Everyone that fly-fishes in 2022 is a beneficiary of information that is available to them. For most places, you google them and get an initial playbook you can draw from. Flies to use, towns to go to, the time of year to be there, maps of the river and sections worth fishing. It’s all there. Beyond that, you have social media where anglers can interact with one another and get additional context or guidance to further inform and assist you in fishing that area. In reality, most times that most anglers fish a new piece of water is with someone that knows of it and has fished it before, taking a lot of the unknowns out of the equation from day one. From there, it’s just a matter of applying what you already know, have been told, or shown.
While the above is convenient, it also allows an angler to bypass a lot of critical thinking that ordinarily would be done to get to the point of being competent on that water. It also takes the surprises out of the process that come from both initial failures and successes that you experience. Which is ironically the motivation behind expanding your horizons on new water in the first place. When you have a good bit of information at your disposal before making your first cast, the importance of observation is reduced. Whereas when you know very little going in, observation and prior experience is all you have to draw from. You use both to make educated guesses on approaches to start with, try and learn things like preferred lies and water to focus on both in terms of stretch/water type, bugs and food sources that are most important and keyed on by the fish, and just unique nuances that each river has when it comes to understanding how the fish operate there. The fact is that while we all seemingly benefit by the shortened learning curve modern technology in this sport provides in the form of information, it also takes the fun part out of the equation. The rewarding breakthroughs that come from solving a new puzzle. Going back to basics and trying new water without much of an assist going into it forces you to truly engage in trial and error as you get feedback from the fish to validate or rule out experiments you try initially to cover water and identify where fish are holding. You will see bugs you don’t know or recognize, fish behavior that isn’t typical of what you have seen on waters you are familiar with. Be surprised by takes or the lack thereof in water you did not suspect would or would not hold fish. Staying focused and strategically thinking about how you approach new water to obtain subtle clues and insight on fish behavior there is challenging but the most rewarding scenario an angler can encounter in this sport. The initial success an angler experiences anywhere will undeniably be some of the most exciting moments they have on that water. The more you know a place, the less thrilling it is each time you find success there. You expect to be successful, and things that you expect to happen are never as thrilling as those that you did not expect to happen.
In early December, I went on a trip that I knew would test me for all of the above reasons. There was not a lot of information on the river systems I was going to be fishing, and the weather looked volatile with storms moving in and out which was not ideal and going to add some challenges. Before leaving, I bought a book that had some maps and a couple paragraphs per river that was written in a very matter of fact way that included river length, regs, a brief description of water type/character of the river, and the size of fish found there. In reading the book thoroughly, I found it to be fairly repetitive for most rivers in there, so beyond a map and a general understanding of what to expect in terms of current speed/set up, I accepted the rest was going to be learned on the water.
Seeing that weather was varied and made several different scenarios all possible in terms of fishing conditions, I brought a lot of flies ranging from small to medium streamers, a mix of medium to larger dries focusing on common fish catchers rather than overly technical patterns, and a variety of nymphs in different weights and sizes. I also brought my vice and materials to be able to tie some stuff up while there if I found that what I had wasn’t what I needed. Gear I brought 3 rods just knowing there was a high likelihood that one or more rods would be broken based on the terrain and rugged nature of the trip. I ended up coming home with 3 broken rods and borrowing my fishing partner’s rod to finish out the trip. And I brought my vest with enough tippet and leaders to get me through 10 days of fishing. Yes a vest. Being on foot for this trip was part of the back to basics philosophy as I find it important to snap out of relying on the comforts and advantages of fishing from a boat at least a few trips a year. If most anglers think about it, they haven’t walked a mile or more of stream in years. This is another consequence of modern fly-fishing which has made watercrafts more available and with that has caused a gradual shift in the average angler’s mindset when it comes to fishing on foot. A lot of anglers hearing that a trip is going to involve only wade fishing think automatically right then and there that it might not be worth it. It’s pretty pathetic considering that wade fishing was the way nearly everyone fished even a short 25 years ago. It’s the equivalent of a golfer that is only willing to play golf so long as a cart can be used during the round. Now lets think about golfers trading in their golf cart every 2-4 years to get a new one that has cooler colors, is lighter to allow it to go an impressive 8mph now, when the old cart when floored could only reach top speeds of 6 mph. Also, a major upgrade on the new carts beyond enhanced speed capabilities is storage space- the new cart allows said golfer to store 25 golf balls in it instead of 12 like the old one. Ice kept cold all day under the passenger seat for cool drinks on a nice hot day. Storage space- so important on the courses I can’t overemphasize it enough and that’s why these new carts are worth every dollar. And yeah since I got my cart and got used to it, I admit I don’t even want to get out of the cart to hit the ball anymore. I can play so many more holes when I just drive up and hit the ball from the cart. All my stuff is in my cart, It’s a pain to downsize and get what I need transferred into a golf bag. And, honestly, my days of killing myself out there walking 18 holes of golf are over. Yeah I know its horrible that it’s gotten to this point but seriously what is the point of getting out of the cart to hit the ball when I can hit it just as well from within the cart? This analogy is not far off base from the reality of fly-fishing right now with all sarcasm aside. And to make sure it doesn’t set in, a gut check trip annually is important for every drift boat owner.
