Snapshot. Water drops off the edge of the roof, landing on the outer edge of the sidewalk. Cars crawl through the streets, head lights and red lights lighting up the drizzly, downtown evening. People huddle in doorways and under the overhanging eaves. Old faces and new faces move along. At the donut shop, a young lady plays guitar out front, hoping for a lucky dollar or two. Everywhere a steady choir of water wrapping up a cool November evening: car wheels whisking along the wet pavement, drops from the roof, the wet buzz of a northern California small town Friday night. The ice cream shop bustles with customers. Pumpkin perhaps, or honey vanilla lavendar maybe. Decisions are made across counters and over cafe menus. In dark doorways others huddle, maybe not so fortunate and wondering what decisions they might have left. A fellow staggers out of the bar under one of the dripping edges, oblivious for awhile until his cigarette is hit squarely and extinguished. Time for another drink, it’s still early.
We move about among the others, wondering if this is our place, or maybe our one chance. Down the crowded sidewalk, we’ll stop trying to figure it out. Not long after, the drizzle turns to rain and the gutters push it all somewhere. We hurry back to the car and leave this town behind.
Fished the valley section of a tributary river today. Overcast skies and about an hour of rain midday made for ideal conditions. I started out at lowermost North-South and was immediately into fish – half pounders. The final count was five fish to hand with many missed grabs. Flows were at 900cfs and it was just high enough to preclude the wade across and down to the holy water of East-West. All fish were taken on a 1/0 purple and pink (subtle pink yak hair wing). The slow water at the very bottom of North-South yielded several good grabs, including the one that could have been. But it was a day of many quick and light grabbing fish. Middle North-South gave up a couple of fish along the edge of the fast water – as is usual here. Didn’t fish upper – Charlie hit it pretty hard, coming through on a pontoon boat. Went up to Security East and missed a couple of grabs. Finished up at Supply Creek with one more fish and several grabs. I saw a halfway decent looking salmon porpoise in the fast water.
A good day for this time of year – though missing the big fish. This river has not done well for me this year and I think today probably ranked out as the best day this year.
Purple angora and pink yak hair was working today.
Tying steelhead flies provides escape into the fantastically infinite world of intuition, dreams and pure, raw thought. Who invented calendars and watches and such that strive to pull us away from the real, into a place delineated by boundaries and frustration?
By my reckoning, we sit almost smack dab in the middle of Autumn, 2009. By the calendar’s telling, it began on September 21 and ends on December 21. Tonite, the moon wanes a week from full and pokes through showery clouds. The storm wet us down last night enough to raise the northern rivers a bit, but nothing of any appreciable runoff. Maybe in a utopian climate, fall would steadily evolve from summer’s drizzle into warm, light rains punctuated with the occasional heavier shower at night. These would be the Chinook rains where the rivers would raise slightly, allowing early fish to enter the coastal rivers. The rains would continue on and off, in a gentle, easy fashion, and we would say this is fall, regardless of the day or week or month; the time of passing rains. Chinook would find the lower rivers fresh and dependable generation after generation. Heavier rains would kick in around Thanksgiving and an early winter would set in. By Christmas, the rivers would all be swollen and open to the wanderings of steelhead and winter Chinook for several months. But it’s too easy to describe the ideal and, rather, fall seems to be a time of change with persistent bouts of summer hanging on and weather that remains uncommitted, or hesitant, maybe.
I am always intrigued by some of the reports from the early 1900s of fishable runs of Eel River fish showing in late August. Did the rains start earlier back then? Did the greater abundance of fish back then simply give way to earlier fish? In the 1930s, for example, Clark van Fleet wrote of fishing steelhead on the lower Eel in September following freshets that raise the river a bit – something almost unheard of these days. Newspaper reports hint at fishing for Chinook at the Van Duzen confluence in late August. Certainly, less aggraded rivers back then would likely have meant more surface water available in late summer, so maybe rainfall was not as essential for early fish as it is today. Still, though, the thought of rains routinely setting in during September on the coast is almost deliteful, if not disturbing to know those times have passed.
Now, here in early November, we can sit on the porch listening to the light shower dance down on the roof and dream of rivers and fish while the full moon lights a canvas of broken clouds. We can dream of those years when the rains come gentle and easy, guiding our way through a season like so many before. Instead we are left to guess and hope. Then again, maybe this is the essence of fall; a time of hope mixed with the turmoils of change. The frustrating part is that I could have told you September 21st was just as much Autumnal as is today. Interesting to note that December 21 marks the date of some of the more significant storms to pummel the north coast since records began. But even then, on the shortest day of the year, Autumn is everywhere. Then again, I could find you a Chinook in that same river, September, October, November or December. And they know, despite their chances early or late, that they will get it right. Now, relieve me of the bondage of this absurb notion of time so that I might better know the essence of this season.
Early morning fog giving way to sunrise on a tributary river. I stopped here to rig up and discern the mojo - I ended up moving on to bigger water.
