Chester Allen's Watery Planet

Sea-run cutthroat trout swim through my spring fever

Spring is just about here -- we all get to turn the clocks forward one hour tonight, and I'm happy to lose an hour's sleep to gain an hour of evening daylight.

There's nothing better than casting from a Puget Sound beach during an evening falling tide. The current rips -- the seam between fast and slow water -- gleam in the low light and sea-run cutts boil on baitfish, marine worms and all those weird little crustaceans they love to eat.

A nice rip off a South Sound beach on a falling tide. Feeding sea-run cutthroat trout -- and maybe coho salmon -- hang out in the seam between fast and slow water to hammer silly little chum salmon fry.

South Puget Sound -- all the area south of the Tacoma Narrows Bridges -- has been great for sea-run cutts all winter long, but I can't wait for the baby chum salmon to spill out of all the little creeks and streams and start darting around in shallow water.

The baby chum are hatching out of eggs their now-dead parents laid into gravel nests last fall. Unlike chinook and coho salmon, baby chum don't spend a year or two in freshwater streams before heading to Puget Sound and the North Pacific Ocean. Chums -- and pink salmon -- head for saltwater right after they swim out of the gravel nests.

Chum salmon spawning -- and dying -- in South Puget Sound's McLane Creek last fall. The young of these salmon are headed toward Puget Sound -- and wolf packs of hungry cutthroat trout -- this spring.

Ravenous sea-run cutts are waiting for those chum fry. Many of the big cutts spawned a few weeks to a couple of months ago, and they're ready to pack on some weight.

And chum fry, which wander along the beaches in small schools, are easy prey for cutts.

Greg Cloud, South Sound's fishing wizard, calls chum fry, marine worm hatches and young herring "dumb protein."

And there is nothing sea-run cutts -- or local resident coho salmon -- love more than dumb protein.

I've seen a few chum fry along the beaches during the past week, and Cloud -- a relentless, constant angling addict -- has invited me to onto his boat/traveling tackle shop to prowl a few beaches next week.

I can't wait, and I'm gonna go even if it snows.

One of Bob Triggs' Chum Baby streamer flies. I've started tying this fly with bronze hooks, as I suspect they are a little "stickier" and I miss fewer strikes. Bronze hooks also rust and fall out quickly if they're stuck into a fish that breaks off -- or cast into a snag.

If we're lucky, we'll find big sea-runs -- they range up to 22 inches long or so, but any sea-run is a good fish -- walloping chum fry along the beaches. If that's happening, I'll tie on a chum baby fly. Cloud, who has forgotten more about fishing Puget Sound than I'll ever learn -- will doubtless have a whole portfolio of flies that also work. Cloud also will probably catch more and bigger cutts, but that is not news.

Here's a link to another piece I wrote on Puget Sound cutts eating chum fry.

If the cutts aren't eating baby chum, they'll be eating something else, such as sculpins or other dumb protein.

I really, really want to catch a nice cutt, as I haven't been out on South Puget Sound for almost two weeks -- an eternity for me.

Sea-run cutts are beautiful fish! This one was chasing sculpins a couple weeks ago. The Muddler Minnow fly -- as seen in this photo -- fools fish that are silly for sculpins. Anglers must release all cutts caught in saltwater.

But the important thing is just getting out there, drifting the falling tide -- it's like a river in some Puget Sound passages -- and spending time with a good friend.

 We're getting a little more daylight every day, the evenings are getting longer and warmer and the cutts are on the beaches.

Spring isn't quite here yet, but spring fever sure is.  I can't wait for those little chum babies, long evenings and fishing with friends.

Film festivals and rising redsides mean Northwest spring fishing has sprung -- at least for now

The Granada Theater, The Dalles, Oregon. It was Feb. 19, 2010. No snow was on the ground. 

Sure, the calendar says it's February, but:

The Vancouver Winter Olympics are on television -- but it might be the warmest Winter Olympics ever.

Iris plants are sprouting green spears in my Hood River, Oregon garden.