I left for this trip planning on it being one where some days would be lost to the learning curve, while believing 10 days was enough time to figure it out to justify it all. When I arrived, conditions were good in terms of water level with things being on the slightly low side. I viewed this as a positive as the short-term forecast looking outwards called for rain most days, so a buffer was in place to absorb some rain and keep things fishable. I got settled in that first evening and had just enough time to hit a river nearby that I had fished before. I got there with enough time to see the evening hatch and landed a couple of nice fish in the last 30 minutes of daylight. I thought taking the edge off with a couple fish in a familiar place as an icebreaker couldn’t hurt. The forecast being the number one concern looking ahead on the trip.
Conditions were pretty bad the next two days. On these first two days, I struggled. I didn’t find many fish, and I fished poorly to the fish I did find having some buck fever to start the trip. I took a skunking two days in a row aside from a bailout fish each evening that didn’t change the way I felt about the days as a whole. I wasn’t seeing many fish and questioned whether I was just not seeing them or they weren’t there. Conditions were almost as bad as it can get for locating fish, and it felt like a needle in a haystack situation searching for targets.
On the third day, conditions were right with good visibility and what felt like stable weather generally. The day started with that pressure you feel on a trip when you know you might not get another day this nice and you need to make it happen then. The first hour I spooked several fish being surprised by the lies they were in. The fish were in less than 10’’ of water, in the garbage boney tail out of the tail outs, and so tight to shallow shoreline areas that their fin was exposed in some cases. After spooking several, I forced myself to start slowing down and looking hard in the areas that every instinct I had previously was to disregard. The pattern continued as we continued upriver and I landed a couple mid-sized fish to take the two day skunking edge off. Spotting a few more fish and getting some confidence that my eyes were getting dialed in was more important than catching the fish themselves. I started to look harder and trust what I was seeing.
The odd lies we continued to find fish in on that third day continued to force us to make tough judgment calls on how to best approach each fish. The size of the fish and the spooky factor that had blown a few other shots caused us to debate how far away we should cast from balancing too much distance on a tough shot to begin with versus taking one step too many and not getting the shot at all. My fishing partner landed his first two fish of the trip that afternoon, the second being a fish that required numerous fly changes and a tough cast to a fish holding in a complex set of currents created by a rock garden along the bank. Going dry dropper to blend in on a fish that was acting nervous and watching the fish refuse or not react to various patterns and then dialing in the rig to get the take felt good for both of us. The fish was a fish that we probably would have walked past without seeing on day one. And the coordinated effort of relaying where the fish was holding and that being translated and physically carried out by my fishing partner made us both feel like we were getting dialed in.
Day 3 in hindsight was a turning point from a confidence standpoint and getting in the groove for the remainder of the trip. In the week that followed, weather was in and out with t-storms and short-lived sun mixed in. But a few days allowed me to pattern where I looked and limited the effect poor sighting conditions were having on us finding fish. I started scanning the water we were coming up on in a more efficient way and picked up on the motion of fish or the profile of a large brown laying in the a-typical spots I had now customarily started viewing as prime holding water. When I saw them, the fly changes and rigging decisions made became more systematic knowing whether to go dry, dry dropper, or with a nymph rig with the fish we were on. Judgment calls on positioning and angles to present started to feel more normal and less difficult of a choice as we had more time to test the presentations we got from various locations and the benefit of seeing how the fish reacted to those presentations. We started to know based on the fish’s body language how close we could get to make the cast a bit easier, or whether bombing it and praying it was on the money was the only way to present to the fish without spooking them first. When it came to the evening fishing, we learned from each prior night how to play our cards smarter the next night when it came to fly changes. The bugs we encountered were short lived coming out for maybe an hour before it went completely dark each night. Often times, the evening was cloudy with a tstorm threatening, making it difficult to see and change flies as this intense last hour of dry fly fishing occurred. Everything from small 18-20 mayflies that were similar to an olive, larger size 10-12 mayflies that were resembling of an iso/and another larger mayfly that looked like a march brown, and a variety of larger caddis in the 10-14 size range would come out in good numbers during this golden hour. At first, we tried to throw bigger bugs thinking the fish would not be overly selective, but found the fish to be weirdly stage specific until the last 20 minutes or so of the evening. We narrowed down and developed our respective cups of go to flies that struck the balance of being big enough you could see in low light, but buggy and in the film enough for the fish to take and confuse for either a largish mayfly or caddis pattern. Sometimes when it clearly went to caddis in the last 20 minutes or so before dark with hard splashy rises to skittering adults on the nicer evenings, you had to bite the bullet and find the largest caddis you had in your box and a way to steady your hand to tie it on knowing you had 15 minutes to make it happen as no see-ums were biting you to death. Over the course of 7 days of this, we had the perfect cup of last hour flies and knew when to go to each. We knew where to focus our time to find a couple early risers before the magic hour based on lies and water type we found got a few up earlier than others. We knew where to turn our attention to find the biggest fish of the night when the peak of the evening rise was happening and even the biggest fish dropped their guard when it came to the spooky factor. Timing this right to avoid blowing the fish out of their lie for the evening when they first showed themselves and turning to them later when you still had enough daylight to put a fly in a difficult /tight location were the key decisions that you had to be disciplined in making each evening. Most evenings we got the one we were each after, and walked off the river in awe of what we had seen.
