Sweet Anticipation Plus a Few New Flies

Newly Minted

Its raining in Vancouver today, hard. Its been a week since we had much measurable rainfall and the rivers have gotten pretty low. Over the next two or three days some areas of the Pacific Northwest are forecasted to see a few inches worth of rain, how much actually falls remains to be seen. Generally though its pretty likely that depending on where you're fishing conditions will range from absolutely perfectly cherry to somewhere just shy of flood stage. With a week of fishing ahead of me I'm taking a wait and see approach, watch the hydrographs and the weather forecast closely and make a call when things get a little bit more clear. For a normal member of society unaccustomed to the whims of winter river conditions it might seem maddening, particularly when most people plan vacations months ahead of time. For the steelheader it offers the tantalizing possibility that one or more of the favored stomping grounds could be fishing perfectly. A little high and green always beats the hell out of low and clear.

I've also been doing a good deal of tying lately. Then again, when am I not? Fishing with Ralf last weekend got me thinking about pattern design, size and what makes a steelhead bug "fishy". He's a proponent of smaller flies, tied sparse with just a little bit of flash so they sink well, but have lots of lifelike movement and shimmer. I've always loved the classic lines and sensibility of spey style flies but the appeal of more modern fly design with its emphasis on tubes and stingers, articulated, flash covered sea creature like monstrosities tends to also play a prominent role in my pattern design. So I've come up with a compromise. A classic prawn style spey fly, tied with all the traditional materials, but embellished with just enough flash and nastiness to make the fly really swim. This batch is tied on 1.5 AJs and should fish well under most winter conditions, but I think the pattern holds promise for summer runs as well if its tied on a smaller hook, particularly early in the season when the fish are bright and aggressive.

did someone say Jungle Cock?

Raining Raining Raining

Conditions have been shiet since the middle of the month and it looks like it will be damn near december before the rivers get back to really fishable. The soggy rivers of the wild coast are pretty much gonezilla, the gauge has fluctuated between vaugely fishable and 8 feet too high for 10ish days and the big river has been marginal at best. Sissy boy, brohans powder hounds have been pretty jazzed about the early winter weather, but frankly short of packing snow on for summer steelhead season I couldn't care less about the how deep the, "pow" is. Hasn't always been that way I suppose, but I haven't touched a ski mountain since I hooked my first winter steelhead on the swing. Dont really see myself getting back to it either. Living in Van people's jaws drop when you tell them you dont ski, aren't interested and have better things to do. Whatever. The last thing I want to do is pay some heinously corporate development company like Intrawest (they own whistler) 100 bucks a day to stand in lift lines...so bourgeois. Winter steelhead may be tough to come by but at least they're egalitarian and you dont gotta drop 120 clams to chase them.

I guess we have to pay weather dues at some point though. At least this isn't happening in February (yet). Before the water came there was talk of decent numbers of hatchery turds in some of the rivers. By the time the rivers drop they ought to be loaded and ready for the bonkin'.