Wild redsides rainbow trout are rising to blue-winged olive mayflies -- and the odd caddis -- on Oregon's Deschutes River.

And the 2010 Fly Fishing Film Tour just blew in and out of The Dalles.

Spring -- for fly anglers -- has sprung -- at least until a March snowstorm rumbles out the arctic and hammers the Pacific Northwest. I'm not sure that storm will happen, but it is hard to believe that spring is really here. But I can't help thinking that we all have to pay sometime for all this mild February weather.

Yeah, it's weird, weird, weird out there right now.  But there's also some fun out there in this El Nino weather year.

Trout are indeed eager to wallop blue-winged olive mayflies on the Deschutes -- if they're hatching in the part of the river where you're standing around and staring at the water. This hatch is spotty this early in the year, and a section of river that boiled with hatching mayflies yesterday may be dead today.

Cloudy, drizzly weather is best -- these bugs love nasty days -- but they will do what they please. I was on the Deschutes near Maupin twice this week, and both days were that mix of high clouds and bright sunshine. I even saw a few bugs hatch during times of bright sunshine.

Go figure.

Some parts of the river -- even the prime swirling back eddies and foam-line banks -- didn't show one hatching bug, and the trout never showed up. But other spots popped bugs like crazy, and the fish were up -- and a little bit silly for a size 18 olive Sparkle Dun.

Early season hatches of blue-winged olives can be hair-ripping frustration, as the bugs do not come off like clockwork -- even though we humans expect and really, really want the mayflies to hatch at predictable times and places. So, it pays to keep moving up the bank, looking at the water and hoping for the best.

It helps if the river levels remain stable -- a rising river kills the fishing on many winter streams -- and if you check The Deschutes Angler website for river levels and hatch reports. John and Amy Hazel -- Deschutes River wizards and good friends -- have a spectacular obsession with this wonderful, tricky hatch.

And blue-winged olive addicts -- such as myself -- get all giddy when the river flows are stable, the weather is above freezing and the sky is dark and gloomy.

Bad news for trout-addicted anglers: Sunshine blasts onto Oregon's Deschutes River on Feb. 18, 2010.

 

I spent most of my time both days -- at least between the blue-winged olive witching hours of noon and 3 p.m. -- marching down the bank looking for backeddies and bankside foam lines with hatching bugs and porpoising trout. Blue-winged olives will hatch when they feel like it -- which is usually the warmest time of a miserable day -- and that often happens between noon and 3 p.m. during this time of year. I have seen February hatches of these bugs start at 10 a.m. -- or a half-hour before sunset. 

I've also seen these hatches start like clockwork at 1 p.m. and last until dark. But the bugs usually wait until a dark, warmish day for that kind of magic. In the Northwest, it's usually very easy to find a dark day in February, but the warmish part is tough.

So far -- in this warmish, bright, weird El Nino of a February -- a dark, drizzly day is harder to find. So the fishing can veer wildly between lights-out Trout-O-Rama to long periods of staring at sun-dappled, troutless water.

I was on the river yesterday by 11:30 a.m., and the delightful overhead blanket of clouds  -- which can spark big hatches and an afternoon full of rising trout -- melted away in less than an hour. Banks of clouds rolled in and out, and I cursed the the bright sun whenever it appeared.

But the cloudy times were wonderful, as mayflies appeared on the water -- at least in some spots -- and trout rose with the foolish confidence of fish that haven't been pestered for three months. I managed to hook and release a few fish. It was never Trout-O-Rama, but it was Trout Rising to Dry Flies after three months of No Trout Rising to Dry Flies.

And the fish were eager to bite small, shiny nymphs -- a size 18 Copper John worked well -- when the bugs didn't hatch on the water.

It's worth heading to the local trout stream this weird, warm winter -- especially if it dark and depressing outside.

It was dark -- but not depressing -- when I arrived at the Granada Theater in The Dalles on Feb. 19 for the local showing of the 2010 Fly Fishing Film Tour. The usual crowd of suspects -- swilling beer, wolfing pizza and talking fly fishing -- jammed into the lobby of the grand old movie house and schooled around tackle and conservation display tables. 

