40 Rivers To Freedom

Confluence Films newest fly fishing adventure DVD, Rise: The Movie, is out.    You can buy it and watch the trailer by clicking here

While I haven’t watched this one yet, I gotta ask myself- did we kick ourselves in the ass when we asked for less fish porn and more substance?

Maybe that’s not the right question.

When did substance become listening to some guy talk about why he had so much fun; or, listening to some guy tell about why a place is so special? I’m not saying I am getting bored by all of it- there are times when it just works.  One such example off the top of my head is the commentary during the first decent to alaska section of BOP’s Nervous Water- but come on Mr. Fly Fishing Movie Director, you can do better than that.

Cause in all honesty, what most of these people are saying has become rather boring and predictable.

After a multi day trip to Ohio, I finally got to continue my search for another mega-smallie last night.  I haven’t really been able to get that last monster out of my head.  I drove past three spots with actively feeding Carp last night to get to the place where the average smallmouth isn’t much longer than the full wells grip on my 8wt.

He’s just gotta be there.

I caught a half dozen descent sized smallies, some sporting some really nice colors on “The One” and Shaq’s Bugger.  It was in an area where the current had just a little more oomph, and even the smallest fish of the night put a solid bend in a rod better suited for fish 4 times it’s size.

Then I got to thinking…

I’ve never really delved into the whole West Coast vs Great Lakes Steelhead debate- at least not here.  You know, the whole argument that Great lakes Stealhead, shouldn’t be called Steelhead.  I’ve always felt it was all semantics, though I usually took the side that our Great Lakes fish are pound for pound equals to their Pacific ancestors/relatives.  Mainly cause the brunt of the arguments put up by the west side guys center around arguments like:

• they come from the ocean, and the ocean is bigger
• they get chased by sharks- and stuff
• they’ve been to China
• they’re natives out here
• blah, blah, blah

In my opinion, these arguments are all pretty retarded.  Great Lakes Steelhead wouldn’t fight any harder if there were Seals or Great Whites hanging out in Lake Ontario.  They wouldn’t be any more of a fish if the Great Lakes were twice as big.  True, they aren’t native, but there are a hell of a lot of wild fish actively reproducing in Lake Michigan Tributaries.

So when it comes time to pick my side of the argument, I’ve never had a concrete reason to join forces with the left coasters.

At least until last night…

The fish I caught last night fought harder than equally sized fish I’ve caught in slower current areas, or in lakes.  Yeah, the current does add a little more bend to the rod, but it doesn’t account for the overall edge these swift water smallies have in scrapiness over there stillwater cousins.  It only makes sense that a fish who lifts more weights, the one who spends the majority of it’s life in swift flows, will be stronger than the one who sits on the couch all day in a lake.

But how could you make that stronger fish even more powerful?  You could give it steroids, or, you could stick it in the ocean. I’m not quite sure how I never recognized this part of the equation before, since we learn in 1st grade that saltwater is more dense than freshwater, but would now concede that the disgruntled have better steelheads than us.

It only makes sense that a fish that spends it’s life in the ocean would be a bigger badass than if it had spent it’s time in the Great Lakes.  Imagine that ocean dwelling fish as it makes the transition from salt to fresh during the spawn- a transition that Great Lakes fish don’t experience.  It would be like a person running 40 yards in a swimming pool, and then feeling like an olympic sprinter when they ran 40 yards outside of the pool afterwards.  This example is a little exaggerated, since the difference in density between water and air is a lot more than the difference between saltwater and freshwater- but it makes my point.

Now imagine spending your whole life walking/running in a swimming pool.  Your legs would be substantially stronger and your body would be much more efficient at doing stuff like eliminating carbon dioxide and other wastes accumulated during physical exertion than it is while walking around in air. Those Pacific fish have to be stronger and have more endurance, pound for pound, than our Great Lakes fish.  I don’t know if that totally seals the deal that our fish shouldn’t be called a “true” Steelhead, but it does mean I’m for sure gonna have to fish the PNW someday.

-and how I got into all that while fishing for bass, I’ll never understand…

I had planned to do the next installment of How to Be a Fly Fishing Blog Superstar, but I read a story this morning that just kind of blew me away.

Yesterday afternoon, the NYDEC stocked about 1,000 Brown Trout in Geyser Creek, a local trickle running through Saratoga Spa State Park.  It’s an annual event featuring  live music and educational booths about fishing, local wildlife and renewable energy.

From the Saratogian-

“The annual event allows children to fill a bucket with water and a fish that was raised at the Van Hornseville Fish Hatchery, operated by the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation, and then release the fish back into the creek.

More than a thousand people waited for at least an hour in a line that snaked across the entire picnic area and along the creek for their chance to see a fish up close.”

I guess there are days when I happily wait over 8 hours to see fish up close, with no guarantee of reaching the front of the line- but at least there’s no line.  So it wasn’t that part that bothered me so much- it was this one.

Noah Cowitt, 10, said this was his third year at the fish stocking. “You never really get to see fishes that close,” he said. “It’s fun to see them go into the river.”

I know it’s great that this event might have catalized this kid’s interest in fish, which could lead to his interest in fishing.  But how sad is it that a 10 year old never get’s to see fish that close?

On a related note, my son and I have been hitting the local river on a daily basis.  I haven’t been doing much fishing- mostly just removing snags, adjusting bobbers, removing fish and tying knots- but April has been a great month on the water.  The other day I had triple duty as my daughter and one of my son’s friends came along.  Despite their legs being half as long as my own, I could barely keep up with them on the walk from the car to the river.  My daughter caught the most fish, and a snake.  My son’s friend caught a few and loved every minute of it.  The highlight of the day for my son was catching the fish below, a ~25″ Chain Pickerel- a big one.

Before I share the pic, I have to share the story behind the excitement in his eyes.

He has wanted to catch a toothy critter for years. When he was 4 he saw a guy on TV catching Musky.  His quest for his own began the next day.  We went to a lake and he cast the biggest spinner bait in his tackle box, non-stop, for 3 or 4 hours while I caught bass after bass. I don’t know about you, but I certainly didn’t have that kind of perseverance at that age, which is why I didn’t have the heart to tell him there were no Musky in that lake.

He has since broadened his quest for toothy fish to Pike and Pickerel, but until the other day, hadn’t got his unicorn.