COVID bonefish bust out in the Bahamas

 Have you ever heard any of those old time Southern preachers shout during a Sunday sermon, "Can I get an Amen from the congregation?" Well that's what the past 15 months have created -- pent up/ spun up fervor to the point folks are about done with it.  Most everyone's ready to break out. 

Well, bone fishing  seemed an awesome way to break out... and for amazing scenery and fly fishing - is there a better spot on the planet than the waters surrounding Emerald Bay, Great Exuma, Bahamas?

I think not. 

With Carole and her army of butlers waiting on her by the pool at Sandals serving her endless Rum Runners to go along with coconut shrimp and whatever else she fancied, I had the green light to pursue what I love best.

I hired local guide Bonefish Stevie whose ritualistic chants on the water "C'mon bonie" always seemed to draw these muscular titans out of the mangroves into the flats. 

Using my Orvis Access 908-4 tip flex and Hydros reel I was amply armed and ready for the challenge.  Using an extra long 16 lb fluorocarbon leader and a #6 pink shrimp -- soon it was game on. 

Over the course of a couple of mornings, I landed upwards of 15-20 bonies as Stevie liked to call them.  Even the 14 inch little guys were beasts fully capable of peeling out line and doubling over an 8 wt rod.  

In times past it was strictly sight fishing, but on this trip one day was sight fishing off the mangroves and the second day was fishing the shallow flats.  That's where a guide is worth a million bucks.  There are flats everywhere, but the fish are not.  Stevie would stop in some spots, and I'd be scratching my head, but sure enough it wasn't long before "fish on" and off to the races again.  

 

I landed two really amazing fish on the trip.  If you watch the video I thought I lost the biggest not once but twice.  Stevie told me the bonefish wrap your line the soft sand and around anything they can find to give the "oh crap" I lost it feel... and he did - twice. 

Fly fishing the flats for bonies presents a few challenges in both casting and landing the fish. In casting, it's always windy, and invariably the cast I needed to make most of the time was off shoulder into the wind! Not easy but over the course of the day it gets better. It certainly makes one relish those opportune down wind double-haul casts and the chance to really let some line fly. 

When landing fish, again you can see in the video, once you hook a fish and you have 20-30 feet of line at your feet -- it's troublesome.  If the fish cooperates and gingerly took off at a steady speed, no problem feeding the line. But that's not these guys' MO.  Instantly they double your rod over, then as your trying let some line through your line finger to get the fish on the reel, they start thumping the rod violently, which if you're letting line out simultaneously, the line is flinging everywhere -- in the air, around elbows, wrists, buttons, rod butts.... funny afterwards, but like drinking from a firehose while it's happening. 

On the trip we spooked, although spooked isn't really the right term, as tarpon don't seem to be spooked, intimidated, threatened by a whole lot on the flats. Next trip, I'd like to have a separate rod rigged with a large streamer ready to take a shot on one. 

Lots of reef and lemon sharks roamed the flats. 

And barracuda... all over the place. I did land a few and was fortunate to not have my tippet cut through each time.  ALL TEETH - talk about an apex predator.

In a perfect world I'd love to have the opportunity to learn the trade, guide, have my own boat, down here in the Bahamas.  Learning the tides is key, but paying your dues on the water is the ultimate ticket.  Maybe that'll be my 3rd or is it 4th or even 5th career?

Tight lines until I journey up to northern New Hampshire later this summer.

By the way, I've got the greatest wife in the world!

Return of the Padwans 24-25 May 2021

'Return of the Jedis suggests mastery of our craft and after months chasin different species we each found delicate fly fishing skills are perishable...so Padwan learners we are and were ...thanks for asking.   

Fritz, Henry and I do dedicate ourselves to getting out more often to keep skills fresh.    This was our third adventure to Little Juniata and Spruce Creek about a dozen miles WNW from Huntingdon, PA.  

This trip was planned for last year but got virus'd.  Our trucks met at the Penn State public access lot on Spruce Creek and we geared-up as dark clouds bore down and pea-sized rain pelted us ...no worries, waders and gore-tex make fast moving storms no more than an inconvenience and Spruce was running low and looked like it could use a drink.  

