Why do the Trout Jump?

Nasturtiums, a painting by my mother.

Seamus lay on his side by the banks of the stream and took in the fullness of the May morning. Wildflowers were poking out their heads from amongst the grass and unfurling their colors. The valley was full of the yellow sun, and the resplendent green that only a spring day can bring; not quite green… a sort of yellow green… a youthful green, an infant green, a green of freshness. It gave him a feeling of innocence.

 

He was watching a long slow pool on the river shaded by a willow tree. Although he could not locate a single mayfly on or over the water, the trout were jumping into the air and performing summersaults in the air before slipping headfirst back into their freshet realm. He had never seen anything like it before. By twos and threes, the fish leapt into the air as if wishing to taste the surface world’s greening. A warbler provided a woodwind accompaniment from his perch amongst the bursting buds of the willow.

Seamus watched the trout for a few minutes, and pondered the ballet before him. In his hand was his father’s cherished H.L. Leonard bamboo fly rod. He turned his attention from his puzzle on the water to the handle of the rod. The cork was stained with long use. He could discern the imprint of his father’s thumb at the top end of the cork. He placed his thumb into the impression and closed his eyes, his ears still attuned to the splashes of the fish.

 

“Why do the trout jump?”

 

He thought about his father for a few minutes as the sun warmed his face pleasantly. What would he have said? He conjured a scene from his childhood in the old man’s study, a place of quiet and learning; a place of science and precision. His father stood looking at a book he had carefully taken out of the shelves buttressing the room, and easing down his glasses over his nose, was busy lecturing Seamus on the natural world. The question never was asked except in his imagination, but he knew the process of the answer would take him through anatomy, weather and barometric pressure, and angler’s streamside observations carefully recorded and now called into the courtroom to answer the question. Another book would be opened and another passage read, the author’s name preceding the quote, along with the date and the page number. Seamus would be expected to listen attentively as the case was made. His father was a lawyer, and the study in their large house in Dublin. Patrick McDermott esq. believed in science and logic, and it served him well in the courts. He would apply the same thorough analysis to this mystery of the trout. There would be a reason in the end. No mystery… but an uncovering of motive and resulting behavior. The fish would be subjected to the psychology of the individual and the group, and there would be a solution. The book would then be shut.

What that solution was, eluded Seamus’ daydreams for now, as ethereal as the memory of his father’s voice, and the smoke from his pipe as the vision dissolved in his head. He opened his eyes to the brightness of a flowering dandelion awash in bold impressionist brushstrokes of yellow and hints of orange; his mother’s favorite flower.

Mary McDermott loved God’s world and his works. She once told a young Seamus, (awash in stains from crawling through the grass and garden in the front lawn of their Dublin home), that “Dandelions were God’s paintbrushes.” He could see in his mind’s eye the ochre streaks on his boy’s pants held up with suspenders. He had felt that the stains were something bad; something he would be punished for, and had looked on his mother through tears of questioning guilt.

Whatever his mother said to him that day, and every other day she encouraged him or explained something, the focus would be God. Mary’s world was one of faithful contentment. There was a reason and a will behind every breath, every leaf that fell, every bird that sang, every bruise, and bloody knee; that of the Lord and his plan. We could not question with anger the stubbed toes of life, nor curse the road’s turns when they turned away from us, for man was the center of a plan in God’s garden, and there was a reason for everything; one that would include stories and fairy-tales and passages from the Bible as she combed his hair or mended his torn shirt. What the answer would be in the end would be sweet and simple, but remain a defined mystery. Her smile and the sense of comfort in that mystery was in complete contrast to his father’s academic approach, yet love and security warmed the young Seamus.

Mary would have said that the trout jump because it is God’s will. There would be a profound rightness and peace in her answer.

As Seamus’ eyes opened upon the banks of the stream, his left hand brushed against a tiny wildflower opening its purple petals to stare up at him. Purple was his little sister Rose’s favorite color, despite her name. She always wore a purple ribbon in her long strawberry-blonde hair as she followed him through his daily adventures. She was his favorite, and he was hers. She was as happy as he was inquisitive, his dark curly hair and brows contrasting with her round apple dimples and tiny white teeth. He made up stories for her full of knights and ladies, castles among the garden and frog princes at the edge of the little pond bordered with primrose. She listened and smiled… and always laughed.

He had visited her in her house in County Claire, married now and with a daughter and son of her own. The children taking them back to their youth in Dublin with their antics, and reminding them of stories they shared over a wine made with those dandelions of youth and crisp as their memories. Her smile and innocent exuberance had never changed. They had instead just grown larger with age and beauty.

Seamus recalled the day when he (ten years old and feeling ten feet tall and full of imagined manhood) had in response to a question posed by Rose as to why a lark, perching in a lilac bush was singing. He was doing his best to embody his father, and the answer was scientific and clinical; something about mating and territory. His voice filled with importance.

Rose had laughed and threw a handful of grass into his hair. She replied “No, silly! He is singing because he is happy!”

He opened his eyes. The trout were still jumping. Where science and religion only began to illuminate and uncover the beauty of a simple answer, innocence prevailed. She was right… the trout jumped because they were happy!

He was happy too, he thought aloud, as he bit off the fly at the end of his leader, never having wet a line that morning, but instead gathered wildflowers in his wicker creel for a love somewhere that awaited that perfect innocence he now felt.

 

 

Dining with Mr. Fario

 

 

I met Mr. S. Fario, noted food critic and epicurean at a charming little restaurant near the Traun River in Austria. He was there to review the cuisine, and I was there to interview him for a book I was writing about fine dining.

 

He shook my hand as we were seated, and smiled through thin lips. He had thick glasses that gave his watery eyes a bit of an ichthyoid appearance, and his skin was strangely spotted. He wore a tyrolean hat with feathers, and a modest gray suit. Altogether Mr. Fario’s appearance didn’t live up to his fearsome reputation as one of Europe’s most discerning reviewers of fine food. Asked what his first name was, he only replied “Sal.”

 

The waiters and staff at the establishment seemed to already be aware of who he was, and there was a scurry of activity at our table as the menus were proffered and the wine chosen. Fario ordered a bottle of Riesling and began to scan the menu. He decided to begin with a fish soup for the first course. When it came, the aroma preceded it. Rich with potatoes, onions and a rich fish stock, after one sip I fell in love with it. Not Fario however. For some reason he sent it back to the kitchen proclaiming that it was a touch too warm. A few minutes later a second bowl arrived, but after sniffing it, Fario sent it back again claiming this time that it was too cold. I ordered another bottle of wine, since this meal seemed to be going into interesting places. Fario was one quirky fellow.

