Tenkara anyone?

So I spent three straight days on the North Umpqua after this weather change.  We didn't raise a fish! Had a great time, fished some great guys and we worked hard.  Didn't pay off with fish gobbling up skaters.  Frank Moore and I even got out for a bit one evening.  We didn't raise a fish either.  You know when you can't bring a steelhead to the fly with Frank, fishing is pretty darned slow. 

I got home late yesterday, pretty bummed about my three days on the North, but looking forward to todays trip on the mainstem Umpqua chasing coho with a fly with longtime friend/client Tom Hansch.  If your a friend of mine on Facebook you can see how we did.  I got my hand hands slimy on salmon. Coho Salmon.  Oregon native Coho salmon.  Even a few jack's were willing today...and ton's of smallmouth...still?  On October 8th?.  One weird year is all I can say. 

So after lunch Tom says "Dean, I'm gonna introduce you to some new, cutting edge fly stuff"..."that's hundreds of years old"???  Tom pulls out this cool looking little fly rod tube and takes out this little fly rod.  No cork grip?  It's made of pine? No reel seat either??? He begins pulling the tip section out like an old school telescoping rod.  This process continues until twelve feet of "fly rod" emerges from the butt section.  Attached to the tip is thirteen or fourteen feet of furled fly line and tippet.  He attaches a trout fly and hands it to me. 

Have you ever dreamed of a simpler life?  A life without cell phones?  A life without computers?  A life without utility bills, mortgages, car payments, X-boxes, lap-tops, car's you can't work on without a computer, boats that have a set of oars and no fuel-injected motor,...you get the idea.  Sometimes I whine to my wife that I'd just love to grab a few fly rods, some old blues tapes and CD's, a few spey rods, my fly tying gear, a few shotguns and rifles, an axe, a few hand tools, take what money we've got in savings and head for Mexico, or Alaska, or where ever and live a much simpler life.  Not gonna happen.  At least anytime soon. 

So my friend Tom hands me this new twig he's got and tells me "its called Tenkara, ever heard of it?"  I told him that I had, vaguely? I of course can't recall where I had heard of it, or read about it.  He explains that it's this old Japanese method of fly fishing.  Simplicity. No reel seat.  No reel.  Just a rod with a length of tapered line, leader and a fly.  OK, I'm in. 

At the end of our day chasing coho on the mainstem Umpqua, we go back to Tom's farm along the river and head to his pond full of bluegill, smallmouth bass, pumpkin seeds and other warm water fish and give this ancient Japanese gear a try. 

Grasshoppers were abundant along the shoreline and the sunfish eagerly gobbled up every hopper that jumped away from our footfalls and landed, SPLAT on the ponds surface.  Tom attached a small foam hopper pattern to the tippet of the Tankara rod and I began placing the pattern along the grassy shoreline.

Tom's little sunfish eagerly popped the little fly off the surface on almost every "cast".  While I can't say that the Tenkara outfit was as comfortable to fish as my little single-hander with a conventional fly reel, the rod and line did have its charms.  My biggest complaint about the outfit was the length of the rod and the length of the fly line.  Both made it cumbersome to handle the fish, bring them to hand for release etc.  It only took a few minutes though to work through this awkward stage.  Much like it did when I began trying to land steelhead on my own for the first time with a spey rod.  Once I got the hang of fighting the fish and bringing them to hand, I found the system very enjoyable to fish.  I think they would be a blast to fish on high mountain meadow streams where brookies in a small stream lined by grassy banks and few tree's prevail.  When I first learned to fly fish as a young boy, I first learned to "dap" the fly before I ever learned to cast.  These Tenkara rods are perfectly suited to "dapping".  I also think they will work great for smallmouth bass fishing on the mainstem umpqua next summer when we go back fishing rubber leg nymphs "on the drop".  

For more info go to http://tenkarausa.com/ and enjoy a "simpler life".     

North Umpqua and Upper Willamette Steelhead

Chris working a favorite upper river (North Umpqua) run as towering Douglas Fir tree's provide a little early morning shade.

The past couple of days have been a blast for me.  I spent them with some new clients who can get it done on the water, plus they're just a lot of fun to be with! 

