July 3 2009 - Vermillion River - Matthieson State Park IL

Today started out by meeting Nigel, my boss from when I worked in Europe, and Steve, a friend I have known from Evanston since moving here over 15 yrs ago, on my street in Evanston at 5:30 a.m., instructing them to park on the west side to avoid parking tickets due to street cleaning, stopping at Starbuck's, and driving through the center of the third largest city in the US.

Two hours later we were entering the fringes of the America's Heartland as we drove past farms with corn and soybean fields spread far across the flat landscape. It seemed appropriate to see on this day, the eve of America's birthday, and I mentioned the fact that when driving through these midwestern lands, whether Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa or Minnesota, that I am always touched by the idea of how much of our food is sourced from these crops. But I digress and Nigel, being an Englishman, probably wasn't feeling as nostalgic about the holiday as Steve and I were.

So we continued on, soon turned off the highway and drove slowly through Oglesby, a typical quiet midwestern small-town with its straight main street lined with American flags, to Matthieson State Park. Parking in the Dell's Area, I noted the solitude, large Burr Oak trees, and songbirds as we geared up and started our trek down into the valley. It was muggy already (and the skeeters were after the Englishman!), and we walked for 10 minutes or so to a beautiful gorge and then realized we would have a hard time accessing the river.

So we drove to the next parking area south and resumed our trek. Stopping first to pick wild raspberries at the trail head we walked down a steep hill through heavily canopied trees. This time, we found the river.

It reminded me of those times when I was a boy as I got closer to the river and the excitement built with each step. You hear it, faintly at first, and then for sure as you get closer. And then you see bits and pieces of it reflecting through the openings in the trees. And then you burst through the forest onto the banks of this wide open space of beautiful flowing water. And this river was beautiful. Protected on each side by hillsides of mature trees, it was a wide river with heavy riffles rolling over cobblestone and boulders, and had tall cliffs of stone in the downstream bend a half mile away. At mid stream I pointed out a Hexagenia fly dropping eggs on the surface, and a picked up a size 12 yellow stonefly off the rocks.

We got Nigel's rod ready and, since this was his first time out, I took his rod to show him how to fish the first run. I cast the line out, did a quick upstream mend, and stripped the fly in. Second cast was a repeat and then I had a fish on. "Like that!", I said calmly. Steve's jaw may have dropped open. I handed the rod to Nigel to reel in the fish and then we admired at the 10 inch smallmouth, noting its green color, red eye, and jaw line, and then released it. All of us thought that this meant we were on to a good day, but that was a wrong assumption.

We fished for 5 more hours with little success as far as fish count was concerned. I saw a smallmouth that would have been at least 4 lbs but could not hook him. I did catch a large Sheephead fish on a purple rabbit strip leech fly. It was cool in that I saw him come from three feet from the fly, open his mouth, flare his gills as he sucked it in, and then turn away. I set the hook as he turned away and shouted out a happy exclamation. Nigel did well on his first outing in laying out nice casts, especially the roll casts, onto a complex system of river currents. Steve caught a 10" smallmouth.

We saw a small snake, we think a water moccasin, a bunch of stonefly husks on the rocks, a really big slug on the underside of a leaf, and quite a few people enjoying the river either by swimming, tubing or just skipping stones.

It is amazing that this wild area was two hours outside of Chicago.

And at the end of this session, we slowly climbed the very steep hillside back out of the valley, took a few wrong turns along the way, and returned to the truck very much aware of the muggy oppression around us. Now we were ready to return to Chicago.

But not before a nice picnic lunch in the park to savor nature a bit more.

First Carp

I often heard that catching a carp on a fly rod is something not to be missed. Like most anglers who primarily honed their fishing skills with fly rod in hand, I looked down on the carp. Bottom feeder (like the bonefish!). I saw smart carp, moving upstream in tandem to root up the vegetation and then swim down stream to wait for the tasty dislodged morsels. When living in England, I saw anglers spend thousands of dollars and countless hours fishing for one of their premier fish. Still I had my doubts.

Today I was on the shores of Lake Michigan within a stones through of my house to try for smallmouth. I arrived just after five in the morning just as the red sun broke the horizon over the water. Two anglers we in the parking lot getting geared up with me. They were loaded for carp with packs of rods, rod holders, cans of corn, and buckets on which to sit. We exchanged friendly conversation and headed our own ways.

After an hour of nothing except a few small crappie on the end of the line, I was ready to head home. On the way back to the truck, I stopped down to the area where the carp fisherman were stationed. After a few minutes Dan told me to "get that little flyrod over here." He showed me a section of the pool a few feet deep lined with carp. I put a small tan crayfish pattern on, and on Dan's reco a kernel of corn on the hook (umm....to give it extra weight, right?). After a few casts across the pool, the current swept my flyline out and then the line stopped. I set the hook, felt that nice solid hook up immediately saw the surface explode. Ahh, that sweet noise. Not the little splash of a small fish slapping its side on the surface followed by drops of water. Rather, the big swoosh sound that a heavy fish makes when it displaces a large volume of water across the surface.

And a heavy fish it was, especially for my 5 wt rod with 4 lb test tippet. He slowly pulled, and thrashed the surface, and pulled. I backed up on the beach, put the angles to him, and eventually beached him enough that Dan was able to get a net under him.

" A mirror!", said Dan. He yelled across the pool to Juan, "He caught a mirror", referring to the relatively rare Mirror carp which is not seen as often as its cousin the Common carp. Juan came over to see the fish, about 30 inches and very heavy, and Dan was gracisou enough to snap a photo, take my email down, and offer to send the picture to me.

Doubt no more, the carp has been added to my list of fish for which I would gladly fish again.

May 8, 2009 - Big Thompson Creek – Nr Boulder Colorado

Fished the Big Thompson with guide John B. I have to say John was a great guide and a joy with whom to spend a day on the water.

I started the day from Boulder around 6:00 am with a cup of coffee, banana, and bran muffin as breakfast on my drive up to meet John. It was gorgeous driving up Route 36, with the semi-arid foothills on the left side and the sun rising on the right. I met John at a parking lot along side Rt 36 across from the Black Bear Inn in Lyons where we hopped into his pickup for the remainder of the drive up to Estes Park, after which we turned down another valley on Rt 34..

We parked the truck along the road, geared up, and walked over the bank to the river. Here, the Big Thompson is about 20 ft wide, mostly fast pocket water, in a steep canyon. The wind was not our friend this day. The technique was to cast a triple nymph rig, hung under a floaty strike indicator, upstream and dead drift it down past us.

John showed me the first time and then I went at it. His first comment was, “Oh yeah, you’ve fished before”, which immediately put me at ease and reinforced my confidence for the rest of the day. Its great to fish with a guide when you don’t have to worry about him critiquing you.

At lunch we sat in a small park at a picnic table with the stream below us, watching the baetis come off. We caught a few on the surface with small baetis patterns.

Overall, we landed about 12 native browns/rainbows, had about 4 others on that got off, etc. The fish were not large, but man were they pretty.