Secret spots.

One of the guys in the small group of fly fishers sitting a couple of hundred yards upstream,  has taken his binoculars out and are staring straight at me, and its like I could hear him say " hey... what's that guy doing, wading out now when there is no activity". And he has sort of right about that, but.. I'm about to sneak out on one of my "secret" spots, and I was hoping no one would discover me.

Its one of those periods in the late summer when there is "almost" no hatch going on. You can see fly fishers sit alone or in small groups along the river waiting for some kind of hatch to start, drinking coffee and eventually beer, as frustration takes over.
And.. "I'm been there, done that" and still do, but after some hours drinking coffee and wondering why there is no hatch, its time to check out some of those secret spots.
Secret spots which are all located under a tree along the riverbank on quite shallow water, places I've found after I wandered restlessly along the river looking for rising fish. This particular place is one of the really nice spots, there is always a fish under the tree. What's interesting about this place is that this is often the only place the fish are rising, although the river around are holding a lot of fish. The hatch are quite local since it just appear a couple of yards above the fish. And since you cant see the fish rise before you are quite close, not many people have discovered it....yet.

This day the fish were really going, rising every fifteen seconds. And it locked like the fish were feeding on something small that were popping up just a couple of yards above the fish. It was a perfect moment to try out the 7' 4wt taper fresh out from the workshop, accompanied with the the old Pflueger Medalist charged with silk line and silk leader from mr Zandri in Italy, perfect for short distance casting under the trees.                                                                                                

And I realized after a while that the fish were feeding on small midge pupa's laying deep in the surface of the water. And after the second cast with the #20 midge pupa, there was a brown and yellow head sticking up above the surface right where the midge pupa should have been. After a few minutes there was a lovely trout around 3 pound laying in the landing net. I turned around checking if the guys at the bench were still there, but no one were there, they probably left long before the fish went for the midge pupa.

                                       

A classic ending.

The water level was low on the mountain river, as it tends to be when the season is nearing its end. It had not rained for a long time and the weather was pleasantly warm to be in the middle of September. But one good thing came as a result of the low water level, and it was in the form of the appearing of the perfect riffle. Not too deep and with sufficient current speed to move the line rapidly downstream.

And with the mountains in fall colors as a background, and with Pritt and Mr Nemes in my thoughts, I started to cast the silk fly line cross over and slightly upstream, mending so the Partridge and Orange spider was free drifting with no drag.

My dreaming of north country flies and the classic streams of Yorkshire was brutally interrupted by a fish attacking the Partridge and Orange like a maniac, and after some exiting minutes my first "real" brownie on a spider was a reality. After such an experience, I was wondering if this was just a coincidence. The result after a couple of hours fishing with the spider, were two nice trout and three fish that missed the spider.
After this experience I must say I'm convinced about the effectiveness of the north country spider, and one thing that surprised my a little was how hard the fish took the spider.

All you need is an Adams.

Remember reading somewhere that the only fly you need, is an Adams in different sizes,  I think it was in one of mr Gierach's great books. Anyway, once in a while it's nice to just forget to always try to match the hatch. Instead just grab one of your rods from the rack, a box of classic's and hit the stream.

Once at the stream just enjoy the surroundings, have a sip of coffee while you are rigging your bamboo rod. And take one of the classics from the "Catskill box" like the famous Adams pattern and just have another great relaxing  day at the stream.

Small diamonds in the backcountry.

Small streams and creek's with a healthy population of brook trout, hidden away somewhere deep in the backcountry. Well, it's been kind of a obsession for me to try to find a stream like that. Inspired by BrkTrt and Mark's blog sites, were they are writing with passion about their streams and brookie's, I just had to find my own little secret stream.

And since the brook trout do not naturally belong here in Norway there are not many streams containing brook trout. After years of introduction in Norwegian rivers and lakes the brook trout along with rainbow trout have been banned since the 90's. The reason for this is the fear of foreign diseases, and that they should inter fear with the natural brown trout.

Luckily there are still some "secret" small streams which have a population of brook trout. The Fish is not large, but equipped with a light bamboo rod and a Adams size 16, the fish went crazy. I was actually a bit surprised that there were brook trout almost everywhere I "dropped" the fly. And they were obviously hungry, they threw themselves at the fly almost every time I put the fly on the water. 
I must say the day turned out just the way I was hoping for, drinking coffee next to a stream full of small "diamonds" in the backcoutry. 

Beautiful Grouse skin and some pattern's from it.

After I started tying these old spiders, a new world of materials appeared, thin silk threads and gorgeous skins from various game birds. My latest supplements for tying these flies is a lovely Grouse skin that came in the mail a few days ago.

Soft hackle feathers that contain a vast range of barred ginger and brown hackles, perfect for tying some of the famous and not so  famous flies from the past containing Grouse feathers. When you read the old and new books about soft hackle flies, there can be some slightly different variations in how to dress them. But if you stick to the book "North Country Flies" written by T.E. Pritt and  Sylvester Nemes book "Two Centuries of Soft-Hackled Flies"  there are plenty of original patterns to choose from.  

Light dressed, short thin body with silk and maybe dubbed with soft fur. The hackle, two turns at the most....sure looks like a spider when you see it from the front. 

         

  

The August Brown.    

Body: Light brown silk, dubbed sparingly with hare's face, ribbed with yellow silk,  dressed hacklewise with grouse's feather.  

The Grouse Spider.

Dressed with a mottled feather from the grouse, and body of orange silk.  

                                                                                 

Keeping the tradition alive.

 "first there is the spare body, dressed with tying silk only, with or without wire ribbing, or lightly dubbed with soft fur.....then a small and lightly dressed soft hackle, two turns at the outside....."    
                           G.E.M. Skues

I must admit that I have developed a great enthusiasm for these flies .... called North Country Spiders. The fly box with spiders has got its own special pocket in my fly fishing vest next to the pocket with the box containing comparaduns and parachute flies. These North Country flies' simplicity has probably led many modern fly tiers and fly fishermen to ignore them in favour of more complex patterns that look more like the real thing - seen by human eyes. The long soft hackle representing both wings and legs on an insect, the sparse dressed body, not to mention the historical aspect of these flies with a Background of several hundred years was very fascinating to me.

So since I would like to tie these flies as close the original pattern as possible, the hunt for the right materials could begin. The tread used in many of this flies was Pearsall's silk, the same I use in winding the guides on my bamboo flyrods. The problem was the different kinds of game skins, from birds such as..... Snipe, Waterhen, Grouse and Magpie among others, stuff that my local fly tying shops did not have....luckily there's something called internet, so after some checking around I found Steve at Cookshill Flytying  who sold some lovely game skins from the birds I was looking for. 
      

And with most of the materials in hand, I could continue my adventure with the North Country Spiders, reading old books, have a sip of whiskey while I tie spiders and plan how to fish that perfect riffle I know of.

Some new ferrule plugs and a glimpse of the magical powerfibers.

When I see pictures of the rods to the old masters, there is one thing that always impresses me and that's their simple, yet elegant ferrule plugs. So when you cut the finished glued butt section to get the right length, there is always some shorter parts of bamboo left, perfect for making Bamboo ferrule plugs.

They are quite easy to make, and they protect the inside of the female ferrule when not in use. 

Another thing is that you get a nice view of the magical power fibers inside of the bamboo flyrod.......pure eye candy.