A Few Days on the Water in Homer - Part 2

The other night I was talking to Hadley on the phone and mentioned that I was working on the follow-up post on fishing in Homer, Alaska.  "Don't even talk to me about halibut fishing."  Hadley said, "I want to go back so bad.  Like we need to do it every summer."  It's obvious to us that Alaska is deep in her bones.  There's a good chance she'll be back there when college is over and I figured that my first trip would lead to many more.  It's a tough place not to want to go back to. 

If you missed the first post of A Few Days on the Water in Homer, click the link and then circle back.

 

The conditions on our second day on the water were even better than the day before.  Less wind, less waves, but still cloudy.  Maybe we'd see the sun poke out but no worries if we didn't.  The entire family made it into the boat with Michelle and Esther joining us.  We packed snacks, lunches, and grabbed some extra tackle from the shop by the boat ramp since you can never have enough.  We were passing flotillas of sea otters as we rounded the Homer Spit by mid-morning.

Anticipation of good fishing was high and we hoped to limit out again on halibut and wouldn't mind a few cod for the cooler.  Where cod might not be as esteemed as halibut for the fish box to take home, it's a wonderful tasting fish.  I'd happily bring back more cod next time.

Throughout the morning we had a steady bite that favored more halibut than the day before but still with a mix of cod, several quite large, and a few pesky sculpins mixed in.  Hadley was getting a kick out of catching fish but she was always keeping an eye on the horizon for possible whale sittings.  She picked up the tall dorsal fin of a orca over a mile away that she quickly confirmed through her binoculars.  That orca was on the outer edge with a group of other orcas.  We all quickly reeled up and Bryce motored the boat in their direction until we were a couple of hundred yards away.  Bryce turned the engine off and we spent the next twenty minutes watching these whales hunt and feed.  One of the whales in the group fully breached and then did it again.  If there was a "mind blown" moment of the trip for Hadley, this was it.

We slow motored away from the pod of orcas and then cut the engine not far away on a spot that Bryce had marked on his navigation that he thought would be good to drop jigs.  For the next hour or so, we picked up dorsal fins of orcas all around us a half mile or farther away.  This is not a whale that I've been around much and there is certainly a "wow" feeling in fishing the same waters they are in.

Steady catching continued into the afternoon and at one point, Bryce pulled everything out of the cooler to see where we were with our halibut numbers.  We still needed to catch three more.  And, over the forty-five minutes or so, we caught them. 

I haven't done a lot of fishing like this, but there is an easy fun aspect to it of letting your jig hit bottom and then slowing pulling it up several feet before easing it down to the bottom in a controlled fall.  Trying to imagine what is going on 200 to 300 feet on the bottom of the ocean is wild, especially when every few minutes your jig gets bumped by a fish or eaten.  How many fish could be down there?  Again, wild to consider.

I should have written this post much sooner, if for no other reason to say thank you to the Pearson's for the family they were to Hadley over her year in Alaska.  They took her along on all of their adventures, invitations to Sunday evening dinners (sometimes weekdays, too), Bryce teaching her how to drive a manual transmission car, getting her involved in the Iditarod and then taking her up to Nome for the finish, riding snow machines and tailgating on the ice, quickie road trips, and so much more.  They put her arms around her and made sure that her Alaska experience was complete. 

As parents, you always worry about your children and when your daughter is 4,500 miles away, having a longtime family friend and her family to look out for Hadley was always reassuring.

Since it was the last night that the Pearson's would be camping on the Homer Spit, we planned to head in by late afternoon, clean fish, and then go to dinner in town.  The communal work at the fish filet station went quicker since we all fell right into our roles from the evening before and our ratio of halibut to cod was roughly three to one. 

I can't say thank you enough to the Pearson's for everything over the couple days in Homer.  Hadley and I could not have had a better time and bringing home a 50-pound fish box full of halibut, cod, and some of their salmon from last year, has been a wonderful reminder of this trip.

PHELPS ON THE FLY - CHASING SHADOWS

Escape with Will Phelps (and friends) with a DIY bonefish trip to the Bahamas.  Press PLAY...

Check out the Will Phelps Media website and follow along on YouTube, too.

Introducing Withernot

As a child of the 1980's, through grade school my closet was a mix of striped collared polo shirts, corduroy pants, and if memory serves, a rugby shirt or two.  I can still remember fiddling with the rubber buttons while sitting in class.  I'd like to say I was one of the cool kids but looking back at yearbook photos, the bowl haircut certainly works against that notion. 

