is peeling drag off of your reel.

Within ten seconds of arriving at the river and wetting my line I knew I would not be experiencing that feeling on this particular trip!  My casts were awkward and disjointed.  On each successive attempt my line would appear to die right in front of me, leaving me feeling quite impotent as an angler.  To make matters worse, boat after boat drifted by us with gear fishermen raving about how many fish they were catching.  We even observed one set of anglers cleaning two beautiful chrome bright wild fish at the edge of the river, a saddening and frustrating sight on a number of different levels.

One might think that feeling the intense frustration of not being able to fish effectively while numerous others were enjoying success would cause me to throw down the spey rod and grab the glow bugs and strike indicator.  To be honest, there were a few moments when the only thing keeping me from launching the thirteen foot contraption clear across the river like a javelin, knowing full well I could throw it further than I could cast at that moment, was the fact that it had the name Dave McCoy engraved on the butt section just above the cork.  However, I never once thought about switching back to the training wheels.  My resolve was set, and my desire to learn to spey cast greatly exceeded my desire to land a steelhead.

Luckily I was not alone in my struggles, and I had some lessons from Dave, who is a phenomenal teacher, to fall back on.  So I started with the fundamentals I had learned while casting on green lake during my initial spey lesson, and along with a few helpful tips from Ted McDermott that fixed some hitches in my cast I eventually got to the point where casting turned into fishing.

Slowly the moves became ingrained and my casting turned into a rhythm.  Cast, mend, swing, step, repeat.  MyHoh_4-2010_sunrise numb feet dug into the cobble rocks and held fast as I stood thigh deep in the powerful current of the river.  I relished in feeling the “snap” in my snap-t and smiled at the satisfying sound of my anchor tearing from the water as I swung the rod wide to form a d-loop and sent the line sailing out over the river.  My frustrations were carried away in the flowing current and I was able to look upon the place I was in with new eyes.

Bald eagles soared overhead.  The afternoon sun warmed the back of my neck.  As the power and beauty of the Olympic Peninsula soaked in I reflected that Ted and I had it pretty good.

On day 2 Ted got himself a fish. And we were able to explore a beautiful section of the upper river.

Ted's beautiful buck

Ted's beautiful buck

We met up with some fellow guides, Dylan Rose and Ryan Smith who were drifting the upper river in Dylan’s raft.  Together we enjoyed a beer and some laughs.  Ryan was gracious enough to allow me to cast his CF Burkheimer double hander with a Skagit Line, a staggering difference from the old Sage VT2 and Delta line I had been heaving for the past two days.  I was reminded of yet another reason other than catching fish that I enjoy fly fishing.  Sharing my experiences with friends.

Hoh_4-2010_krusty

IMG_3498

To be clear, I do enjoy catching fish and I have nothing against nymph fishing.  In fact I still firmly believe that it is an effective tool for catching fish under certain circumstances.  If catching fish is the only goal you have during your trip, if that is your sole purpose for taking time off work and away from your loved ones and traveling all the way out to some gorgeous river in the middle of nowhere, then go ahead and nymph, you will catch fish.  However, If you are anything like me, then you might get to thinking that maybe in this crazy world of fish porn and internet forums, where competition is high and one-upping the last guy with more pictures of bigger fish has become the norm, maybe we should re-evaluate why we began fishing in the first place.  To get back to our roots.  To satisfy an urge to explore the unknown.  To get in touch with ourselves and our primal human instincts.  To master an ancient art form.  To become part of a worldly culture and recognize the importance of an energy greater than our own.  These are the reasons why I chose fly fishing as a path for my life.

No more training wheels for me!

(special thanks to Dylan and Ted for some of the great photos!)
Hoh_4-2010_fly

Filed Under: Emerald Water Anglers Tagged With: Emerald Water Anglers, Hoh River, Olympic Peninsula, spey rods, steelhead, strike indicator, Washington

I Like Big Bugs

March 17, 2010 by Charlie Robinton

There is something about skwala stoneflies that just plain gets me excited! Maybe its because in a few select Western streams they signify the first great dry fly fishing of the season.  Or maybe its because they are big, wiggly, fun to tie and a blast to fish.  Either way they are one of my favorite aquatic insects to imitate with a fly.  Did I mention they drive fish bonkers?  Chubby Skwala

I am always on the lookout for new tying materials and fly patterns to imitate the little buggers.  Sure an olive stimulator or pat’s rubber legs will catch fish but where is the art in that?  Incidentally I was pleasantly surprised when a copy of the 2010 Hareline catalog arrived at work along with a sweet goody bag full of product samples.

Skwala Crawler

I dove into the bag and pulled out a handful of skwala madness.  It was like they read my mind and created a palette of buggy tying materials just for me to play with…

After wrapping up a couple morsels I headed over to the Yakima to get an expert opinion…

The experts approved…

Yakima Rainbow

If you love skwalas as much as I do the Yakima is the best show in town, and its on right now… Its time for some serious skwala fishing!!

Filed Under: Emerald Water Anglers Tagged With: dry fly fishing, Emerald Water Anglers, fly tying, Rainbow Trout, skwala, skwala stonefly, stoneflies, stonefly, trout, Washington, Yakima

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