A solitary fisherman shares his space on the flats as the sun rises over Chatham.
During the warmer months, I wake up every day before sunrise. One of my indulgences is to pour a thermos full of hot coffee, get into my barely running CJ5, and drive to a beach to see the sun come up. Not much inspires me more than the sun rising above the Atlantic Ocean, and when the light touches the water I am invigorated with infinite possibilities.
Just before the golden ball pops, there is a significant temperature drop, commonly noted as among fishermen and other hoot owls. It’s called False Dawn. If you’ve been fishing all night, odds are you’ve been warm and comfortable. Then you feel the chill roll in, like some foggy scene out of Macbeth. When the temperature drops, you know it’s approaching the magical time when the beautiful Cape Cod oranges, lavenders, magentas, and blues flood the horizon. It’s no small wonder that droves of artists summer here. The light is pure. Sometimes I even get out of my Jeep and go fishing.
One of my favorite places to see a sunrise is on Shore Road in Chatham. Chatham is at the elbow of the Cape, and the sun touches only the Atlantic Ocean before it hits land. It’s where the Chatham Bars Inn is located. The magnificent property harkens back to the turn-of-the-century when life was slower and more relaxed. The view of the sunrise from the Inn is among the best on the Cape.
People flock to Chatham from all points on the compass, and in the warm months, many are fishermen. Folks visit the quintessential seaside town to patronize the art galleries, unique retail stores, spas, and great restaurants. Anglers come for the white sand flats, long stretches of barrier beaches, and water so pristine you can see sand dollars while wading. Some fishermen love the shallow water sight fishing for striped bass and bluefish, while others jump aboard the Inn’s boat the Starfish for offshore angling adventures for tuna, mahi mahi, or swordfish. There is a time, a season, and a method that will suit the most discerning fishermen.
One June morning, I sat in my Jeep and drank my coffee. I came to fish, and scanned the water across from the Chatham Bars Inn. As usual, I was alone. The tide dropped and I studied the water pouring out of Pleasant Bay through Chatham Harbor for signs of life. Black-backed seagulls and terns cruised the shallows looking for herring, menhaden, silversides, or sand eels. Gulls haven’t earned my respect. They are indiscriminate at best, feasting as aggressively on washed-ashore horseshoe crabs as on bait. But the terns command my attention, and they seldom lead me astray. In the fall I pay the same level of respect to gannets and shearwaters.
As I planned my approach, I noticed a man on the CBI patio. He set down a coffee cup, walked across Shore Road, and headed toward the spot I had been scouting. Nothing motivates an angler more than seeing another fisherman heading toward his mother lode, so I ditched my coffee, grabbed my fly rod and kit, and snuck off through the bushes to beat him to the punch. He didn’t even see me.
Neptune was kind to me, and on my first cast I was into a good bass. Not to be outdone, Poseidon rewarded me with a better striper on my second cast. I looked up. There, about 75 yards away was the angler from the CBI porch watching me. I feared he would descend on me. Instead, he headed away toward Tern Island.
I figured since the tide was dropping, the fishing would be spotty up there. The grace and dignity of his action made me whistle to him. He turned around and looked, and I waved him over. No need to be paranoid any longer, I thought. He’s a fisherman who enjoys pre-dawn coffee, a sunrise on the beach, and striped bass.
“There are a ton of fish over here,” I said. “Take a cast.”
“Sure you don’t mind?”
“Not at all,” I said.
“I didn’t want to crowd you. There aren’t many people awake this time of morning, you know.”
“I appreciate that,” I said. “But there are lots of fish right here.”
We got to work, moving south as the tide dropped. His name was Nick and he was from Manhattan. He spends a week every year with his family at the Inn. “It’s perfect,” he said. “I can get up early while my family sleeps, catch some striped bass, and meet them for breakfast at a more civilized time. A few days ago we took the Inn’s Bartender to North Beach.”
“What were you angling for, free cocktails?”
He laughed. “The Bartender is a shallow-draft launch that ferries guests to the beach. I was able to fish some more while my wife read a book. The kids snorkeled nearby. They love the clear water and the white-sand flats. I trade them ice cream cones if they tell me when they spot a school of fish. It’s a win-win.”
