A lifetime of steelhead fishing

A buck steelhead hovering over a spring spawning bed photo c. Dave Richey Outdoors ©2012

A friend stopped by the other day with a buddy of his. The other gent wanted to meet me, and have a discussion about steelhead fishing.

It began mildly enough when we shook hands, and we made small talk for a few minutes. Then, in a burst of what seemed like pent-up anger, he questioned me about my steelhead fishing.

“You’ve written that you have caught 100 steelhead in one day, and another time you wrote that you’d probably landed nearly 10,000 steelhead in your life,” he said. “I think both statements are a crock. No one can catch that many steelhead these days.”

Mind you, this dude was a guest in my home. I didn’t take kindly to his ranting insults, and that I might be lying.

I agree that he was probably right. It would be most difficult, if not impossible, these days to catch 1,000 steelhead in a lifetime. I also added that he must have missed something from both stories he had read. I learned long ago that people read what they want to read into a story, and then want to argue their mistakes when they are wrong.

“First of all, Bud, I wrote that two of us caught 100 steelhead in one day, and will gladly introduce you to the other man who has a much shorter fuse than mine,” I said in an even voice. “Call him or me a liar, and you’ll find a rocky time ahead.”

“But … but,” he stammered. And I then told him it’s not polite to interrupt someone when they are speaking. He quickly shut up.

I explained that the 100-fish day happened over 25 years ago, on a cold and snowy day with lots of wind, and most steelhead fishermen were home or working. We happened to find a big school of fish, and it seemed as none had eaten in a month. Every orange-colored fly we pitched to them resulted in a strike.

We quit fishing once with nearly 60 fish that we had caught and released unharmed. We went for breakfast, checked another stream, and headed back to the hotspot for a second round. We were up to about 85 fish when my buddy fell, got soaking wet and headed for the car and some welcome heat.

I envied him but there were more fish to hook

I stuck with it, caught what it took to hit 100 fish, and kept only one small male steelie that inhaled a fly through his mouth and was hooked in the gills from the inside. The fish was bleeding heavily and would die so I kept it.

And then, catching approximately 10,000 steelhead. I’m 73 now, and began steelhead fishing at age 11. By the time I was 15, I was catching between 100 and 200 steelies each year, and that was from the Sturgeon River between Indian River and Wolverine. Mind you, that was back in the early to mid-1950s.

By the time I was 18 in 1957, I was fishing even more often, and the fish numbers shot up to about 300 steelhead per year. Some of those fish were caught during a “temperature run” caused by Burt Lake fish seeking comfort in the cooler river water. Competition? There wasn’t any.

By my mid-20s, I was fishing steelhead along the Lake Michigan shoreline. Favorite streams were the Betsie, Little Manistee and Platte rivers, and those rivers held lots of fish and very few anglers.

It was really amazing, and seldom would I keep a fish. I would have six or eight 30-fish days each year, and always put the fish back. A quick, hard fight, and a swift release and no harm to the fish.

I began guiding salmon and steelhead fishermen in 1967 when the spawning runs first began, and my clients cared nothing about steelhead. Everyone wanted salmon, so I’d give them lessons and once they learned how to cast, I’d “go check for other hot-spots.” I always carried my Black Beauty fly rod, and I always looked for steelhead holding downstream of spawning salmon where they gobbled free-drifting salmon eggs.

Those fish were always caught and released, and I’d return often to check on my people and lead them to new batches of salmon. I guided for 10 years, spring and fall, and not once did my clients go home without a limit of fish. Not only was I the first fly-fishing wading guide in the state for anadromous browns, salmon and steelhead, but I pioneered this fishing and developed many of the tactics in common use today.

Whenever I had a free day, I would check rivers to keep track of the runs, and the best way to do that was to fish. There were countless days, especially in November and December when the rivers were full of steelhead and everyone else was deer hunting, working or at home, close to some heat. Those months can be brutal on a steelhead stream.

I could easily say I personally landed 400 to 500 steelhead each year during my guiding years, which would mean 4,000 to 5,000 fish during those 10 years. One also must remember the limit back then was five fish daily, and seldom a day passed without catching a limit. Again, perhaps 99 percent of those fish were released.

