A few months ago I purchased a tenkara rod and decided to take up this Japanese style of very minimalist fly fishing. This month the small streams in the area finally opened up and I’ve felt like a little kid with a cane pole going out fishing. I’ve been out a half dozen times on streams in western and eastern Washington and have caught easily over a hundred trout now on my 11′ Iwana rod and a single kebari that I tied. This is the most fun I’ve had fly fishing in a long time and I’m only catching 6-10″ fish for the most part. Recently I began exploring a small stream only 15 minutes from the house and am having a blast catching dozens of small trout on each outing with a few big-uns up to 9-11″. It brings back memories of being 10 years old and first learning to fly fish when an 8′ rod seemed way too long and I couldn’t really cast but could lay out 10′ of line and pull a bluegill out of a farm pond. I’m totally hooked now and plan on spending the rest of the summer wading small streams and working on becoming a tenkara bum.
Category Archives: Fly Fishing
Love the one you’re with
Bull Trout saves the day from a skunk
There are days when you just can’t seem to get the fish you are after, what to do? Well, like the song says “When you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with”. On a recent end of season steelhead trip the steelhead all seemed to have lock-jaw. I was getting great swings that I knew were going over fish but they just would not open up and eat. Luckily I had some grabs and these turned out to be bull trout which saved the day from a skunk and I got to land a beautiful (and endangered) fish.
Minimalist Fly Fishing
For the last several years I made the transition to minimalist running, running in shoes that are barely more than a moccasin and allow one to run more naturally like you were barefoot. This year I’m going to try minimalist fly fishing.
My small stream setup had already become more minimal over the years. I used to carry a rod, reel, vest and net when fishing small streams and the vest was packed full of two fly boxes, leaders, tippet, etc… I then parred down a bit and went to a small chest pack that held one fly box, an extra leader, tippet, nippers and some floatant. Then a few years ago I got even more minimal and went to a lanyard system that has a very small fly box, a few spools of tippet material, a nipper and a bottle of floatant. This works pretty well with the only disadvantage being that when hiking it still takes a while to put together a 4-piece fly rod, attach the reel, string up the line and tie on a fly.
I Don’t Practice Santeria…
Jeff and I arrived in Miami late on Sunday night for our fishing trip and after leaving MIA headed to the nearest Publix to get food so we could make lunches for the week. In the fruit department I was reaching for bananas and Jeff nixed that idea. OK, bananas are bad luck on the boat but isn’t it alright to have one for breakfast? I wasn’t going to take any chances on this front so decided I could live without a banana for the week.
Biscayne & Islamorada Trip
Late afternoon tarpon battle
Jeff and I had not fished together for about a year and a half and I never made it to any flats in 2012 so we decided to put together a short trip to South Florida to get together and escape the Seattle and DC winters. The plan was to fish Biscayne Bay and the Everglades since they offered the best bet in the winter months for finding fish. Of course I was keeping an eye on the Miami weather weeks in advance and things were looking great until a few days before the trip when a cold front was suddenly scheduled to hit mid-week. Well, the weather gods had other plans is store which is typical of most of my trips to Florida.
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San Diego Bay Winter Fishing
Winter Bonita
Since we were spending a winter escape week in Orange County I decided to get in a day of fishing in San Diego Bay since I hadn’t made it down there last year when we were in the area. My expectations were a bit low compared to numerous trips in the past since it was January and there had been a lot of cold weather up until yesterday afternoon. I met Peter Piconi of the SoCal Fly Fishing at 8:00 at the Glorieta Bay launch and quickly got loaded up and off the dock.
Winter Chrome – Finally!
Wild Skagit Steelhead
After last year’s not so hot year of fishing I decided to start out 2013 right and set up some trips. First plan of action was to get on the Skagit again as fishing had been good lately and some wild fish were showing up as early as December. I had originally scheduled the trip for last week in the deep freeze but happened to whack my head the day before and needed to rest and re-scheduled. That turned out to be a good thing as the artic air vanished and I got to fish on a warmer, cloudy day with drizzle turning to rain as the day went on.
2012 Review
Running
2012 was a tough year for me when it came to running. I started out with a knee issue that had me totally out for over a month and really not running my usual miles for about three months. I also ended the year with a tendon problem in my foot which had me totally out for a month and, again, mostly out for three months. This all meant that I really ran for about six months this year when it comes right down to it and only put in 675 miles which is about half of what I ran last year.
2011 – What a year!
2011 was quite the year for running for me. I ended up doing 16 trail running events including three 10-mile runs, four half marathons, one 25k, one 20-mile, one full marathon (finally) and one 50k ultra. Given that is all my previous years I would train for only 1-3 half marathons this was quite a shift. By June my weekend long run was rarely shorter than 13 miles aside from tapering weeks and I ended up with 20 runs that were half marathon length or longer. For the year I ran just over 1350 miles, which turns out to be the equivalent of a marathon a week. Of course I stared out the year with less that 20 miles per week, peaked in the fall at 40+ and ended the year with an average of 30 miles per week so I’m expecting to get in even more miles next year.
Andros South – Nov 2011
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| Andros South Lodge |
When winter was lingering on well into July I was having an email exchange with Capt. Bruce Chard in Big Pine Key and was complaining about the weather and said I’d need a bonefish fix one day soon if it kept up. He replied saying he had one spot left for his November trip to South Andros and a spot left on the charter flight out of Launderdale that could actually make the travel acceptable. I signed up for a week at Deneki’s Andros South Lodge and the opportunity for sun and warmth in November.