“You might want to get a permit and dig some steamers at slack low tide,” I said. “Monomoy steamers are among the best on the Eastern seaboard. Because of the clean water and sand, their shells are white as snow. There’s seldom any grit.”
“We dug a peck yesterday,” Nick said. “The Inn prepared them for us as an appetizer. I just need to land a legal bass so they can grill that for dinner.”
The tide dropped quickly, and we moved down with the current. I didn’t realize how much we waded, but behind us was the Stage Harbor Lighthouse. The sun was up now, and several fly-fishing charter skiffs were out on the water. By Northeastern standards the boats they were using seemed out of place. Typically used in Florida or the Bahamas, these sleek boats have platforms on the stern so the captain can quietly pole them along the flats. They sneak up on the bass and blues just like they sneak up on tarpon or bonefish, oftentimes in less than a foot of water. Two anglers hooked up as quickly as Nick and I did.
“My wife and son are attending fly fishing school offered by Fishing the Cape. I participated a few years ago and the instructors are terrific. With luck we’ll all be out here tomorrow together. She’s not an early riser, though.”
“No worries there,” I said. “One of the reasons these flats are world-class is because it’s better to fish them with bright sun. It’s neat to cast to fish that you can see, and in the shallow water they fight like junkyard dogs.”
“I’ve never done that before,” he said. “Maybe we’ll try it later in the week.”
The sun was getting higher in the sky now, and I had to go. From the looks of it, Nick would have the beach to himself a while longer. Then he’d head back to the Inn for breakfast with his family. Just the way he liked it.
At High Lonesome Ranch, after a few busy days of gunning birds and catching trout, you’ll probably need a vacation from your vacation.
Dinner at the High Lonesome Ranch in Debeque, Colorado, is typically served following a brief wine-tasting. Lucky for me, I arrived at the ranch just when a selection of cabernets, red zinfandels and merlots were being poured, each produced and bottled from one of the 18 Grand Junction-area vineyards.
While savoring a vintage wine, I learned that two men from a group of Texans had opted to hunt some fields of wheat, sudan grass and milo, where they gunned a mixed bag of pheasants, chukars and Huns, along with scaled and Gambel’s quail. Midway through a milo field one of the ranch’s pointers locked up, and as the hunters moved into position, three pheasants and a single quail flushed at the same time. A pheasant/quail double doesn’t happen all that often.
Their companions, meanwhile, headed to more rugged terrain covered in scraggly sagebrush where they pursued native sage grouse. But before the dogs found any grouse, they pointed two coveys of chukars and two of the gunners doubled on the hard-flying birds.
The stories continued when we sat down for dinner prepared by Chef Jordan Asher. He was an up-and coming chef in Houston when he decided to scrap big city life for the opportunity to refine the ranch’s culinary program. Asher favors locally grown ingredients, many of which are harvested from the ranch’sVictoryGarden. From wood-fired, cowboy ribeyes with red chili steak butter, to oak-roasted pheasant breast with habanero-peach chutney, Asher’s presentations are extraordinary.
I had timed my visit in October so I could run a full day of both hunting and fishing. Hunting season at the ranch runs from September 1-March 31, and the fishing is good through the end of November. The western slope of Colorado doesn’t get nearly as much snow as the rest of the state and December through February is a perfect time if you don’t get enough bird hunting during your local season.
My second choice would have been September. Afternoon temperatures can be quite warm, so the guides run their hunts in the morning and take clients fishing in the afternoon. The cooler morning temperatures make for better scenting conditions and the dogs don’t overheat. After lunch, an afternoon breeze typically shakes hoppers from the hay and grass into the water. There are so many hoppers that after a strong gust of wind the fish will start rising aggressively.
The Texans had filled up both the Guest House and Pond House, so I stayed in a cabin at the upper end of Dry Fork Valley. On my drive up the mesa I could see the cabin tucked into the mountainside where it overlooked three big ponds. With a trout pond in my front yard and a bull elk bugling in back, falling asleep was becoming increasingly difficult.
My wake-up call came in the form of high-pitched yelps from a flock of Merriam’s turkeys, and it wasn’t long before the sun’s yellow and purple hues washed over the valley. From the living room I could see a few trout rising, and despite my lack of sleep, I was tempted to sneak in a few casts before heading down to breakfast.
