Getting Lost

 

 

There are simply not enough days like this; days on the river where all the stars align to make the whole experience perfect—or as close to perfect as a person can ask for. How does that old saying go, “a bad day fishing is better than a good day working,” what fishermen wouldn’t agree with that? Let’s add to it with, “a good day fishing is better than damn near every other day.”

It started off right when Johnny and I showed up on the river, and he noticed this huge buck down in the valley, crossing the field, just off the edge of the river. He was so majestic with his chest all puffed out, and walking with such swag, is if to say, “Yes I have survived many a hunting seasons to earn this huge rack.” He didn’t spend too much time out in the open, so watching him was short lived; he crossed the river, and entered thick brush, not to be seen by us again. If I see this scene a thousand times I don’t think I will ever tire of watching it. Watching that monster buck for a limited amount of time made it all the better—short and sweet.

When we got to the river, the first section we looked at was boiling with big fish feeding off the top. Little fish make a big splash, but big fish know that the bug is going nowhere and they exert only the amount of effort needed to eat the bug: hence big fish small splash. The hole was alive with small splashes. I figured they were going after little black midge, and buffalo midge would be the best bet. But files that small are so freaking hard to see, I opted to do a small attractor pattern off the top that would land gentle, and act more like an indicator with a soft hackle dropper about 18 inches below. It worked like a charm. The Browns were beautiful with full vibrant colors being in the spawn.

We spent the day socking up nearly perfect weather. The water level was low and slow creating a total advantage for the fish. As much fun as fishing was watching Johnny sneak up and painstakingly place each cast in that sweet spot. Sometimes he was successful and other times the breeze, the branches and the back cast obstacles just wouldn’t let it happen. We laughed through most of the day with our own stupid little jokes; most of them old jokes we have told each other over and over, just with a little new updated spin on them. We have the some conversations over and over—it just changes slightly with updated news of each others lives. I like it that way. I am content to be a stupid simple minded fool.

 I wish I could bring the right words together in a way that would capture the joy of this day; the way all the variables came together to create a feeling of total relaxation and appreciation of the natural world. I find myself lost in one moment with absolute concentration on the cast, trying to make it land in just the right spot; then the next moment just watching a weed bend in the breeze. The clouds were full of life, sometimes blotting out that needed light to watch the drift, and that warmth of direct sun. I watched a little white mink make his way past us. He looked at us as if to say, “what up?” and then back on the hunt.  There are simply not enough days like this—a perfect day on the river.

Carp, Trains & Ugly Junk

When does a boy become a man? Or a better question asked, primarily by women, when does a man stop acting like a boy? Honest men will answer, “When a man is dead.” For me personally I hope the day never comes when the boy inside the nearly 50-year-old human named John Engel puts away his childish ways and behaves like an adult.

Would fishing be as fun for a man, if he acts like a man instead of behaving like a boy? I shudder to even think of finding the answer. When I get together with friends go on a fishing trip, commonly referred to as “Man Time.” But honestly it’s time to be a boy, and to let the boy bust out of the house and run wild in the fields for a bit.

Playing football on summer nights pushing past dinner time, knowing you will catch hell from your parents, but doing it anyhow, burns deeply into your boyish fibers. Wading up to your hips to get your lure out of a snag in the river, almost getting swept up; carves into the genetic fibers of a boy’s life. Jumping your bike over a huge puddle of a burning gas; while friends cheer you on, etches into how a boy is going to act for the rest of his life.

So when that boy turns 49, and he spends hours going after gigantic stinking carp with a fly rod, you can trace, what he does back to those formative moments when he technically was a boy. When he drinks whiskey at the campfire, spitting and swearing, when he’s camping and wakes his friend up in the morning by farting in his face—you guessed it, trace in right back to the juvenile years. When grown men take pictures of ghastly nether regions, then send those pic’s to friends to wish them happy birthday—oh yeah you guessed it, its man love with origins trailing back to his high school days.

So, here’s to the guys who joined the Magnificent 7 fall boyish fishing trip 2015. Go on, keep acting like boy’s forever!

Black River Arizona

 

 

“Can a fishing trip be enjoyable, I mean really fun, if you’re not catching fish?” Asks Paul. I set my drink in the chair’s cup holder to tend to the campfire; which I consider one of life’s pure pleasures—stoking the fire. This is not one of those questions that I can just bust out an answer to. More accurately, I can bust out a quick answer, but then it would be followed by days of jabbering on and on in an effort to really expand upon the topic.  Sadly though, I doubt I would get any closer to any understanding.

