Why Carp?

Just a quick little post to link you all to one of the best articles on how to Carp fish I have ever come across.

Now if only the lakes would unfreeze before I forget everything I just read!

http://www.frontrangeanglers.info/newsletter/dec10/carpaddiction.html

Tandem rigs , Droppers, Multi-flies etc...

So today I was having a great day on the Big Thompson River in Colorado.  It was a great day because the weather was awesome and for whatever reason there were ducks  all around me which made for some interesting company and casting.  The fishing however started off very slow.  I think in part because I was up there fairly early and the water was still very cold, but the other part was because I don't think I had the right flies on.

As I was debating which fly to throw on I realized it has been a while since I wrote a blog post and that I was going to tell you guys about tandem rigs. When I first started off fly fishing I went out with a guide to a local stream mainly to learn as much as I could from the guide so that I would get the basics.  This is a great way to learn and I highly recommend it unless you have a buddy or someone else who can teach you.

The guide taught me right away about a tandem rig.  What this is is essentially casting multiple flies at once.  Now I had this whole speech set up on what and how you guys should do this but I did a quick look at what is becoming one of my favorite sites and found a better write up than I would have done. So check out that on how to set it up.

I will go into a little more detail as to why you should try these setups.  As I have mentioned in other articles that the diet of a fish consist primarily of underwater bugs rather than dry flies.  Yet most of us would rather fish dry flies because of the excitement of watching a fish take a dry fly.  If you hook up a tandem rig you can have the best of both worlds!

Most people nymph or streamer fish with some sort of strike indicator (my personal favorite is a Thingamabobber), but the upside to a tandem rig, or more specifically a dry-dropper, or hopper-dropper rig is that you can use the dry fly like strike indicator and the fish might actually eat it as well!  I have yet to catch a fish on a strike indicator.

So I snapped out of my daydream about blogging and decided to put this to the test.  Since the glare was really insane on the river this morning I tied on some stupidly large hopper even though it is past hopper season and then a Zebra Midge that I tied myself.  Now I have been tying flies for about a year now and I am terrible, you should have seen this Zebra Midge it was practically unraveling.  So I tie it on regardless and throw the whole rig out there and within one or two casts I caught the largest Brown trout I have ever had the pleasure of releasing.

The moral of this story?  I would have never have caught that fish had I not decided to up my chances by using a tandem rig! (Ohh and don't be scared to use your first crappy self tied flies! It felt even better knowing I created the fly that caught the largest fish I have caught!)

Here are a couple of hints for tandem rigs

• Hit it! - This is in my head forever because of the guide that first time out.  Everytime the dry fly would pause or dip into the water the guide would yell "HIT IT" practically in my ear.  The first couple of times I said "ohh I think that was just a rock.." he would say something like ".. or it was a fish, what's the worst thing that could happen?"  So my advice to you is.... HIT IT!  If the dry fly on top does anything out of the ordinary odds are it is a fish.
• Make sure to keep depth of the water in mind and how fast the current is.  This will tell you how long of tippet to tie onto the dry fly.   The faster the current the heavier the dropper you want to use etc.
• Experiment! - Try all sorts of combinations.  In the article above I learned about the nymph, streamer combo.  It's a streamer fish chasing a nymph! Brilliant! So try all sorts of combos like two dry flies, a heavy nymph and then a light nymph etc.. heck even try three flies!
• You may need to modify your cast a little as snags are a little more common the more flies you tie on.  My advice is just make sure your line is tight and you will be fine.

That's all! Please make sure to check your local fishing regulations.  Some areas have limits on how many hooks you can have in the water, so check this before you go! 

Wildfires and their effects on rivers and creeks

With all of the recent devastation around the Boulder, Co area from the fourmile wild fire. I started wondering about the effects of wild fires on the local ecosystems, and specifically rivers and streams.  Now I realize it is a little to soon to be worried about fishing when there has been so much loss with the fire, but it is something to take my mind off of all the depressing stories.  Hopefully it will serve the same purpose for you.

When I started searching I came across a study that was done by the Bureau of Land Management.  The study was done on some very large fires in Idaho.

Several large, uncharacteristic wildfires occurred on the Boise National Forest in Southwest Idaho, from 1986 to 2003. From 1987 to 1994, severe wildfires burned almost 50% of the ponderosa pine forest types (about 200,000 ha). The intensity of the fires varied across the landscape, with a mix of low to moderate severity, and lesser amounts of high burn severity. After the fires, localized debris flows favored smaller order streams in watersheds less than 4000 ha in size, where there had been mostly high severity burning.

Locally, areas experiencing high heat and post-fire debris flows had reduced fish numbers and altered fish habitats. Uncharacteristic wildfires on the managed portions of the Boise National Forest appeared to have more pronounced, short-term effects on fish habitats as compared with characteristic wildfires in the Central Idaho Wilderness. Even in the most severely impacted streams, habitat conditions and trout populations improved dramatically within 5–10 years.

Post-fire floods apparently rejuvenated stream habitats by exporting fine sediments and by importing large amounts of gravel, cobble, woody debris, and nutrients, resulting in higher fish productivities than before the fire. These observations suggest that important elements of biodiversity and fish productivity may be influenced, or even created by fire-related disturbances. In some cases, habitats that were completely devoid of salmonid fishes just after the debris floods, were later re-colonized with migrants returning from downstream or nearby tributary rearing habitats. Re-population was likely enhanced by higher fecundity, homing instinct, and greater mobility of the larger migratory fish.

Ecosystem restoration activities that reduce both short- and long-term threats of uncharacteristic wildfire on imperiled fishes could be emphasized in areas where local populations may be weak and/or isolated, but potentially recoverable. But forest ecosystem restoration alone may not reduce risks to fish if existing habitat conditions and isolation are limiting the population.

While it goes on to say more it seems that the initial damage in most cases is severe.  As fish do not like changes in the minerals and balance of the water.  But overtime 5-10 years there is a chance for greater fish productivity.  While I am not excited about waiting 5-10 years for our streams to recover from this madness I am comforted by the fact that it will actually recover.

Now I just hope the runoff next year doesn't spread the destruction to currently unaffected streams.