My three favorite fly fishing moments from last year

Mazda

This has been a rough winter, I haven’t been out once yet. Work, weather and circumstances keep conspiring to keep me off the water. So, sitting in a hotel lobby while on a business trip in February, here are my favorite moments from fly fishing in 2017.

Number 3: We were getting close to the take out on the South Fork of the Shenandoah and it had been an amazing day; just crazy numbers and a couple of nice fish in the mix. At one point I caught a smallie that tied my personal best and the next cast, I caught a fish that broke it. It was one of those days you find yourself thinking about on rainy January day. If anything, the day approached the too good territory: when you get greedy and stop appreciating each fish; as soon as you reel one in, you’re trying to get it back in the water so you can cast again.

At the end of the day, I unhooked one little smallie and was about to put him back in the water when he slipped out of my hands and flopped under the gap between the seat mount and the deck of the drift boat. I should have just unhooked him over the water, but I didn’t, lesson learned. We could hear him flopping around under there and then the flopping stopped. I felt bad, I try not to kill fish and I always feel like an ass when I mishandle them. About twenty minutes later, we get to the ramp and as CT is winching the boat on to his trailer, the smallie slides out from under the deck. I picked it up and threw it in the river, I figured a heron or muskie could make use of it, when lo and behold, it swam off! It was just a great end to a great float.

Number 2: I was standing in a small stream right where the trail crossed it in the Shenandoah National Park. It was early morning and I hadn’t seen another person on the hike in. I was tying on a fly and standing pretty still while I concentrated on my knot. I heard someone coming down the bank opposite where I was standing to cross the river and I looked up to say good morning to what I assumed was a hiker. Instead it was a big old black bear who had no idea I was on the other side of the stream. He was walking with that bumbling grace bears have on a collision course with me. I know black bears aren’t aggressive, but he was a wild animal and he was close, I’ve always heard you just don’t want to startle them. I said in as calm a voice as I could “hey bear, do you see me here? I don’t want any trouble,” while gently waving my arms. The bear stopped dead in his tracks, stood up on his hind legs and sniffed the air like a dog. When he stood up, I realized that he was taller than I was, that I was looking up at the bear. I could see his muzzle was grey and I remember thinking, “if this bear wanted to, he could really mess me up and there wasn’t much I could do about it.” It seemed like we stood that way a long time, but it was only a second and then that bear turned and ran, his big bear butt bobbing in the air as he tore through the brush.

Number 1: We were floating the South Holston. I was in the front of the boat and my wife was in the back. They were generating big time and the fishing was slow and the river was up, way up. We had almost decided to call it a half day, but decided to press on. We were getting close to the take out when I heard my wife’s “heh-heh.” Whenever my wife hooks a fish, she lets out this little chuckle. It doesn’t matter if it’s a big fish, or a little fish, she lets out this little Buddha-like “heh-heh,” it’s one of my favorite things about her. Anyway, I hear “heh-heh” and then the guide says, “That’s a nice fish.” So I turn around to see this “nice fish.” When I do, it takes me a second to process what I’m looking at, I can see the back of a brown trout, but it’s easily twice as wide as any brown trout I’ve seen before. I remember letting out a big “whoah!” and then we were off, the brown took off down up stream, I reeled in and just kind of hunched down (the last thing I want is to be the idiot who gets in the way and costs my wife a lifetime fish. Everything is kind of happening at once, the guide is next to my wife giving instructions, the boat is drifting sideways, my wife is in to her backing and the brown is trying to get to a downed tree on the bank, I remember that we were fishing midges on 5x tippet, then we go under a low bridge and we’re all kind of hunched over while my wife is still fighting the fish. And somehow it’s there next to the boat, still on the line, a big brown, like really big, like my wife gets to be in the local paper big.

The guide goes in with the net and then: it was gone. My wife’s line had gone slack, but the big brown was right there. The 5x tippet just kind of wore out, no pig tail indicating a busted knot; the fish just wasn’t on the line anymore. He was still right there where we could see him, but gone forever. Then my wife let out a very un-Buddha like “$%#@.” We were close to the take out by then and we just drifted along, no one made any more casts, no one said much of anything. We passed a few other boats who heard the commotion and who looked at us with curiosity, but there really wasn’t anything else to say, ““$%#@” about covered it.

