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.

The Lore of Fine Gear

The lore of fine gear

Many of us that fish with flies love nothing more than to touch, discuss, and dream about the fine tackle of our sport. Meet another angler on a stream, and the talk will assuredly turn to gear sooner or later. We ask each other: “What rod is that?” “Which fly are you using?” or state our appreciation of the other’s fine fly reel. In winter when the snow and cold threaten to overwhelm us, conversations around a warm fire in a study discuss the finer points of gear and pawl checks, and the big one that got away. Cognac, a fine cigar, a Leonard rod…

What is it about the equipment of fly-fishing that so appeals to us? Is it something to do with being men? Is it similar to a bunch of guys admiring power tools?

The equipment itself has very few concrete properties: metal, wood, thread, etc. We assign or ascribe the romantic characteristics ourselves. Aesthetics. So, there are inherent properties vs. ascribed properties and human imagination. These work together with our sense of history and adventure to form what we feel when we look at fine tackle. I call this lore. Lore can be defined for our purposes here as the process of ascribing abstract properties and romantic notions, nostalgia and learned history to concrete items.

How would different people or creatures react to viewing a beautifully tied fly? A non-fly fisherman might see a metal hook with feathers and fur attached, and have some slight sense of intended use, but that is all. A space alien might ponder the utility of the object to the human race as an anthropologist would. A cat might wonder if it is worth its time to chase the thing. A fish might see something that triggers a feeding response.
Therefore, the uncarved block views the gear of fly fishing in an innocent and ignorant way. They may recognize some inherent aesthetic beauty, but cannot without extensive experience relate abstract qualities to the equipment. They would be incapable of placing the objects in proper perspective within their lives. Romance could not then be assigned or imagined. Lore would not be felt.

Human beings have a natural sense to appreciate beauty of form. Most people, even having little exposure to art or architecture, would appreciate a sculpture by Michelangelo, a painting by Vermeer, or the classic lines of an ionic column. This might be true of a full dress salmon fly or a Quill Gordon, but most would say “It sure is pretty, but what is it?” Knowing the intended use and the tradition behind it allows us to ascribe romantic properties.

Then comes the act of anthropomorphism, or assigning human-like traits, qualities, or even sex to our equipment. Reels sing, loops sizzle, rods dance, and we refer to our rod as ‘she’ or ‘he.’

We are not alone in our desire to find lore in our equipment. Upland game hunters have fine double guns, bait-casters a myriad of exotic plugs, and fencers their fine foil, epee’ and saber.

Would we have it no other way? What if an object was just that… an object? With no assigned aesthetic qualities, characteristics, romance, or lore? What a boring and sterile world we would live in. A sort of dream-deprived state. All romance dead. An Orwellian world of pseudo sensory deprived autism.

Romance, legend, lore, and tradition all enter our conceptualization of our sporting experiences, both real and imagined. The equipment becomes part of the story. Our story. His story. History.

Ask yourself this: why does it infuriate you when someone refers to your fine early 20th century bamboo trout rod as “That fishing pole?”

The evolution and de-evolution of fly fishing

Perhaps it is that I am just getting older, but I am questioning more and more the direction that fly fishing seems to be headed. I am certainly not alone, and this blog post is the result of long conversations with some of the finest anglers, rod builders, and sportsmen that I know. Each conversation has turned slowly but inexorably to this subject. Have the new emerging technologies and the demands that fly fishing extend to places never touched before, and that ease of casting, presentation, etc. allow anglers to fish with ease without having to gain expertise through time on the river?
Or, maybe I am part of a growing movement of backlash against what many see as a highjacked sport. Call us the “Misanthropic anglers.”

Here are the opening remarks from The Longest Silence by Thomas McGuane:

"The sport of angling used to be a genteel business, at least in the world of ideals, a world of ladies and gentlemen. These have been replaced by a new set of paradigms: the bum, the addict, and the maniac. I'm afraid that this says much about the times we live in. The fisherman now is one who defies society, who rips lips, who drains the pool, who takes no prisoners, who is not to be confused with the sissy with the creel and the bamboo rod. Granted, he releases that which he catches, but in some cases, he strips the quarry of its perilous soul before tossing it back in the water. What was once a trout-- cold, hard, spotted, and beautiful--becomes "number seven."

I am bringing up rhetorical questions here. I am guilty of using some of the gear and tactics I am questioning. I don’t have the answers, just the questions. The answers lie in ourselves. Nor should the questions I bring up be considered my opinions. I know I am going to take some heat here, so remember that these are just thoughts.

