The Hidden Run

 

As I approached the river and turned my car slowly down the winding access road, my sense of anxiety grew. Would there be anyone in my hidden secret run? Would anyone trespass on my last privacy on the water? I was relieved to see the opening through the bushes marking the way to the river unguarded by another car, and carefully nosed mine into the nearby scrub a hundred yards short of the access point. I retrieved the magnetic sign I had made and attached it to the side of my car. ‘Biohazard! Feces collection and vector study vehicle’ it read. That should keep people away! I hopped into my waders and ran for the opening before anyone could spot me, dropping toy rubber rattlesnakes and spiders as I went. I would rig up the rod later on the river. Less time for somebody to spot me by the road and find my hidden run: my only sanctuary.

Then I woke up from the dream….

 For that is the irony… The hidden run does not exist. At least as much as it is truly hidden. It is there for all to see and is not secret, it only lies obscured by the lack of ability in reading water and breaking with common convention. Later that day I pulled into the hidden run. There were people walking their dogs on the road, and anglers driving past to other destinations on the river. Even if they found my hidden run, it would still be hidden for they would not fish it.

Why not?

On our tributaries to the Great Lakes and especially my local river, fly anglers pursue anadromous fish such as Steelhead and large Brown Trout the same way they pursue the salmon, that is in general one of two methods is used. The first is sight-fishing: find a fish spawning and fish to it until you catch it, frighten it off, or foul-hook it. The second method is even more productive. Dams and waterfalls have a habit of slowing the progress of fish up the river to spawn. Often they pool up or congregate the fish for several hours and even days. In some instances, the obstacle is too difficult or high to jump over at all, and the fish reach an existential and real dead end right there. Here is a good spot for lots of good catching. Note I didn’t say good fishing, that might be something different if we are sport fishing and not gathering for subsistence. Both of these methods place many fish on the end of an angler’s line, so they are the most productive method, if not questionable in a sporting sense. In this case, what is productive and common convention does one other thing: it prevents our metaphorical ‘Hidden Run’ from ever being discovered by the madding crowds.

Why? Because there are no waterfalls or dams, and only the top head of the pool may have the occasional odd salmon struggling to spawn with its back half out of the water. Beyond those obvious signals and signs, the water is a confusing tumble of boulders, riffles, pools, slack water and fast shoots. In other words, it needs interpretation or reading, it takes analysis. It takes more effort to find fish in holding water than to just shoot deer in a petting zoo. Opening that page opens the world’s longest book. A book and a study so rich with promise and eye-opening that hidden runs are suddenly everywhere, and this is the second irony, the hidden run both does not exist unless it remains hidden by lack of wisdom, and it exists everywhere afterwards when that knowledge is gained and placed into practice.

Still reading?

Lets give a few examples. In spring when the water is high on our tributaries, anglers walk the banks and almost always ask each other the same question like a ritual: “Have you seen any fish?” Last year I had a nice conversation with another angler in a parking lot while rigging my gear. He went down to a shallow riffle, wandered around the water looking down and peering for twenty minutes or so, and then left. I started working a sweet piece of water that fishes best when the river is high and clear. Twenty casts later, I hooked a screamer of a steelhead in the boulders at the tail out. The other angler had been within 50 yards of this water, but instead of unlocking the possibilities, began putting into operation the common convention of looking for fish. Then this spring two anglers were walking down the river in this very spot, actually walking through the good water when one of them recognized me and asked if they were in good water. “Is this featureless water O.K. too?” they asked. I looked at the run with a hidden Rosetta-Stone of little clues as to boulders and pockets, scallops and spits and told them that indeed they were in good water. Then after they left ten minutes later, I proceeded down the run and briefly hooked a fish exactly where they were standing.

Trout too:

The same quagmire of convention and ease of path taken also happens on trout streams to all our detriment. Often trout anglers concentrate their efforts of two distinct things in the water. LUNKER structures or artificial undercut banks providing cover, and riffles at the head of pools. Smart anglers too, for the riffle is a hatch factory providing broken water and cover, and the LUNKER structure holds the majority of fish in a given pool in most situations. However there are a lot of other targets out there. Fishing to a rising fish with a dry in the true English style will tell us where the fish intercept the bugs, but what about when they don’t? Do we pass by the log sunk in the side of the tail-out for the obvious ten-incher rising in the riffle above, or… would it be a good time to explore that water with our fly? If we never depart from our common path, we may never find new avenues of discovery and knowledge, and yes… pleasure. But that might mean taking that strike-indicator and bead head nymph that has been glued to our line for the last ten years, and placing on a Sawyer style lightly weighted nymph and working it actively and with thought and planning. On my local trout stream I have meet some great anglers, some characters, and everything in-between. Once during a hatch of mixed Hendricksons and March Browns, I came across two guys who were fishing prince-nymphs downstream on a dead-drift. They were working down the stream as I was working up. I greeted them politely, they told me they had not hooked anything yet, and I asked them if they had any mayfly imitations around a size 12. Nope, they both always have used size 12 prince nymphs with a split-shot or two. They continued on their way shackled by their own convention. The hidden run that day was all around in the air, and had wings.

If we walk the same path everyday we see the same scenery, only differently in hues, never a different view entirely, and if we follow the hatchery truck, always fish the same 3 flies, or ask everyone else what they do so we can ‘bah’ like sheep in the same language, the hidden run will remain locked tight. We have to get away from the dams and waterfalls, and think beyond the riffles.

