Anchors Aweigh! With Ian Colin James And Rainbow Trout
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!