How to Judge a Guide

The great philosopher Al McGuire once observed: "If the waitress has dirty ankles the chili should be good." As someone who dined at the same chili haunts favored by the most colorful coach college basketball will ever see, I think I know what Al was talking about.

Making chili -- or more accurately working at a chili diner -- is a tough job and you don't want anyone too fancy behind the counter because more than likely they won't be able to hack it. The same can be said for being a fly fishing guide. Something like: If the guide's fingers are cracked and dirty then the fishing should be good.

My recent fishing outing with Zeke Hersh of Blue River Anglers reminded me the pounding taken by a real guide's hands. I'm not talking about the hands of a "weekend guide" like the golf caddy who once guided me on mountain stream. I'm talking about the folks who guide for a living. The ones who spend more time at the vise than in front of a TV. The type of full-time guide Eric Stroup writes so passionately about in River Pimp. The hands of these guides tell the tale. If I fish three days in a row, my fingers get a little raw from all the knot tying. A real guide's fingers are just one giant callous. The cracks are filled with dirt that apparently won't come out no matter what they do. Their fingernails feature deep grooves caused, I guess, from testing the sharpness of hooks. The pads of their fingers look like pin cushions after having been pricked by thousands of chemically sharpened hooks.

I type for a living. My hands aren't tough. So I'm always a little embarrassed when I take a look at guide's hands. His hands show how much he truly loves fly fishing and what he's given to the sport. So next time you meet your guide for the first time, check out his hands. If they're as rough and raw as sandpaper, get ready for a good time on the water. If they look like mine, find a new guide.

 

River Pimp: A Book Review

"If our father had had his say, nobody who did not know how to fish would be allowed to disgrace a fish by catching him." -- Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It

If they weren't born in different eras Eric Stroup and John Maclean (Norman's father) would have been great friends. They share a strong faith in God and know that to step into a flowing trout stream is to restore and refill one's soul. They also believe that fly fishing is not to be trifled with. It is serious business, deserves our respect and, most importantly, is worth preserving for future generations.

As Ed Engle writes in his introduction to Eric's new book, River Pimp, A Journey Through Life in the Fly Fishing Industry, "Fly fishing saves Eric time and again. Now he understands that we all may have to save fly fishing."

River Pimp is the first fly fishing book I've ever read about the business side of fly fishing. We've all experienced the fishing business as customers. I've even been a customer of Eric's -- he guided me on Penns Creek two years ago and excused my failures by assuring me that Penns is the "major leagues of fly fishing." (The picture below proves I at least fouled off a few pitches during my day in the big leagues.) But I've rarely given much thought to the business of fly fishing. Eric has, and he writes about it with great passion and power.

He shares the downside of trying to tell it like it is. A very informative article he wrote for Fly Fisherman magazine (he is kind and never identifies the publication) about his home river, the Little Juniata, spawned enough venom and hatred to start a small skirmish. The conflict earned Eric the nickname that he made the title of his book. And I think it tells a lot about Eric and his wife Tracey that they embraced the name. Eric won't back down from his beliefs.

You should read the River Pimp if you've ever wondered what the guide was really thinking as he watched you put down the umpteenth fish with another errant cast. You'll enjoy the River Pimp if you've ever fantasized about chucking it all and "fishing for a living." (If you're like me, you'll laugh at the stories and acknowledge that you're not nearly tough enough to survive what Eric's been through.) And you should definitely read the book if you care about the future of our woods, our rivers and our trout. Eric makes a compelling case that how we shop and who we shop with will dictate the future of fly fishing. Shop your local fly shop; don't buy discounted stuff online. And definitely don't buy from the big box stores. Buy flies tied by people who fish the rivers you fish. And hire a full-time guide.

If you do all those things you will definitely spend a little more money, but what you'll gain is priceless. You will support those who are doing the most to protect, preserve and enhance the sport, culture and passion we care about so much.

River Pimp is Eric's second book. The first, Common-Sense Fly Fishing, is a great help to anyone looking to catch more fish on the river. River Pimp won't help you catch any more fish, but it will give you a new appreciation for the business-side of fly fishing. One note, you may have to wait a few weeks to get a copy of River Pimp. A second printing is being done to take care of some editing issues in the first edition. It's worth the wait. Add River Pimp to the list of books to read while waiting for the next hatch.

In Praise of Walt’s Worm

The flies landed just upstream of the massive boulder in the middle of the river and the current pushed it to the inside edge of the boulder. The leader paused in its downstream drift, I raised the rod and the line went tight as the chunky brown trout rushed upstream with a Walt’s Worm stuck in his mouth.

