Magic of fishing hits at least-expected times

Fly-fisher's big striper met a goal and swims away with the river's secrets intact

“It’s kind of crazy, I did not expect that to happen.”

That’s what Jake Miller said about his lifetime striped bass.

The fly-fisher and Heirloom Rustic Ales brewery owner chases Arkansas River striped bass—hard. He’s done it for five years with a goal of landing what he learned is there from Josh Johnston.

Johnston, northeast region fisheries supervisor with the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, has for many years rolled big stripers in the river that runs through Tulsa. He uses electronic probes and dip-nets to collect the big ones for milt and eggs the department uses to create hybrids.

The big ones are 20-plus pounds, Johnston told him, years ago.

What happened to Miller was likely a 22-pound striped bass, Johnston said last week.

Miller doesn’t carry a scale.

“This is the one time I wished he had one,” Miller said.

Skinny boat, fat fish

Luckily he was in a Towee, a skinny canoe-like skiff owned by his fishin’ buddy James Morreale. It had a built-in yardstick.

Due credit to Mr. Morreale in this instance, he netted the fish, it was his boat, it was his fly rod and reel, and it was his special fly design that drew the hit.

Way to go James.

James and Jake are two of a close group who deep-dive on all research they can find on striped bass that might apply to Arkansas River stripers.

They learn, repeatedly, that they know nothing. And they love learning more and more.

“There are very few who would say they’ve figured that fishery out, and if anyone says they have I’ll probably call them a liar,” he said. “There are just so many variables about as soon as you thin you have it figured out they’ll throw you another one.”

About the time you think you know it’s going to be a hot day, it’s not.

“That’s kind of what I like about it,” he said. “You can go out and feel like this is going to be the fishiest day and that’s the day you’re skunked.”

But this time the big striper hit. According to the Towee yardstick it was 34 inches long. According to Miller it was really, really fat.

“Lots of fish on that river have girth, and I have never seen girth like this. You get girthy fish. This one was a true freak.

“I think my fly was intended to be its last supper because I don’t think it could have held anything else in its stomach,” Miller said.

Wrong time, bad conditions

Miller did not expect to come face to face with his goal of five years the last week of December, which fits his model of knowing nothing, for all he knows.

“I called (James) up last minute to go and we did not expect to do well,” he said. “They went several days straight without a drop of generation through the dam, so the reason we went was because it was only the second day they had generated in a long time.

“It was, ‘let’s just see,’” he said. “The water temp was still 55 degrees and maybe they would be moving place-to-place with the new water.”

Just after generation stopped that morning the pair hit the water. It was 40 degrees, windy, and there was a steady drizzle. They were wet, cold, and miserable for the next three hours and caught nothing.

“We were so miserable we almost left,” he said.

They are used to being beaten up by the Arkansas, which has claimed their gear and their souls many times over.

“It’s a fishery that if you’re not super motivated and hungry it will just eat you alive,” Miller said. “That’s kind of what I love about it.”
That morning they saw something they’d never seen before, lots of small drum, less than 6 inches long, all belly-up. Lots of shad in the same condition floated around too.

Johnston said his theory is that when Keystone doesn’t generate for a while the baitfish school deep near the dam. So when generation kicks in they’re sucked through and come out as easy pickin’s on the downstream side.

Whether all the dead and wounded baitfish in the river had something to do with the big catch is unknown.

When they finally started catching fish it was a variety. A striper, a hybrid bass, a paddlefish, a big channel catfish, a big drum, all came to the boat.

Gear makes a difference

James had an intermediate line on his rod and that was one key for success. The quick description of an intermediate line for non-fly-fishers is it’s a casting line that, basically, is not a floating line and not a sinking line but one that has properties in-between.

The intermediate line and a 25-pound leader worked well because they were in shallow water.

“If you fish the Arkansas River you know that if you sink too much and you’re hitting bottom you’re just spending the day losing flies. It’s unforgiving,” Miller said.

The fly is a secret formula between buddies, but suffice to say it was an articulated black and chartreuse streamer.
“People know you can catch a lot of fish on that river using articulated black and chartreuse flies,” he said. “Forever we threw white, and white-gray, and chartreuse. Things the look like shad, but chartreuse and black, that’s the thing.”

The fishing finally improved, but Miller was just about done. A shoulder injury has been giving him fits and after two or three hours “it gets hot and it’s pretty uncomfortable,” he said.

The pair traded off for a few catches and Miller hesitated before deciding to give it one last go.

“Second cast and I had that fish,” he said.

Reality strikes

She was in water 2 or 3 feet deep and around “no structure worth talking about.” It was not a place he normally would cast and the fish was in a spot where a striper doesn’t just “hang out.” But they were catching fish relatively shallow in that general area so, why not cast there?

“I feel strongly it had just chased other bait fish into there and my fly happened to land in the middle of it,” Miller said.

She hit and fought like a big catfish, he said. She shook her head, but every time he pulled her up she shot down to hug the bottom. Panic didn’t set in until she came to the surface a fourth time.

“I saw that big fan (her tailfin) and thought, ‘this is the fish I’ve been waiting for.’”

The next thought was that this was no catfish and he did not have her on the reel.

“I was just stripping it in,” he said.

Fifty-five degrees is a sweet temperature for striped bass. They can be downright frisky in water like that—even a little bit mean.

“I had probably 60 feet of line all over that boat and thought ‘if this fish runs I am in deep trouble.’ I was very nervous, it was a scary couple of minutes,” he said. “I tried to tell my heart rate that it wasn’t in control and just kind of gently coerced her up and James was on-the-money with the net.”

The reality of it hit when he lifted her free from the net, “I lift 55-pound bags and 200-pound kegs for a living and when I picked her up it was, ‘oh, yeah, this is it,’” he said.

Holding a long-envisioned goal when least expected hits an emotion button that connects the subconscious with the magic of fishing.

“I couldn’t really function for a while after landing that fish,” Miller said. “I guess I didn’t know how attached to the goal I was. It’s a feeling that is a weird kind of release to finally catch it.”