 

He summoned the waiter again before I had even finished half of my soup and changed the order. For some bizarre reason, Fario ordered fresh peas, stipulating over his glasses to the hapless waiter that he receive 36 peas in total. Murmurs and whispers could be heard coming from the kitchen as the staff hurried and improvised to cater to the noted critic’s whims. A plate arrived with the peas, and Fario smiled at their freshness and began counting them: precisely 36. “Excellent!” he proclaimed as he handed the plate untouched, complete with the full complement of peas back to the waiter. “Sir?” the puzzled waiter exclaimed quietly. “May I enquire if there is something wrong?” Fario stuck his nose in the air with a rather casual but haute expression and answered “ These are excellent peas… very fresh and firm… however, I never eat peas that size on a Tuesday, only smaller ones… We shall have a salad instead.”

 

I took a couple of swallows of the wine, and began taking notes in secret on the back of a little matchbook. There would never be enough space, but square in the middle, I wrote the word ‘Enigma’. This was one very odd food critic. I began to feel sorry for the chef and the wait staff: if a review were to be written by Fario, who would know what to expect at this point.

 

The salad arrived, and Fario began to pick at it, studying each piece and flicking it onto the tablecloth as the nervous waiter stood by and sweated. His bowl clean, Fario reached across the table and picking one of the flowers from the centerpiece vase, ate it delicately, making sounds of appreciation the whole time. “Very tasty and aromatic salad!” he stated out loud. “Now we shall have the Frankfurters.” “Sir?” the startled waiter exclaimed. “We don’t serve Frankfurters, they are not part of our menu…”

“Well,” Fario said, rising in his seat to his full height, “I want Frankfurters, you know… Vienna sausages, hot dogs, wieners… that is what I want now, so go make them for me.” “I will just have the roast please,” I said, trying to add some distracting diplomacy to this lunatic scene. The waiter whispered something to a young lad in an apron that was hovering near the door of the kitchen, and the youth ran out the door of the restaurant and around the corner to the local butchers. “Er… h-h-how would you wish us to prepare your sausages Herr Fario’” said the waiter in trepidation. “Gently boiled with currant jam,” was the improbable answer. I was just happy to have my roast, and not to share in this bizarrely selective and downright strange diet that my companion insisted on. He seemed to like the sausages when they arrived, but told the waiter he preferred them boiled in the currant jam, not boiled separately and served with the fruit preserve. I began on the second bottle of wine…

 

He now ordered a small pate de foie gras de hopper to cleanse his palette. He wiped his mouth with his napkin after the first bite, and sniffing the napkin with flared nostrils, sighed in pleasure. He then consumed the napkin slowly chewing it while rolling his eyes upward. He ignored the rest of the foie gras.

 

I excused myself before dessert, claiming a pressing appointment, and thanking him for his time. He dismissed this with a smile and a flick of his hand. On exiting the restaurant, all the eyes of the staff followed me with a pleading and helpless look. The last thing I heard was Mr. Fario asking the now defeated waiter how the sautéed rooster balls over vanilla ice cream was.

 

I would bet my shorts that he sent it back and changed his mind.

 

What a gourmet, a gourmand, a picky fussy particular persnickety creature is Mr. Fario. Never wanting what he likes, never liking what he has, always eating what is not on the menu, a demanding snobbish little fish of a man.

The review written by Mr. Fario regarding the restaurant on the Traun gave it 4 stars… a rave review indeed. He noted that the salad had an almost floral quality and the napkins were particularly fresh.

Next week I will dine with Ms. Fontinalis, she likes everything…

Author’s note:

For those that are wandering but not completely lost, Fario is the name of the common German Brown Trout… Salmo Fario to be complete, or Mr. Salmo Fario to those of us brotherhood of the angle who ply the waters offering this epicure our whole fly-box of patterns in utter defeat, only to have him swim over and begin chewing on the shoelaces of our wading boots.

Fishing vs. Catching

To the casual angler these concepts might be the same, so why an essay on fishing vs. catching? Because they are different. Fishing can be equated to a symphonic journey. There is the opening theme, explorations of the theme and digressions, building on the theme and tension and the final release of that tension at the end which leaves one feeling exhausted and fulfilled and refreshed all at the same time. Catching is just the final act. We miss the whole process, the whole experience. Only part of the music is heard.

 

But isn’t catching the ultimate aim? Isn’t that what the game is about? To answer that we might want to think about why we are standing in a river with a long pole in our hand fiddling with bait made of fur and feathers and not fishing with a net.

The act of fishing is a hope in itself. If the journey is long and obstacles are overcome and anticipation mixes with temporary defeats, oh how much joyous when we bring the fish to hand.

The little problems of fly-fishing constitute so much of that journey. How do we get a fly to that fish tucked under the tag alders? How can we make that cast across conflicting currents? Is this the right fly? Would an emerger be a better choice? Why didn’t that fish eat my fly? What kind of bird is that? These intensely absorbing little problems are the meat that makes the sip of wine at the end taste so much better. Enjoy the whole meal, not just the desert if you will.

What if we were fated like Theodore Castwell to catch a fish on every cast? We would be in hell much like old Ted.

Predictability is the enemy of variety, and variety is the spice of our angling. NOT knowing what is around that next bend of the river is as important as knowing what fly the fish are taking. The inability to predict results and the dilemmas that arise make us think and reason, speculate and form theories, which change every time the river bends again.

We are involved in the hope for a bright connection, not just connected without connection like Mr. Castwell. If the fishing is good, we need to judge how much is ‘Enough.’ If we don’t, we may become drunk with reward and no longer taste the wine.

I hooked my largest fish of the year on a bamboo fly rod resurrected from the dead by an expert restorer. It is a unique rod to say the least. It may be one of a kind and the maker was an eccentric genius. I fought the fish and got a jump out of it… enough to tell that it was a chrome female steelhead with just a hint of rose around the cheek. Then the fish got off. I smiled and walked off the run, leaving it to my two partners. I had sipped this exquisite wine and tasted enough. Another time I hooked and landed a beautiful fish in Idaho, and spent the rest of the time on the run eating wild blackberries at riverside.

Was I slowing down, or just sucking the marrow out of life without as the quote goes “Choking on the bone…?” Perhaps both, for they are related.

The anglers I enjoy fishing with the most appreciate time on the water without qualifications. A few fish may equate a great day, as does seeing an eagle, making a memorable cast and hooking an especially difficult trout of only 10 inches, enjoying a good apple and sandwich on the bank, or simply being happy for someone else to express joy at catching a fish.

The word ‘Memorable’ stands out to me here, for when I close my eyes and begin to drift off to sleep, I never see the fish, only the beautiful scenery and the water. Those memories are what we are out there for, not just numbers of fish.

But then there IS the catching element, and without it the journey would rather lack a conclusion, however scenic and memorable that journey is. If we got skunked all the time, we would be in a different little corner of hell than Mr. Castwell, but just as bothered. Getting skunked can also be a good thing, for it wets the appetite. We will get them ‘Next time!’ When that next time comes the wine tastes just a little bit sweeter.