For anyone who cares about such things Spruce Creek is a semi-famous brown trout stream that's questioned presidents' and angler luminaries' skills in its storied past.   The majority of Spruce is off limits to the public, but fortunately there's a beautiful stretch kept up by Penn State upstream of its confluence with the Little Juniata in the hamlet of (you guessed it) Spruce Creek.  Fritz and Hen drifted nymphs in the rain, but I can report I fooled a nice 9" brown with dry on a special fly rod that came to me by way of Bill Pfeiffer. 

She was treat of a catch on his rod and a great memory.  With no trout rising and slow action in the rain we left at 1300 and hit Spruce Creek Outfitters to support our local fly shop.  We each left with a pocket full of flies and a tantalizing report, that  Green Drakes had appeared recently in the evening!  Armed with excitement and a few green drake spinners in our vests,  we visited familiar waters at the quarry pool.  

The river was low but quickly added 80% cfs (recall that rain) which brought it up 4 inches and with it a bit of bank debris and bugs, bugs and more bugs!  The frothy surface layer was silly with insect activity in the current seems. 

these appeared late afternoon

Soon Yellow Sulphur mayflies were rising through the water/emerging and browns livened up ascending through the water like breaching submarines.  Excited by the inevitability of the spinner fall we waited as the sun dipped over a ridge and the bridge swallows swooped and darted feasting on the fat bellied sulphurs. Henry and Fritz put away their ESN rigs and with standard 5wts we brought a few to hand, but unfortunately the excitement of the hatch did not bring all the fish to hand we had expected.   Perhaps we needed to stay later?

our imitation

As we were about to leave the river we took one last look at the river and saw a mature brown rising 5 feet from the step-in 2 feet off the bank.  Feeling thwarted thus far we threw in a size 16 sulphur dry which was inhaled by the brown to end the day!

We found our way back to Huntingdon's lone modern hotel, A Fairlfield Inn and Suites, bedded down and the next morning, loaded with coffee and Gatorade, made our way to a riffle-pool-riffle section downstream of the Spruce Creek confluence, (join us next year to find out where :-) where we had an amazing day.  

 

sulphur nymph was a producer

We found we could pick up sporadic browns nymphing seams, but had better fortune targeting individual rising trout in deep cuts under overhanging tree boughs.  

Instream positioning was key to successful, often sidearm, casts looking to get 3-6 feet of dragless drift to the rising trout.   If you could solve the stream-positioning/casting/ drift riddle the browns played their part and we each all caught our share throughout the afternoon.         

Hen w a fat brown ...that log structure provided a natural buffet line for feeding browns

Browns-on ...Fritz and Hen double-up 

Fritz has enough of the world to himself 

Comradery was great throughout, but the catching improved on a steep curve from arrival at Spruce Day until we were forced to quit squinting in the ghostly light of the harvest moon.

Fishing beneath the harvest moon

The best hours of the day were clearly 1900-2115 and the river explored with activity from 2040-2105 as yellow-sulphur and green drake spinners fell to the water fueling a burst of activity.   We surely annoyed a nearby campground with exclamations of, "Fish on" or Hens', 'Fritz get down here its crazy/it's amazing mate!" Cause when you fish with brothers like these you always want to put your mate on the best bite 🐟🎣💪

This'll be an annual trip so let me know if you want in next May.

Fish on friends.

Hen w a colorfully spotted Brown

Fritz: Large brown on is watched by Hen

Gotta be on the River -- Harmons

Henry and I were looking at going to Gunpowder but after checking water levels we found that the better water might be on the South Branch of the North Fork of the Potomac at Harmons on in WV....boy were we right.    Originally we planned this trip as an out and back but with the long drive we decided to meet in the afternoon and get a late afternoon in day 1 and a full day on day on day 2.


Hen arrived, checked into cabin 8, got our passes and was already on fish when I was still miles away!   I arrived as the sun set in the deep gorge and was able to catch a trout from the riffle above the bridge before low light closed us out.

 Dinner in honor of past feasts was monster ribeyes seared in cast iron, baguette and salad washed down by beer and wine to settle our excited nerves.    Day two started with breakfast in Petersburg as the family restaurant Scott will remember .75 miles north on 220 along the river had closed down.

Henry and I were trying to pull off a local-look but I was betrayed by my work shoes from the previous day (damn...I was so close w my old Camo).  After breakfast the stream beckoned and 1.5" of fresh snow gave it a magical feel.

