When does the boat leave?
(A world class education from the stern of a canoe)
I wasn’t great at high school physics. I was an excellent calculus student, but I couldn’t apply the math well in physics with all the vectors and trajectories. Nonetheless, I feel like I have a PhD in applied hydrodynamics and mobile ballistics, and nowhere does that become more apparent than when your buddy hands you a canoe paddle and says let’s go jump shoot some ducks.
Continue reading “Hydrodynamics, Mobile Ballistics, and String Theory”
It feels like it’s been weeks since the last time we didn’t have a daytime high in the 90’s. The arrival of some low 80s weather this weekend definitely feels great, and if you think like me, then you’re also anticipating the first hint of fall! Don’t panic if you haven’t made any grand plans for autumnal angling. Drift boats on the Madison River are probably booked, and capacity has already been reached for lodges on the Yucatan peninsula, but you can still eke out some great last minute fall fishing if you bring your DIY attitude to North Carolina’s Crystal Coast. This part of North Carolina, and particularly the area just inside Cape Lookout, experiences a phenomenal run of false albacore each year between September and December that’s very accessible to anglers able to bring the right boat*.
Continue reading “Destination spotlight: Cape Lookout”
I have a fresh change to report here at The Salted Fly – we’ve moved! Sorry to disappoint, but it’s not to a glamorous saltwater destination like Islamorada or Cape Cod or Harkers Island or Charleston. I’ve relocated to my hometown of Richmond, Virginia at the fall line of the James River. I can’t smell the marsh mud or hear the crab boats from my bedroom like I could in Mathews, but I did make a good career move. Bucktail, dumbbell eyes and 1/0 hooks won’t pay for themselves!
Being in Richmond means I have a great smallmouth fishery at my back door, and I’m an hour closer to the trout streams of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I will certainly miss being able to chase puppy drum before work, but if I’m being honest, this type of fishing much better suits me for the next few years of my life as my 7-month old daughter grows up. Prowling around for cobia in the hot July sun or casting to winter stripers with frostbitten fingers is not something that would probably suit her, but she’s already enjoyed accompanying my wife and I on a hike up to one of my favorite brook trout streams.
I haven’t written in awhile for two reasons. First, except for a quick trip to the James River floodwall for shad back in April, I haven’t fished since my visit Mossy Creek back in October. Second, even if I had, the pressure to write something really outstanding is real. Most of the lengthier works on this blog have gone through several rewrites, spaced out by several days. Although there’s past experiences I could write about, I haven’t had the time or emotional energy to put really put together a polished work while I juggle the demands of being a new parent.
All this is a roundabout way of saying that I’m going to try to revert to a simpler style here. Cut and dry fishing reports. Gear reviews. Tying instructions. Destination discussions. I’ll shelve the high prose until the muse speaks to me, and really get back to fishing for now.
My dear wife gave me a day off from dad duty this past weekend, and I went straight back to Mossy Creek. A few raindrops hit my window as I crested Afton Mountain, and the weather radar showed more on the way. Although I was looking forward to throwing dry flies, I was glad I had brought along the 7-weight streamer rod in case the rain really came down hard and the big browns came out of their holes to chase minnows swept along in the torrent. I smiled when I pulled in the parking lot at the stream and saw the small SUV that had passed me on the interstate, covered with trout bum and Grateful Dead stickers.
I started upstream along the left bank carrying two rods, a 4 weight with a small dry fly and a 5 weight with a black beetle. The skies were overcast and the temperature still hadn’t broken 70. I fished all the way to the end of the public access easement without a hint of action. On the way upstream, four separate anglers returned back downstream, having gotten there before me and already drifted their flies through the ideal lies.
I stuck with the beetle on the way back down, as I didn’t see any substantial hatch activity. It was refreshing to see the stream from the other side, and hit some holes that I couldn’t have reached earlier in the morning. I got to the cut bank where I’d scored back in October, threw a perfect cast, and then briefly daydreamed while a slimy shape came up and inhaled my fly. I brought myself back to reality too late to hook the fish. However, I quickly forgave myself for the lapse in attention, instead of the masochistic cursing I normally would unleash.
I was dialed in as I worked back closer to the parking lot. Casts were hitting the right spot, and mends were giving me good drifts. I came to a quick run sandwiched between a steep bank and a small island with lots of vegetation. Experience had taught me that those islands were hard to mend off of, so I walked way downstream to get a better angle. It was a long cast, almost directly upstream. I think I pounded that little run for half a dozen drifts before the beetle disappeared in a violent eruption. The swift current meant I had a lot of line on the water, and I threw a strong backcast followed by several long strips, and was pleasantly surprised to find myself still attached!
While the surprise was still in my favor, I pulled him downstream towards me, but once he realized he was hooked, he surged upstream, threatening to go right back up the run. Fearing he’d go behind the island and foul my line, I discarded everything but my net, foreceps, and camera, and waded out into the mucky shallows. From there I figured it would be a better spot to fight the fish, net it, and release it back into clean moving water instead of dragging it across the sediment bar. He ran a few more times up and down the slow water below the run, but I could see the fly firmly lodged in his jaw and the fight soon tilted in my favor. The fish ended up being an inch or so longer than my net opening, and was probably my biggest brown trout on this continent. (By the way, it feels really wild to be able to say that). The rest of the day was uneventful; although there was productive water still to hit, the high from that fish floated me back to the car.
This is only my fifth time fishing Mossy Creek, and I’m tickled to have struck gold so soon, but my sober reflection several days later realizes that I could easily go dozens of times to this stream before seeing such a quality fish again. That difficulty is part of the allure here on Mossy, and it’s what will be certainly drawing me back in the very near future. I can’t wait til my daughter is old enough to scamper along the bank with me, blowing dandelions while I search for that tug.