Being skunked is part of the process of learning the keys to opening those doors to the hidden run, as is stubbing one’s toe or getting lost.

So what is the lesson or the take-away? Perhaps it is simply that by taking the path that leads to the initial success of fish caught consistently, and not breaking with that tradition at some point in our progression, we have taken a short cut to a closed book and a dark forest. In order to find the path again, we may need to go fishing and not worry about the catching. Then the discoveries amongst the little riffles and eddies may lead us to the hidden runs and the spaces between the notes where the music is sweetest. The funny part is that it has been there all along, but how fragrant is the flower when finally uncovered. Asking about the secret spot may bring answers, but finding one’s own will bring fulfillment.
The door is right there, and there is no footpath…. Just look out for my rubber rattlesnakes!

The River Tells A Story

During a recent float down the upper Milwaukee River several of my friends and I marveled at the water in places we had never been since dams were removed. Stonefly hatches and crystal-clear water testified to the healing of the river. We found new runs through careful observation, marveled at flocks of buffleheads, wood ducks and a lone owl. Our raft glided silently over the renewed waters.
The river does tell a story.

The story is best read whilst seated by the side of the river, or standing a moment and contemplating. What is the height of the river? What is the temperature? Where would the fish be? What is the story of the day, Mr. River? The story changes every day. The plot meanders back and forth: it wallows, surges, and roars. Somewhere in there are the main characters, hidden in between the words. Did you just flip through the pages, or did you put on a metaphorical bathrobe and with a hot cup of tea, settle down in the couch corner for a good read? If you put on size 13 clown boots with studs and stomp on the pages, you will never understand the words.

We have to stop and slow down to listen. There are words in there, and bits of metaphorical poetry. Passages of Yeats or Frost. Melting snow trickles down from sun-hungry branches and plays a melody on the water. There is not just one story, but many: as many as there are turns in the river, or boulders on the bottom. We must observe with all our senses to absorb all the words. We must hear, see, smell, touch, and feel. We must close our eyes and think as well: observe and process. We must see between the currents, and observe the unobservable.

Then we can wet a line, and angle in harmony. After all, we should not be out to conquer a river, or a good poem, we should absorb it, and make it part of us. Part of our knowledge and love of life… fish hooked or not.

The world’s wettest book…

Obvious...

A wee bit complicated...

Gee... where to start?

Reading water. The novel.

Just kidding. No need to locate the reading glasses, unless they are polarized…

As I work with anglers of all skill levels, it seems that three on the water skills rise to the top in importance: Casting, Presentation, and reading water.

Of, these, reading water seems to be the most elusive. It seems that many anglers discover what kinds of water structure and flow hold fish by a method of hit and miss. This was my learning process as well, and a painful one full of lessons courtesy of the fish. The more time on the water spent pursuing a variety of fish with diverse tactics of presentation seems to lead to the greatest skill level and literacy in water.

The majority of fly-anglers are trout fishermen. Trout waters offer a variety of challenges, but in many cases, the river or stream requires no rosetta stone to help translate. Riffles are for the most part fairly simple things. Lunker structures are also obvious. Undercut banks may be slightly hidden, but an observant angler can spot them easily. Tailouts of pools or runs, which are great evening and morning feeding areas are also obvious. Deeper holding areas for nymphing are mostly self evident, and if one has a hatch, then there is no need to read water, other than gauging current speeds, directions, and variances that effect presentation.

The problems seem to occur when anglers are faced with a bewildering array of structures, water depth, current seams, spits or scallops, back eddies, bank formations, makeup of bottom, etc. Some seasoned trout anglers flounder in these situations.

So here is an interesting observation. Some of the most adept anglers at reading water that I have ever seen are those that not only fish upstream, but swing flies downstream, especially for smallmouth bass. It seems that the complete reversal of current and approach does something to open doors in the ability to pick apart the river, and optimize the presentation. Current seams and changes in stream flow and even tiny depth changes can hold fish where one would think illogical. The only way to discover this is with a fly in the water, and an intense curiosity.

Einstein famously defined insanity as doing the same thing the same way over and over and expecting a different result. Yet, for many anglers, this is the norm. Repetition is safe, but departing from this and experimentation can be challenging.

The other anchor dragging down angler’s ability to learn to read water is the constant necessity to ‘see fish.’ I run into this all the time. Seeing fish and then fishing to them is a good problem to have, but it does nothing for our ability to read the water. If we cannot see the fish, then we must ask ourselves, “Why and where would the fish be?” Two anglers were out the other day before our local river was flooded, and as I took a nature walk, I could not help myself from watching them for a few minutes. There seemed to be a lot of aimless casting going on. One guy was standing in a nice run and casting to nearly dry land. The other guy waded through a nice current seam below some boulders, and then started to fish in water that was flowing too fast for any self-respecting fish to want to hang out in. When I greeted them as they exited the water, they told me that “The water was too off-color, and they could not see any fish.”

The greatest assets an angler can possess are patience and curiosity. When you catch a fish, ask yourself why it was there. What is it about the bottom structure or current that changed? Was there overhead cover, rock, or wood nearby? Then when one has progressed to a point that without having to spot the fish, one can consistently catch them, start experimenting. This is where the real learning begins. Sometimes fish do the craziest things, and can be caught in places that are downright mystifying. In several situations, it took me several years to figure it out. Reading through old fishing logs, I had tiny epiphanies. Aha! Now it makes sense… until the next time, when the fish is somewhere else, and I have to start thinking all over again.