I recently came across Withernot, maker of purveyor of high quality rugby shirts, and what started as a conversation with founder Patrick Hunter Hill about an upcoming gear review, has turned into a new partnership (maybe you've noticed the ad?) that I'm excited to share.

It's just starting to get cool enough in South Carolina to wear the couple of Withernot rugby shirts that I have and I'll be living in these this fall.  These rugby shirts are made of heavyweight 14 ounce, traditional 12 gauge knit that can handle just about any activity, and look and feel great.

Want one or several for yourself?  Withernot is offering a discount code "FIBERGLASS" which will give you 15% off if you spend over $100 and 20% off if you spend over $200. 

BECOMING THE CARP

This is a silly one from guide Dagur Árni Guðmundsson and he's certainly someone that I'd like to spend some time with on the water.  Oh, and he's a "Glass Geek", too.  Click PLAY...



Check out Dagur's website and book a day or several with him.  He's a fun follow on Instagram, too.

6 Good Reads

Let's get into the weekend with a few reads that range from Phil's gut punch sign off with his departure (sadly, along with others) from Orvis, a fiberglass fly rod review, cold beer theft, trout town love, a Boundary Waters experience, and an artist's whirlwind of paint and fly fishing on Wyeth's Island.

ORVIS NEWS - TIP OF THE CAP TO PHIL AS HE SAYS GOODBYE

FLYLORDS - A FEW NOTES ON STEFFEN BROTHERS GLASS

CHRIS'S SUBSTACK - NEVER TRUST YOUR BEER AROUND THIS GUY

TROUT UNLIMITED - NICHOLAS'S ODE TO A TROUT TOWN

OAK & OSCAR - A BOUNDARY WATERS OWNER'S STORY

THE MESSY PALETTE - 48 HOURS ON WYETH'S ISLAND WITH PAINTS AND FLY ROD

Okay, enjoy your weekend.  Hopefully, you'll get some time on the water.

Rest in Peace, John Gierach

Late last week, author John Gierach passed away and a couple of hours later artist Frederick Stivers  posted this sketch with a fitting quote on his Instagram story...

"I think I fish, in part, because it's an anti-social, bohemian business that, when gone about properly, puts you forever outside the mainstream culture without actually landing you in an institution."

It's been interesting to read the social media posts from his friends and those who knew him along with those who felt connected to him through his many books.  It's hard not to have wistful feelings that the original "Trout Bum" has passed on, though if the stories are somewhat true, he seemingly made a good run at life.   

 

 
In the late 1990's, my wife and I started married life with living in northern Colorado and I worked a job that gave me several days a week to go fly fishing.  One afternoon I drove over to Lyons and up the South Saint Vrain Canyon to check out the creek that I had read about in Gierach's books.  I didn't really know how far I was going to drive up the canyon but figured that I'd pull off when I found a stretch of water that looked good.

As I was rounding a large uphill curve, a small red pickup truck was parked on the right side of the road and leaned against the tailgate was slender man, hunched over working his hip boot waders off.  He didn't look up but he didn't need to.  I immediately knew it John Gierach.  He was dressed in the full "uniform" of a weathered button up shirt, jeans, and his brimmed sweat stained hat was on his head.  He still had his vest on and it looked like he was just wrapping up a late afternoon session on the water by himself.

I continued to drive up the canyon and had a brief moment where I thought about turning around to say something to him.  I just as quickly decided against it.  That creek was John's special place and there was no reason to wreck his solitude with a goofy twenty-something year old telling him how much I enjoyed the books of his that I had read.  I figured he heard it before and didn't need to hear it again. 

I stand by that decision some twenty-five years later but seeing him and his little red pickup truck is a core memory that I'll never forget.  I guess it's even a little sweeter now.

A Day in the Driftless with a Couple of Favorite 3-Weights

Once plans were made to attend the Oak & Oscar Built to Discover Trip to the Driftless, Brad Eaton of Greens & Streams and I put our heads together on what we could do with a few days leading up to arriving in the Viroqua area for the weekend.  It didn't take too long to sort out a plan of fly fishing, golf at a couple hidden gems, and borrowing his neighbor's Airstream camper so we'd have a place to crash for a couple of nights. 

