geartalk

The Color Purple

The hot patterns in my fly box aren’t new patterns, but rather purple variations of the old ones: purple Prince nymphs, purple San Juan Worms, purple Woolly Buggers, even purple Parachute Adamses.

No matter how hard you look, you won’t find an insect that looks even remotely like a purple Prince nymph. But I know many guides use it when the chips are down. Other anglers gravitate to purple in tough conditions as well, from offshore captains trolling purple skirts for tuna, to salmon guides in Alaska who prefer blue or purple beads, to bass pros who like purple-shaded soft plastics.

One theory is that purple catches fishes’ eyes better than other shades. Among trout, for example, we know, according to Dr. Robert Behnke, author of Trout and Salmon in North America, that the cones in the retinas of trout eyes are more receptive to shades on the blue side of the spectrum. Behnke cautions, however, that trout “exhibit different feeding patterns at different times; during some periods, imitation of the food item of the moment is required.” In other words, when they’re on a hatch, matching size and color is key, but when they are just opportunity feeding, gaudy is better.

Recognize when fish are on a specific bite or not. When they are, match it, but when they are not—when you’re just trying to get their attention—consider going purple.

Stalking Fish: Live With Poor Casts

You see a trout rising in a riffle with consistent, steady gulps. You wade into position for a cast, make the perfect false cast, let fly, and—pow!—a gust of wind tosses that dry fly two feet left of what you thought would be the perfect shot, just outside the fish’s feeding lane. What do you do? If you're like most people, you want to give it another shot. You quickly load up and try again. Bad call.

“Live with it,” said Missouri River guide Pete Cardinal, after that scene played out for us one afternoon. “If you make a bad cast, let your fly float out of that trout’s range of vision, then go again, but not before.” If you miss, even by a little bit, there’s nothing wrong with letting the fly slide behind a trout before casting again. And more importantly, there’s everything wrong with the whirling, splashing, slurping racket of a frustrated caster ripping a slightly off-target fly from the periphery of a feeding fish.

It takes practice and discipline, believe me. You make a mistake, and you want to try again. That’s human nature. But there are no do-overs in trout fishing. The sooner you learn to accept what happened, good or bad, and adapt your thinking to what might happen next, that's when you become a better angler. Watch that fish the next time. Rip it away, and the show’s over. Let it ride, and you're still in business.

How to Keep Your Fishing Boat Quiet

There are many considerations when getting into a boat. These obviously include safety, comfort and logistics. This list goes on and on, but the one thing anglers need to think about is noise.

It's a much bigger problem in hard boats versus rafts, but these quick tips can work for a multitude of different boat styles and are great starting points to generate ideas on how to keep your boat quiet while fishing.

1. Use a felt doughnut in between your rubber oar-stop and the oar tower to minimize squeaking. It really works. Yes, I also have my oar towers on ball bearings, but that’s another story altogether…

2. If you have trays seat-side where you lay fly boxes, tools or anything else, simply line these areas with marine felt, boat carpet, or Hydrafelt (Google any of these). SeaDek is an even better product that is specifically made for this kind of thing on boats and it’s a phenomenal product.

3. Are your floors loud? Cut up some commercial kitchen mats and viola, problem solved. Again, using Seadek here is a classier and better option, but could be more expensive depending on size. Plus, you can take rubber mats out whenever you want.

4. “Pro-tip” your oar blades with Sawyer’s Dynel/kevlar tip protector. Not only do they make less noise when hitting rocks, they make your oars last infinitely longer.

5. If possible in summer, simply go barefoot. It’s not always the safest thing to do, but if you’re in a relatively calm piece of water it drastically reduces the amount of noise on the boat.

6. Does your boat consistently scrape the bottom in very shallow water? Consider having one angler get out and walk with the boat when casting to feeding fish. This lightens the load. Said person can also double as a human anchor.

7. If you’re getting “hull slap” on the front of your bow from waves smacking what is essentially a flat bottomed boat, cant the bow a degree or two to the port or starboard and it should help some.

8. If you use a jon boat frequently where “hull slap” is a major problem, consider this ingenious idea called “The Silencer” I found over at Coastal Angler. It seems to be an amazing DIY fix.

Why You Always Should Carry a Spare Oar

A few weeks ago my good friends, who shall remain faceless and nameless, took a little trip to float a river just north of the Colorado border in Wyoming. Before the trip I was told they talked about the fact that they had somehow misplaced the spare oar for the single boat on this adventure from a previous trip. They chatted about getting another, but in the end nothing was done about it, as it was decided that this was a fairly mellow river where not much could go wrong.

Somewhere through the middle of said float the bow and stern angler were switching rods in a bit of fast water and just at that moment the rower somehow popped the oar out. As it slid under the boat they all debated (apparently for too long) about jumping in and grabbing the oar, or if it would float back to them. The short story: as the oar drifted further and further away, the composite shaft finally filled with water and sank quite a distance upstream. They never saw it again. The real bummer was they had oar tethers in the boat too, but since there was no whitewater, they decided they weren’t necessary. Oops…

Without a spare they tried to fashion a stick that would work as an oar. It didn’t. They ultimately ended up missing their intended take out because of the missing oar, strong winds and a serious current. When they finally made their way to shore they were quite a distance from the take out and decided the smartest thing to do was leave the boat and hike out.

Around six miles later they finally made it to their car. The next day they borrowed two oars, which in total made three (now you’re using your heads, boys), hiked back to the boat and floated out to a take out below.

What a waste of a day.

Moral of the story? Always, always carry a spare oar on your boat no matter how mundane the water seems.

In addition, I would say always carry oar straps, just in case. As well a spare oar tower and oarlock in your repair kit. Many people think that’s overkill and just for serious whitewater, but I’ve personally seen an oarlock’s pin sheared, and the whole oar, counter balance, plus the oarlock sink in what was incredibly slow moving water. The rower simply pinned the blade in between two rocks while the boat was perpendicular to the current. Boom, the day was over.

Always think about boat safety and what could go wrong before, during and after your lazy, summer float.