So I will be fishing tomorrow. Catching? That remains to be seen… but I will savor the day nonetheless.

The Short Game

The Short Game

 

Casting a fly rod with grace at distance is one of the greatest joys of this little sport of angling with a fly. We all like to cast free and far. We like a wide-open dream of a river with few obstructions to hinder our casting. We like an open playing field where we won’t spend half the time slogging through brush and picking our flies out of trees. These places do exist, and are a joy to fish, but they seem to attract the vast majority of crowding we see on our waters. If we want to get away from the madding crowds, or discover what the other 90% misses, we may have to choose some less mythical and idyllic locations. These may be smaller waters or even those great waters once the grasses and bankside vegetation reaches over our heads. We may be forced to restrict our movements and casts while simultaneously widening our perception and opening our minds. What we find there may make all the little Lewis and Clark exploring worthwhile. Hidden gems of water where the fish have never seen a fly.

Enter the short game.

One of the most overlooked aspects of fly-fishing is playing the short game: short casts to tight quarters or complicated waters where only a short cast will allow the fly to remain in the window of opportunity long enough to attract attention and be eaten. Casts that allow us to enter the woods and sneak a fly under a bramble filled bank where the fish are eating fallen ants; casts in tight quarters that can reach out to 50 feet without a back cast; vertical casts that can place a fast sinking streamer into a back-eddy next to a current seam where you know the biggest fish in the river is busy making its living, and where a longer cast would have your line on the water caught in the current and drag the fly out of the zone before bullwinkle can eat it.

Short casts, short or long casts in tight situations. They both offer reward. They offer a way of approach to new and familiar waters both big and small that offer a world of perception which grows bigger and wider as it grows smaller... a widening of the senses and possibilities.... proverbial stones stepped over now have to be scrutinized before we pass, for they may hold a doorway unseen to the soul of the fish and the river...

 

Once one’s mind is opened to all the possibilities of the short game you may never look at water the same way again, and music will become the space between the notes. You may find yourself amazed at all the waters and possibilities that you passed by, intent on riffles, undercut banks, deep pools, and other obvious structures of fish habitat, and missing the little things just at your peripheral vision.

These small things require a slow and planned approach with a cast of the proper distance to allow the fisher not to be seen, and allow the fly to hit the target with precision and with the proper presentation desired. This can often occur at 6 to 15 feet.

Several weeks ago I fished a new stream my old friend Bob told me of. I had caught a few browns in the first few pools and was about to step around a sharp and narrow corner to see what lay ahead when I glanced at the little tail-out I was about to place a precarious foot into. There on the far side of the river half hidden under overhanging grasses was a cleft of rocks with a space of no more than a foot long between them. The rocks were softball sized. The water was swift at my feet, so if I wanted to hit that little pocket and find out what lives there I needed to creep up on it. If I cast from where I was standing, the fly would most likely both hit the grasses and immediately drag due to the fast water accelerating as the river shallowed in the terminus of the pool. I snuck into position diagonal to the little pocket and flicked a quick sidearm steeple cast that placed the hopper I was fishing at the cleft with a splat! The cast was no more than ten feet. A brown trout came flying out of the cleft, made a wild grab for the hopper, and missing, went back down his hole, changed his mind again and changing direction and rocketing downstream into the fast water, engulfed the hopper. With only the leader out of the rod tip by now, the fight was short but sweet. The fish ate the hopper at my feet.

Sitting down on the bank with one foot in the cold water, I reflected on this situation and the hundreds of others like it that make up the micro-world of rivers and streams. There was no other way to catch that fish. I had simply done what was necessary to get a fly to what I saw as possible holding water, and what was necessary was an accurate cast of under a dozen feet.

On another small spring creek in the same area, I was making my way through a wooded portion full of deadfalls and flood damage, when I almost stepped on a tiny possibility created by a downed tree. The little creek poured under the log and white foam bubbled against the wood. The creek was shallow, but the hole created by the plunging water was the perfect living room for somebody. I had no room to cast due to branches, and the little hole was right at my feet anyway. Even if I had the room to place a nice cast into the little hole, I would not have control of my fly unless I used the shortest cast possible. With the leader out and nothing more, I splatted a size 12 catskill March Brown/Hendrickson conglomeration on the surface of the tiny pool and steered it with the rod tip held high until it came within a few inches of the downed limb. Out of nowhere a nice 13” brown trout appeared as if by magic and ate the fly. He was darkly colored from his months or years of dwelling in the darkness under the log and making his living picking off bugs that drifted down the stream and against his dining room. It was as if the little pool were a mirror and the wood branches and log the frame of a picture-perfect scenario of small stream angling. It was all possible because I had begun to think in smaller terms, and in the proverbial book of reading water, had realized that some of the best content was found in the marginalia.

 

 

Worlds of possibility like this exist everywhere, we just have to learn to slow down and think in order to see them. My good angling friend Joe calls it “Hunting.” ‘Stalking’ might be the better word, but it all came to me on my home waters whilst fishing the tiny headwaters. This creek of ice water seeming still melting off the glaciers that formed the geology of the region is so small as to at first appear laughably unfishable.

It was by watching Joe break down the water and then returning on my own and simply walking up the banks of the tiny rivulet pausing every few yards to sniff out the structure that may hold a trout that I learned this game for the first time. Epiphanies are memorable, and I still recall that moment when I realized that if the cover and depth offered any probability of holding a fish, then there was probably one there. If it didn’t come out and eat, I could stick my rod tip into the little cut, slot, etc., and see what lives there scurry out. I had to creep up on the crystal-clear water by hiding behind saplings and brush, spot the target area, see what the water was doing, and plan an approach. Bow-and-arrow casts offered the only solution to the tangles of brush, and the need for pin-point accuracy in the sometimes foot wide channels in the watercress, or dinner-plate sized depressions next to an undercut or log. My rod would span the entire creek here.

This discovery changed my perspective and outlook on all rivers. I wanted to discover what I was passing by, and what I was missing. I began to slow down. Before I placed a cast into the top riffle, I looked at the whole pool and read every piece of current and structure looking for the hidden within the unseen.

Then, when I found myself on a sizable freestone river fishing for smallmouth bass, I began to break down the water very differently then I had before. I love to cast, and the habitual cannon of a 6 wt rod I used to fire big casts across the river and present flies to the bank got left in the car in preference of a lighter full-flexing rod that could both cast at distance, but more importantly, cast a large fly with accuracy with ten feet of line out. I still fired casts to the fells, cuts, and rock gardens on the banks, but I also began to approach some structures from a shorter distance using less line and controlling the fly much better. At a spot that I had fished from a raft two weeks before due to higher water, I waded and put the short cast and line control theories to a test.

