In Search of Small Fish - Mike Rhinehart

[Ysabel Kid]

In Search of Small Fish
By Mike Rhinehart · January 30, 2024
https://patriotpost.us/articles/103958- ... 2024-01-30

Champagne wine was invented in the northernmost region of France by the Champenois, though Dom Perignon is widely credited as the gentleman who perfected the production of the sparkling wine best known for New Year’s Eve and wedding toasts.

As a native of the South who is well acquainted with all manner of genuine pit BBQ, one of the great revelations passed to me by a true culinary genius was the fact that champagne is a perfect pairing with hickory smoked BBQ. So l then gained a new reason to thank Dom and the French for introducing us to this delightful beverage.

The magnum bottle, essentially two standard bottles in one, is said to have a better wine to oxidation ratio and thus produce a more delicate, slower-aging, flavorful beverage.

As a lifelong fan of high-performance automobiles and motorcycles, I remember when American racing driver Dan Gurney surprisingly took Ford to victory at Le Mans in 1967. At the victory podium, he shook up a magnum of champagne as he was awarded his trophy and sprayed it from the podium.

He later observed: “What I did with the champagne was totally spontaneous. I had no idea it would start a tradition. I was beyond caring and just got caught up in the moment.”

So long live the magnum. Bigger is better, right?

It depends.

Another true passion of mine is fly fishing, which has taken me around the country in search of productive waters. Generally, when campfire talk with likeminded anglers reaches the five-minute mark, stories and comparisons of the largest and toughest fish ever caught will flow as freely as the rivers we just fished.

It was the blue marlin that author Ernest Hemingway featured in his classic novella, The Old Man and the Sea. The fisherman in this story battles a blue marlin, a scene inspired by Hemingway’s own marlin fishing adventures while he was a resident of Key West, Florida.

So the last campfire competition in which I was a participant was “won” by the gentleman who claimed to have boated a 700-pound blue marlin while on a charter that originated out of Key West. He regaled us with the tale of how the fight lasted for hours and the captain had to nearly back the boat to Cuba just to land the trophy.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner. Right?

That depends on mindset and perception. Are we preoccupied through culture that bigger is better? And does that very mindset increase or decrease our enjoyment of any given pursuit and indeed life itself?

Two of my most memorable fishing trips took place in Southeast Tennessee and involved catching the smallest fish I have ever caught. In both instances, the locations were spontaneous, driven by heavy summer rainstorms that produced high and muddy water in our chosen locations. So as not to be denied our day of fishing, my companion and I searched for alternatives.

We picked the location on a topographical map. Nothing more than a tributary of our home river, it was picked simply because of its high elevation. Our theory was that the rain had stopped an hour ago, so due to gravity, that tributary should be running clear.

And clear it was. As always, the native brook trout were spooky and highly suspicious of anything that didn’t look exactly like their typical prey. It took considerable time and many fly changes to finally discover the fish would take a fly that mimicked a black ant or beetle. Each of the three brook trout caught would fit in the palm of your hand, but the difficulty in catching them made these little guys trophy fish.

As my friend Mark Alexander has observed regarding the nature of earnest pursuits, “The thrill is not the kill, it’s the hunt.”

Our second “small fish trip” also took place after heavy rains muddied our favorite trout stream. In this case, without the time to bushwhack high into the mountains, we simply chose to put our float tubes in on a small creek that paralleled a county backroad. The creek emptied into a lake in the area so we didn’t expect it to hold trout.

There were indeed no trout, but that tiny creek held ravenous panfish that didn’t care what fly you presented. Each of our first casts caught fish, as did most subsequent casts.

We floated with the current for a half hour until the rain began again in earnest. We caught scores of small panfish in that time, and when we got back to the truck we were laughing like two adolescent schoolboys who had just gotten away clean with a big prank.

My turn at the campfire came after the 700-pound blue marlin story. So I followed with: “Toughest fish I ever caught? A 10 ounce brook trout…”

I don’t think anyone cared much for my “big story.” But those tiny brook trout were perfect, rare, and beautiful — and a reminder to be thankful for what we have and not constantly be obsessed with the “bigger is better” mindset.

[GunnyMack]

The Brooke is my favorite of the char family, not a true trout but happily lumped into the family. As you say, the wild/native brookies are not only beautiful but tough as nails to survive.
Our rivers here hold less of them than when I was a kid but now the state F&G is trying to jump start the saving/ breeding populations by no longer stocking brookies.

Toughest I have fought were 150-200lbs tarpon. After 2 days of catching them it dawned on me to tighten up the drag to straighten the hook cuz my arms couldn't take another 20-30 minute fight!

[MingoKid]

I enjoy Tenkara fishing. Fly fishing with a rod, level line, and fly. Most enjoyable.( Now I'm beginning to euro nymph with a 10.5 foot euro nymphing rod. ) Creek chubs and minnows are a blast! Bluegills and Smallmouth bass are trophies. MK

[Old Savage]

You need a champagne saber

[Ray]

Back to top.....

I concur with the simple pleasures of enjoying small streams and small fishes. No trouts here but the minnow species such as chubs and stonerollers are quite the sport with very small flies. Then there are the various sunfishes & bass.