Hen started w his standard weighted-fly ESN set-up and began lighting them up immediately in the large pool above the upstream most cabins.   I started out w a 2x fly under an indicator rig but it was quickly apparent that Hen's approach was the winner for the day and I switched over, but not before Hen had landed 5-6 beauties.

A great day continued as we headed up the river to there uppermost hole and then back down.   As we approached our money hole we saw activity below us....turns out the Harmons was hosting PHW the next day and they were stocking 1100 lbs of trout!

Damn...some 11-13 inters but MANY breeders...wow, these fish were dazed upon entry to their new haunts and wouldn't bite but it was fun to see some huge trout.   The Hottest fly of the day turned out to be a size 14 tungsten weighted blow torch, but you had to be tight and attentive to your fly to discern the subtle takes in the 42 degree water.   Hen ended up staying another night and fished for a few hour before the PHW crew took over and caught more than any two men deserve😁. what a treat.

Thanks for having a look

Big Hunting Creek

 The Catoctin Mountains opened in front of me and I couldn't suppress a deep smile as I jeeped north my stomach grumbling me onward to breakfast with Henry at the Kountry Kitchen in Thurmont.

We've caught trout on several presidential waters; the Rapidan and Spruce Creek and wanted to add Big Hunting Creek to our list of POTUS escapes.    It'd been a balmy 47 when I left Virginia and it was 41 when I pulled into Thurmont, a taste of the finger numbing cold to come.  I wasn't finished my first cup of coffee when Henry jostled in for a great breakfast and review of our plans.   Big Hunting Creek is the major watershed in this section of the Catoctin Mtns and draws water from both sides of Hwy 77 as it flows both into and out of Hunting Creek Lake. Above the Lake is Cunningham Falls where our adventure began.
 

After working around some construction we found hwy side access to the section above Cunningham Falls and the fall beauty took our breath away...ok sliding down the water worn rocks of the falls
took our breath away too. 

Armed with a 7' TFO BVK 3wt Henry got the first action of the day with a surface-roll to his top dropper in the plunge pool at the bottom of the cascade of falls but try as we might we couldn't get the trout to hook-up.  Trusting the metal crews in my boots (too much) I scampered up the smooth rocks and found a bathtub sized plunge pool 3/4 of the way to the top and dipped my dual dropper rig into a plate sized back eddy....WHAM, much to my surprise a 9-inch fall speckled brown nailed my offering.   I net netted him and hollered to Henry to check out my net when he scaled the cliff.  With a big smile on my face I sat among the Polar Cave-like boulders and didn't need to leave.

The Big Hunting Creek above Cunningham Falls quickly reaches the saddle in Catoctin ridge and loses the steep gradient which channelizes and gives it its character, we fished it for another 200m and walked back to our vehicles looking forward to checking out another portion before lunch.  We surveyed the feeder trip in the lower left hand corner of the map above and decided our better option was to fish the special regs tailwater section along Hwy 77. 

We noticed the nice flow and pocket water on our drive in and were soon questioning riffles and pools with dropper combos.   We both got a few stikes but Henry was the the only one able to land his quarry. 

With temperature dropping the the wind starting to whip up the river cut we decided to try our luck 15 Miles West at Beaver Creek.  After gas station sandwiches we found our way to Beaver Creek Fly Shop and must have met the owner on a bad day as he didn't seem appreciative of our support your local fly shop ethos and seemed put upon to offer advice...weird.    After I told him I wasn't interested in getting lectured about fall redds he broke out a map and gave us some advice (not sure if it was good or a false flag).

Beaver Creek is a classic spring-fed limestone creek.   I don't have alot of experience on them and in my view they are advanced degree fly fishing.   We tried a bit of everything (scuds, midges, nymphs, streamers) as we hunted likely flows, pools, undercuts, etc. w/o any hookups.    As the our line guides were freezing and the sun was dropping behind the trees to the West we finally found a lovely pool with good sized trout feeding subsurface and occasionally breaking the water.   Battling numb fingers, iced guides and the fading light we couldn't get these trout to come tight and left only when we weren't sure we could find out way back on the trail.


  

Salmon River 2017

Our annual fishing trip to Salmon River is a highlight of the year, as much for the camaraderie as the fish, but some years when the salmon run cooperates its simply amazing...this was one of those years. 