 

When fishing from the raft, my casts to the downed log and short dark pool directly under the log were ineffective. My fly kept being pulled away by the current no matter what I did. By getting right on top of the spot and using a short cast, my big sculpin/crayfish fly was able to dance right under the wood where a nice 16” smallmouth ate it with gusto. A week later I returned to the stretch of water and watched two fly anglers stand within ten feet of the structure and cast to the shallow riffles in the middle of the river where they were having a ball landing small riffle bass. They never saw the marginalia. It was like looking at a before and after picture of myself. As I sat on a boulder and tied on a fly I reflected on all that I missed these years of angling, and thought how humbling but joyful the process of discovery and learning can truly be.

 

On a different piece of water on this same river islands of limestone and others of earth and rock covered by woods cause the water to form braids. Three separate channels form and reform, only to deviate again, split into more braids, and finally reform into the main river. I had fished the smallest of these braids only once or twice before, and was unimpressed. Now I made my way down into this cover rich and over-hanging branch choked portion and approached it like I was fishing a spring creek. What I had not seen before became immediately obvious. There was structure everywhere. I simply could not fish it before due to having a rod that would not bend with a short cast, and not having realized that such micro-structure could hold big bass. In the next two hours I had the time of my life steering crawfish patterns next to logs and undercuts, kneeling and flopping my fly over downed trees and hearing the splash of a fish eating my fly without ever seeing it. I used single-hand spey casts to keep my line out of trees, splatted the fly with no more than the leader out when necessary, bow and arrow casting, roll-casting, steeple-casting, and doing anything possible to get my fly in the right place and slow it properly. I made casts up. Throw it between the two branches while pulling down on a third branch to allow a field of fire and pop the fly forward. I caught fish. I caught some very memorable fish. They came out from cover and any deeper and slower part of a pool and clobbered the fly just like a trout would. My rod bent dangerously to the cork as I tried to keep these sluggers out from the salvation of tangles that they so desperately wanted to go back into.

 

A word about casting and gear. In an essay regarding slower or softer fly rods, I touched on the subject of what they allow one to accomplish on the water. Many rods used for fly-fishing these days are made to be fished on big western rivers where big casts are necessary every day. Unfortunately these super-stiff rods are also intended to be used for the very type of situations I have been describing. That is like using a drill-press to hammer a nail; not the best tool for the job if you will. In order to play the short game, the rod needs to bend with ten feet of line out. That doesn’t mean it still can’t cast far, although if distance is the intent, then a soft rod might not be the best for everyone. All my rods for use on small streams and brushy closed in situations where the short game is a necessity are full-flexing. I place a line on them of the appropriate weight to allow me to cast in close as well. That might take some experimentation, and even over-lining a rod might be in order.

We are all taught to cast on a straight plane, stopping the rod high on the back cast and stopping again on the forward cast to allow the line to loop horizontally and fire straight forward. For the short game, we have to throw that book out the window. The structure of the water and confined area determine the cast we must make, and we need to think on this a bit before simply firing out a cast that gets tangled in overhead branches. Roll-casts and spey type casts shine here due to their use of line on the water to form a loading loop on the backcast and not get caught up. Steeple casts are necessary to hit a dime at your feet, and flicks and flops take the place of double-hauls. The artistry is not in the beauty of the cast, but in the utility of getting your fly where it needs to be and keeping it there long enough to be eaten.

Leaders may have to be adjusted as well. I go shorter in order to allow control and ability to bow-and-arrow cast with just a foot of fly-line outside the tip. Save the long leaders for wide-open spaces.

One inherent problem in the short game is landing of the fish. This poor creature just ate what it took for a giant meatball sandwich with extra cheese, and has just felt the pull of the hook and the panic. We have to have a plan. Approach the water. Find the mini-holding lie. Plan the cast. Then plan what you are going to do if you actually hook something. Do you have sufficient room to move? Can you play and coax that fish out from beneath an undercut without getting your rod and line helplessly tangled in the brush. Can you jump or run to another position quickly to allow angles to be applied? Is there a safe place open enough to cradle the fish and unhook it? Before disaster strikes, have a landing plan.

The short game is both sight-fishing and not sight-fishing. It is as different from fishing to rising trout in a wide gravel riffle as one can get. You are not looking for a fish, You are seeing what possibilities exist in the form of cute little situations, and then just flicking your fly in and seeing what happens. The sight-fishing part is in being able to discern the infinite possibilities the short game offers, and take advantage of them through ‘seeing’ the space between the notes. Close your eyes and pause. Take slow breaths of clean air. Listen to the sounds of the water and the creatures that live abound it. Hear the wind in the trees and a hoot of an owl, the chatter of a kingfisher, and then open your eyes again to a new world.

Home waters

We all know them, they may be big and brawling, small and intimate, sedately flowing, alive with riffles, quiet or noisy; they are our home waters. We have grown with them though the years like a constant companion. They shaped us. We know their moods, their personality, and their quirks. They have made us laugh and cry. They may not be the named streams of fame, or even have a name for that matter. In the words of wisdom of my friend Joe, “They are what they are…” Above all, they feel like an old comfortable pair of well-worn shoes or an old hunting dog, or even an old friend and lover.

 Like that old dog that always knows what you will do, or a favorite book re-read, you and the river move at the same symbiotic pace. It may not have always been like this though. During your early courting days you may have hurried her, stepped on her, transgressed on her feelings a hundred different ways, but you always come back, and the river is always there, looking the same, but yet a bit different, and she always forgives you and beckons to you.

For the past ten years I have been fishing a little trout stream an hours drive from home. It originates in the hills of the Kettle Morraine, Southeast Wisconsin’s unique spectacular glacially sculpted landscape. Although I often think that I know it, it always surprises me with new discoveries, and although I have little impact on the stream, it has had a great impact in shaping me; it has crafted my skill and is a piece of me.

It is a fickle and difficult little brook. I often mention it to other anglers with a touch of possessive hesitance. So many times they come back from fishing her and are disappointed to have only hooked one fish, or even none at all. In her many changes and moods the waters may deliver a spectacular fishing experience, and the next minute, send you packing while scratching your head in wonder. “Where did all the fish go?” It a brown trout river after all, and brown trout do have a rather spooky reputation, especially when harassed by a legion of middle-aged fools with long poles and strange concoctions of fur and feather.

The river is best fished with no expectations whatsoever, except to commune with her beauty for a moment in time. It may take a lifetime to get to know her.

I like it this way. The creek is ‘middlin’ kind of water: not the best, not something you would travel a hundred miles to experience, but your home. You know it, and it hides wild trout.

Every fly angler has a piece of water like this. Somewhere where we go to walk in our own footprints and live in our own thoughts. Adventure or non-adventure come together. No pressure, no storied names of runs, just some wild trout and the hope of a bright connection.

In such a comfortable relationship, sometimes you can answer the questions before they are asked, and sometimes you have to just walk away. The river will still be there tomorrow, and a new approach or a renewal may work wonders, like a change of pace. As we get to know the river, we develop patterns, both good and bad. We leave our preverbal towels laying around, and eat our eggs the same way every morning.