Two Guys and a River

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I’m a huge fan of the 2 Guys and a River podcast (www.2guysandariver.com). I download it every week and I often listen to it as soon as it’s done downloading; I’ll try to save it for later, but I’m not much for delayed gratification. My wife loves it as well. A couple of times, I made comments on their website that they then read on the air as part of their “Great Stuff From Our Listeners” segment. Once that happened once, I spent way too much time during the work day to craft posts on their site with the aim of getting it read and now I’m writing this blog post instead of writing this proposal I’m supposed to be working on for my actual job. But I digress.

If you don’t know it, the podcast is two guys talking about fly fishing. The hosts are Dave Goetz and Steve Mathewson who (as they say in the introduction) “are two lifelong friends, writers, and very average fly fishermen who love fly fishing the great rivers.” Some episodes are about fly fishing techniques and others are about the emotional aspects of fly fishing. A lot of their advice on technique is somewhat basic, even for me, but advice on how to fish isn’t really their appeal. What I like about the podcast is how honest it is. What comes through in the podcast is how much they love fly fishing, how much they enjoy their friendship and that they are not embarrassed to admit to both of those things. A lot of their podcasts don’t even focus on the how of fishing, but more the why.

They talk openly about what they get emotionally and spiritually from fly fishing and they come at it with a definite point of view. Being from the heartland, they express that definite point of view gently and without judgement of how others may see things. They’re able to pull off talking about the ‘why’ of fishing without being pretentious. It’s a neat trick and they are able to do it because they come at it openly. Their worldview is earnest, spiritual and western and they inspired me to start this blog even though I am decidedly eastern, cynical and secular.

The show is corny and a little cheesy in the best meaning of the words: the guys razz each other with dad jokes and talk in gee whiz wonder at the magnificence of creation in what can only be described (at least by me) as infectious. One of my favorite episodes features the two of them reading passages of A River Runs Through It and discussing what it means to them. If I had any readers, they would recall that I stated I don’t like the movie, but I do find the book achingly beautiful.

For Steve and Dave, fly fishing is about trout. If your only understanding of fly fishing only came from listening to their podcasts, you’d be forgiven for thinking that no one had ever caught a bass, bluegill, catfish, tarpon or carp on a fly rod. The few times they mention another species you can almost picture them wincing as they manage to get the word out: smallmouth. They are purists and have defined the sport in a way that works for them. They are unapologetically western in their outlook towards fly fishing and life. I am similarly unapologetically eastern in my attitude towards fly fishing and life.

While I love fishing for trout, I also love catching smallmouth bass on a fly rod and I love scrubby east coast streams where it’s a grab bag of all kinds of fish. I have this ratty little stream not far from my house in the city that I like to fish and (this is absolutely true) there has recently been a series of articles in the local paper about how a gang has been using the area to commit murders and dump bodies in the stream. There was a picture in the article of two investigators standing near the stream right where I had stand when I fish it. Fly fishing in a street gang’s killing ground is pretty far from 2 Guys and a River, or A River Runs Through It, but let me tell you, a couple of dumped bodies really cuts down on the fishing pressure. A few high profile trials and the next thing you know, you’ve got the stream to yourself.

For me, I like catching wild fish and where I live in the mid-Atlantic, that means I can’t be too picky about species. Starting in February or March, there are wild brook trout that I can fish for in the mountains of Virginia and Maryland. By late May, smallmouth bass and bluegill are in the mix in the Shenandoah river system. For a couple of months, you can fish for either bass in the valley, or broookies in the mountains (and on one or two glorious days, you can do a little of both: brookies in the morning and smallies in the afternoon).

