News and Fishing Reports

"Year of the Farmer" by Tyler Treece

Call it a long distance release. Call it breaking off or coming unbuttoned, call it a fast hook set, a whiff, a miss or even bad luck, call it whatever you want. We call it farming,and let me tell you I might as well plant a bunch of seeds and watch them grow the way we’ve been losing fish. When I am ninety years old and my mind has faded into a blurred archive of memories I will remember the summer of 2009 as being the year of the farmer. Its ramped, the farming that is, to the point where we’ve almost stopped joking about it. There was a particularly bad two day stretch where I went 0 for 13, farming fish left and right - I just couldn’t land a fish. Yes they’re big, yes it's difficult, and I know that's why we call it fishing and not catching, but come on, everyone needs a little lovin’ sometime.

At the beginning of the season we weren’t too concerned with the amount of big fish we were losing. So many are around, we figured it was a matter of time before we landed them all. The Predator, Brad Miller, had a good few weeks of farming early on. He would come into the shop after being on the water, arms spread out smiling ear to ear talking about the fish that were kickin’ his butt. Tom Watkins would entertain us daily with stories of losing big fish. He talked of hooking brutes that he knew from the first jump he had no chance of landing save a prayer. My brother Dylan came back from a trip with Marty Reed in absolute pain over losing three of the biggest fish he has ever had on. I have watched almost every Trout Hunter employee that fishes farm a big fish on this river this year already. They say these fish have a Ph.D. -- they certainly make it tough to say the least.

One of the worst farming streaks I personally witnessed was accomplished by an Argentine guide by the name of Alex Knull.
Visiting for a few months and unemployed, Alex and I became good friends as he was always up for going fishing. The guy can flat out fish with the best of them, but for some reason over three rough days of hard fishing he had not landed a trout. We floated the Box, we stalked Pinehaven, and on the last day we crept the banks of Last Chance looking for a brute among the rocks. I had found three rising fish in the morning and one in the afternoon and somehow landed them all. Alex had not been so lucky. The sun was falling and we were walking back to get food and some beer when he decided to look for a fish he had missed earlier. The fish was back and he was active.

First fly over his head was a Flav and he ate it casually. Alex set the hook like it was a hundred pound tarpon and his flyless line came right back at him. The fish stayed, and with a new piece of jewelry in his jaw he kept feeding. An ant was next. Over his head it went, and up he came to eat, but the set came a little fast. Never eating the same fly twice, Alex was forced to change. Three more flies, three more eats, three more misses. I gave up and started walking toward the restaurant, got just across the river and heard a whistle.

Alex was picking a twenty one inch rainbow out of the water and holding it in the sun. I couldn’t see his face but I knew he was smiling, he seemed to admire that fish a bit more than usual before he let it go.

My particular streak started and ended around the Wood Road area of the Henry’s Fork. I have worked hard this season to learn all the different stretches of river, but my favorite plan for a play day always includes creeping through the weeds around Wood Road. Big, smart, spooky fish live there, and if you fish it right you have the opportunity to catch the fish of a lifetime on the surface with light line. Fishing it right and catching fish don’t always go together however, as of recently I have found that to be all too true.

Almost every morning for the last three months has started with a little wet wading for me. The cold shoots up your legs and into your neck making it feel like cold electricity is lighting up your nerves.
Entering the water that first morning woke me up better than anything else could have. I was feeling a little overly confident about my abilities at the time, we had been catching a fair amount of big fish so far and I felt that I had found my cast and had my timing down on my hook set. Things were really goin’ good, comin’ up Tyler if you know what I mean. Thirteen big fish in two days would put me in my place.

My first cast lay out perfectly over the head of one of the biggest fish I have seen so far. He came up and ate my Flav spinner without hesitation, head as wide as a fist, and I struck him solidly in the jaw. Curved steel in an undesired place, the giant fish leapt straight up as if to check out what chump was trying to catch him this time and then took off upstream. A couple seconds and a hundred and ten feet later my line floated back to me limp as a noodle. Weeds, no flies. Three fish were still rising above me and I shrugged off my loss, happy to have fooled him in the first place. I tied on my last Flav and went to work on the next guy, a solid eighteen incher who ate the third drift I put over him. I felt two bumps and my line shot back above my head, snaked up and twisted from a badly tied knot. A little frustrated and impatient my next go to was a Harrop PMD pattern Rich Paini had suggested I try earlier in the week. There were more PMD’s on the water than Flavs, and although fish were eating both they hardly ever let a Flav pass by them uneaten, making it much more important to time up a rising fish with a PMD pattern. My third fish didn’t seem to want to eat regularly, many flies would pass him by before he would lazily return to the surface to gulp down another bug.

Cast after cast went unnoticed, although a couple were dragging slightly there was no reason for him to refuse them all. Finally while I was watching another fish feed upstream he decided it was time to eat my fly, and the second his nose broke the water I set the hook so fast it spooked us both. Pulled it right from his mouth.

So it went, ten more fish and two days later I was once again humbled by this river. Breaking the streak was a solid 16 incher that wanted my caddis so badly he left me no chance to mess it up. I fought him carefully but landed him quickly, and took my time to enjoy his beauty and reflect on the moment. I felt like a had broken a curse, or passed a test the river was giving me. I sometimes ask myself why I have chosen a life catching fish only to release them, but find that question easy to answer when I am in the water reviving a played trout. Only when taking into consideration the fact that we have intentionally made it as hard as possible to catch these fish does it make sense that we keep returning to the water. The thrill of the opportunity, however slim, to land a big trout on the fly keeps a fire lit within me to keep fishing. I’m sure if we caught every one it would be quite a bit less interesting.