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Lessons Learned (Stories)

Sight Fishing – Part 1. Pick Your Battles.

We saw their tails first, walking up the river with hands on boulders, and watching the water with each careful step a little further ahead. They swayed in the current. The river bottom was gold pebbles. At first squinting helped pick out the black spots on their backs. A touch of blue swirling in the seam just behind the eyes and then long red that waved like flags planted in the stones. I cast to them while my friend watched. Beautiful rainbows in a beautiful canyon. He moved back to the sand along the bank and watched while I made my casts. Standing there, he waited, then moved upstream around the bend.
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On December 21, 2020 • By
2
Lessons Learned (Stories)

The Fly Fishing Lanyard. Why Less is More.

I started with scarcity and circled back. Throughout the years I acquired all manner of fly fishing gear and paraphernalia and most of it went in my fly fishing vest. I bought the vest when I started. It seemed like the right thing to do. And I paid very little for it. I filled the vest partly because I did not know what I needed and partly because I did not know what I liked, but as I spent more time on the river I settled into a rhythm and learned the difference. It became less about quantity and more about function. This discovery came with my introduction to the fly fishing lanyard and a realization that, on the river, less is more.
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On December 14, 2020 • By
2
Lessons Learned (Stories)

Fighting Fish and Other Ways to Not Spook Trout.

“There’s four nice fish in this hole.” He said it as we pulled over along the side of a narrow dirt road. I did not ask how he knew. I am a bit envious of the fly fisher who knows a stream inside and out. Those that have re-caught fish. That know all their spots. Where they tuck in behind rocks or sway downstream from dead drifts. That name the trout they catch. Each day on the river is still discovery for me. Maybe someday I will know a stream that well.
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On December 8, 2020 • By
2
Wadeoutthere Philosophy

Five Reasons to Love Small Trout.

We went at dawn when the river and trees and rocks still faded into a blue shadow waiting for the sun. It was too cold for my son to last long wading through the shallow water, but he woke early that morning so off we went. Neither wore waders. Most of the time he spent crouched along the bank moving sand with a stick and poking at stonefly husks stuck to round river rocks dried up and whitewashed between the grassy bank and where the rocks were wet from the river.
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On November 9, 2020 • By
6
Lessons Learned (Stories)

Tips for Fighting Big Trout From a Drift Boat.

“I’m hung up.” My brother looked back from the bow of the drift boat then picked up line to cast while I bent the rod deep and gave a few jerks. We were anchored at the head of a long cut bank along the Big Hole river. Wet grass dried in the breeze and a grey sky rolled against the hills beyond the bank. I needed a long cast upstream and quick mends to get the flies down and I had been bumping bottom here and there since we stopped. My father watched from his hunched forward position while I worked to get free from above him. Nothing doing. I reeled in all my line and grabbed it tight, then repositioned my efforts with the rod to work angles that might free the hook. Satisfied with my best efforts I stood resigned to break off and lose the flies. In that moment the taught line slid. A few inches maybe, but upstream. I was quiet, and then, “I can’t be hung up. The line just moved.”
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On November 3, 2020 • By
0
Wadeoutthere Philosophy

Lessons From a Five Year Old in Fly Fishing.

“Wanna catch a fish pop?” He always asks the same way. I always smile. Yes. Let’s go. I do want to catch a fish. Even though I know it is not the fish we are after. I know the adventure of the river motivates him more that the act of fly fishing. I know it is the excitement of the car drive and the sounds of Cory Morrow and Waylon Jennings as he softly sings along. I know it is the journey into a part of his father’s world that convinces him he is tasting something special. Like staying up past bedtime on the Fourth of July. I know all of that. Or maybe none of it. Maybe he is teaching me as much about fly fishing as I have to give. Or at least giving me the chance to see who he is against the pure backdrop of a cold trout stream cut through ancient mountains.
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On October 5, 2020 • By
0
Wadeoutthere Philosophy

Embrace the Drive.

I was grounded. The United States budget sequestration in 2013 meant sweeping cuts to the military and because my flying squadron at the USAF Weapons School in Las Vegas was not “combat-coded”, we were left without a class of students to teach for six months. I found myself in the middle of the Nevada desert with no flying duty. In my mind, no flying meant “gone fishing”. But first, I would have to embrace the drive.
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On September 11, 2020 • By
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