Still, there are discoveries to be made, and when you think you know it all and are content to start naming the trout, you watch a kid with a cheap spinning rod outfish you ten to one precisely because he doesn’t know what you know. Perhaps a fresh approach again, or a mind less clouded with dogma and familiarity might be order. Every work of art is an approach, both by the artist (the stream) and the viewer, reader or listener as interpreter. Listen to the same interpretation all the time, and we may miss the nuances and possibilities.

We never talk about this creek the same way we would other waters. Our tales might be vague and respectful and lacking in bravado and detail. “How did you do” might be answered by a slow scratching of the forehead, and a mystic “Oh, I got a few,…. Beautiful evening isn’t it?” True lovers don’t tell tales of the bedroom.

My home river is not the place I would go to prove a point, but instead to slowly fish an old favorite cane rod.

She can be moody. Like an old companion, I know the brook’s mood swings. That little pool that came alive one evening and danced like a string quartet of trout slurping hendricksons has never been the same. It seems that there are no trout in there. Your friend looks at you as you describe the ten fish you caught back to back last week, and rolls his or her eyes as if to call you a grand teller of fish-tails, but you know what lives there, even if since then, the pool fishes like someone dumped bleach in it. On a hot July day, don’t press her; let her lay peacefully napping until the coolness of evening breezes awake her slumbers, and instead of a rebuke, she may turn and gently kiss you on the cheek.

 

One late spring day my friend Joe and I set about to find the actual headwater spring that feeds the creek. We went slogging through the hillsides, getting marled and stuck in quicksand and bog, and scrambled over seemingly a thousand fallen trees with a million branches, all the time imagining a single big spring, and when after miles and hours, we were surrounded by a morass of spring seeps, realized that we were standing in the headwaters. Sometimes you have to just open your eyes by sitting down and staring off into space to realize that your search is over, and whatever it was you were looking for, you have found it by sitting on it by accident.

 

The stream begins to come into its own when several tiny spring seeps coming out of the giant hill you can see twenty miles off flow together to form a trickle no more than two feet wide. Here undercuts and root balls, fallen logs, and weeds hide trout that only a well disciplined stealthy approach and a bow and arrow cast can cover. Creep up to a bush at a crouch and peek over the grass. Plan the shot and the path to get there hiding yourself all the way. Move slowly and do everything right, and you might hook or spook a single fish. Might. This is like fishing at the beginning of time. It is an infant river here, and like the smell of a newborn baby, the water has a natural purity. It tastes like the ancient glacier, purified by flowing over eons of gravel and rock. It is refreshingly cold, and its trickling reflections of light are like the blinking eyes of something that has been underground in the womb of the earth and has just arrived surprised at the surface brightness.

 

I tend to disappear into this upper stretch, deaf, blind and hidden to the mundane world, or even other anglers. My friend Gordy, who guides the river once spotted my car on this upper confluence and went searching for me, shouting all the way, but never finding me. I was oblivious. To this day, he reminds me about this story, and swears I was hiding somewhere. Instead, I was doing my best heron imitation, mesmerized by a tiny flashing tail of a trout appearing now and again under a sunken log. I never heard him either.

 

There are times in May, as the migration of song-birds moves slowly though the area woods and streams, that I find myself distracted by the flitting of a redstart, the flash of a warbler, the song of the oriole, or the majestic stature of a indigo bunting. I neglect the fishing to spot woodpeckers and spy on green herons and bitterns. The creek has quite a few swampy areas, which attract wild turkeys that have a habit of holding their cover and then madly flushing when you are twenty feet away, scaring the skin off of you and interrupting the little counterpoint you were trying to achieve with a blue winged olive dry fly. The same pair of sandhill cranes nest in a marsh adjacent to the river each spring and raise voices as well as their young. I always say “Hi” to them, and although they fly away in alarm, they circle in a wide arc, and come back to the nest, their camouflaged heads with that tell-tail red spot peeking above the cattails.

A lot of discoveries have happened and memories have been made in and along the banks of this river: the first 14” wild brown I ever took with a size 20 Blue Winged Olive mayfly dry-fly with 6X and a fifty foot cast, learning how to fish a nymph dropper behind the dry for the first time, finding a secluded shallow portion of the river deep in the woods, and due to getting off the beaten path, having a ball with ten inch wild trout and a Catskill March Brown, and just sitting on the bank of the river in a sudden torrential downpour letting the water cascade off the hood of my jacket and the tips of my fingers as I meditated on life and nature and fishing.

I have met anglers on the stream that became life-long friends, I have fished it on an opening day in March that saw two foot deep snow on the banks and a 23 degree air temperature. I have fished in August when I have taken a midday nap sitting in the cool water to get out of the heat, and felt a little bit like a trout myself. I have fished it when the wind howled, when the mosquitoes were so bad, that I finally fled back to the car. I have knocked deer flies into the river that swarmed around my hat and tried to bite through, and watched as a trout came up out of nowhere and ate them, but not my flies. I have cast to a distant clump of overhanging grass, and only by accident spotted the biggest trout on the pool lying at my feet, ignoring my feeble attempts, and looking for his own supper. I have fished the midge emerger hatch and become profoundly frustrated.

Ah, the bloody midges. The primary food sources in the river are small size 30 olive midges. One can see them as a sort of moving fog over the riffles in spring and summer. They are maddening to imitate and fish. One year, as hatches intermingled in a favorite stretch of literally perfect dry-fly water, I caught numerous fish on small dry flies. In the ensuing years the trout have either disappeared, or become far more wary. The little rings of fish sipping emergers are there, but the fish seem to be phantoms. They won’t touch a dry, and shy from a nymph. They are looking for an emergent size 30 marzipan bon-bon with a crooked wing or something like that. Whatever they are eating, it sure must taste good to them. This year, if time permits, I am going to figure it out. I already have some size 22 sparse olive midge emergers ready. These are different from the ones that didn’t work the last time out or the month before, and also different from the ones that didn’t work last year. When I finally re-master this little pool, it will feel like an accomplishment.

It was here on this creek that, by necessity, I learned to place my fly with accuracy. The whole river is at its largest the width of a sidewalk, and is overgrown with roses, raspberries, nettles, dogwood, alders, buckthorn, and wildflowers. A glance rearward to ensure the path and gauge the distance limitations of the backcast are the beginnings of every cast, as is the necessity of reaching to place the fly in one path, and the leader in another. Long drifts are not necessary, and if the fly is to be eaten, it usually dies a few seconds after hitting the water. Usually, it goes ignored.

Of course, everything changes, even old marriages. The local Trout Unlimited chapter that has been responsible for the restoration of the river is going to undertake a massive de-brushing and cutting program on the river this year. I am kind of mixed on this.