It’s on just as soon as the fly hits the water at the top of boulder house run. Unfortunately, it was a poor cast, so I took the chance to adjust a strap, clamping the rod down under my arm. As the line came tight on the swing, the rod came alive under my arm. I dropped the straps trying to get the rod back in hand as the fish cartwheeled to the inside – all air. I recovered line and came tight on the fish again and another burst of aerial mania. The fish looked all of five pounds easy. The fish kept angling toward the slack water on the inside just as the line pulled up empty – fish off – pure operator neglect – and a lesson learned for the hundreth time: the grabs always happen when fiddling with something or otherwise not paying attention. The rest of the run was quiet save for a spunky half pounder pulled up at the very bottom of the run.
Moving up river, I scored one half pounder in the super secret tailout water – no other grabs to be had. At the Hotel run, a jumbo half pounder came to hand after working down through most it. No other grabs to be had. Down to the garden, and one fish to hand, then nothing. Time to move down to slate creek for the later afternoon.
This place now doesn’t see the sun most of the day and the dew piles up on the stones, never drying. Come December and some cooler weather, the frost will accumulate day after day lending a snowy feeling to this place. The wade across is a wee bit trickier with a little more water. Not so much the depth (flow 2,070cfs) but the added velocity and snot slick cobbles – and there is some angst about getting back. One grab in the upper half and can’t get the fish to come back for more. On the lower half, a couple of deep pulls at the top of the far side fast water and I moan and curse that I can’t get a hook into them. These fish won’t come back for second helpings. It’s tough going – cast-swing-step-cast-swing-step – nothing. Those mystery pulls … dam… Counting down to my last cast I decide to practice my single spey cast a little towards the bottom of the run. On the first swing the line comes up tight and heavy. Backing rolls off the reel. The fish goes airborne across and upriver while my line bows around and downstream. Coming back tight on the fish, it decides to head down and down – towards the lip of the riffle. I do a clumsy gait downstream trying to catch the fish resting at the lip of the riffle. Then another burst of line and over the riffle it goes. The line stays tight on the fish as it eddies out down below. It swings back out into the fast water where I catch up on all my line and finally roll the fish into the shallows for a quick picture and release.
In summary: had to work much of the day for a few grabs – would have thought more activity at mid-day – but no. No fish showing. But with two adults hooked and a smattering of half pounders, a fruitful day at least. I ran into an acquaintance as I was leaving the Hotel run and they reported similar for upriver. The wade back across slate is uneventful – though I desperately need new soles on my boots. The first adult took the 3/0 purple swimming shrimp I tied up for tidewater – it seemed perfect, if not large, for probing the depths of the shadowy boulder run. The second adult took a black and orange rump fly – a more traditional offering. I dropped the purple shrimp in the water by accident – will have to experiment more with larger swimming shrimp….. full moon might have kept the bite at bay a bit…
Coming at the end of the day, this fish tore into the backing, went down the run, over the riffle and, count luck on my side, was released.
By mid-afternoon, a heavy, misting fog lays across the river, killing the faint breeze that had been threatening. The long views down the water and across the floodplain suddenly vanish in a thickening, darkening morass of wet, heavy air. The late afternoon sun loses it hold as this place descends into some netherworld lost between day and night.
The tide goes about its quiet ebbing, running along the bank where years of erosion has left a maze of fallen trees, gentle eddies and quiet backwaters. A place where a fish, fresh in from the sea, might seek refuge from the sea lions that prowl the water here. Some of them have hauled out on a nearby gravel bar, now faded to only grunts and groans punctuating the dark air. A splash comes from down along the bank, catching the corner of my eye in what looks to be an enormous, dark salmon. I float quietly down, hoping that might indicate the presence of more brighter fish to offer a fly to. Staring down the current, I see the fish surface again, a sturgeon maybe four feet long comes partially out of the water and lays over on its side in a slow, walloping splash.
This was an afternoon where the waves of bright fish streaming up river on the outgoing tide failed to show. Maybe the high tide pushed them farther upriver, away from the predator gauntlet here. The wet air pushes in closer and rustlings can be heard back in the trees. Far off in the thickets of cottonwoods, willows and fog to be seen, faint wailings can be heard. Zombies prowl these woods on the days before the full moon – searching for something, maybe a way out – a way off that wretched tangled island. Goosebumps. The Cockrobbin zombies aren’t supposed to swim, but I pull a couple of quiet oar strokes to get the boat out from the bank a little further. Back in the woods, a tree comes crashing down despite the utter lack of wind.
I don’t carry a watch, but by all reckoning the sun should be well up, but this place continues to slide into darkness. Debris caught floating in the tide slides by and farther up I think I can make out the faint outline of a hand bobbing up and down in the soft currents. I pull the oars to move down and out of its path. Moving down is easy in the tide, and I feel the urge to move closer to the launch spot, still over a mile downstream.