Little kids -- toting balloons and wearing the free hats that came with each admission -- scampered around in front of the screen while a pre-movie slide show amped up their moms and dads.

Yeah, it was pretty cool. The economy may be in the dumpster right now, but no fly-fishing junkie can resist zoning out on movies that show permit rising to dry flies -- no kidding -- coho salmon whopping pink flies sloshing across the surface of an Alaskan river or New Zealand trout wolfing down floating mouse flies.

My favorite flims were "Heads or Tails" -- the permit movie, and "Hoodoo Style," which was the coho movie. But all the movies were worth watching.

This traveling film roadshow -- which gets bigger and better every year -- could have been called "Year 2010 Films About Fish Rising to Weird Dry Flies." And why not? Anything seems possible in this spring of a winter.

For more information on the films and film festival, log onto www.flyfishingfilmtour.com and start mainlining.

Fishing the Deschutes River's blue-winged olive hatch -- in a Portland meeting room

Eager outdoors people swarm the Pacific Northwest Sportsmen's Show on Wednesday afternoon.

PORTLAND -- Life can make me dizzy in a split second.

I was at the gigantic Pacific Northwest Sportsmen's Show, and I had just settled into my seat to hear John and Amy Hazel -- Deschutes River angling wizards -- talk about fishing their river.

John had barely brought up his first slide when a guy in the audience raised his hand -- and got down to business.

"When are the blue-winged olives going to get going on the Deschutes?" the guy said.

"It's happening right now," John said. "Right around 1 p.m. every day."

John then tripped the remote control, and a photograph of a bunch of big Deschutes River redsides rainbow trout bunched up and grazing on blue-winged olive mayflies filled the screen. I counted 22 fish, and not one of them was small.

My heart broke into a brisk trot -- and I got a little dizzy and sweaty.

"Yeah, it's happening every day -- this is some of the best fishing of the season," John said. "This is really the beginning of the Deschutes River season."

"What am I doing here?" I thought. "I should be on the river -- right now."

So goes life at an outdoor show in early February.  Thousands of nutso anglers, hunters, boaters, campers and other winter-addled people cram into big rooms crammed with the latest and greatest outdoor gear, seminars and outfitters hawking trips. It's all fun, but it's not even close to the real thing.

But it's the only thing for a lot of people during the middle of winter.

It's kind of crazy -- even on a Wednesday afternoon. I could barely make my way through the crowd jammed into buildings that could easily hold a few football fields. I bumped right into a guy who stopped short at the piercing cry of a horny bull elk. A entire booth was dedicated to calls that replicate the lust-corroded moans and shrieks. The calls didn't do much for me -- I don't hunt elk -- but they stopped that guy in his tracks.

I wondered whether that elk hunter heart was galloping against his ribs. I bet it was. Luckily for him, elk season is closed everywhere. Fishing season here in Oregon never really ends, and my home is just about 75 minutes from one of my favorite Deschutes River backeddies. So, I knew -- in my heart --  that I should have been walking along rocky banks of the Deschutes instead of sitting in a chair and watching a slideshow about fishing my favorite river.

But no one is really thinking that clearly this time of year.

An outdoor show is really a bunch of people suffering from withdrawl. We'd all rather be out there, but February is really the Month of Hell for Northwest outdoor people. The days are getting a little longer, but it's still winter. 

I should have known that I'd get the shivers for casting small dry flies to big trout. I've fished the Deschutes for a long, long time, and I know that the little mayflies hatch for an hour or so just about every afternoon.

As the days get longer, blue-winged olives hatch for longer periods of time, and the fishing can be knee-shaking good. The trout, which see a lot of fake flies all summer long, haven't endured much fishing pressure since October, and they're a little dumber. They're also hungry, and they're conditioned to grazing away at hatching mayflies during the last weeks of winter.

I guess we angling addicts are pretty conditioned to forking over !0 bucks or so and marching up and down the aisles of the big outdoor shows during the last weeks of winter. We're hungry for the rise of a trout or the electric throb of a fish on the line. 