Is the aid of technology turning fly fishing into baitcasting? Shorter and shorter shooting head lines allow us to cast easier and farther and throw ‘flies’ that have evolved into massive things that resemble lures more than they do anything even seen on the end of a flyline twenty years ago. What is worse is that this has taken over the world of steelhead fly fishing so completely that some people think that they can’t catch a steelhead using any other technique, as if the great pioneers of our sport never could catch a fish. Thinking and adaptation are a natural progression. Throwing out the baby with the bath-water is not.
When does a flyline stop being a flyline and become a bait-casting line? When will anglers lose the ability to cast and instead just chuck it out there? If we design a flyline that is just a two-foot blob of PVC, but weighs the same as a conventional line, is it a flyline? Where is the line drawn? Is there a line? Does the casting define fly fishing? What if we use a flyrod with monofilament line as is done here in the Midwest? What if we use the latest super compact flylines to throw small spoons or spinners? Does the fly make it flyfishing? One thing is for sure, If we ran into the ghost of a great angler of the past century while wandering the river, the ghost would not recognize some of what we do as fly fishing.

Spey rods are getting shorter and shorter and now ‘switch’ rods are all the rage. These are used to throw Skagit lines and giant ‘flies’ made from materials found at craft stores. The proliferation of compacted heads of less than thirty feet with slick running line make it possible for even Elmer Fudd to hit the other side of the river. (I should know…I cast like Elmer Fudd) Some anglers have never used any other system and have never learned to cast even a mid-belly speyline.
Once again, I must stress that I am being rhetorical here. I use Skagit lines too, especially in spring when the water is high and cold. It is so easy it isn’t funny. I started worrying that it might cause me to lose my actual spey casting technique.

Fly fishing has become the newest generation X/Y adrenaline sport, especially in the language used to describe it. Words like “Thrash”, or “Shred”, and “MoFo” are used to describe a day on the water. Gone is the eloquence and the appreciation of nature. Catching fish is the be all and end all. Restraint has been left on the wayside along with everything else from the sporting tradition inherited from the past. Some of these new ‘dudes’ act like they invented fly fishing sometime in early 2000. Perhaps it is the rhetoric and the accompanying tone that is the real problem. As Shane at the quiet pool blog has described it “Screw everyone else, I gotta get mine!”

Online publications such as “This is Fly” read more like a snowboard magazine. I can’t even follow what the hell they are writing about.

A sporting tradition by definition is about restraint, appreciation, and a fair game between you and your sporting quarry.

By adapting fly fishing through application of new technology, we can catch fish where we could not catch them before. Deep runs are conquered with application of deep sinking tips such as T-14, or the addition of split-shot and bobbers. Increasingly powerful graphite rods allow us to cast much farther, and may diminish our ability to stalk and read water. Is this a good thing? Is this evolution natural? I don’t know…

Vast new ranges of rods and lines available guarantee that many of us seem to spend most of the time obsessing with our gear instead of exploring new water, or just being happy to be out there. Some anglers think they can’t catch a ten-inch stocker rainbow without a super fast action $700.00 rod and matching high tech. Large-arbor disk drag reel.

One thing that seems to be lacking in the new generation of “Thrash” fly fishermen is a proper foundation in the sport. As I have written before in this blog, I divide angling into four stages: Desire to catch a fish, desire to catch the most fish, desire to catch the biggest fish, and finally the appreciation to just go fishing. Much of what I read from many online boards and magazines seems to indicate that increasingly the new wave of anglers out there entered fly fishing at stage two or three, and will forever be stuck there. Stage one is the all-important step. Learning by being skunked. Learning to read water, learning to appreciate nature. Learning to make gear a non-issue when on the water. Reading and learning that the things you have learned were also discovered by anglers in the past. The whole process of becoming a fly fishermen is key here. It is a long and winding road and really should not be hurried or cut short. Entering the angler’s progression in the middle with gear that allows one to cast and fish every run like never before without really knowing why or what one is doing is like running before learning how to walk. You may be able to run really fast, but because you never learned how to stop, stand, or walk, your journey will inevitably end when you fall on your ass. Without the proper foundation (which is disdained) when the adrenaline is gone or the envelope pushed to its limit, these anglers will have nothing to fall back on, and will move on to the next cool and popular extreme sport.

