Sophia On the Arkansas Pueblo Tail-water

The Arkansas below Pueblo dam continues to produce big rainbows in the heat of summer. My daughter Sophia caught this fish and others on a bead head pheasant tail nymph.

When the Mountains and Canyons are on Fire, Where do you Trout FIsh?

In Pueblo, of course!  With our top fishery, 11 mile canyon closed due to a fire, ironically, the best place to catch big feisty trout right now is the Arkansas River below Pueblo dam.  Yes, Pueblo, the steel city where temperatures are approaching 100 degrees.

Normally, this time of year this fishery would be blown out by high runoff. But not this year; not during this drought.  So while fires rage in the mountains and temperatures sore , the Pueblo dam tail waters flow gently and cool. And the fishing has been spectacular.

With a guided trip being cancelled today, I decided to spend some time fishing with my “other” daughter Sophia, Chloe’s younger sister. We went to Pueblo. It has been years since Sophia has fished but she is a very talented young lady and either remembered the fly fishing skills I taught her when she was young or simply figured it all out again rather quickly. She had 4 hook ups before I had one! She landed one rainbow that was 18-19 inches. We both continued to hook up fish for 2 hours.

Sophia, (her name means ‘wisdom’) is one of those individuals who can think on the edge of the mainstream. When she landed her big fish she was intrigued by the thought of what caused this particular fish to bite. She asked, “Of all the fish in this hole, why did this fish bite”? I did not have an answer to her question. While she was battling another fish she asked me, “I wonder if they know what is going on. I wonder if they can think”?  (when they are hooked). Once again, I did not have an answer for her.

These kinds of questions are very characteristic of my daughter and as I thought about her questions more, I realized that perhaps they are pertinent to ethical issues involved in the protection of trout and particularly during a dry and hot season. Maybe we need to ask ourselves, “What is a trout thinking? Does it know what is going on? What is it thinking and feeling”? (And by extension), “What is a trout feeling and thinking when it is fighting for its life during a drought and rising temperatures?  Does it know what is going on?” 

More importantly, as fly fishers do we know what is going on?

Specifically, do we know the stress that we are putting on fish in these conditions? If we do, then perhaps we should know when enough is enough. We should know when we have caught enough fish. We should know when to stop.

Sophia and I ate a lovely lunch at the Pueblo Nature center at 11:00am. We had caught enough fish. Temperatures were still rising.

It was wise to stop fishing when we did.  It was wisdom that told me to stop.

Father's Day on the Arkansas River (Pueblo tail-water)

Father's Day On the Arkansas River (Pueblo's Tail-water) 

Faith In the Heat of Summer

When my wife and daughters asked me what I wanted to do for Fathers Day I quickly responded, "Lets go fly fish the Arkansas in Pueblo". Going to Pueblo to fly fish for trout when the temperature was going to be in the 90's seemed to be a bit  counter-intuitive. The proposition brought to mind  the independent film we just recently watched called, "Salmon Fishing In the Yemen" where by a Sheik has the faith and vision of bringing cold water and salmon to a desert. Those around him think he is crazy. As was shown in this movie, sometimes we have to just throw away our "facts and figures" and have faith. Fishing at least in part is about having faith and hope in the improbable.

My one daughter Sophia had to work so she would not fish today. It would be Chloe and I. It only took Chloe about 10 minutes of nymphing  in the "Flag hole" to land a beautiful and strong  20 inch rainbow. We continued to catch a good number of fish on bead-head pheasant tails, chartreuse copper john's, and RS2's. The temperature rose as we approached lunch time. We took off waders and wet waded in sandals.

We then moved down to the nature center and we both wrestled with several large fish which included a rainbow trout that was 22 inches and probably weighed  around 6 pounds. On the drive home I continued to reflect upon how strange it was to catch 20 plus inch trout in Pueblo in the cool tail waters of the dam even with the air temperature up in the 90's. It kind of felt like we were fishing in a desert. I thought of a verse from Isaiah, "In this place of which you say, 'It is a waste'... there shall be heard again the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness...the voices of those who sing". 

There was gladness and singing all the way home and I could not think of a better way to spend Father's Day. 

Pictures That Remain In Our Mind After a Day On the South Platte River 11 Mile Canyon

Scott and Scotty, a Father and son team decided to leave their cell phone/cameras in my vehicle for fear they might get wet. And I forgot my camera. I left it on the seat of my vehicle. I usually bring it along in case my client does not have their own camera and they catch a big fish. Such pictures find their place in the family photo album. Memories locked in time in a book.

Scott and Scotty were new to fly fishing. Before today, they had never seen a trout take a caddis fly off the surface and explode out of the river trying to throw the hook. Nor had they ever seen dozens of trout lined up in a run taking nymphs below the surface. Before today, they had never held such wonderful trout in their hands. These would be images that would be fixed in their memories.

There was one fish that Scott caught that was truly beautiful and larger than the others. It was a Cutthroat trout with beautiful colors and markings and not a scar on her. When I netted the fish I asked Scott if he wanted me to run up to my vehicle to get my camera which was just a short distance away..  He said, “No, that would not be necessary”.  I could tell as he held the fish in the river in admiration he was taking a picture of the fish in his mind that  would be far better than even the best digital camera could ever  form. This was a picture that was not about the fisherman and his ego but a picture of the beauty of a fish. No measurements were made and I will offer no estimations of its size. It does not matter.

In, “A River Runs Through It”, Norman Maclean describes how after Paul made his big climatic catch that pictures were taken of his big fish.  But he describes how the picture did not do justice, “The photographs turned out to be like most amateur snapshots of fishing catches-the fish didn’t look as big as they actually were and the fishermen looked self conscious”. But Maclean goes on to describe one picture that seems to at least partly be formed by the heart, “However, one close up picture at the end of this day remains in my mind, as if fixed by some chemical bath”. Norman goes on saying, “I remember him both as a distant abstraction in artistry and as a close-up in water and laughter.”

