Amassing Glass

I've spent the past 7 or 8 months contemplating early retirement. It's not at all assured that I can actually make a go of it. Nevertheless, I have to believe I'll get there and use some of my post-employment life to get back to fishing. To this end, I've been adding a few glass rods and older reels to my fishing gear pile. There aren't any pictures because, again, this is about the intention to get out there. 

Finally!

Well, 2016 came and went without so much as a single cast. As my long-ago last post mentioned, I have a lot of interests beyond fishing. Fortunately 2017 has been a bit different. Beans (the photographer for this post, by the way), Stella the Dog, and I spent a few days in and around Flagstaff during the first week of May for our 22nd anniversary.

In our past trips up north, we usually opted to stay in a Motel 6, which then served as a base camp for day trips to and fro. It was a cheap place to crash and get free ice cubes, but certainly not to hang out just taking things in. This time we decided to make our lodging the destination, so we rented a nice, pet-friendly cabin just outside of town. Several of the A-frames are carbon copies of one another, but ours was the one on the left with the waders draped over the railing.

Stella enjoyed herself immensely and also learned that Abert's squirrels are very interesting. She inexplicably, and of her own will, waded into the Colorado River at Lee's Ferry during our last trip, but wanted nothing to do with our only water-based day excursion this time.

I too had reservations regarding wading. In my past two visits to Upper Lake Mary, I was plagued by leaking waders. I understood when the first pair leaked after a few years of use in NorCal followed by a decade of desiccation in the Sonoran Desert. I bought a cheap pair of breathable waders on the way back from that trip, and they leaked right from the get-go when I finally got to use them the following year.



This time, the used Simms waders I bought for $20 at the now-defunct Bookman's Sports Exchange were watertight - dry feet at last! My adventures with Gore Tex aside, I spent a few hours double-hauling bunny leeches and streamers for northern pike. The water sure looked fishy, and I was having a great time watching an osprey. I ultimately didn't have any takes, but you know what they say about the worst day fishing vs. the best day working.

I'd hoped to hit up Oak Creek for trout on the way back to Tucson, but we opted to take a different route home.  No big loss, given my misadventure the last time I was at the stream. Arizona fishing licenses are good for a year from purchase, so the countdown to do yet more fishing is on. Maybe this will be the year I try for carp on a fly.

Low resolution

Twenty-sixteen is just around the corner and I've decided I'm going to get a fishing license for the new year. Will I make fly fishing a priority? I sure hope I do.

Taking time off from work isn't too much of  problem; I'm perpetually behind and no amount of foregoing vacation time has ever been able to change that. I have all the necessary gear and need only spend some time lining my reels and getting everything packed. The nearest trout water - a lake - is about an hour away. The nearest coldwater streams are about 2 or 3 hours.

But getting away to fish is still always so much easier said than done. I'm fortunate in that I have a few different interests, but I almost invariably opt for the one that involves the most instant gratification. I can be on a decent mountain bike trail within 15 minutes, I can walk my dog into the desert right out the front door, and there's a Stratocaster and amp calling to me from the other room. After I've exhausted all of these hobbies (though I'm actually only good at the dog-walking one), there seems like too little time for road tripping. And I'm still inexplicably hung up on the fact that I used to be able to walk to a river full of American shad, Chinook salmon, and steelhead. Have I mentioned I don't really like driving?

Anyway, my perpetual New Year's resolution has long been to put work (the means) into the background of my life and focus more on having fun (the end). Maybe 2016 will be the year in which I actually succeed.

More non-fishing travels

My wife and I took our 20th anniversary trip earlier this year. We spent our honeymoon at Lee's Ferry and also returned for our 10th. Those two sentences explain why this isn't a fishing report, but I nevertheless thought I'd share a few photographs of this iconic destination.

I've been around horseshoe bend a bunch of times in a boat, but this trip was the first time I got to see it from the overlook.

For me, the Colorado River is an escape. For the owner of this rig, it's at least in part a workplace.

It was great to be here.

At least one of us did some wading. No trout were harmed.