Steelhead laying on a spawning bed photo c. Dave Richey Outdoors ©2012

Fish only for male fish

One also must remember that the big push by the Michigan Steelheader’s group really didn’t get underway until the mid-1970s. Back then, people who had caught three or four steelhead in a lifetime were introducing their friends to the sport.

High steelhead numbers held through the early 1980s, and although I no longer was guiding, I was still fishing hard in the spring and fall. It was great: I’d fish for steelhead in the morning, and bow hunt for whitetails in the afternoon and early evening. It was great fun.

Do I know precisely how many steelhead I’ve landed? It was well over 8,000 steelhead by 1976 when I quit guiding. I know I’ve caught well over 2,000 fish since then, and if it hasn’t reached 10,000 by now, I’d be very surprised.

I’d consider myself a fish hog and poacher if I’d kept everything I caught, but nearly all fish were released after a fast, spirited fight. Most spring steelhead are soft-fleshed and not tasty, and they don’t freeze well. I only fished for male steelies in the spring, and never bothered fishing for the females. I avoided hooking the hens.

Nowadays, with my vision problems, I don’t fish steelies as hard or nearly as often as I once did, and that is a good thing. Bowlers become expert by rolling 20 games or more each week, and steelhead fishermen become better anglers by fishing daily.

I courteously ushered the head-shaking gent to the door and on his way. I don’t know if he believed any of this or not, and it really doesn’t matter. All I know is that for many years the numbers of river steelhead far outnumbered the anglers who were qualified to fish for and catch them.

Those who could, did. Those who couldn’t, bad-mouthed the hot sticks. There’s nothing new about jealousy among anglers.

Avoid high temperatures, and fish at night

Hexagenia limbata (giant Michigan mayfly) produce heavy trout feeding patterns llustration (HexMoon Glow) courtesy Les Booth ©2012

It must be something in my genes. I’m apparently wired different than most people.

Michigan has four seasons — spring, summer, fall and winter. It’s not that I dislike summer; it’s that I hate summer!

Now, hate is a pretty nasty word when used in any form. Sadly, I can think of no better way to sum up my feelings. Granted, I could probably find something to do after sundown, like fish for big brown trout in the AuSable or Manistee rivers. It can help take my mind off the constant heat.

I’ve done that for many years during other brutally hot summers. It was OK, but I actively dislike that sticky feeling when I perspire too much. And, there-in lies part of my problem. I don’t perspire like most people.

Sometimes hot days produce hot fishing at night

Very little perspiration comes off my head. Nor does my underarms dampen my shirt.  It comes out in other places too delicate for a family oriented blog to discuss.

The higher the temperature, the higher my frustration level, and the more noxious insects try to bore holes in my body to suck my blood. I’ve learned not to swat at flying insects, day or night. It moves the air, makes me even hotter than before and all the bugs whistle up their buddies to come and join the feast.

It’s at this time of year when many major fly hatches come off. The sun goes down, and insects that have spent the day maturing in stream-side foliage, decide to reproduce their kind in a mating dance over the river. It begins with a soft audible hum before becoming a full-blown hatch.

Mayflies land on nose, ears and hands, and balance delicately on the brim of my cap. I look out over the river. Clouds of insects hover over the river, and above the audible hum of thousands of insect wings, comes the sound of trout rising from narrow seams of flowing water.

There are the splashy slurps of small trout. Experienced anglers have learned to determine locations by their sound, and from that comes the knowledge of about how far away the fish is feeding, and then we extrapolate that into making a cast that positions our fly upstream from the fish. Big browns sip flies off the surface without much noise.

There is a science to locating big fish at night; You listen for them feeding

We then determine the length of time between when the trout rises to take a fly and the next time he rises to feed. We count the seconds “one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two, one-thousand-three” until he rises again.

We make our cast at the “one-thousand-two” count. This gives us a narrow window to make the cast; at the “one-thousand-two” count; and allowing that final second for the cast, and drift, of the fly over the feeding trout.

That’s the way it’s supposed to work. Often a rising trout will sip a natural insect off the surface, and by chance take one of the many that surround your fly. It doesn’t always work.

Often they ignore our offering, and anglers can switch fly patterns or sizes, and that may make a difference. Sometimes when a blanket hatch occurs, there are simply two many insects on the water. The trout can swim with their mouth open and fill their belly fast.