Paul and Jacob were not able to join us this year so the our fishing fire-team was Bill, Fritz, Henry and yours truly.  After beating traffic out of DC well before the crack of dawn I met Fritz lounging against his bumper at our favorite parking pull-out at the top of the Upper Fly Section East of Altmar and just down stream from Salmon River Reservoir.  Fritz and Bill had been fishing and visiting for several days and Fritz had the relaxed satisfaction of already having fought, landed and released some monsters.    Some years we count success as a single fish brought to hand...this year we didn't even count. As we walked through the woods our senses caught the rush of the river punctuated by splashes from the jumping salmon and cries of 'Fish-on' from the resident anglers at the upper hole.   At the upper hole hooking up and landing is a matter of location and drift.   Fritz went about 5 minutes before his 8wt Recon bent with the weight and fight of a handsome Chinook (king) salmon, brought to hand on a salmon river flea a local fly tied the night before.

After 90 minutes Henry rustled through the woods behind us his hearty fishing smile letting us know he was happy to see us and to be off the long miles on I-81.  We fished till sundown with many hook ups some foul but most fair until we couldn't see to tie on a fresh fly.   Here's Henry in the darkness that smile as large as the hump on the king's back!





The next morning found Henry and I at the prime spots at Meadow Run.   We hadn't started particularly early and were surprised that there was but one other angler there upon our arrival.   As we watched our watches expectantly we finally made our first casts at whaat we guessed was 30 minutes before sunrise, the start of the fishing day on the DSR and then on my second cast with Salmon running right in front of my knees a King lit me up in the predawn light purple.   He fought for a good 15 minutes and I was super happy to bring him to hand.   As the day wore on we made the acquaintance of the other early morning angler and he was fascinating.   He was (well he still is) an engineer from Quebec who fished for steelhead -- he catches some salmon but kind of considers them a necessary evil as they pave the gravel with eggs beckoning the Steelhead will to a meal.   This fella more than ties his own flies but makes his own hooks out of stout chemically hardened piano wire!   I might have called BS on the story until he showed us one of his many fly boxes...here's a picture of his art.

Henry soon brought a king to hand and with fish in the book and smiles on our faces we enjoyed the morning.    Bill and Fritz arrived and for an hour or three we all enjoyed fishing meadow run.

Salmon River Flea -- Salmon Slayer

Henry Took the picture but is in the photo in spirit

The rest of the trip was spent visiting, eating and hooking into salmon after salmon, you'd bring some to hand, lose other good hooks and break off foul hooks.   We split our time between the familiar haunts of the DSR and the upper fly fishing section 10 miles upstream.   In the future we may forgo DSR passes and just stick with upper section if the salmon are in greater numbers further up.  Several flies seemed to work really well, green and black zonker streamers were lights out as was the Salmon River flea a local creation discovered and retied by Fritz to all of our benefit.

Flush with catching all the Salmon we needed to we also enjoyed exploring more of the river in the lower estuary area and found dissagregated water, almost trout stream water holding monster salmon...what a treat!

This smaller salmon and Henry's monster below came from skinny water!

This Epic Photo will travel back to NZ to the Epic shop Henry visited and the Epic Owner

Watch out for your fingers!

We also really enjoyed the upper fly where Fritz in particular made a killing. Here he is working his drift to a tight seam in an otherwise stiff current.

Fritz surveys the run

works his drift along the rock bank to find holding water

enjoys the salmon of his labors

 We had other great ties along the way incluoding seeing Henry fall (twice) in slow motion into a fast pool whole hooked into a big salmon -- yes he could have steadied himself and not dunked but that would have lost tension on the chinook so he dunked and skidded alongt the bottom with his right arm raised above the current keeping tension on that fish!  Well played by fiend well played.

A large bow (not quite a steelhead) who came to play

Dead Kings were everywhere, note the birds had pecked out the soft eye tissue!

Henry -- salmon on -- the scenery was gorgeous 

My stick an 8wt 11'6' ECHO switch w a 9/10 wt TFO prism reel pared with 540 grain shooting head 

Sunset over Meadow Run

Salmon Drag marks lead the way home during a night time walk to the Jeep

Sunset at the DSR lot

Thanks for reading about this adventure -- for videos please see: