Black Lake, NY 2012: Part 2

Once we arrived on the island we unpacked and then wasted no time getting to the fishing.  I made the decision to go at this trip without worms or minnows which have always been staples on our past trips to the lake.  We both still wanted to have bait under the bobbers while we fished with lures so our first step was to catch bait.  We tried our normal techniques until I decided the fly rod would be a (slightly) more efficient method.  There were plenty of perch and bluegills caught for bait but the trick was only catching the small ones.  I think this is the only time in my life were I wanted to catch as small of a fish as possible.

Too big for bait...

That's better!  This fish was also Katie's first fish on the fly rod!

After bait was caught we threw lots of lures off the rocks of the island with no success.  The bobbers started to go down pretty regularly however and netted us a good amount of fish over the next three days.  As always with me, there were plenty of fish missed but eventually we started catching more than we were missing.

                            

                                        Full of bull

          

I love those bowfin.  If they hit lures or flies more readily I think I would have a different favorite fish.  They have a distinct prehistoric look to them and are made of only teeth and muscle.  I am planning to do a separate post about them later on for those who may have never caught or seen one before.

Even though we both tried, I was the only one who managed to catch any fish on lures.  The only lure that seemed to be working was a yellow and red Cabelas spoon.  You can see that spoon in the picture with the perch.  It seemed that the pike were moving out of the 4-8 feet deep bay in search of slightly deeper water which meant we needed to try and find them from our kayaks.  Unfortunately, the wind had other plans then we did and kayak fishing was pretty difficult. 

  

I did try a good amount of time to catch a pike on the fly rod and knock off another item from the challenge list.  But, I failed.  The only fish I managed while trying to obtain that goal was a hefty 17 inch bass.  I caught it on one of my deer hair Dahlberg divers with a rabbit strip tail.  Each one of those flies takes an hour for me to tie so I was glad it landed at least one fish.  I did have a few more hits on it and had a hard time straying to a different pattern after I landed this fish on the Dahlberg.

No fish of real size were cau- 

What's that? I forgot about one?  Oh, I guess that fish will have to wait till the next post.

Spring Has Sprung a Leek

With spring, lots of new activities, and chores, arise faster than the daffodils.  For me, this always includes morel mushroom hunting (let's just say it's not my year) and digging up leeks.

Wild leeks, or ramps, are significantly smaller than the version you find in the grocery store but taste, at least three times, better and are extremely versatile.  My favorite recipe is always bacon and leek mac and cheese but I use them as a substitute for onions or scallions in most recipes this time of year.  

Another wild edible in abundance this time of year, to the dismay of most, are dandelions.  I stumbled across this stretch of a simile the other day from my angst-filled college years--

Boom. Sunshine explosion.

"Life is like dandelions.  Beautiful yellow cups that everyone hates.  People tug at its tap root, kick at its developing blossom, spray its leaves with poison.  At the end of its full week of life, they hate it even more.  A perfect cloud soft, bleach white sphere that only wishes more sunshine for each lawn.  If they only looked softly at the petals they would see its characters beauty.  But they rip, causing a slow ooze of milky blood to sticky up their hands.  Releasing a tacky smell that holds for a moment once inside you and leaves a bitter, acrid taste that binds to your throat.  Each autumn the flowers are forgotten under a golden red shower and they whither.  Spring comes and everyone hates them again.  A vibrantly defenseless explosion of light rashly hated and rashly forgotten. Each foot a truncheon on their persistence to lighten the world."

Brilliantly written, I know.  I suppose I was somewhat right back then.  Life is like dandelions in the sense that someone can come by at any time, pop your head off, and fry it up in some butter.  With a simple corn meal/flour batter and some sauteing you have got a great appetizer or side dish.

While we are on the topic of wild edibles, the local stream has been packed full of non-native trout again.  As the good ecologist I am, I went forth to help lower the numbers of fish and prevent the further spread of the invasive fish.  

Day old stocked trout are like confused children who had cruel parents their whole life.  Their parents tell the children how wonderful candy is, but they have to be very cautious what pieces they eat because some are poison.  The trout are dumped in the stream used to eating pelleted meal, and when a tasty mayfly bonbon or a minnow chocolate bar slips past them they hesitate.  They look at the sweet and turn away, then change their mind and return to inspect it again until it floats out of range or another more daring, or rebellious, child engulfs the treat.

I stood in the stream and watched the trout behave this way.  There was a pod of thirty or so fish that would chase anything that moved but would hesitate, turn around, hesitate and then decide if the the item was a food source.  It was an interesting show, especially when a black bunny leech confection was the potential toxicant.  After a few fish on the fly rod it was time to fill the stringer which was done in short work with a panther martin spinner which netted me my first brown trout.

I named him "dinner"

Apple and leek stuffed trout with a lemon caper butter

 As for the chores, I got the garden dug, and what a chore it was.  Digging, pulling out tree roots, dumping in peat moss and compost, mixing and leveling was done in the last two days.  I am attempting modified square foot gardening with the hopes of filling forty-eight square feet with over a hundred plants, as well as making an herb planter for the deck.  I'm sure more posts will come regarding my successes.  If someone is in need of some sod that has a small potential to actually revert back into grass, I am willing to part with the pile in the picture.

The dirt hole.

And this is the part of the blog post where I dump a bunch of photos that don't need a narrative.

Chomp Chomp

Nom nom

The release

Fat rock bass

Story of my life.

                                      

Challenge: Catch a trout on the fly rod - COMPLETED

Opening day of Pennsylvania trout season, 2012.

Hoards of people were clogging the stream banks.  A dozen people crammed around every four foot deep hole a stocked trout could be swimming in.  Before the sun even showed the top of its head over the horizon, cans of beer were already being discarded into the bushes.  Gobs of brightly colored powerbait floated downstream, completely ignored by the hundreds of trout that eyed it from below.  Poachers snuck more than their days limit, packing their stringers full of any trout they caught or snagged.  Camp sites were illegally established and improperly cleaned up leaving mounds of trash and smoldering ashes around their foundations.  The trees were adorned with opening day ornaments from the errant casters.  The fish huddled together in pods whose numbers rapidly diminished, and they knew that even if they survived the day, they still would not live past the warmer water temperatures only two months away.

Every year it's the same scenario and after my first opening day last year, I didn't think I would attempt it again.  Yet, there I was at seven in the morning, an hour before the opening bell rang, sitting stream side at my claimed spot.   I chose the furthest point between the two parking areas in hopes that the other anglers would be too obese and too lazy to walk the half mile to find a fishing hole.  And it also had the advantage of being one of my lucky spots on the stream.  For the first forty-five minutes I was alone, but more and more anglers showed up until five of us would be casting into the same twenty square foot area.  The second eight AM came, our lures and bait and line and sinkers were thrown into the water at the unsuspecting fish.  I hooked the first fish out of the five anglers in only a few minutes after the season began on an inline spinner.  Being net-less, I fumbled with the fish with my hands in the forty something degree water until the trout found a way off my hook. 

I generally am happy with the first fish of the day.  The first fish means I am doing something correctly and I am almost guaranteed more fish if I replicate the conditions.  This feeling feels cheapened on opening day; at least for it does for me.  I knew these trout were put here and would eat nearly anything put in their view.  I knew where they were, what they wanted, and how to get them to commit.  It was catching fish in a nearly non-metaphorical barrel.   The Walmart version of trout.  But, I like Walmart, and I like fish, and I have little shame left from the time my mother and sisters dragged a thirteen year old me along to go bra shopping.  For them, not me.  So, I continued casting into the bargain bin hoping there was an amazing deal hidden at the bottom everyone else had overlooked and I continued to ignore the pins and needles in my hands.  Soon, that feeling was overwhelmed by, and probably a contributing factor to,  my lightheadedness.  I deemed it a bad idea to have vertigo while standing knee deep in a stream so I chose to go home and shove my frozen hands into my armpits for a painful fifteen minutes.  

After the dethawing, I tied a few new flies, checked that the air temperature had risen fifteen degrees, and headed back stream side to test the new ties.  I waded back to my spot just in time to see all the other anglers leaving with full stringers.  This left my back cast clear and the entire hole to drift through without worries of tangling someone else's line.  I found my casting rhythm pretty quickly and worked the hole until I saw a flash of silver and felt my fly stop.  I set the hook only to find the line snapped just above my knot.  Well, at least I knew the flies worked.  I tied on a new rabbit, metal, and lead amalgam and ensured my line wouldn't snap this time.  I had a few casts into the water and a few more short strikes until I finally hooked into my first trout on the fly rod.  This time I didn't feel so debased when I landed the fish.  Instead, I liked this feeling.  Tricking a trout on my own fly that I created only an hour ago added a lot more excitement to the catch.  I put my fish on my stringer, smiled, and waded back home to cross the first challenge off the list... and to make dinner.

Not my fish, but I assure you it looked just like this.

First Fly Rod Fish of 2012

It has taken me a while to put my 2012 fishing license to use.  April is normally the earliest I start fishing, and with this May-like weather we have had lately I couldn't resist any longer.  On Thursday, the temperature reached 70 with winds around 20 mph.  This left the reservoir I was at pretty choppy and the winds made fly casting impossible.  Out of 2 hours of fishing I ended up getting a tiny perch on the spinning rod.  Friday, I went to a nearby pond that I recently discovered.  I put on a generic dry fly and started catching lots of bluegill.  Occasionally I will go out to with the sole intention of catching panfish.  I, as well as everyone else, I'm sure, used to love catching them under a bobber, but I have acquired a new favorite way to target them and that is with surface flies.  There's not many things better than seeing a fish eat the fly, especially when it's on the surface.

First fly rod fish of 2012

Friday's pond fishing left me wanting more so I tied up some new dry flies and headed out the door for the same pond.  I caught more bluegill than I did on Friday and also landed a couple of shiners.  If you have never caught one, they put up a good fight for their size and they hit the fly with the intent on unraveling its every thread.  After only a dozen or so fish the dry fly became a wet fly and the fishing only got better. The fish of the day was a large bottom-hugging redear sunfish that was pushing a pound.

How the shiner got its name

Big Redear Sunfish

The guys cutting down trees Friday said they stock the pond with trout in the spring time for a kids fishing derby so I will be back to the pond after that for sure, or maybe I will show up during the derby and upstage some eight year old kids...  They tree guys  left a couple of lures that were lodged in the branches.  It just so happens that my favorite lures are the free ones!

A lot of the fish had black spot, a 3 host parasite that causes black specks throughout the fish.  It 

seemed as though the smaller fish had a heavier parasite burden.  I'm unsure if this is because the smaller fish eat more snails than the larger ones, or if it seemed like a heavier load relative to their size.  

The bigger fish should come out in the next few weeks!

My Greatest Fish Fear

I have climbed fifty foot rock faces without a harness.  I have slalomed through white water rapids.  I have descended snow covered mountains on a thin piece of fiberglass and plastic.  I have dove off a 200 foot suspension tower over an abandoned rock quarry dangling from my ankles by rubber bands.  I have slept among the bears and other noises of the night miles from civilization.

I would like to say that I am pretty adventurous.  If there is something that is dangerous and I haven't tried, I would probably give it a go.  I would even attempt to sit in the Devil's Armchair.  But, there is one thing that has plagued the deep, dark basement of my brain since I picked up a fly rod.  It started out as a minute thought, one that I could avoid without issue, but lately has been gnawing at me more and more.  My greatest fish fear is....

...not eating blowfish...

...not swimming with tiger fish.  Although I would like to Wade with that Jeremy guy... 

...not even noodling for sharks...

My greatest fishing fear is catching this guy...

OH THE TERROR!

Maybe I should say catching a trout on the fly rod.  And maybe I shouldn't say catching a trout on a fly rod, but attempting it.

"Isn't the fly rod made for catching trout?" 

Well, yes.  I suppose it is.  I have spent my whole life fishing, but it was only in the last year that I caught my first trout.  Since then I have tried chasing stocked trout with the fly rod with no luck.  This consisted of only using wooly buggers and bead head nymphs that I've tied as my trout tying arsenal is limited.  I could probably buy a few flies that would help me catch my first fly rod trout, but I would really like that fish to come on a fly I've tied myself.  That wish brings up another problem however.

"You're sausage fingers?"

Hush you.  My flies up to size 10 look pretty decent, but when it comes to the smaller sizes its not pretty.  This skill I'm sure will come with time and a few dozen unusable flies.

"I thought stocked trout were dumb and will eat anything.  Like fluorescent gobs of dough."

Ok.  That seems to be true.  However, rainbow collored dough balls may look more like food than the flies I tie.  I'm working on it and I have a few patterns in mind that I think I can handle.

"You know trout season starts in a month?"

I do know this.  I still have time to learn some new flies.  But I'm going to throw another challenge in there.  I'm going to tie this mystery fly with the materials I already have.  Part of this is to prevent me from buying more animal pieces, and I've been thinking about adding a new segment to the blog.  We will see how my ambitions and self confidence get along before I divulge more information on that.

"When are you going to work on your casting?"

What's wrong with my casting?

"Uhhh, nothing..."

Well, maybe I could work on my untangling skills.

Spending Money I Don't Have

January was consumed by house buying. I made an offer on a house on January 7th and moved in the 28th.  I was pretty busy with closing and moving.  I enjoyed being so busy as it took my mind off my want to be on the water.  For me, in these colder months, the constant craving to fish starts to manifest in purchases for the upcoming fishing season, often unnecessarily.  Even with buying the house and a new computer I still managed some budge in the budget for fishing supplies.  

I was attending my girlfriend's vet school white coat ceremony in Louisiana and convinced her and her family to stop by the nearby Bass Pro Shop.  I headed straight for the fly fishing section, only to be disappointed.  The section was composed of a five foot reel case, two small wall displays, a few dozen fly choices, 20 rods, and three handfuls of tying materials.  I asked the nearest associate if that the whole fly fishing section and he seemed surprised.  He claimed fly fishing was fairly popular in the area but I believe it would be difficult to maintain this hobby with that meager selection from what should be a major sporting goods store.  I walked solemnly back to the few hundred rows of regular fishing items.  I picked up 3 different soft plastics that looked promising then wandered the rest of the store without purchasing anything else.  Except for circus peanuts because of this post.  That's the last time I take advice from him.

Later in the week we were driving through Baton Rouge when I spotted an Orvis tucked in a shopping center.  We headed home but after a little convincing and a day later, we were on our way back to the Orvis.  The last Orvis I went to was only an outlet store which was also a disappointment as they carried zero fly fishing items this Orvis, however, was the fly store I was hoping Bass Pro would be.  I went through all the flies getting some new ideas, looked at some 8 weights, some new reels, and all the tying materials.  I grew concerned when I noticed many of the items didn't have a price tag on them.  I quickly set those down as I'm pretty sure that meant they were more than I was willing to spend.  Both the store worker and my girlfriend eventually started thinking I was over staying my welcome so I stopped ogling and chose a grab bag of materials.  I ended up getting some materials I have wanted to buy and a lot of stuff I probably wouldn't have bought on my own.  The bag seemed more geared towards a warm water or salt water fly tier though.  If someone bought this for trout they would probably never use half of the items.  I think these new materials will force me to be more creative with my fly tying.

Orvis Tying Materials Grab Bag

The bag did come with some stuff that I have no idea what to do with.  I wish the bags were labeled so I could at least look up what they are.  If anyone has any ideas what I can use any of this stuff for please let me know below.  The picture below is some flashy rope with a tinsel type covering, some foam with gold leaf covering on one side, some orange woven tubing, and some stiff black monofilament.

Unknown tying materials

I did end up putting those soft plastics I got from Bass pro to good use already.  Come back tomorrow to see how well they worked!