The odd thing about a hot night and a good hatch is we often forget about the oppressive heat. We false-cast once or twice to dry the fly, and keep trying for that one fish that continues to rise, but a blanket hatch soon puts the fish down. They’ve ate their fill, and retire to a quiet spot in the water to rest.

In the distance, a tree of heat lightning flickers across the sky, and one can easily determine its line of travel as it flickers again. Slowly, a calm settles over the water, and it’s possible to hear other night sounds.

Learn to listen for feeding fish, and to tell big fish from small ones

Owls hoot, night hawks boom, and frogs croak near shore. Suddenly, one becomes aware that the awesome heat of the day has lessened and we drift the river slowly casting dry flies or casting and stripping line fast to work a big streamer through deep holes and runs near shore. This latter method, if done on a nonstop basis, may produce a big fish but all of the effort will set you to sweating again.

One must chose their poison. I had a heat stroke once while changing a car tire, and since that time, I conveniently find something to do inside my air conditioned office.

So, if you are like me, I choose to stay in when we have three-digit temperatures occur during mid-day, and if I choose to fish at night, I wait until two hours after sun down before I head out. It may limit my catch at times, but it does allow me to fish in some semblance of comfort.

Uncommon Fishing Experiences

Strange things happen while fishing, and many are remembered long after a limit catch has been caught, bragged about and eaten.

It was about this time of year 30 years ago when I was trolling Manistee Lake near Filer City with brother George, and Randy Colvin of Flint. We were trolling X-4, X-5 and U-20 FlatFish at putt-putt speeds.

I was trolling a U-20 silver FlatFish off the starboard side, Colvin was pulling a U-20 in grey-pearl off the port side, and George was using some weight and was fishing a chartreuse with red spot U-20 right behind the boat while running the outboard motor.

An against all-odds catch

It was a cold and blustery day when Colvin had a jarring strike. I began reeling my line in immediately when I felt the boat rock as he set the hook, and his line broke from a too-tight drag and too much hook-set. I'd made about 10 turns on the spinning reel handle when my rod tip shot down, and I was into a jumping fish that cleared the water behind the boat.

George reeled up, Randy reeled in his broken line, and that steelhead and I had a good battle. I gradually worked him out into deeper water, and soon he was swimming in circles 10 feet below the boat. I eased him to the surface where George slid a net under the fish.

No big deal here. But imagine our surprise when we learned that one small treble hook point of my lure went through the line-tie of Colvin's FlatFish. The odds of such a thing happening are well off the charts.

He howled that it was his fish, and me being a reasonable gent, suggested that his over-zealous hook-set and my finely timed retrieve was what led to my cleverly inserting a hook point of my lure through the line tie of his lure. Thus, any reasonable person should know that not only did I land the fish but also gained a new fishing lure.

I relented, after further reasonable thought, and gave him back his lure. I kept the fish. That seemed only fair to me.

Hooking the same big Chinook salmon three times

Another time, during my river guiding career from 1967 through 1976, I had occasion to fish the Betsie River with a fly rod and wet flies for chinook salmon. My clients had caught a bunch of fish, and being thoroughly tuckered out from running up and downstream after fish, had pulled up stakes after two days and went home.

A huge king was spotted upstream from a tree that had toppled into the water, and he was holding court with a big hen. I hooked that old boy once, and he ripped and snorted downstream, tangling my line in the fallen tree branches, and broke off.

I fished elsewhere for an hour, went back to the big king, and he was back out guarding the redd. I changed fly colors, rolled the dark fly in front of his nose, and he darted out to grab it. I set the hook, he uncorked a tremendous leap that landed him in the tree branches again. The line broke like sewing thread.

Two hours passed before I stopped by to pay him another visit. There he lay, alongside the nearly spent female, and they rolled up on their sides in unison, she discharging a stream of golden eggs while he let loose a cloud of white milt. They spawned until her eggs were exhausted and he could only muster one tiny puff of milt.

They had ended their spawning chores, and death would soon follow. I eased into the river again, made one cast, and the big male moved forward to intercept it. I set the hook, set it again, and literally forced him across the surface toward me. He slipped past me as I steered him clear of the tree branches and into the open river.

