Snuggies and Trout…Like Spaghetti and Tunafish

I find myself  in quite the conundrum.  I fished the South Holston yesterday with a couple of other guides from the shop.  Weather was cold and gray but fish were hitting the top, and every once in a while, with a 15′ 7X leader they might even give the old Comparadun a nosh.  Catching was by no means fast and furious but I did catch my fair share of  butter and bows (you gotta start fishing soft hackles on tailwaters if you don’t already…trust me I know of what I speak).  The same cannot be said for my aforementioned fishing companions…and this is where my conundrum rests.  The ride home was a confusing emotional trip, the likes of which I haven’t experienced since I clumsily groped my first booby.  On one hand I felt like an asshole for savoring a day well fished,  and on the other stinky palm rested feelings of school girl giddiness due to the fact that I out fished two of my professional peers.  I have been on the other end of this scenario more times than I would care to admit, and always remember thinking, “That smug fish catching asshole”.  This sentiment held true whether the fish catching asshole in question was quiet about his day or if he was calling everyone we knew to shout about my ineptitude from the mountain tops.   My question is, in this situation if I’m gonna be labeled a smug asshole no matter what I do, shouldn’t I just go ahead and  wrap myself in smug assholiness,  like a cheetah print Snuggy, and really live it up?

Thoughts, Comments, Suggestions Please Forward to HelloMyNameIsDaveAndIMightBeASmugFishCatchingAsshole@gmail.com

– Nymph-o

Yay For Me

I have been blessed for the past year or so.  Due to a perfect storm of the shit economy, graduate school, and no children I have been able to fish at will. Sure, I drew wifey’s ire on occasion but I still fished way more than most.  This allowed me the freedom to look at the weather forecast, the generation schedules, and my minimal responsibilities and choose the best days on the best rivers.  This luxury was snatched away from me like a lollipop from a baby as soon as my own baby boy was born.  I now have reverted to my old standby style of procuring fishing days for myself.   This process usually plays out with me on my knees crying like a school girl begging for a trip to the mall to hang out with my peeps at the food court (let’s say SBARROS).  Each fishing day earned is to be cherished as it may be the last one for months.  Therefore you go fishing no matter what the conditions.  It could have been raining feces from the sky with on and off periods of flatulating thunder (I’m in a body function kind of mood today I don’t know why) and I was going fishing.  With this grim state of affairs in mind I met up with Ryan and our Panga Boat Captain, who henceforth and forever shall be referred to as Chuckles the Botanist (only because it amuses me), for a lovely mid January float on the Watauga.The temps were suppose to top out around thirty with the wind chill well below that.  Luckily the fish were nice and toasty in the bottom release water which was a balmy 45 degrees.  Brown liquor, beer, and fried chicken were loaded up and we were on our way.  They were turning two wheels for two hours so we rode the wave down to the trophy section.  We set up in the caddis riffle probing the big drop off on the right with various egg/midge fare.  We weren’t there five minutes before Chuckles is already up three fish on me and Ryan.  Damn that Chuckles and his 49 year old wrinkly testicles (Happy Birthday Chuckles).

Usually I am not one to begrudge another man’s catch but at this point I was mentally settling in for another day of grinding and frustration.  Luckily for me this doomed fate was not to be.  After the first couple of trout landed I sort of lost myself  in a fish catching orgy the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the times of Roman bath houses.  Well, maybe it wasn’t that good but I haven’t been on the water in while so let me enjoy my  moment.  Oh yeah, in all the tooting of my own horn I forgot That Ryan Caught a couple of fish to.

A day like that, while hard on the toes and fingers, will warm the empty void that has become my fishing soul like a hearty bowl of barley soup (I like barley soup it’s almost like eating beer).  So until the next time I can con my way onto the water, soup will just have to do.

– Nymph-o

 

You Ever Get That Not So Fresh Feeling…While In Tennessee

The end of the guide season, for all practical purposes, has arrived as the vast majority of folks have no desire to tough it out in the elements that go hand in hand with the winter trout game.  I don’t really blame people for this attitude, as more often then not December, January, and February mean freezing your guides, hands, feet, and ass off chasing trout that most days feed in very narrow windows and spend the rest of the day in a general state of apathy that closely resembles my senior year of college (solid 2.0…the definition of a Mendoza mindset).  It was with these odds in mind that I kicked off my fishing season last week with a couple of Tennessee floats.

The South Holston was my first stop with Murphy, Ryan, and our new Panga Boat Captain Jamie (he’s cool…just don’t get your hands to close to his mouth).   The fishing was decent all the way down to Jack’s place with fish and fun being had by all.  Murphy takes the prize for biggest fish of the day with a nice 16″ Brown that smacked a WMD, wrapped Murphy around a tree for two minutes, freed himself, and was nice enough to come boat side for this lovely photo op.

After we got past Jack’s place the fishing turned off due to water clarity that can best be described as defecating in a plastic bag and trying to tell me how many fingers I am holding up whilst looking through the aforementioned bag of feces.  Murphy was supposed to stick around for another couple of days and float with me and Ryan but after a day in the  frozen tundra with less than banner prospects for the future, Murphy turned tail and ran back to West Virginia without so much as hug or an awkward glance.

