Posts Tagged ‘viva zonker’

Two years ago to the day,  I met Colleen Rose Campbell when I was in Grande Prairie for the Canadian Fly Fishing Championships.  I’ve never been the same since!

Since that time, we’ve talked about getting Colleen into her first fish.  We haven’t had a ton of opportunity to go fly fishing together, but today, we thought we’d head up to Carson Pegasus Provincial Park, just north of Whitecourt, Alberta and see if we could get ourselves into some rainbow trout.  We had orginally planned to go up in the afternoon and rent a canoe.  However, when we arrived, we were advised that canoe rentals needed to be returned at this time of the year before 5PM.

So that wasn’t worth it, and we decided we’d try fly fishing from off the docks and shoreline.   We learned that McLeod Lake had been stocked today – depending on the reports, with 45,000 or over 100,000 rainbow trout fingerlings.  And those small fish were quite active just off the boat docks, jumping and likely enjoying all this, to them, brand new open water.

I tied on Viva Zonkers to both my line and Colleen’s.  I was disappointed we weren’t able to get out further on the lake with a canoe, but thought we might as well make the best of it and see what we could do.

Well, those brand new stocked fish sure liked the Viva Zonker, but couldn’t quite get their mouth around it. I had a ton of hits to the fly – almost every cast, and could see at times, several small rainbow trout following the fly and trying to grab it as I retrieved.

I figured that we had a very good chance to get Colleen into her very first fish – but we’d have to use something smaller and skinnier than the Zonker.  So I tied on this Chironomid pattern and showed Colleen how to fish it.   I then continued having fun with the small newly stocked rainbows that wanted to eat a leech.

A few minutes later, I looked over at Colleen’s rod and noticed that there seemed to be some bending of the tip section – not a huge amount.. but something.  “Hey Darlin’… do you have a fish on there?” I asked.

“Do I?!?” Colleen responded.  She retrieved her line a little more.

“I do!! I do!!” she exclaimed with glee and excitement.  “I do have a fish on, Ian!”

It was likely the very first time that little 5″ rainbow had ever been hooked, and it fought valiantly but couldn’t resist Colleen’s determination to catch her first fish!  And I was pretty excited as well, despite the small size, we both were very excited – that Colleen had finally caught a fish! On a fly rod as well.

The photo above was taken quickly and the fish released back into the lake.  Then a wee celebratory toast from the famous flask (Colleen didn’t even grimace this time, sipping Black Bush).

The action slowed down after that, so we decided to try some nymphs, but nothing.  Then, I put the Malteser to work.  This ugly and very poorly tied fly seems to catch fish everywhere for me. And sure enough, Colleen caught her second fish! About the same size as the first one.

The joy in Colleen’s eyes and smile – it was like a kid catching their first and second fish on the same day.  I’m pretty sure my smile was pretty big too!

Shortly after, I thought we mght have some fun with a dry fly. The small rainbows seemed to be taking midges off the surface – would they jump for anything?  I tied on a size 20 Caddis just to see, and we had a blast watching the fish jumping and trying to take the fly.  Some of them even managed to get hooked, and I brought probably four or five to hand while quite a few more entertained us with their acrobatics and frenzy for trying to eat dry flies.

I had pretty much resigned myself to thinking that all we were going to get today at Carson Pegasus were these small newly stocked fish.  However, I thought we should try some of the water off another dock just to see.  I’m glad we did!

I tied a Viva Zonker back on to the leader, and at first, felt the little tugs of small fish trying to consume it.  It was still fun and entertaining.

And then…. “Whoa!  Colleen!! This is NOT one of those small fish!” as I felt a vicious strike to the fly.  My rod bent over and I was a little more than surprised to see a good size rainbow trying to dive down to the depths of the lake before coming back up and jumping trying to shake the hook.

After several minutes, and some panicky moments when the rainbow headed for the underside of the dock, I finally landed the approximately 3 pound ‘bow with some very beautiful colourings in it.

The one thing I’ve noticed about rainbow trout from Northern Alberta lakes is their “football” shape.  They seem to have huge girths for their length.  This fish was 17 inches long and had a girth of 10 1/4 inches.

All in all, even though there was the initial disappointment about the canoe rental, Colleen and I had an awesome “2 year anniversary” celebration.

Happy Anniversary, Colleen – and thank you for a great day!! I am so glad you caught your first… and second .. fish with me!

I know you can’t see his face, but that my friends, is the great fly fisher, Ian Colin James. In a boat.  What is he doing? There is a rainbow trout involved, and the anchor rope.  Why is his fly line not in the water? Is what he is doing  legal?  Just how does he catch all those fish?

Actually, it was a pretty funny story. I’d love to see Bob Izumi do this. Well, maybe Bob Izumi wouldn’t have gotten into the predicament in the first place.  And I was there to see it all!