As I alluded to in an earlier story (Perspective), I’m a new dad. My wife delivered a precious girl back in mid-November. Today on Christmas morning, we are nearing the 6-week mark. When I consider the Christmas story this year, I find new meaning with a fresh set of fatherly eyes. Having never cared for a newborn myself, I never appreciated what it really meant for God to actually enter this world as an infant, just like every single other human on the planet. When I hold my tiny daughter in my arms, the innocence, vulnerability and helplessness are overwhelming, and that’s just how our God chose to join us. Experience has made ineffably real what Sunday School could only describe in words.
For most of my summer weekends this year, my skiff sat on the trailer while my wife and I were preparing the nursery room in our house for our daughter’s arrival. We took great care in picking out the paint, assembling the crib, and buying all the other necessary newborn accoutrements. Still in the middle of a pandemic, we took baby classes with a nurse through Zoom. We were proud to be such well-prepared parents to provide a safe and supportive environment for our expectant daughter to thrive. Conversely, Baby Jesus blinked his eyes open in a horse trough in a dusty barn, not a well-staffed modern hospital that us millennial parents are used to. The Son of God, spiritual savior of humanity, next to the hay bales and manure pile. There’s a lesson in humility here that all the world could use.
I was brought up in the Episcopal Church, which I jokingly refer to as “diet Catholicism.” After splitting in the 1500s, we retained much of the Catholic liturgy and sacraments, but were more open to reform on a number of issues. To me, one striking difference was the degree to which Catholics revered Mother Mary. Catholics have cathedrals, universities, and a football play dedicated to her, and have anointed her atop all the other Saints, while in Episcopalianism, she merely appears in Bible stories and as a ceramic figure in my nativity set. I could never understand this adoration and veneration, until I watched my wife carry, deliver, and nurse our daughter. I’m now convinced there’s nothing more epic and heroic in this world than a mother. Mothers may not conform to our Hollywood image of macho fortitude and gallantry, but that’s only because they do their job with a mix of grace, humility, and dedication that goes unnoticed precisely because it’s so beautiful to watch. This Christmas, if you have a mother, thank her; if you are married to a mother, praise her; and if you are a mother, pat yourself on the back. Modern Christmas has become a lot of things, and there’s no reason why we can’t make room to honor mothers too, for without them, there’d be no Christmas.
Merry Christmas!
Leaves are falling, frost is on the ground each morning, but that doesn’t mean we winterize our gear til next spring. There’s plenty of great winter fun to be had on the water for the next four months. Whether you’re punching through the bar at Oregon Inlet to throw poppers at giant bluefins, setting longlines for canvasbacks in a snowstorm, deep into your backing on a buffalo albie in a Cape Lookout nor’easter, or dredging scud bugs in the Snake River while the rest of Teton County shreds the slopes, you need to have an awareness of the risk of hypothermia, gear to manage the risk, and a survival plan to execute should it become necessary .
Continue reading “Cold weather safety on the water”
Land is out of sight; the cobalt sea is one endless 360-degree horizon. Although the winds are calm, the boat gently rises and falls ten feet with each passing swell from the storm hundreds of miles away. The droning of the engines lulls you to sleep, as another hour passes without a bite. The abrupt click of the rigger clip is the only warning to come out of your trance before all hell breaks loose. A blue marlin has swiped the teaser on the left long rigger. The mate furiously winds the rod to bring the fish closer into the spread. The captain makes a slow turn to port to keep the fish in play. You grab the 14-weight rod with a fly as big as a songbird and as gaudy as a prom dress, step to the transom, and await your duel with a seamonster. Welcome to blue water fly fishing.
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About three months ago, my wife and I flew to Argentina for my brother’s wedding in Buenos Aires and a little R&R in northern Patagonia. The economy was churning, coronavirus was a distant problem in China, and the world was full of hope. Now, the world is a much darker place, each day bringing more death, lost jobs, and human isolation. It’s hard to write about what an amazing experience I had when so many are suffering today, both from the virus itself, and the economic hardship the virus has unleashed. Not only are we in the midst of a novel viral outbreak, we’re also conducting an experiment in social isolation on a scale our species has never seen. This writeup won’t solve any respiratory ailment or bring back a lost job, but perhaps it will feed someone’s lonely soul. It strays far and wide from fly fishing, encapsulating the full range of human bonding I experienced in this beautiful country. I never appreciated how tenuous and fleeting that experience could be, now that we are into our third month of social distancing. It is a reminder of the way the world was, and how it can be again, once we pull together and make it through this pandemic.
Continue reading “Running from ‘rona in Argentina”
Duck season has come and gone. It was mostly a forgettable one. The early cold weather in November and the relatively mild December and January meant that Virginia did not hold many birds this year. The following is one highlight of an otherwise down year.
Continue reading “Duck hunting from a kayak”
Fall’s last face is it’s cruelest, blasting the Chesapeake with more cold air and wind. It’s now that we say goodbye to spending the morning in a long sleeve shirt, bobbing in calm nearshore waters, casting with ease to dock pilings and marsh banks, and letting the silent skiff trolling motor glide the boat upon unsuspecting fish. The ospreys are enjoying their Floridian vacation, the leaves on the trees are mostly gone, ducks and geese are showing up in increasing numbers, and the inshore three- speckled trout, puppy drum, and rockfish, diverge in their availability. The specks are preparing to head for shallow mudflats to spend the winter. I don’t know where the pups go, but I suspect they seek out whatever warm pocket they can find. On the other hand, late fall is the time to rock.
Continue reading “Three Faces of Fall, Part III”