I guess that is how I felt at the end of this day helping Scot and Scotty learn to fly fish. The three of us have many pictures that “remain in our mind as if fixed in a chemical bath”. And that one big fish Scot caught and the laughter in his voice and smile on his face will certainly remain with me.

I prefer the images formed by the spirit fixed by some chemical bath; a close-up in water and laughter. “Be thou my vision O Lord of my heart”, states an ancient Irish hymn.  I want to have a vision of that Cutthroat as Scott did. I want to see it as God sees it.

 “Be thou my vision O Lord of my heart”.

Father's Dream on the Dream Stream

My daughter Chloe on the Dream Stream.

A fathers dream, or at least my dream, is that my daughters will remember some things that I tried to teach them when they were younger. In the case of fly fishing, it would be that they would remember how to catch a trout. 

But it is more than being  able to catch a trout. Since my daughters were only 5 years old they were taught  to look into the water to spot trout. From early on they could really see the fish. And then they were taught how to cast and drift a fly across and down to a specific fish. Sight fishing: the most rewarding kind of fly fishing in my opinion.

My daughters are grown up now. One is finished with her degree from CU and my youngest is half way done. The years pass quickly without the time for many fishing trips and life gets complicated.

But today, Chloe and Sophia and I went back to the dream stream. We had fished it often 15 years ago when it truly was the "dream  stream" and there were dozens and dozens of trout in each run and riffle.  Today, we struggled to find even a few fish, but the fish that were there, my daughters could see.  They had not forgotten. They could still make the cast and a beautiful "fly first" drag free, presentation to the fish. Fish were hooked and landed.

More importantly they truly admired each fish and handled it carefully before releasing it back into the river. They would never injure or kill a fish. They remembered.

My daughters met an older gentleman who walked down from up river. He spoke kindly to my daughters.  He did not know my daughters had caught any fish.  He said, " I have been here for hours and I have not seen a fish all morning. Not a single bite."  And then my daughters did something that I did NOT teach them. They politely conversed with this gentleman but never once mentioned the nice trout they caught. They did not say a word about their catch or their accomplishment. They knew that to brag would have been wrong.

They had learned humility and respect but I am not sure where they learned it from. A fathers dream on the dream stream,  had come true, even as this section of river has lost its former glory.

Spring Time on the Platte

Today was my first day officially of "summer vacation" from my school counseling job. Time to fish. I had a guide trip today so we headed in to 11 mile canyon. I know it is spring time and approaching summer when I start seeing caddis and pale morning dun mayflies in the air above the river. Fish on the rise. Size 18 dry fly imitations such as the elk hair caddis and a parachute adams were good enough imitations to bring the fish up. The fish are not nearly as selective as they will become in the middle of the summer when they are dinning on tricos and the crowds come. But for now, it is fun to even drift a caddis "poorly" and watch fish chase it down across current.School is out! Time to throw dry flies!

Letting Go of That One Trophy Fish of the Past: Christian Men's Issues

Sometimes we live in the past holding on to our one moment of glory; “Glory days," as  Springsteen sang.

In sports it might be the game we won with a 9^th inning home-run,  or the 3 point shot at the buzzer. In fishing, it might be a trophy trout we caught 20 years ago. In acting it might be one part we played in a performance ages ago. 

Living in the glory days of the past can be one way men stay stuck and not grow up.

This idea was played out as a minor theme in an otherwise very funny romantic comedy called “Along Came Polly.” In the movie a man named Sandy (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman), is a washed up actor who years ago had his one moment of glory in one scene where he played bag pipes. In the movie, decades later we see Sandy struggling to play a part in a play but he just can’t let go of his past accomplishment. He simply can’t get along with the other actors. He tries to dominate by playing two parts at once. He keeps saying, “I’m a professional, and I am not going to put my reputation on the line for a group of freakin amateurs”. He feels he is better than everyone else and feels this role is under him. He just won’t let go. Finally, toward the end of the movie an older man named Irving, serves as a sort of “wise elder”, and sets Sandy right. These are the only words that Irving says the entire movie but finally Sandy understands and is able to move on. Irving says, “It’s always the same story with you, huh pal? You did this one movie a hundred years ago. From then on you thought you were better than everybody else. Why don’t you let go? Move on with your life?  It’s not about what happened in the past and you know what? When you least expect something great comes along”.

These are powerful words and Sandy needed to hear them. But, the real punch line comes in Irving’s closing words. He acknowledges what Sandy did a hundred years ago saying,  “You were funny as hell playing those bagpipes though. Did I ever tell you that”?  Sandy responds, “I don’t think I ever heard you speak before”.

To me, in the midst of this comedy, this part reflects a sad truth for many of us. Unspoken words. Unspoken praise. Unspoken admiration. Unspoken recognition where it is due.  Robert Bly once said, “If you are a younger man and you don’t have the admiration of older men, you are being wounded”.

Granted, Along Came Polly is only a fictional comedy but all it took was those simple words of admiration, “You were funny as hell playing those bag pipes though”, and Sandy is able to let go of the past and move on. In essence, he grows up. Sometimes some simple words of praise are all we want and we can let go and move on.

I  know many men who sit around talking about old glory days. I have participated in such discussions. I can’t help but wonder what admiration from some significant man in our lives would have been necessary for us to move on and grow up. And I wonder if it can still happen even now.

And then maybe as fly fishermen, we would stop bragging about some fish we caught a hundred years ago, or how we still have to go on and on about how many fish we catch every day.. It is time to move on and we just don’t know what might come along; what wonderful fish we might just hook in to.