The Annual Guides Drift

Yesterday was our annual “Guides Drift”, where five guides and myself fish together, tell jokes that everyone has heard before, and razz each other about our casting abilities (or lack thereof, in my case). Since the pike drift was such a big hit last year, we decided to do it again, on one of our hottest days of the summer …

I like to think of the Guides Drift like that scene in the movie Caddyshack, where the hard working and abused caddies finally get a few hours to swim in the Bushwood swimming pool. If you can remember it, the scene starts out placidly enough, with the members of the country club enjoying the pool, when all hell breaks loose as the caddies take over. In a nutshell, that’s what the Annual Guides Drift is like, the only difference being that there’s no Bill Murray taking a bite out of a waterlogged Baby Ruth at the end.

All of the fishing guides are looking to cast a line of their own after watching clients do it for the last three months, and this trip is nearing the end of my fishing time as I get ready for the rigors of the grouse woods this fall. We’ll be starting our scouting soon …

The usual suspects were aboard for this trip: Chuck Degray and Bill Bernhardt of Lopstick Outfitters, and Jon Howe, Dave Poole, Mickey Cunliffe and myself from Tall Timber. Two drift boats, lots of water and sunscreen, and a never-ending supply of optimism were along for the ride yesterday. Northern Pike (esox lucius) were our quarry, as we plied the Connecticut River far to the south of Pittsburg.

Eight weight fly rods outfitted with large streamers on sinking lines were deployed by most of us, but Bill also threw top water poppers on a floating line as well. Pike fishing is the closest thing to hunting that I’ve done. They rarely show themselves and are difficult to pattern most days. They can be here or they can be there, as there’s really no telling what kind of habitat they might be in that day.

The action was, let me just say, sporadic … There were a few moments where we got in to a few fish, but for the most part it was slow, with a pike contact periodically. Certainly, it’s those occasional hook ups that refocus the entire boat’s attention on the task at hand. Idle hands are the devil’s work is the saying – well, the same could be applied to pike fishing. Yes, we expounded on a wide range of topics when the fishing was slow, which was quite often yesterday.

But, there were a few fish to be had and Mickey’s 38″ slab of toothy goodness was the trophy of the day. A really impressive fish, in the first hour of the drift no less. Alas, that would be the only fish he would contact yesterday, but at least it was a great one. Dave also chipped in with a few pike of his own throughout the day and Chuck landed a few esox as well, but none matched Mick’s.

Our boat saw a slow start until I hooked and landed a 22″ slapper to get us going a couple hours in. That’s when things got interesting as Bill started throwing his popper around. After quickly catching a respectable bass and small pickerel, we all watched in wonder as a good pike shot skyward at what it thought would be its next meal. It may have missed the popper, but that pike gave all of us heart palpitations. It was the closest thing to tarpon fishing that I’ve seen. Jon made good a few minutes later however, as he hooked and landed another esox.

The last couple hours of our drift brought a couple more pike and smallmouth bass landed and a few more lost, all in one area. It was briefly amazing for all of us in the boat, as every cast brought the expectation of a fish on the end of the line. That doesn’t happen very often when fly casting for pike.

While we seemed to have some luck in areas where there was a weed line along the edge of the river with a substantial drop off (pike are ambush predators, often hanging out on drop offs, waiting for the next meal to come along), that was not always the case. Many of these areas were simply not productive for some reason. Areas that looked particularly great to us, like deep corner pools (15′ – 20′ deep) brought nothing, which may have just meant that we weren’t getting our flies deep enough.

Another pike fishing experience with the guys, more data in the memory bank, and another Annual Guides Drift in the books …