There are few flies as easy to tie as the Walt’s Worm. Wrap some lead on a 2X nymph hook. Dub some rabbit’s fur and wind forward, adding bulk as you head to the hook eye. Its sheer simplicity should make it very popular, but in the wacky, upside down world of fly fishing (where big numbers equal small flies etc.) the easier the fly is to tie the more doubt it generates with the angler – particularly the fly-tying angler. If fly fishing could be that easy, the thinking goes, then why would we go through all of the frustration of blending 3 different kinds of dubbing to get just the right shade of olive on those BWOs? Or why tie a psycho nymph with six different elements and precision when wrapping some bland tan fur on a hook will do?

That fish would eat such a simple piece of fur reminds us that the elaborate lengths we fly fishers go to in pursuit of our passion – the breathable waders, the high-tech graphite fly rods, fluorocarbon tippets – isn’t always necessary. That fly fishing can be so darn complicated tells us more about the anglers, than the trout.

As Eric Stroup reminds us in his outstanding book Common-Sense Fly Fishing, we would all be well served to keep simplicity in mind as we wade into the stream. Eric notes that the creator of Walt’s Worm – Central PA angler Walt Young -- apologizes for its simplicity when he shows others how to tie the pattern. “I’m sorry folks, I wish I could make it more complicated than this.” Indeed, if he did it would be a bigger seller in fly shops across the Northeast.

I’ve read about Walt’s Worm for years now but generally scoffed at the notion that it could outfish a more elaborate nymph. But after reading Eric’s book and benefiting from several of his simple tips, I decided to tie up a few and add them to the box. After all, they’re so easy to tie that even I couldn’t screw them up.

After a day of meetings in Youngstown on Wednesday, I headed east to fish Neshannock Creek. The river water had warmed after several days in the low 80s, but steady rains kept the current flowing strong and the water cool in the deep runs. I had hooked a few rainbows in a run on a hare’s ear nymph, but the fishing was slow. Not wanting to add split shot, I decided to add a size 12 Walt’s Worm to add some extra weight to the rig before heading downstream to fish the giant boulder.

From Steel Pursuit

The brown trout hit on the first cast and in the next 30 minutes a half dozen trout – rainbows and browns – inhaled the Walt’s Worm while ignoring the fancier flies on the line. As it is with many things in life, simpler is better. And there are few flies simpler -- or more effective -- than Walt's Worm.

What the Guide Said -- Drown the Ants

After a challenging hour of nymphing for brown trout on Spring Creek Sunday morning, I thought of what the guide had said the night before at the end of an even more challenging day/evening/night of fishing on Penns Creek.

“We should have tried the sunken ant again in the evening on those sporadic risers,” Eric Stroup suggested. From the tone of his voice I knew he wasn’t all that sure about the idea – after all the fish were pretty tough to come by all day long in the clear water of Penns. Yes, a few had moved to the ant about mid-day and a more skilled angler would have landed some of the big ones. But as it was we didn’t see a single fish caught by any other anglers – and there were more fishermen on the stream than I see most days steelheading on the Rocky River. And the few fish I caught all came on different flies. But one thing about trout fishing, there’s always another fly to try – even if it is in hindsight.

I sat on a flat-topped bolder along the bank of Spring and watched the water rush over one of the handful of limestone shelves that broke up the half-mile stretch of straight stream. Thunder rumbled overhead, a reminder that at any moment the promised thunderstorms could bring a premature end to the trip. I pondered which fly to try next and decided to turn Eric’s hindsight into foresight. He was dead on.

After switching up my leader so it could handle a dry fly as an indicator, I tied a size 14 black wet ant as a trailer behind a Royal Humpy. I wanted a real good indicator fly that would float well and I could see easily. I considered a parachute ant on top, but decided the Humpy would hold up better and I didn’t want to spend a lot of time greasing flies or swapping them out when they lost their float. I’d only seen a few fish rise that morning, and there weren’t many bugs on the water – unlike Penns. So I figured if I got any action it would be down below. Spring Creek is one of Central Pennsylvania’s most bountiful trout streams. The trout are plentiful and aren’t nearly as particular as those in Penns or Big Fishing Creek. In many ways, Spring is an ideal trout stream. Easy to wade, a nice path along on its bank. Its beauty was only enhanced by its relative solitude on this Sunday morning. I had seen two anglers fishing a stretch near the parking lot, but as I walked down the old dirt admiring the green canopy and hillsides there were no other anglers in sight. Indeed, I would fish about five hours that morning and only share the stream with three deer, a muskrat and a few ducks.

I had fished spring on Friday evening and Saturday morning, before joining Eric for the trek into Penns. (How Penns could be crowded and Spring empty remains a mystery, since Spring is close enough to State College to be considered urban fishing in these parts.) By mid morning Sunday I had caught enough fish on the trip to consider it a success by my low standards. But I knew there were more fish to be had, if only I could hit upon the right fly.