Another thing that is lacking is restraint. Fly fishing should not be about enhancing your own ego through rippin’ lips. Sometimes that fast deep slot that holds the 20 inch brown nicknamed “Bullwinkle” should be left to dusk and big drys instead of adding sixteen splitshot to our leaders and dappling along the bank with a bobber. Restraint can apply to our limitations as fishermen and sportsmen. It can apply to the accepted limitations of our equipment. It can apply to how we approach the water and the fishing experience. It can apply to how we approach life. Sometimes there is such a thing as “Enough.”

Another casualty seems to be courtesy. When one wants to own the river stretch and catch every fish, hang out with their buddies that look, dress, and talk like they do, and scorn anything different, then the mind begins to close. A closed mind and lack of foundation lead to a lack of courtesy. It amazes me how many times I cannot get the ‘time of day’ from someone in the river. We all seem to guard ‘our territory’ like so many adolescent baboons. The people who I do have good conversations with inevitably are open minded and courteous. They do not low-hole other anglers, hog runs, make fun of others, etc. There is mutual respect for the river, the fish, and other anglers. Respect. Giving and not selfish.

I don’t have the answers, but perhaps I can spur some thinking…

Why.... A philosophical look at Flyfishing

A philosophical look at fly fishing;


Awhile ago, while watching a spin fisherman walk far too quickly down a pretty stretch of my local smallmouth bass river, carelessly throwing 200 foot casts in every direction and hauling in the occasional fish by cartwheeling it back to him at lightning speed, I began a slow and long meditation on why I flyfish. Just what is it about flyfishing that seems to captivate my soul? Why have I given up all other kinds of sport fishing? I had a lot of ideas, most overlapping and difficult to categorize. Some were more feelings than ideas. I feared it would like trying to describe fine music with mere words. Perhaps poetry would be more appropriate, but I feared that I would produce something overly romantic and sentimental. In my thinking I had began to fuss and over-analyze the sport, when at dusk I made a beautiful cast, sending a pretty loop of line across the river and delivering a popper under the branches of a fallen willow, which in turn was engulfed by a beautiful and strong smallmouth bass. It was perfection. “Aha” I exclaimed aloud, “Thank you for reminding me.” Moments like this are epiphanies. Therefore, with all humility, I give you my take on flyfishing.

A good point of departure is to examine what the world envisions when it imagines flyfishing. If one reads any mainstream news or magazine article over the years regarding flyfishing they all have common themes. Flyfishing seems remote and mystic, practiced by older gentlemen wise to the way of fish and river. Gentlemen who we can imagine engrossed in a good book at the hearth-side and enjoying a pipe. They might be a bit misanthropic, preferring the company of a good dog and an eight inch brookie to that of common society. The fly angler often is depicted as a bit tweedy, like a college philosophy professor with addition of rod and creel.
Flyfishing is depicted as different and elevated beyond the other forms of sport fishing. Fly anglers are depicted as serious; serious and traditional.

The sporting Tradition:

So, letting the magazine images and portrayals guide us, let’s go back in time. Flyfishing came to America via Europe, specifically England. Flyfishing was a diversion and sport of the leisure class. Only they could afford the time and effort needed to catch a fish on horsehair lines and small feathered creations. The common working man would never have enough time for pleasantries. Common men fished with bait and nets, while the upper classes were the practitioners of flyfishing; thus we also see the origins of the snobbery effect. The sporting tradition in England demanded that the animal or fish supposedly be given a sporting chance. (Except driven shoots, which although considered sporting were the hunting equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel.) Fly anglers dressed in the finest country clothing, took pride in the aesthetics of their equipment, and fished in beautiful places for beautiful fish. Not a lot changed in the American inheritance and adoption of flyfishing. The dryfly was still considered the only way, and although the chalk streams gave way to the Catskills, the trout still lived in beautiful places, and the persons chasing them with the fly rod were still the leisure classes. Anglers dressed in their Sunday best, and flyfishing was still considered an elevated way of sporting against the fishes. Modern flyfishers are not all upper class snobs. We come from diverse backgrounds. We no longer wear ties and collars, and have traded bamboo for graphite, but we are still bound together by a tradition of a fish caught in a sporting way. Given this background, let’s look at some of the inherent qualities and themes in this sporting tradition.

