Blissful Ignorance.

[DUBBN]

It was the mid 1980’s I had been fly fishing small creeks and beaver ponds for most of my young life. Now, in my early twenties, I had ventured to larger rivers. The Gunnison being the closest and holding a great trout population became my “home” water. I had been fishing it as often as I could for a year or two. Dredging the bottom with large attractor patterns like a San Juan Worm, Egg, Prince, Halfback Nymph or Woolly Bugger was my preferred method of taking these wild Rainbows. Stripping Woolly Buggers was my second preferred method.

On this particular day I decided to make the hike all the way to the “Wall”. The Wall is pretty much as far up the river that you can hike before you are boxed in by vertical cliffs. I would guess the hike is around 3 miles. The fishing was great there, but not so much better than the lower stretch that it made me want to hike in very often. Why I decided to walk in that day, I do not remember. I am guessing the date, but I think it was August or September. The weather was warm. No need for waders (neopreme), just my wading boots, cutoff jeans, and a long sleeve shirt with big pockets for my fly box and assorted gear.

I nymphed the river all the way up to the Wall. It was just after noon by the time I got there. In the distance I could hear the dull drone of thunder. No worries, afternoon showers are common then. Besides it was getting very hot and the rain would be a welcome relief from the heat when it did arrive.

The Hole/Run at the Wall, was very long and calm. I have heard this type of water referred to as “froggy” water. The water is moving slow enough that it makes it difficult for me to get a good drift when nymphing. I had caught fish on the hike in, but this stretch at the end was going to snake bite me. Not really a big deal, I have 3 miles of river to fish on the way out. I was about to leave the wall and head out when I felt a creepy crawly on my neck. The first thing that went through my mind was a Deer Tick. The Gunnison Gorge is full of the nasty little Tick Fever carrying Bastages! I grabbed the critter off the back of my neck, and went to squeeze the life out of it. Before I could, dispatch it, I noticed it wasn’t a tick. It was a winged ant. It was rather large. Probably a size 14, and Cinnamon/Black in color. Then I looked out at the once previous calm hole. It had come to life with surface activity. Ants were falling everywhere by what seemed to me as the thousands. The river looked as though it was boiling as the trout had keyed on the ants and were feeding at a frantic pace. In a matter of seconds the river had become alive with trout eating off the surface.

I had mixed emotions. While it was exciting to witness this feeding frenzy, I had no ant patterns. I didn’t even have a dry fly with me. One other thing. Those ants were not just falling on the river. They were falling on me. I really do not like being covered in ants. I had to do something besides stand there and watch. I took off my nymph rig, opened my fly box and tried to find something that would work as an ant. I decided on two patterns. A Brown Hackle Peacock (Redtag), size 14 and a Pheasant Tail nymph size 18. I cannot remember why I picked these two patterns. I fished them over rising fish for the next 90 minutes. This is the part of the story where I have to decide if I want to tell you the truth, or make something up. I so want to make something up...Ok, here’s the made up version. For 90 minutes I caught more and bigger fish than I could have ever dreamt. The trout hit my offerings with reckless abandon. If I fish another ten thousand days, I will never equal the joy I felt during that hour and a half! Now the truth…. I think I scared every fish for a quarter mile up and downstream from me. In 90 minutes work I caught one small anchovy of a Brown trout. If I stretched him out he may have been 3 and a quarter inches long.

The sound of the thunder had gotten louder. The storm was moments away from me. I started my hike out. I still had the PT and Brown Hackle Peacock on my line. As I was walking downstream I noticed the fish were still active on the surface. They were active, but something was different, and I could not put my finger on it. Then the rain hit. It was not a typhoon type storm. It was just your normal Summer afternoon rain shower. What made this afternoon different is the storm was going to last hours instead of minutes. I had no idea of this at the time.

So, I continued with my hike. Just as when I started downstream, the trout were still eating off the surface. I thought how odd. The ants are long gone. What the heck are they eating? I would like to say my superior intellect dominated the situation and through deductive reasoning I solved the riddle. No, that’s not what happened. For some reason as I was walking where the trail met the river, I cast with my left had to some visibly feeding fish. I was still walking. Just as the flies neared the pod of fish, a small explosion erupted at the end of my fly line. I set the hook but nothing was there. My back cast went into some willows. I do not know if I lost the Pheasant tail to a fish or to the willows, but upon inspection only the Brown Hackle Peacock was left. The strike was so violent and unexpected, that I convinced myself that I had unwittingly snagged a beaver or a muskrat.

The trail moved away from the river. It gave me a few moments to try and digest what had just happened. I decided that if it was a fish, it was just dumb luck that it had hit my offerings. The beaver theory was what I was going to refer to when I retold the story to my buddies. A few moments later and the trail meets the river again. Yep, feeding fish just like before. Let’s see if lightning strikes twice. Kind of funny being I am in a thunderstorm and saying that! Anyways, I made the cast. Just like before. I am on river right so I am casting with my left hand as I walk downstream. In my estimation the fly is about 5 feet from smacking the feeding fish right in their noses. Just like before a small explosion out in the water. This time when I set the hook, the fish was still attached.