Earlier in the week, Ian James, who is working as the “Pro Staff” at The Franklin Club, invited me over as a guest of the club to learn more about their fishing and to demonstrate how to successfully fish the “Brass Ass” fly that is available here  from Orvis.  If you’d like to successfully fish  stillwaters and rivers when fish seem to be only taking small subsurface midges, I’d suggest you get yourself a dozen or so of these flies, and in the meantime I’ll publish the “how to” on fishing them successfully.

Anyhow,  we had rowed out (or rather Ian James had rowed..  he needs the excercise) to a nice little spot on the lake at The Franklin Club and were enjoy the weather, some good and funny conversation, as Ian demonstrated his enjoyment of fishing midges.  Suddenly, he had a brute of a rainbow trout on.  This fish took a long run, with line coming off the reel when Ian finally managed to get it close to the boat.

Except, Ian forgot we had put down an anchor.  Do you think others forget about such things?  Only  those Scottish anglers that try to tease and get the goat of Ulster Protestants, of course.   I think it might have been me humming “The Protestant Boys” or something that distracted him – but he did forget about that anchor.

Turns out the rainbow has gone around that anchor rope about ten times. As well, there is another fly on the leader that is embedded in the rope.  So Ian ends up cutting the leader so he can try to untangle the mess, holding on to the cut end with one hand, and with the other, bringing up the anchor rope, knowing the fish is still hooked.   Took about ten minutes as he lay there in that position in the bottom of the boat.  And through it all, the fish remained hooked.  He then managed to retie the leader together, pick up his fly rod, the trout started to fight hard again – and of course Ian was able to keep it away from the rope and eventually net a 20+ inch ‘bow and release it where it took off like a shot to the depths of the lake.

It was a bit of drama mixed in with a lot of comedy.  And a good amount of skill and patience. I was impressed – and amazed – that Ian was able to pull off the feat. But as I wrote, I doubt Bob Izumi would get himself into that predicament in the first place, right Ian?

For my part, I learned a lot and had a great time. I think in our evening session, I out fished Ian by one or two fish but overall, it was probably a tie in numbers.  Not that we were competing.  I demonstrated the effectiveness of the “Viva Zonker” I wrote about earlier this week – I tied one on and on the very first cast, brought a nice 18 incher to the net.  The trout seemed to be really angry with this fly – the other flies, we were getting a lot of gentle taps and hits, but the Viva Zonker seemed to cause the fish to really want to attack.  The fish seemed to be between 2 and 3 feet below the surface, so a slow retrieve on a slow intermediate sinking line worked well, and for the rest of the evening until dark, I kept it on my line – why mess with a good thing that is working?  And indeed, it worked over and over.  I lost count of the number of fish I had on and lost, and fish I also brought to the net and released.

Shortly, I will write about my general impressions overall of the The Franklin Club, and the fishing it offers during the “dog days” of summer. It started out a very hot (it was over 30C when I arrived) and bright sunny afternoon – not generally the most conducive conditions to good fishing.  Look for that article soon.

Thanks Ian, for extending the invitation!

Anyone else get what seems to be a mild case of eczema on your hands or fingers after a lot of fly tying? If so, have you found anything to help prevent it or treat it? I probably have an allergy to something – I’m suspecting rabbit as I’ve been tying a lot of flies with rabbit strips.  Here’s a fly pattern that uses rabbit strips and has been very hot for me recently on rainbow trout in stillwater: The Viva Zonker.

I came across an article about fly fishing for catfish.  Some might scoff at that, but I’ve caught catfish on weighted nymphs. Shocked the heck out of me when it happened.  And not just once, but several times when fishing a pond that had bass in it that I was targeting.  The article about catfish on the fly is here: 3 ways to overcome the summertime blues (hey, they use all lowercase in the title of the article).

I’m not sure if I will get out for a couple of hours of fishing tomorrow.  The “wee man” has a soccer game in the evening and I have a lot to do during the day.  On the other hand, David is heading out west with his mother for over two weeks soon, so maybe the important business stuff isn’t as important.  I guess I’ll have some clients wondering… but the invoicing could wait until later.

I am missing a certain flask right now. It was very special to me. When people say that material things don’t matter, they are wrong.  Sometimes, they do matter. Perhaps it’s the representation of something in one’s mind. I could go out and get another one just like it, but it wouldn’t be the same.  Sometimes, we get angry and do things and say things we regret very much later.  Does that ever stop?  Do we learn as we grow older?

Some might know of my other hobby/passion: Home Winemaking.  So, this looks like it would be fun and enjoyable… wine tasting and fly fishing.

The title of this post involves musings. Random musings – so finally, if you’re interested in learning some new fly tying skills, go to youtube.com and do a search for Davie McPhail. There are some great videos up there!