I made a strong pot of coffee, then sat back to survey my digs. The ranch staff refers to the authentic log cabin as the Homestead House, which I assumed was in honor of the original settlers. I doubt they had a three-bed/three-bath cabin with a full kitchen, dining room and living room, but I’m sure they enjoyed the stellar views of the valley and the mountains embracing it.
I finished my coffee and headed down a graded dirt road through a series of smaller valleys. Scattered throughout the nearly 300-square-mile ranch are wild horses, elk, mule deer and untold numbers of gamebirds. A woman named Marty Felix is the Jane Goodall of wild mustangs that still survive in the Book Cliff mountains. Her search for the horses – buckskins, paints and duns – began in 1969, and she didn’t find them until 1973.
The normally ten-minute ride to the ranch headquarters took me nearly a half-hour, mostly because I kept stopping to gaze at either the breathtaking scenery or the wildlife. At one point I watched a pair of bald eagles riding the air currents above the mountaintops. Then, rounding a sharp curve I came upon several brightly colored pheasants busily pecking for gravel.
Finally, I pulled up in front of the second pioneer homestead, complete with a long porch, hitching post and tin roof. I wondered what Aunt Linda had in store for breakfast. The Louisiana native can whip up a Southern breakfast of biscuits and gravy just as easy as she can make French toast, blueberry pancakes, homemade muffins and pastries, all from scratch, of course. Top off the wonderful breakfast with a cup of High Lonesome’s special-blend coffee and you’ll be set until lunch.
If you love to shoot clays like I do, a quick warm-up is definitely in order before your hunt, and the 5-stand course at High Lonesome is possibly the prettiest I’ve seen. The clays ranged from high-incomers launched from the top of the ridge to crossing pairs that exploded from the sagebrush. It’s a great combination of technical and hunting shots, and odds are that once you’ve shot a round, you’ll want to do it again.
We continued on to the Quail and Pheasant Walk, which replicates a walk-up hunt. A report double that broke to my right made me want to get the dogs and head straight to the bird fields, but we still had to shoot the Flurry. This series of high overhead shots is launched from a hilltop trap. Between 20 and 60 clays per minute come off the hill, just like a driven pheasant hunt. By the time you’re done with the Flurry, you’ll be as sharp as you’re going to get.
After lunch I joined Brett Arnold of High Lonesome Ranch Kennels, who drove me to the Schoolhouse Cover, just a stone’s throw from the breakfast table. The field comes by its name honestly as it’s situated by the remains of an old school.
Brett began working a pair of pointers named Cool and Parker When a pointer gets a snootful of feathers and locks up, it’s always a pretty sight. When a second one backs, it’s picture perfect. The two gundogs did exactly that, time after time.
As we stepped in front of Cool, two chukars flushed. I swung on the first bird and dropped him with the snow-capped mountains as a backdrop. Brett released Cool and he fetched up the dead bird, then went on point with the chukar still in his mouth. Parker repositioned and backed, and as I walked forward a cock pheasant erupted and I took him going straight away. Cool dropped the chukar and fetched the ringneck. All was good with the world.
We hunted a wide variety of bird cover that day – grassy fields, oak and aspen stands, and creek bottoms. Some of the bottomlands were open, but much of our shooting was in tight cover. The fall colors were just starting to pop, and if you didn’t snap-shoot quickly, then you’d wind up cussin’.
After my hunt I went back to the cabin for a shower. There was a good brown rising under a willow tree overhanging the pond and I couldn’t resist throwing a Goddard Caddis his way. When he rose to the fly, I thought of a comment I’d read in the guest book. Sandy Moret, permit angler extraordinaire and owner of Florida Keys Outfitters in Islamorada, had written: “Over-fished and over-fed to perfection.”
At breakfast the next morning, I sat down with Buzz Cox, my fishing guide and manager of the K-T Ranch, and he suggested we try a few of the 18 ponds scattered throughout the ranch, each with a different feel, but all addictive. There were plenty of blow-downs, weedbeds and overhangs to challenge even the most experienced angler.