Yesterday morning I was on the Upper Willamette with Chris and Steve.  Chris owns the Walterville Feed Store and Fly Shop on the McKenzie.  Steve owns a business that makes custom rod grip wraps that really enhance your grip on any rod.  While Chris knows his way around a spey rod, Steve is a former Bass Pro who is just getting started with learning how to cast a spey rod.  So by morning's end, we rose four fish, hooked three solid and landed one.

We swung some new prototype tube flies that I've been working on and the fish loved them! When Chris and Steve met me at daylight at the boat launch, Chris had his own spey rod.  Steve had a typical 6 1/2' bass stick with a level wind?  I didn't say anything about the bass rod.  I knew Steve needed some gear so I brought some extra twigs for him to cast and fish with.  I just wasn't really sure what he planned on doing with the bass tackle. 

After raising a nice fish on the spey rod, Steve asked if he could use his bass gear?  Why not.  "It's your day" I thought to myself.  What happened next, was one of those rare moments when you just can't even believe your own eyes.  I apologize that I've been sworn to secrecy and its not fair to the readers to even mention this event, but suffice to say, "Steve the Bass Pro" knew his gear, knew what to do with it to draw the attention of some upper willy summer fish and really taught me something about steelhead behavior that I didn't know.  Steelhead can be made VERY AGGRESSIVE if you know how to do it.  

So in the afternoon, Chris parted ways with Steve, picked up his buddy Brad and both met me on the North Umpqua.  I was off the clock for the evening so I fished some of my favorite water and brought Chris and Brad along with me.  Brad is one of those guys who's friendly and so enthusiastic about fly fishing for steelhead that you just have a great time being on the water with him.  He's been fly fishing for years and spent many seasons guiding up in Alaska for trout and salmon, but spey rods and steelhead are a new thing to Brad and he's as passionate about both as much, if not more, than anyone I've ever known.   

Since it was my evening to fish, I used my cane rod, silk line and 60 year old Hardy Perfect "Taupo" reel to skate my dries over a couple of my more reliable runs.  I ended the evening raising two NU fish before the bats started gobbling up the October Caddis that began to take flight as the sun set.

Chris, Brad and I camped at one of my little primitive camps, drank a few Ninkassi's (and a few more PBR's) ate some great grilled brat's and slept under a cloudless sky while the North Umpqua babbled a few feet away.

This morning we got started before daylight.  I was back on the clock and working while Chris and Brad got after'um! In the first run, Brad rose a fish on the dry and like everyone does, when he saw the fish try to snarf the skater, he pulled the fly away! literally snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.  A few minutes later, and a little further down the run, Chris had a fish crush the prototype tube fly he caught the fish on yesterday, but somehow the hook didn't find a solid purchase and the fish was gone a moment later.

In the next run I was helping Brad with his casting and put the skater across the run to a distant seam that always hold fish.  Like clockwork a chromer swirled on my little skater as I twitched it across the glassy tailout, but like so many fish the past few summers, we couldn't get the fish to come back.  "One rise wonders" is what I've come to call them.

We continued on through the rest of the morning without another rise and I decided to move to the upper river above Steamboat Creek.  It was amazing how many spring chinook were in the upper river.  I haven't been working the upper river this summer.  So many more fish seem to be in the lower part of the fly water so I haven't worked up there yet.  I haven't seen this many salmon in the upper river since the 2000 season.  If you end up on the north umpqua in the coming weeks, PLEASE be careful wading around on any gravel and avoid the redds. 

We ended the day with Chris hooking (and loosing) another fish on my new tube fly.  So by my fuzzy "guide math" we rose ten fish over the past two days.  Certainly didn't land all that we rose, but overall, not bad fishin' and what a great treat to share that kind of fishing with three new friends!  Thanks guys!!!! 

The next few days will be spent chasing late season trout on the upper McKenzie.  Saturday our deer rifle season starts and I've got some boys chomping at the bit to fill a deer tag.  As hot and dry as its been the last two days, this weekends forecast for rain should have the deer moving.  Next week is booked solid with more days on the North Umpqua and I can't wait!