 

“Yes,” I reply. I sit there for maybe 5 seconds. Wait for it… “Well, let me explain…” I blather…

 

Night one:                    4-day annual fall fishing trip.

 

Destination:                 White Mountain Range Black River

(Including East & West forks)

 

Cast of Characters:      Same as last year’s trip (John, Paul, and David

and Erik)  this year each character takes on nick name based upon their select method of Mafia style of killing (Johnny “Ice” Engel, Paulie “Six String” Judd, David “Chippa” Skelton and Eric “Tommie” Hammer)

 

Let just say Paulie’s question was never really answered, and I don’t think he expected and answer. The query was laid out there to see how everyone felt about this year’s pick; what they wanted to see, what they hoped for, along with catching a few fish—who knows maybe even catch an Apache Trout.

 

The Black River and the forks of it are impressive. I love their size, and they have fairly good access. All my experience with boiling hot Arizona is Saguaro cactus and baked dirt; the White Mountain range caught me off guard. It’s kind of like mixing the Sierra Nevada’s with the Wyoming tundra—tall beautiful Ponderosa Pines; open meadows with tall grasses. They had a pretty healthy fire a few years back that left a lot of those beauties scorched toothpicks, but recovery seems fast.

 

Saturday turned out to be the day of going deep and dirty. It was decided to get the hell off the beaten path, avoid the bait totting Bubba’s, bellying up all over the East Fork, and try to find bigger fish then on the West Fork.

 

We hiked down a half-mile of so following a small stream leading to the confluence.   I broke off with the man who selected the Tommy Gun as his mobster weapon of choice, so I’m supposed to refer to him as Tommy. But with a last name like Hammer, I just gotta stick to Hammer; it’s just one of those names that is better than any nickname anyone could come up with.

 

I can’t say for sure, because this is my first time on in this area, but I think we got to some of the best this river has to offer. The fishing and the beauty of the canyon did not suck. Hammer decided to go Euro Nymphing and hooked up on a nice Brown no more than 5 to 10 minutes into the game.

 

Although the fish weren’t big by any means, we were catching. I remained hopeful that on the end of my line would be an Apache trout—as much as I wanted one of those Browns to be, they were not.

 

A lot more questions were asked that day, as well as around the campfire: questions, chaos, mischief and mayhem. Each man had to stay ever watchful due to an angry, lethal dive-bombing squirrel. He was bounding from limb to limb on a full-grown Ponderosa above us just going nuts dropping green pinecones on our tent and camp area. I am convinced it was because of Paul’s I-Pod playing Nickel-Back every other song. Let’s be honest, one Nickel-Back song is too many. Half the other songs were produced by Nickel-Back—who can blame the little pinecone bomber!

 

Questions or not I learned a lot. I thought I knew everything about fire—wrong. I know volumes about keeping the core hot, I work up to a log that I refer to as “The Grand-Dad” and there is a real process to heating that bad boy up. I learned that smaller logs can’t be longer than a pit; they must remain fairly flat; energy/heat is lost by moving up past logs instead on focusing on the fuel—thanks Paul.

 

Good God David can cook; I’m not even close to understanding smoking and basting. I aspire to be an outdoor cook. David and I spent the entire time building each other up, an entirely new concept for us. Our traditional method to show each other the love is cut-downs, laying hands of pain upon each other, and general berating. More times then I care to mention, I reverted back to bitch slapping David down; old habits die-hard.

Pine Dale/Wind River Mountain Range

There are so many factors that go into considering a river or a mountain range beyond just great, but at that level that you would call it fantastic or “as good as it gets.” For the fly fishermen of course it has to have fish, because that is actually the name of the game. If you don’t have a chance of catching a lot of fish, or a few big fish, then well, its not fly fishing.  But unless your that guy that has to count every fish he catches, and measure every one, then get a pic with you pushing it out in front of your chest with that dumb ass grin on your face so you can show everyone how cool you are at work on Monday morning well maybe it is just about the fish.

But a select few guys get that it’s about immeasurable fine details that make fishing the West like nothing else in the world. A chosen limited people get that fishing its rivers is about having a complete love of the West from the high timber river with pure water gliding over mountain boulders to the delicate stream running through desert red rock.

This love of the West and worship for its river and streams comes about from years and years of having fathers, grand pa’s and uncles taking us to these holy places. It develops when we see their faces light up when they approach its waters, and climb its peaks. And all of these men have those select areas cut deep into the bone, and in a strange sort of way they are sort haunted and tormented by these destinations.