My favorite was an O-shaped pond cut in half by a dirt bank. In mornings and evenings trout would move out of the darker water and into the shallows adjacent to the bank. These fish, mostly rainbows but some browns, were big, and when they rolled I could see the sun flashing off their sides. For a moment I thought they were bonefish.
While we were rigging up, Buzz spotted a big rainbow cruising the bank. “I think that’s a two-footer,” he said. “That’s a nice fish,” I agreed. “Yeah, but look at the brown just underneath him!”
I could easily see the brown’s kipe, a good indication of an old fish. He had broad shoulders laced with bright
red spots that looked as big as silver dollars. It’s tough to guesstimate a fish’s size when it’s underwater, but this brown looked all of 28, maybe even 30 inches.
I tied on a small bead-head damselfly nymph, waited for the brown to get ahead of the rainbow, then dropped the fly about four feet ahead of him. But it was the rainbow who darted ahead, picked up the nymph and headed for a fallen pine. The water was so clear I could see his every move, which enabled me to keep him out of the branches. About the time he came to hand, the big brown started to feed.
On my third day I was scheduled to fish the White River, about an hour away in Meeker, where I’d be staying at the High Lonesome’s sister property, the K-T. Situated a few hundred yards from the river, the K-T is an 1880’s ranch house that can accommodate eight anglers. Some say fall is the best time to visit Meeker and to fish the White because dramatic temperature changes cause a thick mist to rise from the water. More than a century ago the Ute Indians called this misty stretch the “Smoking Earth River.”
Lots of seeps in the fields made for perfect haying and grazing, but it was too wet to get a truck through. Instead, Buzz and guide Ted Relihan pulled up in a 4-wheeler to zip me to the river. It would have been enough to start fishing the White, for there were rising trout in nearly every feeding lane. Instead, we violated the “never leave fish to find fish” rule and waded past them. We hiked through a cottonwood grove for about 20 minutes before arriving at a medium-sized spring creek, where big browns and rainbows were drifting in and out of the watercress. Trout in the spring creek were big and bold. I suppose they knew winter was approaching and they were rising all across the surface to feed. When the wind gusted, hoppers would drop into the river, drift downstream a bit, and the trout would rise to eat them. The water was so slow-moving the trout would create big wakes as they inhaled the insects.
With all eyes on one huge brown and the pressure on, I got lucky and floated a good-enough cast into range. The brown veered away when it landed, but quickly came back and hit the fly like a percussionist crashes a cymbal.
Hooking fish was easy on this spring creek, but landing them . . . well, that was a different matter. The brown made a snook-like beeline for the weeds. If he got in them, I’d probably have so much lettuce on my leader that either the hook would come out or I’d break him off. I pulled as hard as I dared on the 6-pound tippet and gradually steered him into deeper water. He thrashed wildly on the surface, then turned and ripped right at me. I stepped backward to keep the hook in his mouth, but then he darted toward the bank where I couldn’t see him.
Ted called out the next series of moves: “Rod to the left, less pressure, rod up, more pressure.” It was like driving while blind, but soon enough we got the 26-inch fish in the net.
I didn’t know how I could possibly upstage a fight that dramatic, so we returned to the main river. There, I worked the foam-lines along back-eddies fringing small pools. I drifted a Stimulator in the faster riffles, with the aspens along the edge and the mountains behind. Soon, maybe only a month from now, it would all be frozen and cold. The trout would still feed, but not aggressively.
For now, I’d savor the green hayfields and listen to the geese honking as they landed in the winter rye. I’d catch a few more fish and then get ready for another day of bird hunting. I’d probably need a vacation from my vacation, but getting over-fished and over-fed? Add hot upland hunting and you get perfection. Just as Sandy Moret said.
You use dropper rigs for trout all the time, so why not try multi-fly setups in salt water, as well? You may be surprised by what you catch.
Over the past decade or so, dropper rigs have become ubiquitous on trout streams all over the country. For that reason, it has always surprised me that saltwater fly rodders rarely cast more than one fly at a time. The number of anglers who fish droppers for stripers, bluefish, and squeateague is so small that the group is often referred to as a cult. Fellow fly fishermen beware. The cadre of saltwater dropper fisherman is growing, and these anglers have discovered what trout bums have known all along: You can catch more fish with multiple-fly rigs.