Over the course of these 10 days, the fatigue and road burn you feel when on an adventure like this is real. I had more bug bites on me by the last day than I had maybe ever gotten in total everywhere else my entire life. I was limping with shooting pain in my left foot and ankle, which somehow got me thinking back daily on this trip to something that made me laugh in the form of an old line my wrestling coach would always say when someone said they were hurt… “are you hurt or are you injured?” In this case, I answered just like I did then and decided I was just hurt. My waders were torn to hell and every day ended with me soaked more than the last. My hands were cut open everywhere from climbing rocks, high banks, the worst prickers of every variety I had ever seen, getting over and around whatever we had to get over to keep going upstream. The mentality on this trip was similar to a brook trout fisherman that says they are going to call it a day at each bend in the river knowing they are getting tired. But then when they look around the corner and see another beautiful plunge pool that they know holds a nice fish… it’s impossible to not go one pool further. Except the pool in this case didn’t hold a 12’’ brook trout.
On the last day of the trip after it set in the fishing was done, I thought about what I had used most on the trip as I packed up all my stuff. The thing I had gone through most was leaders and tippet. I made a mental note of this. Sometimes the most important part of being successful on a trip is rigging and making adjustments to your rig more often than you would like specific to the fish you are fishing to. That was definitely the case here. I went through almost an entire spring season’s worth of tippet spools in numerous tippet sizes in 10 days. Sometimes I had on a leader that was lighter than I wanted to go because the situation required added caution. Then the next fish would be in a place with current and of a size that I had to cut off and retie heavier. But the size of the fish here made you consider and do these little things rather than quickly rationalize something was good enough. Fly wise, I had taken 75% of my fish on 15 patterns or less. I thought to myself that’s always how it is- but the fact is you don’t know which 15 you are going to ultimately need before you get there. The 15 I turned to most were not the 15 I would have picked before going on the trip if I was forced to choose. Some of the flies I realized I had when packing up were flies I thought damn I could have used these more and had forgotten I had them. My waders and boots were shot- I didn’t even bring them home. I didn’t have a single piece of dry clothing left, and every sock I had was ripped open with a hole in it. My pants didn’t fit me at all even with my belt on the tightest loop. I had to stab a pen through my belt to make a new one to get to the point of being at least presentable at the airport. All signs of a gut check trip were present. Physically doing what it took to get to these fish and fishing well enough to actually catch the ones I was truly after felt good. But the true thrill was starting with nothing and getting to that point. A gritty situation like this that starts with an intimidating landscape and unknowns brings back the thrill every time. The fishing wasn’t glamorous and flashy when it came to the approach. There wasn’t a need to throw nice tight loops 60 feet to steady rising trout. Something that might disappoint the drift boat cart club. But you had 1-3 tries to make the exact 25-40 foot cast you had to make with obstacles around you, sometimes 10-20 feet above the water, sometimes from behind a pricker bush that already cut you and had you bleeding when you were getting into position and now had 15 feet of your fly line tangled in it. Whatever made the most sense at the time, you did. Each time for a trout that made your hands shake in front of you. The final stage of fly-fishing isn’t just being happy that you’re out on the water. That’s just how any person feels about anything when they have been doing the same thing in the same place for too long and the thrill is gone. A stage of fly-fishing I hope to never reach.
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