So with a brief interlude of shop duty I once again braved the elements and met Ryan and Jamie on the Watauga for a day of non-generation grab ass.  We got into fish right off the bat and consistently if not quickly put fish on the boat the rest of the day.  The pescatorial bugs de jour (bugs of the day for you non french speaking red blooded Americans out there) were a variety of midges and mayfly nymphs.  Ryan wound up catching the fish of the day early, and with only a brief yet memorable challenge by yours truly resulting in a lost 17″ Rainbow, Ryan proceeded to let me know about it the rest of the day.  This is pretty typical for Ryan as the only way he can make his candle burn brighter is by blowing other people’s candles out…sad really…a desperate cry for help from a frightened little boy..if you see Ryan give him a big hug and tell him that he’s not alone.

Two days in Tennessee have gone by the wayside and I am not the winner of a chicken dinner on either.  This my friends is troublesome and not the way I had hoped to kick off my season.  My only hope at this point is to sit back down at the vise, crank out some new killer patterns, and start fishing by myself so that I am guaranteed to be the big fish guy every day.

Always Poppin’ and Lockin’,

– Nymph-o

Introspection Is Hard Work…and Therefore Unlikely

I wrangled a couple of hours last Sunday to go fishing with a friend of mine,  let’s call him Mike (coincidentally his name is actually Mike…go figure).   Mike is your average fly fisherman who does not get to fish as much as he would like to, but when he does get out he makes the most of it.  A bunch of the usual suspects had been feeding me reports of the Davidson going off and being only 30 minutes away it provided the best time to trout spanking ratio.  I had a four-hour time window before I turned into a pumpkin and my wife turned into an Amazonian testicle rupturing version of her usual lovely self so the Davidson was a pretty easy choice.  Got to the hatchery, said hello to the buzzards and headed down to the flats.    There happened to be a couple of other guides from the shop that emerged from the woods shortly after Mike and I got settled.   The Davidson is a straight midge fishery by most folks interpretations with the tiny little bastard flies producing better than any other on a day-to-day basis.  Myself as well as the two other guides were fishing straight midge rigs while Mike, being the lovable bastard he is, was bucking all reason andf fishing a size 16 pheasant tail.  I know what you are thinking because it was the same thing I was thinking, “I hope he doesn’t like catching fish because that pheasant tail is as likely to work as me sticking my left nut in the water and waiting for the big one to bite.”  Well apparently I should have tried the whole testicle thing because Mike caught two over 21″ and  the other two guides and myself in the shop landed two over 9″ (both mine thank you very much) in the same time period.  This shaming drove home two facts.  One, that I suck.  Two, that much like the sweet art of love-making, doing the same old shit day after day can only lead to disappointment and an overall hollow feeling inside. Well played sir, well-played.

-Nymph-o

Down on the Farm: An Orwellian Study of Giant Trout and Giant Foam

Here is our newest video.  We shot it down on Noontootla Creek Farms with Capt Kent Klewein of Reel Job Fishing.  None of the trout were harmed in the making of this movie.  Murphy, however, was hooked up to the car battery in the barn and tortured mercilessly…just cuz.

(Click Here for the Vimeo HD version)

Scratching the Itch

With no one to accompany me on a float trip I spent Friday night going through my fishing gear preparing for our New York trip. I’ll probably still forget something I’m sure. Saturday morning came despite trying to fight it off by staying up till 4am watching Eastbound and Down. Bored to death and debating wheather or not to go fishing or stay home and watch the Wv Mountaineers try to embarrass themselves. I’m glad I did not choose the latter. WVU 17 LOU 9….come on Stew. Should have been a tune up game for the rough road schedule ahead. At least we are bowl eligible.

Streamside by 11, I fought back the urge to tie on the White Ghost Woolybugger and rigged up the 4 weight for some double nymph high sticking action. I haven’t fished this spot for about a year or more. A small stream with tight banks filled with laurel. Decent flows with water temps in the low 50’s. A perfect day to be on the water. Very little wind, 70 degree temps and clear blue sky. The only problem was the GIN clear water and the sun at my back casting a huge shadow in front of me.

I set up my first cast about 15-20 yards from the head of a big plunge pool, best hole on the stream. I inspected my backcasting surroundings and picked spot to cast to. My caddis and copper john double nymph rig did the job on the 1st cast, picking off a 9-10 inch wild brown. My first brown trout from this stream. After about 3 dozen more casts I moved on to the head of the pool and into the woods to walk the banks and sight fish. Being that it’s the beginning of Salmon Trutta spawning season I tried my best to stick to the bank and watch for reds. Although I was disappointed not to see any REDS the technique paid off for me. I spotted a rainbow cruising the banks sipping midges from the surface. I watched him for a few minutes trying to figure out how the hell I was going to cast to him and where the best place would be to plop in my fly. I circled back around and dropped in behind to make the best cast possible. After some tree trimming my copper john came through….TWICE. One wild brown and one wild bow.

 

I spent the rest of the day walking the stream. Spotted a few fish, 2 of them 18-20 inch browns. The stream really surprised me and I’ll be back to do some more scouting.

**BayE**