What’s the Point(s)?
Compared with a trout stream, the ocean is a dynamic environment. Its complexities include migratory fish species and their unique behaviors, changing tides, lunar phases, and fish movement. Add a dozen types of bait in the water at all times, and it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the problem of fly selection. Using a dropper rig will help you find which bait the fish want and then get on with the catching.
When you scan or seine the water for baitfish clues, you discover what is going on in the water for several feet around you. But it’s tough to tell what’s happening between you and where your fly lands, some 40 to 80 feet away. Sand eels, for instance, can be mixed with silversides, clam worms, shrimps, squids, menhaden, and herrings, among others. You can’t really trust your eyes, either. While you may think a pod of striped bass is feeding on the silversides you see spraying out of the water, the bass may be gorging on drifting shrimps, and the silversides may simply be moving out of harm’s way. If you throw a silverside pattern, an occasional aggressive bass or two may whack the fly, but your total catch numbers will be much lower than if you’d been casting a shrimp pattern.
The only way for you to find out what the fish really want is to get consistent strikes or hookups. Droppers improve your odds of putting the right pattern in front of a fish, and such a system allows you to run through a variety of patterns before the school splits. You gain an edge, as well as a deliberate style of fishing that quickly converts hunches into facts.
Even when you already know what kind of bait the fish are eating, droppers also answer the question of what patterns or styles of fly work best in a given situation. Every angler has experience with a “hot” fly, the specific pattern that outperforms any others—even those that imitate the same forage—on a given day. If you keep changing the flies on your dropper rig, you can run through size, silhouette, and color options faster, which helps you pinpoint what the fish want. Test out Flatwings and Deceiver-style flies, streamers and bucktails, or flies constructed of natural or synthetic materials. Vary topwater with subsurface patterns, attractors and imitators, or large flies with small. Let the fish decide.
Follows and short strikes are clues that you’ve just about got the right pattern. You’ve captured the fish’s attention enough to make it follow or nip, but something minor keeps the fish from committing to your fly. Your fly is a bit too something: too bright, too dark, too much flash, not enough flash, a bit too big or a tad too small. Stay within that fly group, but change slightly until you get the fish to eat.
If the fish ignore all the patterns, first change your approach. If they still refuse, change one or two flies, and resume fishing. Keep changing patterns until you find one the fish like. Sometimes, one fly consistently gets all the attention. In this instance, add more of that pattern to your rig.
Knot-to-Fly Rigging
There are two easy ways to rig droppers: knot-to-fly and fly-to-fly. In the knot-to-fly rig, each fly swings independent of the others, for each one is connected directly to the leader via the tag end of a blood knot. In the fly-to-fly rig, you’re attaching the flies directly to each other in a series. The method you use should be determined by the effect you want to achieve.
The knot-to-fly method allows you to simultaneously drift several flies, each of which imitates a different kind of bait. The largest and longest fly should be tied on as the last fly—also known as the point fly—on your leader rig. The smaller, less wind-resistant flies are spread throughout your leader and are known as droppers.
A large point fly adds balance and movement to your leader. It’ll imitate larger bait, such as herrings, alewives, or menhaden. The direct connection between your leader and the point fly is important; if the large fly attracts a big fish, you’ll have plenty of strength to put him on the beach. The droppers are attached to the tag ends of each knot in your leader and should mimic smaller bait, such as silversides, sand eels, clamworms, and shrimps.
There are two way to tie a knot-to-fly rig: using blood knots or five-turn surgeon’s knots. The blood knot forms a 90-degree angle between the leader and the fly, which keeps the fly from twisting around your leader during the cast. As you tie each leader knot, be sure to leave a 12-inch section of monofilament as a tag, and tie your fly to the tag with an improved clinch knot or a surgeon’s loop. Some anglers like to attach two flies to the same blood knot (one to each tag end), but this arrangement can cause tangles, so use a heavier and stiffer mono and a six-inch tag.