AZ, not AK

I spent last summer in Anchorage. It didn't at that time warrant a mention here because I didn't wet a line once. Yes, two months in Alyeska, The Great Land, The Last Frontier - and I didn't manage to go fishing once.

To be fair, I was there primarily for work and secondarily for a singlespeed mountain bike race. I had no idea how I'd be able to get out and fish because I wouldn't have a car unless I rented one at my own (considerable) expense. Still, how could I go to Alaska and not fish?

I had an impressive gear pile built up before I left. I had waders and boots, a pack vest, a 10' 5-weight for big rainbows, and a 9' 8-weight for whatever salmon I could go for. I also had a considerable amount of bike-related gear, not to mention the enormous bike shipping box. Oh, and then there were the street clothes and the normal day-to-day things I'd need. There was just too much stuff, and the rod cases didn't even fit in my duffel. I kept reducing my gear, and the fishing tackle suffered the most in the culling. I ended up with only the pack vest, a super-compact 6-piece 4-weight with a diminutive reel, and a hat from my local fly shop.

As it turned out, work kept me pretty busy, and most of my free time was spent walking to and fro and riding my mountain bike around. I only rented a car for a short time, and it was used to do tourist things while my wife visited.

There were a few accessible streams in Anchorage and one was even along a bus route, but given that they were full of silver salmon, I felt my little reel would get spooled and that the 6-piece rod would quickly become a 12-piece. I suppose I could have gone after the Dolly Varden I was told were in some urban waters, but I just never got my shit together. I eventually shipped my fishing gear home early to make more room in my luggage for souvenirs.

What's worse from the frustrated angler point of view is that my employer offered me a permanent transfer to Anchorage. For many reasons not related to fishing, I respectfully declined. I was approached again months after returning to the Old Pueblo and this time, I was a bit more reluctant to turn it down. Unfortunately, and knowing my decision would haunt me, I declined for a second time.

And that's how this blog almost came to be called Bosque con Truchas.

I cannot complain about the trails I got to ride but damn, I think I will always regret not fishing that stream back there.

The backup plan

I spent much of the late summer and early fall daydreaming about and acquiring gear for a fishing trip. I had designs on road-tripping to Sacramento - my home base from 1998 to 2003 - to see friends, hang out in my old haunts, and most importantly, to fly fish for the so-called half-pound steelhead in the Lower American River. I'd planned to pass through Flagstaff on either the way out or back so I could try for northern pike at Upper Lake Mary.

I was unfortunately overtaken by events and just couldn't pull off the NorCal trip. I pivoted and instead, threw together a short excursion just to Flagstaff. I kept the 9-weight cannon I'd already planned to bring, but the 10-foot, 5-weight half-pounder rig was swapped for a delicate, 7.5-foot, 3-weight, small-stream outfit.

The first full day involved a couple of hours of double-hauling big streamers and bunny leeches on a wire tippet. There were a couple of duck hunters around, but I think I was the only angler on the water. I stripped and twitched my flies repeatedly through what looked (to me) like some fishy water, but couldn't get a grab. Oh, and my never-before-worn waders leaked water right out of the gate. Despite the cold (I crunched through a veneer of ice in the shallows when I waded in), the utter skunking, and one wet foot, I had a wonderful time. Even the wind - my climatic nemesis as both an angler and a bicyclist - was kind enough to kick up only after I'd waded back to shore.

I drove down to Oak Creek on day two. The fall colors were just staring to hit, and check out that twisty highway leading into the canyon.

The reach I fished was mostly pocket water. Given the boulders piled about and my general lack of surefootedness, I spooked many trout from their feeding stations before I could get off a cast.

There was a single, large pool in the reach, and it was full of rainbows. There were two or three size classes of hatchery clones, and I ended up taking three on nymphs drifted under either a foam hopper or an indicator. The first one seemed to be the largest of the group, and it put a decent bend in the little 3-weight. After the second fish, I considered moving on to something more challenging (such as one of the wild brown trout Oak Creek is known to hold), but I decided to keep casting to this pod a while longer.