A quiet sport:

Above all, flyfishing is a quiet sport practiced in beautiful natural surroundings. It is a sport practiced alone, where one can hear the murmur of the brook and the wind whistling through the trees. Gone are the sounds of the city and civilization. Gone are the screaming children and barking dogs. Gone are the roaring engines and sirens; gone are the worries and stress. Fly anglers are apt to stop fishing at some point, and simply sit and watch an eagle or a sunset. Most flyfishing is done while wading, without boats. When boats are used, often they are canoes or drift boats and non-motorized or only equipped with a motor sufficient to get them out of trouble. Many fly anglers are so quiet that you would never see them if their reels didn’t click. They silently glide into the water and disappear into the mist. The rhythm of casting is slow and quiet too, as is the way the fly enters the water. Quietness is important to us as it allows us to think. Remember, music is the space between the notes.

Nature and beautiful places:

Trout live in beautiful places, as do other fish we fly anglers pursue. Nature is simplicity and a force. We try to capture essences of nature and the natural world in art and music, the smells and sounds in poetry. Nature and its language and silence are part of each of us. It is where we came from. To practice a quiet sport among such beautiful and diverse surroundings as mountain streams, big freestone rivers, and northern forest brooks is a privilege and our worship at our temple. Nature’s spiritualism is a large part of flyfishing. At the end of the day, we are as likely to lock into memory the moment the sun burned off the mists on the river at dawn, as the fish we caught. This attention to the aesthetic qualities of nature leads us to care about our treasured places, and to become concerned with the forces that threaten them. There are few true fly anglers that are not closet tree-huggers, if not outright members of conservation organizations. We care because we love, and we love because of beauty. We are connected to the natural world by the footprints we leave and the loops we make.

Involvement:

More than any other kind of sport fishing, fly fishing is connected and involved with the act of fishing. Fly anglers have to make delicate casts, read water, and manage line and mending. We strip in line by hand in order to prevent drag or give a streamer motion, we don’t just turn a crank. Because of the inherent difficulty of flyfishing, we have to think. We don’t have sonar or radar detectors to tell us exactly where the fish are, we have to explore with our feet and use our minds to defeat the fish, and bring its jeweled form to hand. To me, involvement is essential to the experience. Trolling bores me, as does watching a bobber. Having to present my fly to the fish, whether that is a dryfly, popper or swung salmon fly, involves me with life’s intricacies, struggles, and patterns. That involvement in turn combined with curiosity opens a door to the natural world, and as we study it, we don’t just become better anglers, we become more aware. In essence, we flyfishermen don’t drink beer while aimlessly chucking lures, but instead may savor a single-malt after having discovered and matched a particularly mysterious hatch, or making the perfect cast. We are involved, and appreciate the ability to make discoveries and learn. We want to be more involved in actually catching the fish. We want to say “I figured it out, made the cast, and caught the fish.” We actually want to be the main participant in the little mental and physical chase between ourselves and the fish, not let technology or someone else do it for us. I always get a kick out of people that “fish” by pulling plugs or charter fishing with deep running dodgers and flies. The customer here is not involved at all, merely being the last link on the chain between the fish and a whole lot of knowledge of the guide or captain. After all the guide has rowed the boat pulling the plugs at just the right speed and in just the right place to take a fish, and the captain has the years of knowledge and sonar to locate fish. They are really fishing, not their customers. The customer merely reels in the fish for the glory shot and fish fry.

Simplicity:

Flyfishing at its essence is a simple sport; a single long rod, and single hook used in pursuit of our spiritual quarry. We carry a box of flies that can fit into a pocket, not a large tackle box that weighs forty pounds. Although our rods can be complicated in taper, construction and refined use, they at essence are simply the principle of the willow branch in action; always giving and bending but never letting go, thus letting the fish tire itself out. Our flies are colors of natural furs and feathers and their imitations wrapped on an artists blank canvas of a single hook. Rarely do we need complicated rigging or weight. We need no sonar devices. Just the fly, line, and rod.

Appreciation:

I would make the argument that we who flyfish appreciate our quarry more than other sport fishers. It lies in the inherent difficulties and demands of the sport. Most of us pass through several phases of angling. First, we want to merely catch a fish. Then we want to catch the most fish. After that, we want to catch the biggest fish. Finally, we progress in our angling journey to a point where we are satisfied with being able to fish. We come to enjoy the settings we fish in. We are happy with a small fish. We are happy with many fish. We are just happy to fish. We appreciate the privilege of fishing itself. Numbers are not important any more. We no longer have anything to prove.
In flyfishing, we have to stalk our prey. Whether a steelhead in a big roaring river, or a small bejeweled cutthroat in a mountain stream, our sport demands that we work for our quarry. That work and time spent on the river builds appreciation. I have walked off the water after catching a single memorable fish to eat blackberries or simply to soak in the moment. Some fishermen always have to catch fish. It becomes a game of numbers. When we turn a fish into a number, we have lost a piece of our soul. Perhaps anglers looking for numbers are lost in the river. After all, it was Thoreau who wrote "Many men go fishing all of their lives without the knowing that it is not fish they are after."
Flyfishing is a difficult sport. We have to learn to cast, to wade, and to read water. The limitations of our tackle connect us to the water like no other fishing. We have to think and learn; to evolve as fishermen. We take nothing for granted. The angling experience becomes more than just fishing. When we no longer have ‘bad’ days but merely ‘introspective’ days fishing, we have truly become appreciative of the river, the fish, and the angling experience.