My creek wading activities this spring have been hampered by a diabetic foot that I almost let get away from me as they say.. A regimen of antibiotics & steroidal topical ointments has rendered it somewhat under control.

The small stream in our neighbourhood has a few areas open enough for traditional fly casting but much of it is overgrown to be essentially a gloomy tunnel through a privet & kudzu jungle. In these confined conditions I use tenkara type poles and just pitch flies underhand and slingshot/catapult them with the springiness of the pole.

In the longer runs/pools where I need a bit more casting distance than the pole allows I throw flies from ice fishing spinning combos with casting bubbles or weighted bobbers. Any small bead-headed nymph usually proves adequate.

IMG_20260609_160523.jpg

[geobru]

I also love fly fishing.

The most challenging fish was a 23" bull trout on a 2 weight fly rod in a small creek in the Cascades. I was totally under gunned with that small rod.

Biggest was a 20 pound steelhead on the Cowlitz River on a 9 weight rod.

One of the most memorable was in a lake in the Cascades that was full of 5-6" cutthroat trout. It was a cool, cloudy blustery day with a wind that was steady at 10-15 mph with higher gusts, making casting a challenge. I found a point that stuck out into the lake, and by wading out into the shallows, I had a 270 degree casting radius. I needed that because the wind changed direction every couple of minutes. From that point, I could cast in three directions and turn with my back to the wind and cast and make a decent cast. I was dry fly fishing with a 2 weight rod, floating line, and a coachman bucktail as a lure. If I could get the fly dried out enough in the false casts to float, within 15 seconds a fish would take the fly. I remember giggling like a school boy waiting for the strike. I had to quit after a couple of hours so my kids and I could bushwhack back to the other lake where we had our packs and camp set up. Great memories!

[piller]

One of these days, I need to catch a fish on my Dad's old tubular steel Tru Temper fly rod which his sister Judy gave him as a High School Graduation gift.

[Griff]

I truly detest fishing. My Dad view hunting as a chore that he was given as a kid, and punished if his .22 shell didn't yield at least one squirrel to supplement the garden victals. But, FISHING... truly a pastime of leisure & relaxation. Living in Long Beach, CA, I think I was 7 when he bought his first boat, a 12' aluminum open runabout. His woodworking skills went into decking the bow, adding wood tops to the gunnels, vanished and kept clean and in immaculate condition. A bent plastic windshield and forward controls greatly improved the trip from boat ramp to the breakwater.

handmade-deck1959-dad&Sharen.JPG

As the first of many boats, he pursued his fishing pastime, near daily. He worked for the USPS as a sorter, on his favored shift, 1500-2300, with Monday's & Tuesday's as his prefered "weekend". So, in good weather, 6 days a week would find him at the launch ramp, launching into the Long Beach Harbor, to spend 4-5 hours in pursuit of his "game": the bottom-dwelling Halibut. Probably the least fighting fish in the aquatic kingdom. Sunday mornings were devoted to yardwork, and tending the garden. Potatoes, Corn, peas, green beans, carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and a squash or two. Every other year he'd have sweet potatoes instead of the squash. Every Saturday, and during the summer, the other 5 days a week, I found myself accompanying my Dad in pursuit of Halibut. Under 12, I didn't require a license, nor did there seem to be a size minimum or a limit for one's caught by kids. Dad's string was always tied off on the starboard side, and mine on the port. Somehow, my string was always fuller. Mind ya, I never minded the "catching" of fish... just thought the "fishing" was boring. There is an advantage to fishing for Halibut... since they aren't aggressive when hooked, you could just hang your rod in a holder and watch for the tell-tale dip in the tip. This was long before gameboys and the like... and youthful energy must find an outlet, I could probably lecture for an hour on just how much noise the hull of an aluminum boat makes, as I heard endless hours of that diatribe. So exercise, calisthenics etc. were verboten. Heck, even talking except the lectures about how much noise I made was forbidden. But, Mom to the rescue, she was the one who suggested I take my homework to do, and when that was done, read a BOOK!... OH... the adventures found in the public or school library. And where my Dad found his adult pastime of fishing to be relaxing and worthy of pursuit, I found, long before the .gov ever said it... Reading is Fun! I'm never without 8-10 books, and meals are the part of the day set aside for pursuing that relaxation. But, in all fairness to Dad, fish of any stripe is very high on my list of favorite proteins.

[jeepnik]

Griff, which post office? My dad worked the Pedro office at the same time.

[Griff]

Griff, which post office? My dad worked the Pedro office at the same time.

Hw started out at the main Long Beach in '54 and then moved to a new processing center, but I can't remember where... maybe Wilmington?

[wolfdog]

Not my small fish but my story. My Buddy Wayne and myself were cast netting mullet in old canals on Merrit Island Florida when we heard someone laughing hysterically nearby. We went over to check it out. Tide was out and a school of juvenile tarpon were stuck in a small pool. Guy was fly fishing and every time his fly hit the water one of them would hit it hard. He was having the time of his life. We watched until he got tired . It was his first time fly fishing and probably the best time he would ever have fishing.