As soon as I touched down in Madison, Brad was there to pick me up.  We made the necessary stops for groceries, lunch, and then headed north into the Driftless, dropping off the camper at Jerome Kohout's mixed use campground where he also grazes his cattle.  Brad has camped here for years and it's a special place though it's advised you watch your step for cow pats in the middle of the night if you need to take a walk to the outhouse.       

The streams that we fished over these few days were perfect 3-weight water.  You may be asking yourself, "What makes for a perfect 3-weight fly rod?"  At least in my opinion, it's three things.  This fly rod should be fiberglass, it usually doesn't need to be longer than seven foot, and it should have an action and taper that falls on the spectrum of full-flexing and even what some would say feels slow.  I'm sure there are some graphite (gasp...) and bamboo that could check these boxes but I don't know about them.

As this trip approached, I put together a carefully curated Sea Run Case with six fly rods, which I'll deep dive into in another post, two of which were cherished 3-weights with the Ijuin-Rod Yomogi (built by Kazutomo Ijuin) and a C. Barclay Fly Rod Co. Blue Ridge Special 68 (built by Chris Barclay).  Both of these fly rods are paired with a Japanese-made KINEYA Tackle Maker fly reel, which just raises the level of aesthetic perfection of each outfit.      

Fly selection was easy with small foam hopper patterns and even though it might have yielded a few more fish, I didn't bother with dropping a nymph off the back bend of the hook.  I'll take pure dry fly only eats over treating that same fly as an indicator.  I end up fishing hopper/dropper tandem rigs differently than if I am only casting a single floating fly.  And, honestly, F$&% nymphs.  That might be a hot take but it's late summer in the Driftless.  Let small foam hoppers float high and swirl in the corners, near the undercuts, and along the tall weed lined riffles and runs.  Wait for the slow rise of a trout nosing up the surface.    

Brad and I took a long walk downstream through a series of pastures trying to time how long it might take us to get back to the bridge.  Chase from Oak & Oscar had left Chicago that morning and was planning to meet us at the pin that we sent him for the afternoon.  This would divide our day into two halves and I spent this morning session with the Yomogi.  It was overcast but warm.  Hoppers of several sizes jumped and flew out of our way as we walked through the pasture and even though none of them were pink and purple, those colors of the foam flies worked better than more natural tones of tans and brown. 

While Brad and I were fishing one of the last zig zags of the steam near the bridge, we heard from Chase that he was gearing up at the car.  He made good time from Chicago and this was a good enough excuse to walk back to crack a beer and snack on some chips.  I took a moment to put together the Blue Ridge Special 68 and tied on a fresh hopper as the couple that I used all morning were a bit chewed up.

Chase and I decided to work our way upstream and Brad wanted to circle back to a few areas downstream for a second try.  We crashed our way through tall grass and weeds that much of it was taller than Chase and I.  This wasn't the same pasture water that I had fished through the morning and it required careful short casts, always looking behind you to make sure that the backcast wouldn't get wrapped up.  Several trout rose to Chase's fly and it wasn't too long before he slid a brown trout into his net.   

I walked upstream from Chase and even though I had told myself that I didn't really need to fish anymore, there was a deep corner just ahead that was being fed with with a shallow rock riffle.  The riffle was now in the early evening shadows but the corner was still lit up in the autumn sun.  Maybe I'd try just one more spot and if a trout didn't rise from here, I'd call it quits.  The tall grass of the bank leaned over the dark water and the click and pawl sang as I pulled thirty or so feet of fly line from the reel as I looked on at where I'd want to land the hopper.  There had to be a trout there, maybe several, and I wanted to carefully pick this spot apart.   

I sent the first cast near the tail out of the corner, then another into the riffle to the front edge of the corner, and then one last cast deeper in that landed in the riffle and was quickly swept along the bank.  I watched as the hopper floated high against the grass and then it disappeared.  I raised the fly rod up to feel the immediate weight of a trout and watched as a large, at least for this water, brown trout swam out of the undercut bank.  Moments later, I was able to move this brown trout into a thick weed bed to admire it for a moment before removing the fly and coaxing it back into the deep water.  What a trout to cap off an already wonderful day.  I likely didn't deserve it but sometimes things work out that way.

The sun was falling behind the forest when I met up with Brad and Chase to walk back to the cars.  With the tailgates up, we all cracked a beer to celebrate a stellar day on the water.  After that last brown trout, I didn't feel the need to fish again this trip, even though I would.