Aesthetics:

In addition to the beauty of the places we pursue our fish, the tackle we use has its own aesthetic qualities. A fly is a beautiful thing. From a well-tied mayfly dry, to a full-dress Atlantic salmon pattern, our flies are tributes to the fish we catch. We spend hours at the bench tying our creations, just to send them on their way into the river with a hope that a connection will be made to a fish. We collect books on flies, and spend winter nights organizing them in boxes. They are small pieces of art. There is little to compare in a plastic lure or metal device. Bait is just bait. I doubt if other anglers spend as much time discussing and treasuring gear as we do our flies.
In addition to the fly, our casting is elegant; a sort of airborne ballet. A loop of flyline gently unrolling over the water to quietly place a fly on the water is something to appreciate in itself. When I practice in the park or the river, people often stop to watch for a bit. Would that happen if I were throwing a crank-bait? I doubt it. Watching a good flycaster can be like watching a gymnast and dancer all rolled into one.
Rods can be appreciated as art as well. A cane rod can be a treasure. With its specialized taper, hand wound guides and clear varnish, it lets us see the essence of a rod in its simplest but prettiest form. Even a well-made graphite rod can be a thing of beauty. Exotic wood inserts and reel seats can match with nickel-silver hardware to create a rod worthy of being photographed.
Many of our reels can be thought of as artistic creations too. Looking at a classic American s-curve handled trout reel with black sides such as a Bogdan or Vom Hoffe one cannot be unmoved. Then there are the old Hardy reels with their own legacies and traditions. Whole books have been dedicated to the art of fly tackle and flies, perhaps more than any other fishing sport.
All fine arts and crafts like these have to be used, and in the use of beautiful tackle in beautiful places, we achieve a sort of aesthetic beauty ourselves.

Quiet, peaceful and alone:
Flyfishing is a sport performed alone. Even if you fish with a friend, you are both doing your separate thing. There is no team, no winner, and no loser. There is no competition except with yourself and your skill. In the end the experience is yours, the memories earned, the fish won fair to hand. Flyfishing can be a meditation; a reflection. Alone we pass through time and the river, ever learning. The mistakes are ours to make alone, and the victories ours alone to celebrate. Quietly we stalk the fish, at peace with the world, and wondering what happened to the worries of yesterday.

A lifetime of learning:

One man’s life is not enough time to learn everything there is to know about flyfishing. Indeed, flyfishing can be thought of as a lifetime journey. It is a sport of reflection and thinking; an intellectual sport. As we progress as anglers, so do we progress as people, growing wise with analogies to life and fishing. If we are ever bored, we can simply change gears. We can learn to cast a two-handed rod, fish in the ocean for stripers, return to the joy of youth by fishing for bluegill, or simply put the rod away, and read a passage of Roderick Haig-Brown. There is so much to do and learn. We have become curious as flyfishers. We ask “Why?”, “What if I do this?”, or “What about that?”, then we spend time on the water answering our own questions.


So, let us go back to that evening on the water when all this contemplation started. The other fisherman moved through the water fast because his equipment allowed him to. He threw his tube-jig three times as far as I could cast because he could. He walked through the best water while casting to empty shallow runs because he never needed to read water. In twenty minutes, he was gone, and I would take another hour to move two hundred yards. Because I moved slowly, thinking and observing, I did fairly well. When fish started to be scarce, I changed tactics and cast to a broad flat strewn with boulders. The popper made a “bloop,” and instantly disappeared in a toilet-flush as a 17 inch smallmouth bass took the fly and proceeded to jump five times in succession. I landed it, released it and reeled up to allow a moment of contemplation and to drink in the whole scene. This was what it was all about. A blue heron flew by overhead, and the sunset-sky turned a fuchsia color. Now I knew...this is why I flyfish.