On one hand, I think we should adapt ourselves to the stream more than make the stream try to adapt itself to our whims, but then again, that may just be a wishful philosophical fart since the hypocrisy lies in the fact that without the restoration that has happened, there would be no trout and the stream would be a muddy, silted mess, but one can still grumble that changes in the marriage are not to our liking.

Nature and moving water have a way of making man’s best efforts at control a temporary thing at best, and the alders will grow back and in a few years, the whole process will begin again. The cutting might be a good thing though, as the stream does get a bit choked in summer, but then that is mostly the canary grass, which reaches heights of eight feet and sways over the water. Nobody can control the grasses.

 I guess I just fear that the stream may end up resembling a meandering put-put golf course, complete with fiberglass statues of Isaac Walton with waving arms as obstacles, and a little marking card to record your casts. Perhaps ‘Par’ might rather refer to juvenile striped markings on trout, and not the stream course itself. But, then, we all fear change, and over-react. I am sure it will be fine, and if, for a time, it looks like a giant weed-whacker got drunk and went on a rampage, there are always the more secluded and wooded areas where the trout are smaller, but the footprints encountered are my own.

That’s the neat thing about knowing a little river on this intimate basis; one can always find open water. I might not be able to choose my access, but I can drive the couple of miles and poke about finding where people are, and slip in between them.

All these memories and experiences, good and bad, including falling in the water, breaking your rod, losing flies in the bushes, getting poison ivy, and spotting and catching the wild brookie living in a two-inch back eddy next to a rock make us the ‘Old-Farts’ of the river. I guess I wear that on my sleeve and am proud of it. Putting in one’s time has rewards, especially in the time needed to get to know a river with such intimacy that one can refer to it as ‘Home.’ Being an ‘Old Fart’ also has other advantages. Emerging from bushes like a phantom covered in mud, crawling through a culvert to get out of the river when lost in the dark, and sleeping in the cemetery do kind of give one a reputation for eccentric behavior, and as rumors lead to exaggerated tales of that crazy guy fishing dry flies he made from his own nose hair and such, people can tend to leave you alone until you want their company, which to an angler, can often be a good thing.

I have to leave it at that, especially after the nose hair comment, and go fish this stream in my mind for a spell. Outside it is 11 below zero.

A Battenkill idyll

It is a river of legends. Flowing from Vermont’s Green Mountains and into New York, it trickles and meanders through history and our fly-fishing souls. Its valley is gentle and serene, and its hatches of mayflies and caddis and tricky trout underlay much of what makes eastern American trout fishing what it is.

All this flowed and eddied through my brain as we Orvis fishing managers set out for an afternoon and evening of fishing this storied river on an unseasonably warm day in April 2012. The strange warm spring had seen the high runoff water blow through early this year, and the river was low and clear.

It is difficult to pin down the emotions and thoughts as we separated and rigged up our rods and lines, chose flies, and donned waders. I guess the closest I can come is that I felt a part of history. I thought of Art Flick, Theodore Gordon, and other Eastern greats.

Our party of five, (Dan, Shannon, George, Trent, and myself) were one group of a total of over 40 skilled and trout-obsessed fly-fishermen and women that would test their skills on the waters that day. It was my first time on the river, and my hands shook a bit as I pulled off line from the old Hardy Perfect reel and set up the little superfine 7 foot 4 weight rod. The ideal setup would include a longer rod and a nymphing rig or a streamer, but being the romantic I am, I thought, “When on a river so steeped in legend and tradition, why not follow the lead of the great anglers before me?” Thus, I tied on a size 12 Hendrickson dry fly, and greased the leader. Trent and I separated and walked downstream. We walked far farther than we intended to, mesmerized by the structure and flow of the river and their possibilities. When we entered the water bugs were sporadically hatching, and we soon determined them to be Hendrickson and caddis; perfect. The sun blasted down and warmed the bottom rocks as I struggled upstream against the flows, flicking my first concentrated casts here and there, hearing voices and music deep in my subconscious: Mahler and Marinaro.

Trent quickly located a rising brown in an impossible lie under a tangle of brush and protruding twigs, and quixotically played with it for several hours. The fish was taking flies with spirit, spitting the water in splashy rises, but never venturing out of his cover. Trent would later hook and lose that fish. His perseverance was amazing.

Advancing upstream, I spotted a huge brown rising in mid-river. Although I did everything I could think of to get a presentation to him, casting a 7’ rod upstream 60 feet in fast current against a wind with a dry fly and my back against the wall proved next to impossible. I finally took to spey casting the tiny rod and finally put the fly directly in the right place for a drag-free drift. The fish just swam off. Welcome to the Battenkill.

Then a little fish made a sloppy splashing rise just upstream. After a botched cast or two, the fish ate my Adams (The Hendrickson was lost in a tree behind me). A wave of calm joy warmed my soul as I landed and cradled a wild brookie. I had done it; my first fish on the Battenkill.

As the afternoon progressed and waned toward a serene and calm evening, and the sun caressed the tops of the Green Mountains, the mayfly hatch went insane. Clouds of Hendricksons covered the water advancing up the long riffles. I have never seen so prolific a hatch. However, rises were nearly nonexistent. Trent patiently cast a dry to a brookie that George had seen rise. I made ten casts to it without a rise and moved upstream. Trent then caught that fish after more perseverance. Amazing.

Dusk was upon me when I stumbled through a deep piece of water at the bottom of a large riffle with calm water on the edges and a cobbled bottom mixed with fallen conifers. A fish rose, and I quickly hooked it: another small brook trout. As the fish wiggled off my hook before I could cradle it, another much more defined and energetic splash marked a rise under an overhanging tree limb in the soft edge of the river. I slowly made my way through the underwater minefield stepping on rocks and debris and waded through the waist deep water to put a sidearm reach cast upstream and to my left. The fly rode high on the water and bobbed tantalizingly as it rode down toward the spot that the fish rose. The resulting take left no doubt as to the hungry gourmet. A brown trout engulfed the fly and cut back under the rocks and logs I was bracing myself against and dove deep putting a nice bend in the rod and taking out line which made my Perfect reel sing its little heart out. It wasn’t big, but the little spirited fish made my whole day.

So, there are fish in the Battenkill. They take dries too. They just take a lot of heart and soul and patience to catch. It is not a numbers fishery, but each little gem of a fish should be savored.

I feel blessed. I fished the Battenkill the way ‘God’ intended it should be fished, and it rewarded me with a smile and memories. As the last sliver of sun sank behind the rounded peaks, I took a deep breath of the fragrant spring air and thought, “This moment is what life is all about.”

Thank you Battenkill.

April showers and trout

Here are some nice photos of a Wisconsin trout stream visited recently. Nothing was hatching, and the pocket water made for technical fishing, but Joe and I managed to have a blast anyway, and some fish were caught. Buttery and feisty browns mostly. Just having the privelege to fish beatutiful water such as this and see the wildflowers blooming makes for a perfect spring day.

