Ice, Ice Baby

The Byrds’ song Turn Turn Turn indicates that to everything there is a season.

A time to cast…A time to retrieve…
A time for runs…A time to reel…
A time to catch…A time to release…
And a time to every game fish under Heaven.

In Utah the “changing of the seasons” is something that happens from one minute to the next. Early last week temperatures were in the 60s, which gave way to sustained winds of 60-80 MPH mid-week. The gale heaved great ice sheets off Otter Creek Reservoir, causing them to hammer into the shorelines like a microcosm of plate tectonics.

Friday brought a big snowstorm, and portions of our drive down to Otter Creek were on unplowed snowpack. When we arrived Saturday about 11:00 AM, the air temperature was 22° F and ice was clogging our rod guides. As the storm broke, blue sky began peeking through the clouds.

In between chipping ice off our rods and blowing on our blue fingers, we caught what we had come for: The rainbows of not-quite-Spring.

Occasionally Otter will yield up a steelhead-like fish from the deep. Cody landed a brute in the early going that turned out to be among the nicest fish of the trip.

After 6 hours of remaining half submerged in 37° water and losing all sensation below the duodenum, we sought refuge at the Butch Cassidy’s Hideout in Circleville. Oh what a brownie sundae they weave when first you practice nubbins to freeze.

All that is necessary for the triumph of anorexia is for good men to eat nothing.
--Me

For the rest of the story, make sure to check out JayMorr’s blog. He doubled over his 5-weight on some girthy ‘bows and provided great stories and company on the trip. Cheers mate!

Thanks for circling back around!

Some Dude's Fly Rod

In Robert Frost’s poem The Wood Pile he describes how lifeless logs attempt to warm a frozen swamp as best they can with “the slow, smokeless burning of decay.” This phrase aptly describes a stillwater flyfisherman in the icy clutches of Utah’s winter, exerting the full force of one’s will power in the hope that it will somehow influence the hard water to retreat.

This year it must have worked, because Piute Reservoir began the ice-off process during the third week of February and was completely ice-free by the 25th. It was my hope that nearby Otter Creek Reservoir was also sporting some soft water because it lies at the same elevation some 15 miles away and is among my favorite spring fisheries. Either way, it was time to put fly to water.

Otter turned out to be locked up tighter than a dog that has gotten into the cheese curd with 12” of ice and solid edges! The lake was full of unrealized potential, just like this rustic Chevy across the street at the RV Park.

The town of Circleville is home to the Butch Cassidy’s Hideout Motel & Café. There are many who live in ignorance of the Circleville Classic Breakfast which is offered there for under $8. The meal stars a bone-in ham steak so voluminous that its half life in the digestive tract approaches that of Uranium 235 (703,800,000 years).

Piute is not a lint-flicker’s Mecca, having very little structure to concentrate trout populations. Fish tend to be sparsely distributed and the best tactic is to plane out across the lake in a herculean effort on the oars, stopping every several hundred yards to flail a cast in all directions. Still, it was FEBRUARY and there was open water. It was time to net the first soft water salmonids of the year.

In the end fishing was slow, and we netted 37 trout between the two of us in a full twelve hours on the water. The fish seemed to prefer leech patterns in red and black as a general rule, although a frontrunner for the biggest rainbow of the trip fell to a drifted chrionomid.

Days without a fishing incident: 0

Abel Super 12 Fly Reel

This is a quick look at the Abel Super 12 big game fly reel, designed primarily for large salt water species. The reel itself has the fit and finish of a precision instrument, and Abel does an extremely good job -- possibly the best in the industry -- with anodized finishes. Shown here is my "slate gray" version, and the polish and finish work is superb.

Take note of the small end cap with a flathead screw notch in the lower left-hand corner of the photo, as it comes into play during removal of the spool.

As is traditional with Abel's fly reels, the Super 12 utilizes a cork drag system. This is the most durable, long-lasting, heavy-duty, disc brake in the industry and a similar design is used by Tibor. Drags of this type can withstand sustained friction without overheating and with proper care they will also last a lifetime.

Note the double pawl system that creates the reel's distinctive sound. Each pawl uses a pair of springs for tension. Inverting them is also how the reel is converted from left-hand to right-hand retrieve.

One of the downsides of this particular design, which uses a draw arm to tension the spool against the cork drag, is that takedown is more problematic than many competing products. The first step is to remove the end cap previously mentioned with a flat-head screw driver or penny. It is a small part and care must be taken not to lose it. Once removed, the drag knob can then be unscrewed which frees the draw arm. Abel seems to have remedied this with the newly launched quick change line of reels. For applications which rarely require a spool change, however, the Super 12 remains a top contender and is one of the reasons why more world records have been caught using Abel reels than any other manufacturer.

Maintenance consists of adding a drop of neatsfoot oil to the cork once in a while, as well as a small amount of grease to key friction points. As an open-faced and unsealed disc drag, some care should be taken to avoid getting salt or grit accumulation into the drag face.

Overall the Super 12 is the benchmark for performance in the 11/12/13 weight field. It's an incredible piece of craftsmanship and I'm looking forward to doing some field testing later this year.