Along the way I begin to make out the faint image of a small boat ahead. I can see a figure sitting upright but unmoving, yet the boat glides silently across the water by no apparent means. I stop, now caught between the approaching hand and the unknown boat that moves across the water to the far bank. Long ago, I heard tales of the lost boatman out here – some old fellow who got lost in the fog several decades ago, now only seen on the foggiest of evenings or early mornings shuttling back and forth, looking for a way home. Of course, I dismissed them as old stories told for fun by the locals. Just as soon as it appears, the boat slips into the fallen trees along the bank, disappearing into the dark corners that now line the banks. I move on down, determined to get back to the truck. The fishing hadn’t been promising from the beginning, really. Now I just needed to get back down river. The sound of a plane, or far off car horn would be comforting now, but not even the sea lions can be heard anymore. This place has come to an immense, screaming standstill.
I row steadily and quietly, picking a course that will keep me mid-stream and heading for the launch. The wails from the woods fade away as the bridge approaches into a fuzzy view. At the bridge, a break in the fog can be seen off to the west where the sun begins to pour underneath in a spectacular coloring of water, sky and light. It will be a nice evening here, but I think it is time to leave this place to rest in peace for the winter.
A boat mysteriously appears and glides across the water to the streamside trees. Could it be the lost boatman of Cockrobbin Island?As the light fades, faint wailings can be heard from the shadowy recesses of the banks.
There it is … mid-day at Cockrobbin Island – standing on the bridge and barely a breath of air stirring the water, now just starting to run out on a long afternoon tide. We had to do the detour out this way for a lunch break in between work locations. Although not a fish was seen, it’s the kind of place that invokes a sense of awe – big tide water moving steadily down and out to sea. Normally a windy morass on any summer afternoon, it sits here quietly now, a cause for just stopping and watching. A wall of fog sits on the beach, maybe ready to move in later in the afternoon, shutting everything into an eerie grey stillness on Halloween’s eve. A thousand birds dot the water, shoals of pipers working the growing flats downstream, grebes working the open water and cries of seagulls reminding us of our proximity to the salt.
The tides will be optimal for the next three nights and this sort of scenario makes for tough fly tying conditions – hurriedly whipping out a few mock shrimp for the clear water that shows at the bottom of the tide. The witching hour is growing near.
Pink Tibetan Yak hair wing - a halloween costume for sure - simple, giant fliesA hasty tie on a 3/0 hook - going for simple but full movement to swing in the tidal riffle that reveals itself late in the outgoing tide.Same hasty theme with rump wings on top this time. No points here for head finishing or such, but mission accomplished regardless.
Still working on this one … wanted to reshape it with a wee bit different voice … still needs overhaul…and time .. will let it hang here for awhile and revisit later
Dark, quiet mornings linger almost to lunchtime before bright skies appear from nowhere. Here in the valley, this is late October in any year. A couple of rainstorms have put things in their place – the valley on its way into winter’s rest. A handpainted sign in front of the garden advertises free pumpkins and the tomato vines hang with rotting fruit still clinging fast. Out on the gravel bar, the water has dropped down nearly to summer levels showing a fresh stain of silt running along the edge from a good rain two weeks prior. In the foggy morning the river carries on with a soft murmering. Pumpkin-colored maple leaves hang over the water, waiting to test a soft breeze that might stir in the afternoon.
The mornings are always hard going now – soft grabs in the shadowed water make me wish I’d stop tying these flies with such damned long hackles. They just nip at the wispy trailing fibers – frustrating teases that come far too seldomly. The pass through campbell run is rhythmic and routine, maybe a bit impatient, since the best water always seems two steps below. I move down to fish the opposite side of the tee-pee and nab a feisty half-pounder right off, then get the one long, slow pull down deep – then nothing.
2:00pm. Move to new water. Lowermost North-South. This run above the big bend at the bottom of the valley usually always holds a fish or two. The bright sun now shows the clear water sliding over the riffle at the bottom of middle North-South. I pause a minute to watch for moving fish. Nothing. Crossing is the usual half float, tip-toe dance down and across. I arrive at the lower run with fish showing up and down. Salmon porpoising – some bright, some dark. Steelhead splashing in the fast water. Sweet. By early afternoon the river is chattering away.
This is a long run and can consume the better part of an afternoon if fished thoroughly. But the sweet spot is about the size of a car. Sure enough they soft-grab the swung fly and cannot hold on. Again and again, before it shuts off. I leave the run to fish one more bit in this section that nearly always proves reliable and come up with a hatchery fish of maybe two pounds that tears into the backing before giving up and coming to hand. I move up to finish at upper North-South as the evening shadows creep across the water. Everything has gone quiet now. Evening here in late October is a subtle transition. Wood smoke filters down across the field in the still, heavy air. The pasture across the way bathes in honey colored light. And along the way, the river has returned to its shadowy mutterings.
Up the road, above town, the river takes a hard turn leaving the road in a long, tight meander. A pullout reveals a little hidden trail that follows the ridge out then dives down onto the gravel bar at the far end of the river’s big turn. Far away from the occasional passing car, a cool morning offers up the last little bits of summer, sparkling in the trees. The place I go not because I want to boast of the fish I catch, but the place where a quiet day can be had.
Chest deep slow water, long casts and a few surprise fish.A giant riffle slows down and deepens against a backdrop of early fall foliage....and even a fish or two can't resist the movement of subtly colored pulsing feathers.
Shaken Rain 