He headed downstream like a barge drifting out of control, and I followed him as fast as humanly possible. He rolled to the surface, thrashed around, turned sideways to the current, and he let the swift water carry him down to a deep hole. I knew the hole was clean of debris, and carried the fight to the now sluggish fish.

It was perhaps not the most noble end to his life, but he had fulfilled his destiny and would soon die, his carcass tumbling end over end downstream until it lodged in a log jam. I eased him toward shore, skidded his massive head up on shore, picked him up by the tail and it was over.

That fish, two hours later, weighed an honest 38 1/2 pounds on certified scales, a major catch on a fly and fly rod and 10-pound tippet. It's said that salmon are born orphans and die childless.

And that is a true fact, and I'd like to think this great fish (the largest Chinook salmon I've landed on a fly rod) graced my life and died in an honorable fight rather than succumbing to the wasting-away process that befalls all salmon. He blessed my life with his presence and his strength, and that memory will live with me until my death.

Three big brook trout from Algonquin Provincial Park

One last topic concerns a trip to Ontario's Algonquin Provincial Park for brook trout. My wife Kay and I hiked into a sparkling little lake as I carried a canoe on my shoulders. We began a slow tour along the first dropoff out from shore, and cast copper-color Devle Dogs toward shore.

Kay hooked the first brook trout on one of those Eppinger spoons, and it fought a stubborn battle on six-pound line, and I eventually netted a 5 1/2-pound lake brookie. It had broad shoulders abd within five minutes she caught another fish of about the same size.

Two hours later we pulled up to a big boulder along shore, and got out of the canoe to stretch our legs. My third cast produced a jarring strike, and a few minutes later I eased a five-pound brook ashore.

We fished the rest of the day without a strike but the size of those three brook trout have seldom been equaled elsewhere. It produced wonderful memories we'll both remember for many years.

Uncommon Fishing Experiences ((tag: Dave Richey, Michigan, Outdoors, brook trout, canoe, Chinook salmon, Devle Dogs, FlatFish, fly fishing, trolling))

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

King Salmon: Heart-Pounding River Action

Nymphs: Volume II, Ernest G. Schwiebert

TITLE: Nymphs: Volume II: Stoneflies, Caddisflies, & Other Important Insects
AUTHOR: Ernest G. Schwiebert
PUBLISHER: The Lyons Press, Guilford, CT

CONTACT:

The Lyons Press
Guilford, CT

WEBSITE: www.lyonspress.com
ISBN: 978-1-59221-098-8
PRICE: $60.00 hardcover and dust jacket

This is a huge, heavy book, and a revised and enlarged edition of the original edition of 1973. As great as the earlier edition was, the new printing makes this a much better book and a fitting tribute to the author who sadly passed away in 2005.

Schwiebert was a world traveler, a high-profile fly fisherman, public speaker, the author of several books including Matching The Hatch, which he authored in 1955 at age 24. It solidified his standing among fly fishermen from that day forward.

Make no mistake about it: Nymphs II is a monumental work, and will be a classic among fly tiers and fly fishermen, and a choice piece of fine work among armchair anglers who devour every word Schwiebert ever wrote. This book offers 787 pages of detailed studies on nymphs, and it is illustrated with 16 color plates of nymphs as well as b/w drawings.

He leads off with chapters such as Fishing The Large Western Stoneflies, Some Notes On The Larger Eastern Stoneflies, The Stoneflies Of Spring and Early Summer, The Caddisflies of Spring and Early Summer, The Principal Caddisflies of Midsummer, Imitating & Fishing The Caddisfly Larvae, and this is soon followed with chapters on various nymphs of different species.

The nymphs discussed in this huge fact-filled book belong to:

• Ephoron
• Potamanthus
• Ameletus
• Siphloplecton
• Leptophlebia
• Paraleptophlebia
• Baetiscidae
• Heptagenidae
• Rhithrogena
• Epeoorus

and many others

Ernest Schwiebert was a well known fly fisherman who really knew his craft. His books were filled with the stuff that make flyrodders drool: big bugs, tiny flies, fishing techniques, history of nymph fishermen, and much more. This is a must-have book for any fly fisherman who want to learn from the late master.

A trout fishing library without this book would be seriously flawed by its omission. It is, without doubt, the book by which other nymphing titles will be measured.