I was thrilled that I had actually hooked and landed a trout with this idiotic way of presenting a fly. I was a little disappointed in the size of the fish. It was maybe 12 inches long. By the explosion with which it hit I was expecting something in the 25 inch range. I stopped walking. Now I was going to go after fish with a purpose. I made a down and across cast. The fly landed maybe 15 feet above where the trout could be seen feeding off the surface. Again a violent strike. It was not until maybe a year later that I figured out that setting the hook on a downstream cast is a bad idea. I lost way more fish than I landed.

The walk out of the canyon should not have taken over 45 minutes. It took me close to 6 hours. I had never experienced hooking fish in such numbers. Had I been given free access to the fish hatchery I doubt that I could have hooked more fish. Dumb luck, an ant hatch, and a storm had caused me to stumble upon a new way to chase trout. It was not for a few more years that I would understand that while the sipping of ants off the surface had ended for the trout, the chasing of caddis had begun.

I left the river that day with more questions than answers. It was not until a read a book by Sylvester Nemes that I understood what had happened to me on the banks of the Gunnison. By the time I did read the book, I had been fishing the down and across method for quite some time. For me, the telltale sign of soft hackle fishing is when I see trout coming all the way out of the water. It’s then that I start the down and across swing. Nemes literature didn’t really teach me anything about catching fish, but it did confirm why I was having success fishing the way I was.

[hankaye]

DUBBN, Howdy;

Thanks for this insight into your "Inner Sherlock Holmes"
What was the key piece of information from the Nemes
book and your experience that tripped the switch and light the bulb?
Guess I'm asking what where the 1+1 that = 2 ???

hank

[DUBBN]

DUBBN, Howdy;

Thanks for this insight into your "Inner Sherlock Holmes"
What was the key piece of information from the Nemes
book and your experience that tripped the switch and light the bulb?

hank

No inner Shelock for me. Like the title says, "ignorance".

The only info from Nemes, that was useful to me, was that the fish were chasing caddis. Until then, caddis for me, were irrelavant. The switch had already been tripped when I started catching fish in this manner. Long before I had heard of Nemes.

1+1 =2? When the trout were chasing a bug out of the water, equaled a down and across cast caught alot of those fish.

[Ron Eagle Elk]

Well written piece, Dubbn. Enjoyed it. Isn't it wonderful the way we often have a light switch tripped on by a pod of feeding fish?

[Izaak]

Hi DUBBN,

Great story! Thanks for sharing it. You describe a remarkably similar scenario to one I read about years ago in Dave Hughes’ tiny new book Western Streamside Guide (1987) . In it he recalls getting caught in a late summer afternoon thunderstorm on the Deschutes River, and later having tremendous success using a “small brown soft hackle” to catch trout, swinging it down and across to pods of rising fish as daylight faded. Reading those few pages in his book was a turning point for me, giving me a major clue to solving a Sherlock riddle, and introduced me to the March Brown spider. The pattern he lists in the book is one that has been in my fly box ever since and has caught more fish for me than other wets combined.

Thread: Orange
Rib: Narrow gold tinsel
Body: Mixed fur from hare’s face
Hackle: Brown partridge

[DUBBN]

Hi DUBBN,

Great story! Thanks for sharing it. You describe a remarkably similar scenario to one I read about years ago in Dave Hughes’ tiny new book Western Streamside Guide (1987) . In it he recalls getting caught in a late summer afternoon thunderstorm on the Deschutes River, and later having tremendous success using a “small brown soft hackle” to catch trout, swinging it down and across to pods of rising fish as daylight faded. Reading those few pages in his book was a turning point for me, giving me a major clue to solving a Sherlock riddle, and introduced me to the March Brown spider. The pattern he lists in the book is one that has been in my fly box ever since and has caught more fish for me than other wets combined.

Thread: Orange
Rib: Narrow gold tinsel
Body: Mixed fur from hare’s face
Hackle: Brown partridge

That sounds like a book a should read. Goes to prove, there are no new ideas anymore.

[Otter]

Thanks for sharing that Dubbn, sorta confirms my suspicion that you are a natural angler, learning from the river.

A friend of mine who is a fine fine angler has a very good mantra, "You have gotta give em what they want, where they want it"
It is not unusual for him when the fishing is difficult to face downstream and sink his dry on purpose. Versatility rarely is a disadvantage and one should fish free from dogma and percieved wisdom.

[DUBBN]

Well written piece, Dubbn. Enjoyed it. Isn't it wonderful the way we often have a light switch tripped on by a pod of feeding fish?

It is Ron. It's amazing what you can learn when you have a trout as a teacher.


Otter, thanks for the kind words, but it sounds to me that Dave Hughes beat me to the punch 27 years ago. Better late than never.

[letumgo]

I needed to find time to read this thru properly. What a great read, Wayne. Very enjoyable.

[fflutterffly]

I adore a good story and even a better love of a tale in the evening, just before I go to sleep. what a nice gift. I think, at Roscoe, there should be a story game. Each participant must, yes, must tell a story dear to her/his heart. A story tellers circle.