But certainly by July, I don’t feel comfortable fishing for brookies. The water temp around here increases and the water levels drop, I worry that fishing for them beats them up too much and will kill them. So if I’m going to fish locally in July and August for wild fish, that means smallies. I could fish eight times a year for trout or fifty times a year for whatever’s in the mix. If I can get away for a long weekend, there are a couple of tailwaters not too far away with wild trout year round, but that’s what I consider “special occasion” fishing. There’s something about a stream you can hit on your way home from work, or right when you realize it’s Sunday afternoon and you don’t have anything scheduled. There’s special occasion and there’s grab your rod and go fishing and I love both.

I have a friend who’s a very good fly fisher who is also a purist (he is also a very good person, honest and hard-working). He considers brookies to be “rat” fish and has literally turned up his nose at the idea of going fishing for them with me (he honest to God did this kind of nose flick, eye roll thing). He’s a born and bred western fly fisher and as I have (hopefully) good-naturedly told him, I find western fly fishers to be some of the most pretentious people on earth.

I’m what you’d call a pan-purist; when I’m fishing for wild trout in Maryland, Virginia, or Tennessee, I think that this is the best fishing experience there is and anyone who doesn’t agree is wrong. Then I’ll fish a small stream for brookies in the Shenandoah National Park and realize that this is the only way to fly fish, then I’ll float the South Fork of the Shenadoah swinging streamers for smallies on 60 fish days and think that this is the only way to fly fish. And I’m 100% correct in each instance.

Long story short, check out 2 Guys and a River, it’s a great podcast.

I Like Orvis

ORVIS

I like Orvis. Specifically, I like Orvis rods and I like Orvis waders. I’m not a huge fan of the quality of the flies in their shops and I don’t like their boots because they don’t make them in my size. But I like their fly rods, a lot, and I like the company. I like Tom Rosenbauer’s books and his podcast (although, he is terrible and I mean terrible, at interviewing someone. His interview of John Gierach was like awkward silence and strained politeness had a baby and then put that baby in a boarding school for 18 years, didn’t visit him and then had the kid over for Thanksgiving in his senior year where he told them he wasn’t going to college so he could pursue a career as an erotic mime. It was awkward is my point ). I also like that they have a lot of good instructional videos and I like that they offer free classes to get you started. Orvis creates new fly fishers, including me.

I really like their rods and reels. The Clearwater rod and reel is a perfectly good fly rod at a really good price. Add to the fact that they have a 25 year warranty and there really isn’t anything not to like about the Clearwater. Plus if you take their free intro to fly fishing class, Orvis will give you a coupon for some pretty steep discounts on a rod and reel set. Like I said, I like Orvis.

One of the reasons I like them so much is because western fly fishers make a point of not liking Orvis. I think western fly fishers are some of the most pretentious people on earth, from turning their nose up to brookies (like a cutty is any harder to catch) to calling Orvis Whorevis for some stupid reason, to all dressing in the same uniform. Western fly fishers would make a beret wearing freshman philosophy major studying abroad in Paris say “dude, take it down a notch, you’re embarrassing yourself.”

Hipster fly fishers don’t like Orvis for the same reason that hipsters everywhere don’t like something: they’ve been told not to like it by someone they desperately want to be. It’s the Single White Female method of getting a personality: here’s your beard, here’s your tattoo that you totally got from this old black guy in the city and not at the mall, here’s your PBR and here’s your Sage.

I was talking to a guide from Montana about fly rods and he told me that he doesn’t really care about rods. In his opinion, they’re all about the same and he could catch fish on “tippet nailed to a broomstick.” I bet a lot of guides feel that way when no one is looking. Find a rod you like, fish with it and get on with your life.

I’m not sure what it is about fly fishing and fly fishers that make us make such a big goddamned deal out of everything. It seems like it’s a phase you have to work your way through. I like Orvis because there’s a shop near my house and the fly fishing manager there is a good guy, plus they make a quality product and back it up with an outstanding warranty. You like Scott because of the quality and ascetics of their rods, good for you. But this whole idea that it’s not enough that you like brand X, but you have to hate brand Y? It’s weird.

Anyway, I like Orvis.

orvis