Make a sacrifice to “The Pipe”

This unnamed river had a large trout hatchery operation that utilized the river in many ways. One of the more important ways in which it utilized the river was that it would pump water and hatchery waste into a pipe that would flow downhill and into the river. It also happens to be the case that the section of river that the waste was being dumped into was a catch and release only section of the river. Now, I am sure that if you are reading this you are likely quick on the pick-up here, but this situation allows one to really get an education on “matching the hatch.” Something funny that I am not sure if it is actually true or if it is something that I have been saying for so long that I now believe it to be true, is the fact that the hatchery feeds the trout Purina Trout Chow.

Hell, I don’t know for sure. I want to say that at some point I did some research and actually found commercial Purina Trout Chow, but again that is something that I might just tell someone, because you never want the truth to get in the way of a good story. Regardless, the hatchery workers did feed the fish some sort of pellet. This pellet was tan and had a rectangular shape to it. I’d say about a size 16. When the hatchery would clean the runs, some of the leftover food was cleaned out as well. This would lead to generous amounts of waste and food dumping into the river in this catch and release section I mentioned earlier. As you might guess, this would cause absolute chaos in the river. I would speculate that there have been several occasions that I was standing right next to the pipe when this took place and over 10,000 trout would be rising and eating the pellets at one time. So, we obviously need to take the conditions on the river into account and tie… “The Trout Chow Fly”

As far as easy to tie is concerned, there isn’t much to attaching a small rectangle of foam onto a hook, but I’m sure someone could make it complicated. So, I tied many dozens of this fly and got my complete fill of the endeavor. It started to get fun again when I would pick a specific fish to catch, and when I discovered that the fly would also work well down stream. Sometimes the fly wouldn’t work at all when they weren’t dumping, but then, I discovered, that if you went down to 7x you could get them to eat. I’m not sure how many people I’ve taken to that pipe just to teach them how to catch a fish with a fly rod, but it’s a lot. “Meet me at the hatchery at sunrise.” I’ve taken friends, cousins, nephews, my dad, and anyone else that was having a hard time catching fish. “Hey man, if you want to try this fly I tie for a little bit, I’ll show you something pretty cool.”

In many ways, “The Pipe” would be a memorable place if this was the entirety of the story, but… Another item of waste that would be flushed out of the hatchery and into the river was all of the fish that hadn’t survived. Most days, approximately 20 minutes into the dumping from the hatchery, you would see several fingerling rainbow trout slide into the river and get absolutely crushed by a monster trout that had been waiting for this moment. Oh, I love the smell of a hard V waking into the shallows to smash a fish in the morning. It still pumps me up to this day, every time. As you would expect, it was certainly a call for matching the hatch. This was a bit more complicated. You do not have much success jerk stripping streamers in this area. The fish want something that looks like a dead rainbow trout, and they want it presented just like a dead rainbow would present out of the pipe. You are much better off dropping a baitfish pattern under a bobber and watching it float down river. It is an odd thing to tell an avid fly angler to do, and boy do I have some stories.

I think it was the first time I had taken my good buddy Jake down to the pipe to fish for trophies. He had seen the pellet game, and don’t get me wrong you can catch 20 plus inch fish doing that, but there are bigger fish to chase. I tied up some game changer type of flies that I had sharpied to look like the dead hatchery fish. We showed up to the pipe in the dark and were just waiting for a few hours for the hatchery to dump. He asked why we needed 8 wt. rods to catch fish down there, and I had only said, “You’ll see.” The time came. We were watching thousands of fish smash all of the pellets. We positioned ourselves so that our cast and drag from the current was perfect, and I said, “So, Just smack that streamer on the water up here in the rocks, and let it just fall back into the deep water.” My man was flabbergasted. “So, What do you want me to do with the fly?” I said, “Nothing man just leave it there.” “So, you’re saying you just want me to slam this streamer down in the water and wait?” “That’s exactly what I want you to do.”

We waited for one of the big ones. They cruise the edge of the shallow water like sharks. They are actually big brown trout that have decided this is the easiest life they could have. Thirty minutes or so in, my friend is getting skeptical when, the big one cruises by. “Get ready, Get ready.” “Holy Shit dude that thing is huge.” I tell him, “I know man just watch him and strip set if he eats.” It didn’t happen on that day, but it became what we would do when we had spare time together. We have caught several fish like this over the years, but the same thing seems to happen. After a decent day of catching fish, it always comes up. “You want to go make a sacrifice to the pipe?”