The five-turn surgeon’s knot has tag ends that are on a 45- degree angle to the leader. The surgeon’s is far easier to tie than the blood knot, particularly with heavier mono. While the standard surgeon’s knot calls for two turns, go to five for additional breaking strength. Attach your fly to the tag end that points toward the end of the leader, and you’ll get fewer break-offs. I like to use very stiff leader material—such as Maxima, Trilene XT, Stren Original, or Bass Pro’s Excel Trophy—because the stiffness maintains distance between the fly and the leader.
Fly-to-Fly Systems
A fly-to-fly rig can serve two purposes: You can easily create a school of baitfish, and you can employ a topwater-and-subsurface approach, in which you simultaneously fish a popper with a streamer (or several). Here, the topwater fly is the point fly, with the dropper tied directly to the eye of the point fly. This approach covers two different parts of the water column and creates a disturbance at the surface to attract fish, which often then eat the second food option. A fish that is attracted to the popper’s commotion may hit the droppers that look more natural.
To make a standard fly-to-fly rig, start with your favorite knot from your tippet to your fly. Since loop knots add more movement, a Surgeon’s loop or aDuncanloop (also known as a Uni- Knot) are good choices. For a fixed knot, nothing beats an improved clinch. Once your first fly is attached, cut about a 20- inch section of tippet material and tie an improved clinch knot to the bend of the hook. Tie on the next fly with either a loop or a fixed knot, and repeat. If you’re certain which fly is working, create a rig with all the same patterns. In a fly-to-fly rig, the point fly is typically the one that gets hit first. As other fish watch the thrashing of the hooked fish, they’ll hit the top fly, and then start to take the middle flies.
For the popper-and-streamer setup, attach the popper to the end of the leader with an improved clinch. Then, take a 12-inch section of 20-pound monofilament, and tie another improved clinch knot to the eye of the popper and attach a dropper. If you want to get really elaborate, you can add droppers to the tag ends of your leader knots, as well.
Casting and Fishing
Casting a multi-fly rig is a lot different from throwing a single fly. The same high line speed that forms a beautiful loop with a single fly will create a mare’s nest if your flies aren’t rigged perfectly. An easy way to avoid frequent tangles, and the accompanying frustration, is to use a more open, traditional cast. Relax your casting stroke, decrease your speed, and open up your loop. A long, medium-action rod works better than the fast-action sticks most saltwater anglers use. A line with a heavier front taper, such asRio’s Outbound, reduces the number of false casts you’ll need for long-distance casts.
Your fishing techniques should match the relaxed style of your casting stroke. Notice the way the current moves, and work with it. Cast up-and-across, add a mend or two as necessary, and swing your fly down to your target. Then strip the flies back in. It’s a lot like swinging streamers or wet flies for steelhead.
Oftentimes, when you’re fighting a fish, you’ll witness several others circling around their hooked compatriot. It seems as if they are curious, trying to see if the hooked fish is feasting on a meal—and they want some. Pause for a moment, and there’s a good chance one of the following fish will drift up and aggressively smash a dropper, regardless of pattern.
You can learn a lot about fish behavior while fishing droppers, particularly when you’re fishing in clear water. Most of the time, the first fish will rise and take the fly gently and deliberately. The fish will look at all flies and pick the one that is most appealing. Juvenile fish aren’t so deliberate: if one is hooked, others jump into line and will oftentimes take the remaining flies indiscriminately. Of course, deliberate takes are far more educational, for you can build on that information when you select additional patterns.
But sometimes you’ll see things that are just downright bizarre. One time, I was fighting a small bass that had taken a sand-eel dropper, when a decent bluefish whacked the point fly, just behind the schoolie. Suddenly, I wasn’t fighting just two fish, but two species at once. Another time, I hooked an 18-pound bass on the point fly and then a schoolie drifted up to try to take a dropper…but wound up foul-hooked instead. Both fights resembled two cats in a bag until the one fish broke off.
Next time you hit the salt, twist up a dropper rig. Fish two, three, or even five flies at a time and see what the fish have to say. These rigs are a great way to learn about feeding fish. Let’s say you find the perfect fly and put a half dozen fish in the boat. Now that you know what is working, try out different patterns or techniques. See if swimming the fly differently will get strikes, or see what a bigger fish will take. You can always go back to what’s working, but you can learn an incredible amount about your fishery by experimenting with different flies or techniques.