Most of us also haven't spent much money on gear for a few months, so I guess we're hungry for that too.

But John Hazel's slide show -- which is terrific -- woke me up and made me dizzy at the same time. I'll make the drive to the Deschutes within the next few days -- all for about 90 minutes of casting a tiny dry fly to some big rainbow trout.

If I'm a little bit lucky -- and keep myself from spooking the fish -- one of those fish will tip up under a size 18 Sparkle Dun and sip it in.

That moment -- just before I raise the rod and tighten up that line to the first dry-fly trout of the year -- really makes me dizzy.

By the way, it's always a good idea to check out John and Amy's fishing report at www.deschutesangler.com....

Finding treasure from trash on a sandy Mexican beach

 Beach glass found in the surf wash near the small Mexican town of Sayulita.

Their light shines brightest when the sun is weakest.

The soft, gleaming glow of beach glass -- the rounded, weathered pebbles of glass from the sandy, tumbling surf -- catches the eye when the Mexican sun is low in the sky. The day's first beams of sun filter through the palm trees along a beach near the tiny town of Sayulita, and tiny, pitted chunks of lime green, clear, amber and kelly green glass softly glisten as the wave wash foams over the sand.

The morning air is thick and balmy -- and the beach glass is easiest to spot when the sun is low in the sky.

The oldest, most weathered pieces -- once sharp, dangerous shards from broken bottles -- are soft and smooth in the hand, and they often find their way into my pocket.

I most often find beach glass as I wander along the beach with a fishing rod in my hand or a surfboard under my arm. My friends and family laugh at my slow, clumsy progress down the beach, as I often stop to poke through the thin line of sticks, shells, stones and bottle caps that mark the high point of the night's high tide.

I'm out early to ride waves -- or cast for fish if the waves are too messy, too small or too big. But that light -- reflecting off the worn glass -- always catches my eye. The early morning is a time of feeding fish, glassy waves and beach glass. Few people are up and about at such an early hour, but it is the best time of day.

So, I wander and slog through the sand, with one eye on the waves  and another scanning for light glowing in glass.

As I understand it, glass is made from melting sand, soda and lime in a furnace that shimmers at 1,500 degrees. Glass is everywhere in our world, and it seems like much of it -- especially in the form of soda and beer bottles -- ends up in the ocean. A broken bottle washing up a beach or tumbling in the bottom currents is an ugly thing, and the world would be a better place if more humans put their glass in the recycling bin.

But the endless, tireless churn of surf and sand turn trash into treasure. Bottles are broken into tiny pieces and smoothed into beauty. Ugly, sharp shards are scoured into cloudy, rounded treasures.  Beach glass is really glass slowly turning back into sand. If we pick up a piece and slip it into a pocket, we interrupt that miracle.

And beach sand is a minor miracle. The natural world transforms human ugliness into simple beauty, and that is a miracle in my eyes. 

So, I get up with the sun and wander the beaches near this small fishing and surfing town an hour or so north of the bustling, brassy tourist city of Puerto Vallarta and look for jack Crevalle or roosterfish boiling on bait, waves to surf -- or those little chunks of glowing light.

In an hour or two, the hot Mexican sun will climb above the hills that overlook this beautiful coastline -- and the hot rays will hammer the sand. 

In a few days, a big, shining jet will carry me away from these wonderful beaches, but I'll have a few chunks of smooth, sandblasted, wave-washed glass pebbles in my duffle. When I get home, I'll put them into a glass jar, which holds the beach glass I've found during my travels to beaches from British Columbia south to Costa Rica. 

I collected a piece or two of that glass during my childhood in Southern California. Much of it came from Mexico. At least one piece or two were plucked from a remote beach in Costa Rica, where iguanas scuttled through the beachside jungle and howler monkeys rattled through the trees.

I don't remember where each piece caught my eye, but I'm pretty sure most of them were found when the sun is weak and the day in new -- or very, very old.