Black Lake

Over 10,000 years ago large glaciers slowly dragged across the landscape leaving a twenty mile scar in the surface that is now Saint Lawrence County, New York.  This left sparkling granite bedrock exposed, showcasing deposits of rust red iron and veins of snow white quartz.  The water was once a murky tone allowing visibility to six inches at best.  This is how she obtained her name, Black Lake.

Since her and I have been friends, she has cleared dramatically due to the invasion of zebra mussels. The clearing of her waters did not make her miss her stride; she could still produce fish after fat fish. The deepest of her waters is only thirty feet allowing for expansive weed beds choking most bays by late June.  These mats, sometimes covering thirty acres at a time, provide perfect ambush spots for large pike and bass.  Spots that were made for kayak fishing, but  spots that are difficult to fish with lures made from fur and feathers for the majority of summer.

Many decades ago, my great grandparents bought a small island and quaint cabin on Black Lake.  The island is a granite glob protruding ten feet out of the water for half an acre.  The weather worn rocks are spotted with thousands of years of lichen growth interspersed with wild blueberries and waist high grasses.  There has never been any running water and the only source of power is a generator that is clogged with sticky gasoline that has been tested to temperature extremes over decades of unuse.  Any food and water you will need for your stay must be packed accordingly and ferried across the lake on ice.  There are two refrigerators in the cabin, but they store the nonperishable food from the island's other inhabitants.  The magnet on one of these refrigerators reads "This is a No Frills Kitchen."  A kitchen, or cabin for that matter, was never made that this saying was more fitting for.

I have visited with Black Lake since I was born.  At a young age I wanted to catch fish like I saw the rest of my family doing.  I would waddle down to the water's edge and fill my yellow bucket with lake water.  I would then clamber up from granite ledge to granite ledge and go fishing in that bucket. Perhaps I had seen too many monstrous fish pulled out of that lake to want to tangle with any of them or maybe I thought it would be easier to catch a fish in a smaller body of water.  I would sit there with my Snoopy Zebco waiting for my Snoopy bobber to be pulled into the eight inch depths.  It never happened in that bucket, but I am certain my first sunfish, perch, catfish, largemouth bass, crappie, smallmouth bass, and northern pike came from slightly deeper water only twenty feet from where I had once placed that bucket.  And many of those came with Snoopy's help.  Slightly older my sisters and I would have casting competitions with one rule: hooks only.  We would only make a few casts before one of us would have to reel in the perch that thought our gold Aberdeen looked like a tasty meal.  Older yet, I would occasionally experiment with lures in an attempt to make them more productive.  I put an apple slice on a hula popper (if I liked fruit, fish obviously had to as well) and made a cast I remember being tremendously long.  I made a couple turns of the reel and a hefty largemouth made a giant leap with my lure in its mouth.

It has been four years since I have seen her last and another four before that.  After graduating college I re-met with her for a brief week.  She seemed to still remember me.  She greeted me with the calls of loons and a placid surface.  She would light up the sky every night with her stunning sunsets and she still leaned in and softly sang me to sleep with her bullfrog songs.  When I last left, she was tossing three foot waves in an attempt to keep me with her.  She had not wanted me to leave so soon, and I had not wanted to leave her.  But life takes hold and moves you even farther from those you love.  You keep telling yourself to reconnect with old acquaintances, to make plans for a trip together, but it never happens.  Some memories fade but others only become more vibrant in your mind.  Soon, her and I will have that shore lunch we've been planning and she can try to convince me to never leave again.  I will be bringing some apples.

Things like this:

Too many false casts
...ok, it was a 350º pan.

make it hard to do things like this:

Fish on!
...ok, it was a snagged rock.

But I did so anyway and got some of these:

Stocked trout, not on the fly

Green sunfish, on the fly

One of them I didn't get:

Wheres Waldo baby musky

 And some autumn type pictures:

Mothers and their fallen

Poplar Puddle

Lonely Lambsear

Reds and Browns

Open and Closed

Oh, and happy birthday to the best guy I know!