The Taming of the Mouth

The Taming of the Mouth
Original short story copyright 2009
Erik F. Helm

(I know nobody reads these, but perhaps they will someday be collected in a book that nobody will read.)

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The lodge was quaint, cozy, and warm. In short, it was everything I hoped it to be for this weekend getaway to fish the Clark Fork near Missoula Montana. I usually eschew staying at fishing establishments due to their rather annoying habit of concentrating more on wine and seven course meals rather than quality fishing, but I had been assured by my angling friends that the hire of a guide from this lodge and the stay was well worth the time and money.

I arrived on Friday in time for cocktails and dinner, and after changing out of my rumpled travel cloths and giving myself a quick going over with a wet washcloth, I walked to the main lodge building armed with a powerful appetite. After meeting the host Mr. Everson, and his busy and lovely wife Grace, I was introduced to the guides, Paul and Stew, two young locals who would be accompanying us on our quest for trout. When I say us, I am referring to the other guests that weekend which I met in short order: Jim, a quiet businessman from nearby Butte, and Major Gallstone, a retired officer from Great Britain now living in Canada.

We were seated around the fire enjoying an aperitif as the hosts and guides left to attend to the dinner. The Major, speaking to Jim, or possibly three feet above him, was holding forth on his trip to Ireland for sea trout, and how he “Showed the peat diggers” how it should be done. “I caught all the large fish of the trip, and the damn locals could only manage a meager catch of a few sardines” he said through his thick mustache, his face tilted slightly but annoyingly upward. Jim and I only got a few words in edgewise as the conversation turned first to eastern Catskill trout, and then to Atlantic Salmon, both of which the Major was an undoubted expert on, according to his own pronouncements. In each instance, he derided the guides as “Dolts”, the locals as “Troglodytes or Knuckle draggers”, and held himself forth as the protagonist that always, despite adverse conditions, managed to catch the most and largest fish anyone had ever seen.

In general, I like the English. Their self-deprecating sense of humor, wry wit, and stiff upper lip has always endeared me. With the Major, however, my tolerance was being sorely tested. It was tested further, and indeed stretched to the breaking point at dinner when his constant bragging spoiled an otherwise excellent fillet mignon. He seemed not to be interested in anyone else’s stories, and when he did lower himself to ask us a question, he always interrupted us soon after, as if our answers bored him.

Now, I am not the best fly fisherman out there, but I am a professional angling writer, have seen my share of the country’s waters, and am honest enough to know that my skill level is quite good. The Major had no doubt read some of my articles, but had no interest in acknowledging me or even my writing.

After dinner, we adjourned to the common room for a nightcap. I managed to excuse myself from the Major’s company and ended up talking to Paul, the younger of the two guides. Asking him about himself and his family I began to peel away the layers of shyness that I perceived. Paul would be guiding the Major tomorrow, and was less than happy about it. “Last year I had to guide him too, and it was the single worst day of the year.” “ He treated me like shit, and everything that went wrong was my fault.” “He insisted that I follow behind him by fifty feet, and when he hooked a fish, he would simply steer it over to me to release.” “He was too good to touch it.” “He also would not listen to anything I said, which meant that instead of being his guide for the day, I was his lacky.” As Paul spoke, I began to get an idea. I took him aside and onto the porch of the lodge, and after a short while and the present of a bottle of single malt scotch, he was amenable to my plans. “Just as long as I don’t get in trouble” he said, “I need the job, you know.”
“Don’t worry about it, if anything goes astray, I will take all the blame.” I told Paul through a mischievous grin. “The Major will get his comeuppance, and if we pull it off smoothly, he will never suspect a thing.”

I took myself and my glass of neat whiskey back into the lodge, where the Major was now pontificating on the proper method of setting the hook on a trout. Walking up to him, I said “So Major, given that your line stays dry, your fly alights on the water perfectly, and the fish cannot help but hook themselves while you walk on top of the water, how would you like to place a wager on tomorrow’s fishing?” Taken a bit aback, his face slowly coloring, he answered “What do you have in mind young man?” I explained to him the rules of the contest: that each man measure the length in inches of each fish he catches and releases, adds them together, and that the individual with the greatest total measurement at the end of the day is declared the winner. “Splendid, I shall look forward to showing you the ropes then.” “Now for the wager, shall we say, mmm… a hundred pounds?” “Sorry Major, I said with mock regret, I am not a man of means.” “However, I do have an alternative idea.” “Shoot away!” invited the Major. “It is simply this, that the winner has the privilege of watching the loser fish on Sunday in a woman’s dress and sun hat.”
“What?” he roared. “Have you taken leave of your senses?” “I will have no such thing!”
“A pity, I proclaimed with a smile.” “I was looking forward to showing you how trout fishing is done properly in America.”

The Major stared at me with narrowed eyes through the silence of the challenge. The entire room had heard the proceedings and one could hear a pin drop. His ears had turned bright crimson when he answered “You’re on, and may the best man win!” Turning with a flourish, he left the lodge to make his way to his cabin. I thought it a good idea to turn in early as well, and as I left, caught the eye of Paul and slyly winked. He returned the gesture.

The morning broke bright and sunny, with puffy white cumulus clouds scattered across the sky. Breakfast was unusually silent, excepting the Major’s insistence that he be given proper marmalade for his toast and not the homemade blackberry jam that Grace was famous for. His bellicose orders regarding the jam just sealed my opinion of him, and I smiled at what was in store for him on the river.

The Clark Fork is full of riffles. It begins just west of the continental divide near Butte, and flows westward toward Missoula where it is joined by the Bitterroot and the Big Blackfoot. We would be fishing in sight of the Sapphire Mountains, so named because of the thickly forested pines and the way the evening light catches them, reflecting an especially verdant green.

Stew led me to a nice riffle and pool, but I told him that I would rather fish much closer to the Major, explaining that I wished to observe his legendary technique. We took up residence in a run just upstream of where he was standing in the water shouting to Paul to “Get a move on, and tie on that little size 18 caddis.” I pretended to fish while Paul tied on the fly and signaled to the Major that all was ready. His casting was everything even his braggadocio could claim. The line whistled overhead in perfect loops and sent his fly delicately into the riffle. Immediately his line was tight and his rod was bucking as he led a nice trout downstream to where Paul was waiting.

“A cutthroat” Paul shouted. “Sixteen inches fair.” “Seventeen roared the Major.” “Seventeen, damn it!”
Paul dried the fly off, and shouted to the Major “Hold on a second, I forgot to pinch the barb down.” He grabbed his forceps and made the tiny adjustment. “O.K.” he proclaimed.
Stew looked at me kind of funny as if to ask if there was something up my sleeve, and asked why, given the wager, I was not furiously fishing.

“Keep watching, you are going to be in for a treat’ I said.