I should have obeyed my instincts because a few moments of inattention allowed the third fish to take the fly so deeply that I mortally injured him trying (and failing) to disgorge the fly. This troubled me deeply. I gave up on bait fishing many years ago, as gut-hooking was frustrating my catch-and-release ethos. Yeah, sure, this is a put-and-take fishery, and these trout are more or less bred for the frying pan, but it was still a major eff-up on my part. I took a little bit of consolation in the fact that some raccoon or skunk was going to dine on trout later that day.

I must also have angered the Fish Gods because, after moving on from the pool, I couldn't manage another take. I saw a cloud of Trico spinners, but the fish wouldn't even look at the CDC dry I drifted past them. I also lost a baggie of Thingamabobber indicators - my entire cache of the things - after having left a vest pocket unzipped. Later, while looking for them, I slipped on a muddy bank, banged my knee on a cobble, and fell hands-first into a blackberry bush. It was time to call it a day. I wiped off the mud, pulled the thorns out of my palms, and left El Cañon con Truchas for the Old Pueblo.

Despite the setbacks and missteps, I was gratifying to finally get out there and catch some fish on a fly. I intend to have more adventures (and fewer misadventures) in the months and years to come.

Perfect conditions, almost...

The conditions were almost perfect this morning. The air was humid and low clouds shrouded the mountaintops. Water rushed over the riffles and slid across long glides. Recently-hatched insects swarmed in the heavy air. This all occurred not on some cold-water stream, however, but right here in Tucson. The atmospheric conditions were left over from yesterday's intense, Monsoon-driven thunderstorms; the Santa Cruz River's flows will inevitably percolate into the sandy bed and thence,the badly-depleted aquifer beneath. The hatch was composed primarily of mosquitoes, with a few swarms of flying termites in the mix. And it was already almost unbearably hot, even at 6:00 am.

I remain simultaneously obsessed with fly fishing for trout and inextricably stuck in a place with none of them. But I really shouldn't say that I'm stuck. I recently had a real opportunity to get transferred (and also promoted), by my employer, back to Sacramento, California. I could have been spiked out in an apartment in time for the American River's fall run Chinook and the half-pounder steelhead that pick off the former's stray eggs during the spawn. But my wife and I are desert rats, and, despite some trying experiences, we're pretty much permanently settled in to the Old Pueblo, or at least the Southwest. We also remember the societal factors that defeated us and drove us out of Northern California in the first place: high cost of living; long, dark, and dreary winters; and a bad case of burnout in the very job to which I considered returning.

But at least it got me thinking. If all I really want from NorCal is its better fishing opportunities, then why not just take a vacation over there? And so I've decided to block out a couple of weeks this autumn and head over for a somewhat open-ended road trip. I need to do some research to ensure that my quarry (fall steelhead) are in from the ocean, but that I also don't arrive when lengthy river reaches (and many of the best walk-in access areas) are closed to protect salmon and their redds from undue angling pressure. 

I have a ton to do beforehand, including getting my older (but more economical) pickup truck fixed up. It's OK for around town, but needs some serious engine work before I'll drive it a coupla' thousand miles in one shot. The tailgate is stuck shut, its latch broken; and the struts that hold the shell's door open are sacked. I need to repair these things, because I'll be damned if I have to put on my waders standing up, hopping around on one foot, and I fear that door will fall and snap off one (or more) of my fly rods during set-up.

I should have all of the gear I need, though I need to invest in some bulk spools of backing for the new (to me) reels I've sourced from eBay over the past year or so. I'll be bringing everything from my modern-in-every-way, fast-action graphite rods with their large-arbor reels to my vintage Fenglass with the sweet click-drag reels. I might also want to practice my fly casting. I don't have grass, so I haven't been able to lawn-cast any of my new sticks. I've assembled some reels to some rods and waved them around in my backyard but didn't string them up, so I can't even say I've gravel-casted. Oh, and I'm grateful that a 10-day, non-resident California fishing license. is available. I'd have needed to take out a second mortgage to get a full-year, non-resident tag. There's that cost-of-living thing again.

More later.