These men have oracle like qualities about them, and when we are lucky enough to get them to take us deep into the rings of their cache of knowledge, we see them at work. There is no exact recipe they have for enjoyment, but it always starts with the drive. Fishing does not start when your line is in the water, it starts on the drive. Once you get out of city limits and on your way the devotion begins.

These people get that the delight is in the details. It’s looking for wild life on the road while driving. It’s knowing where to stop and get that jalapeño burger at a family owned business. It’s about chewing the fat with the old lady at the gas station; it’s about knowing which hotel to stay at along the way. It’s about knowing which little street to turn down in that tiny forgotten town to see the first building erected by the first settlers west. It’s about knowing which rivers have just a little more magic in them then one ridge over. The list doesn’t stop and the pursuit lasts a life time.

I have analyzed this topic infinitely, and I will probably spend the rest of my fishing days blathering on and on about what makes fishing, and what makes a river and a mountain range worthy of being placed on that list of “must fish before I die!” I pray that the blathering last a long time and that I have the good fortune to spend it standing knee deep with all those people that get the journey and the reason.

 

 

Hittin' The North Fork of the Duchesne with my Noob

In the last month, this is the second time my noob daughter, Jacqueline (Jac) has put her feet in the water with me--of course river style. Last month we were in Lava Hot Springs, and hit the Black Canyon, and she hauled in an absolute monster Carp. This go around we just did an overnighter at the top of the North Fork, past Iron Mind in the non-designated campground area.

This kid has all the makings of a real fly fisherwoman, and its too early to tell, if I have caught another one of my children--the baby of the family or if this girl will get off the line (in terms of fishing). She is good at hooking up with fish. For a Noob, she see takes quickly, and it seems like she really likes catching fish. A few more times out, on the right rivers, and we will see if she actually has a taste for fly fishing.

To me, I cant see how anyone could be standing in that river in July, with all the other humans gone, and not take hook line and sinker. That canyon has to rate to all Utahans as a top on the beauty scale.

At this point, I have to throw in that camping with Jac is an absolute pleasure. She is supper helpful with setting up and cooking; and she's even more fun to sit at the fire with. Jac and I have both always found great satisfaction is sitting by the fire. I love talking with her, she's so mature, I sometimes forget she's a 16-year-old girl--my daughter to be exact.

So, with a wish and a prayer I hope that this is the beginning of more fishing with the Noob!

Hayden Fork North Slope of Uintahs

Black Canyon of The Bear River

 

One of the first rivers in a while that I can honestly say, "I really want to go back to this river!" In a nut shell here are the key factors:

1.     What a rugged SOB I was totally spent by the end of the day. This river wins the tough guy battle at the end of the day, and it mostly has to do with navigating over those big rocks.

 

2.     Look at it—it scored high on the pretty factory.

3.     Little to no people. If I thought people actually read this blog, there’s no way in hell I would be so candid. But aside from a handful of friends—who reads it.

4.     Enough fish to definitely keep you interested—nothing to big in terms of trout, but what for it, there is another species…

5.     Carp-a-Colby holy-moly the man snapped his Tenkara rod on a monster Carp. I feel a little bad about because I egged him on, but secretly I think he’s supper stoked that he snapped his rod clean in half on a stink eater. But it gets better, he had a larger Tankara rod that he hooked up again, and almost broke this one in half again. The man does not know the meaning of Yield. I may see a new nickname coming out of this…

6.     Great name—Black Canyon of the Bear.

 

 

 

* One chink in its armor--the great people of Idaho need to stop throwing their cars, washing machines, tires, tea pots and couches over the cliff. Good God people who the hell throws junk into such a pristine place?

 

100 percent

The plan is to meet at West at 8:00--I arrived at West 15 minutes early, I wanted to be there before anyone else did. When I pull up I see Ricardo, a kid that I wasn't sure would make it, and he's early. This looks like a great start.  This is the second trip this year for the Piscary Club, and its getting stronger all the time.

We invited about 15 kids to go on a fly fishing trip to test our hand on the upper Prove. I know a guy who has property on the river, who agreed to let us fish private water. So we sell this big water to kids. I had no idea that 100% of the kids would buy the sell. Wait a second, it was more like 110% showed up.

Great kids, great teachers--these guys are pillars that hold up pillars. Hats off to The Avatar Colby Wilson, and the Oracle Mike Matheson men who just keep stepping up. Hats off the boy "X" who's getting a handle on stepping up as well.