The Major spotted a rising fish directly behind a series of boulders sheltered by overhanging grass. His cast was incredible. The fly curved through the air and swung around enough in a reach that the fish would never even see the leader. Once again, the rod bounced and line was tight as what was obviously a large brown trout gave a ballet-like leap. Then the rod simply sprang back and the line went limp. “Bloody Hell!” the Major shouted, “That was a good fish.” He soon found another riser high in the riffle and as before, made the perfect cast and presentation, hooked the fish, and quickly lost it. He glanced towards where Stew and I stood for a second, and then began to berate Paul. “What kind of fly did you give me… I can’t hook fish properly on this one, change it at once!” he said. “Yes sir” said Paul while clipping off the fly, opening his sheepskin wallet and tying another caddis to the end of the Major’s leader.

Major Gallstone then made another cast, hooked a nice jumping cutthroat, and promptly lost it. The word “Bugger” reverberated around the river.

“Let’s go Stew, I said.” “Get me into a fish.”
Ahead in the slow water behind a bend, Stew pointed to a fish rising close to the bank. I cast to him and he rose eagerly, inhaling the fly. “Six inches” Stew declared as he released the little cutthroat. I turned back to where the Major stood, face turning purple, and waved.

I think it is time patient reader, to let you in on my little joke. In addition to pinching down the barb, Paul was instructed to bend the point of the hook back as well.

You may well imagine what the rest of the day was like. I slowly but almost diffidently hooked, landed, and measured twenty-seven trout for a combined total inch count of 243. The Major never landed another fish. Paul took the brunt of the abuse, but I hoped that the knowledge of the secret itself, the awaiting bottle of single malt, and the anticipation of guiding the Major the next day clothed in a dress and looking like something out of a charity vaudeville act would be some slight compensation.

Major Gallstone looked rather dainty in Grace’s blue gardening dress with the little polka dots I decided, as I watched him fish on that most holy of Sundays. He never uttered a single word.

Fumbles with trout

One of the inevitable questions I am asked when people find out that I fly fish is “Oh, you are a trout fisherman, right?”

Right...

I spend most of my time chasing steelhead and smallmouth, and I castigate myself every year that I never spend enough time on quality trout streams.
So, for the past several weeks I have been on a whirlwind tour of Wisconsin’s coulee region and its fabulous treasures of trout streams. The numerous hills absorb water and disgorge it as cold water springs. Almost every valley contains a trout stream. It is fondly known as the Montana of the Midwest. There are so many little rivers and brooks that it is difficult to know where to start. This region took a big hit in June of 2008 when the whole area flooded. Roads were washed away, and lunker structures ended caught in trees. Stream improvements were washed away or left high and dry. But, as with all nature, time heals all. In this case the rivers have bounced back with the help of many dedicated volunteers who rebuild stream stabilization structures by hand.

The fishing was tough. Sunny days and low clear water make for spooky fish. Hatches were sporadic and mixed enough that the trout were not consistently keying on any one insect. I fished beetles and caddis mostly. A size 14 X-caddis ended up being the most consistent producer. I nymphed when I had to; a necessary evil during the day when Mr. Trout won’t look up.

I landed some nice browns and brookies, nothing of great size, but beautiful little bejeweled fish wearing a whole palette of colors. Much of my small success was due to going off the beaten path and fishing waters less pressured and smaller than most people are comfortable fishing. Helping this process immensely was Bob Blumreich, who took time out to give me a small smattering of his immense knowledge base of the streams and techniques for small water fishing.

There is something of the primeval wild in the hills. Fishing alone and exploring in the silence surrounded by lush spring foliage and catching wild colorful fish was a reward on its own. If there is a temple of fly fishing, then I have been there and lit a candle to those who have gone before me. As always, the learning process was fun and rewarding all on its own. We spend so much time trying to figure out the whys of trout thinking that sometimes I believe it borders on anthropomorphism. Us sophisticated descendants of monkeys with brains that allow us to conquer nature and destroy ourselves pitting our active neurons against a little creature with a brain the size of a pea, and often coming up on the short side. Perhaps this is what makes trout fishing special. If we were able to simply go down to the river and clobber the fish, it would take on all the excitement of meat gathering, and lose its mysteries, and thus, its appeal.

One must be happy just being able to fish and experience the coulee streams, even if the reward is a lost fish and a missed opportunity. Restraint is a good thing.

As usual, yours truly is followed by minute disasters. A lens popped out of my glasses deep in the woods on a secluded stream, and in order to get back to the car, I repaired it with 4X tippet material. I lost numerous fish when after a nice accurate cast, one of the dozen deer flies that were circling my head would inevitably land on my hand or face just as a trout rose and ate my fly. There seemed to be two kinds of flies, deer flies and ear flies; the latter preferred the canal of my ears as habitat. I stepped in holes and twisted both ankles, hooked every species of flora on my back cast, and communed with cows and cow pies.

I met few angles on the streams, as I prefer to fish alone and not in the immediate vicinity of others. Fly fishing is not a team sport, and it always amazes me how many people only fish with a buddy that is in the same pool as they are. I did run in to one mature husband and wife on one of the popular rivers, but they were less than friendly for some reason. No reason for that, life is too short my friends.

As a trout fisherman, I have a long way to go, but it is amazing how instincts can kick in on a stream, and how one can adapt if one uses the thinking cap and always questions their approach. Critical thinking skills apply here as well. Part of me is happy to come from a smallmouth background prior to trout fishing. It seems easier to make the transition then the other way around. Much of this fishing can be described as my friend Joe S. puts it as “Bass bugging for trout.” Hitting shoreline structures with splatty quick presentations vs. the eastern catskill methods of long drag free drifts.

Small streams, small rods, small flies, but it is the small things in life that often get overlooked, and are under appreciated. Holding a foot long brook trout in hand as carefully as a newborn infant, I marveled at the scale of minute beauty in this world. Beauty and happiness are where one finds them. I find them in moving water. As the famous line from Casablanca goes, “I think this is the beginning of a great friendship.” Ah…the coulees!

Another beautiful quote

Testament of a fisherman
by John Voelker AKA Robert Traver

"I fish because I love to; because I love the environment where trout are found, which are invariably beautiful, and hate the environs where crowds of people are found, which are invariably ugly; because of all the television commercials, cocktail parties, and assorted social posturing I thus escape; because in a world where most men seem to spend their lives doing things they hate, my fishing is at once an endless source of delight and an act of small rebellion; because trout do not lie or cheat and cannot be bought or bribed or impressed by power, but respond only to quietude or humility and endless patience; because I suspect that men are going along this way for the last time, and I for one don't want to waste the trip; because only in the woods can I find solitude without loneliness; because bourbon out of an old tin cup always tastes better out there; because maybe one day I will catch a mermaid; and, finally, not because I regard fishing as being so terribly important but because I suspect that so many of the concerns of men are equally unimportant---and not nearly so much fun."