I had seen a brown trout flash in a narrow corner slot up against the far bank where water flowed over a limestone shelf and took a slight right hand turn and flowed in my direction back across the stream. The slot was smaller than a coffee table. The water was moving fast enough that I thought the fish would be a little less particular about my presentation. Penns Creek made my limitations as both a caster and a mender quite evident and I wanted to try to put the odds back in my favor.

While my casting form causes guides to cringe, I can get the fly to land pretty close to where I want, and at 15 yards I was able to land the Royal Humpy at the head of the slot and watched it shoot back down toward me. But I couldn’t watch it for long. On the first good drift the fly was pulled under and I set the hook on a brown trout that turned out to be about 10 inches long. Remarkably I took six browns out of that slot – a few in the 14 inch range. All of them hit the ant hard and fast and put a nice bend in my five-weight rod. The same held true as I explored other pockets of fast moving water as I hiked the creek. If a brown failed to take the ant in the first few casts I could move on because 15 minutes of working a spot wouldn’t turn up a fish. More often than not, I hooked a fish in the best looking spots.

Below one limestone shelf, branches from a tree along the bank extended right into the water providing an ideal overhang for the trout. It was nearly time to head back to the car for the four-hour drive back to suburbia, but this run just looked too appealing to pass up. I landed the Humpy at the edge of the shelf and the fly quickly got engulfed in the fast water that shot under the branches. As the fly headed under the leaves I decided to cast again, but as I lifted the fly rod I felt a heavy trout on the other end and a large brown surprised me by leaping out of the water right at me. He jumped a few more times with the acrobatic skills of a rainbow. The hefty brown brought a close to a trout filled morning and a weekend of many memories.

Thanks Eric for reminding me to drown the ants.

Lucky Seven with Eric Stroup?

In my 30 plus years of fly fishing I've had the pleasure of fishing with six different guides in California, Utah, Montana, Colorado, Pennsylvania, and New York. Every experience has been good, but I've yet to have a great guide experience. I'm hoping that will change Saturday when I get to spend the day with Eric Stroup of the Spruce Creek Fly Co. Eric's new book, Common-Sense Fly Fishing, has paid for itself many times over and I review his tips nearly every evening -- if I cannot be fishing, I might as well pretend. The book is a godsend for anglers like me that don't get enough fishing time in to hone our limited skills. Following Eric's tips and strategies has allowed me to spend more time this spring catching fish and less time pondering what the heck is going on in the stream.

And that's what a good guide does; he strips away all of the distractions and helps the "sport" focus on what it takes to hook a fish. The first guide I fished with said he could help me hook a fish, but landing them was pretty much up to me. And after fishing with multiple guides, I've decided that's pretty much captures things. There are a ton of factors that are beyond a guide's control -- weather, flows, hatches etc. and the "sport" needs to accept that reality. But the good guides know where the trout hang out and the techniques required to get at least a few to strike. And the best guides share enough information to enlighten and entertain the "sport."

After listening to Eric speak earlier this year in Cleveland and after reading his book, I'm pretty sure I'll be enlightened and entertained. And I'm pretty sure he'll be able to show me where the trout hang out on the Little J and surrounding streams. But whether it turns into a great guided trip is really going to be up to me and all those factors outside our control. And right now the "weather" factor doesn't look promising with scattered thunderstorms forecasted for Friday/Saturday. And the flows are looking pretty low. Yep, I'm trying to prepare myself for things not living up to expectations. But I will stay optimistic tha the fish gods will smile on guided trip number 7.

St. Patrick's Steel

After spending seven hours in a dim meeting room, I ended St. Patrick's Day on the Rocky River. Bright sunshine contrasted with the murky, high water. Downstream of Morley's Ford I encountered several signs of spring -- suckers. The one to three pound fish fill the Rocky after ice out. They foreshadow the major spring run of steelies by a week to 10 days.

After working a run for 45 minutes with nothing more than suckers to show, I headed south to the East Branch of the Rocky. Water was murky, but a little lower than down below. A half dozen anglers stood in the normal spots, but there was plenty of unoccupied holding spots. Jim spotted a fish working behind a boulder, and said he saw some others in the riffles. I wasn't seeing any fish, but kept high sticking the runs with a green sucker spawn and small black stonefly dropper. A few black flies (a stretch to call them stone flies, more like overgrown midges) were coming off the water.

Using a tip I picked up from Eric Stroup of Spruce Creek Fly Co. this past weekend, I made sure my fly rod stayed in front of the leader as it cut through the run. The line paused, I set the hook and a skipjack came bursting out of the tan-colored water. The fish had inhaled the black stone and after a few brief runs came to the hand. Amazing how one fish can make a day full of meetings into a great day, indeed.