Anyone that fly fishes vividly remembers the circumstances surrounding their start in this sport. The first year you committed to fly-fishing stays fresh, while every year after that blends together more and more as time goes on. The primary reason the first season sticks out is because the excitement level is so high. Your first fish, and the many “firsts” you experience that year are so meaningful that you can’t forget them.
The first year I committed to fly-fishing started on a year that I really didn’t mean to. To start that season, my dad and I would bring both our spin rods and the fly rods. We’d start some days with the spin rods, and then give the fly rod a shot if we had a good day or saw rising fish. Some days we started with the fly rod and didn’t catch anything, before turning back to the spin rod as our crutch to find success. I distinctly remember the day I committed firmly and solely to the fly rod. That day was a Sunday where my dad and I were driving home after a weekend in the Catskills. We pulled over in a parking lot on the Beaverkill and looked out onto the water as a last ditch effort before driving 3 hours home. My dad pointed out a fish he saw rising on the far bank and we walked down to give it a shot. I vividly remember seeing the trout come into view under my fly as it drifted over where I thought I’d last seen him rise. That second of time between first seeing him come into view, and him continuing to the surface to take my fly is a memory that is forever burned in my brain. After that day, I never fished a spinning rod ever again for trout. I didn’t suddenly start looking down on the spin rod, but rather became all consumed with chasing the high that came from the fly rod.
The above serves as the best intro I can draw from in terms of my personal experience when transitioning to the topic of swinging flies for steelhead. My start to steelheading as an East coast resident was typical in that I started nymphing eggs and nymphs on tributary streams to Lake Ontario. In the beginning, the size of the fish and nymphing for “trout” that were measured in pounds not inches was the draw. The first steelhead I hooked in the upper salmon river was an exciting moment even being a fish of only 6lbs or so. As I put more time in and hooked bigger steelhead, the rush I got from that kept me motivated for several years. However, at some point I hit a wall after perhaps 5-7 seasons of steelheading. Every angler knows in their subconscious mind when their enthusiasm for a particular river, fish, and/or method takes a step back. You try to deny it at first just thinking you were off for the day, tired, whatever. But when that feeling creeps into your mind on repeated occasions when doing the same exact thing on subsequent outings, you know deep down you’re at the start of the process of getting over it. And the only way to stop getting over it is to change something.
For me, I knew the fish itself wasn’t what I was over. It was the method and general surrounding circumstances of how I was pursuing the fish. I was tired of jamming into runs with other guys nearby, snagging up on bottom and re-rigging every 30 minutes even when using minimal weight, feeling like the fish were only sometimes actually “eating” my fly at best…with most being lined whether I wanted to admit that or not, and I was bored of the process that required little thought/ability in terms of casting and presenting to the fish. Knowing this was the cause of my declining interest, I started spey fishing to try and take on a new challenge for these fish.
I got my first spey rod and entered the two-handed learning curve in 2017. Similar to my intro to fly-fishing, my intro to spey fishing involved a poorly calculated mix method approach. I was not willing to commit solely to the spey and rightfully so given what I had seen. Any Great Lakes steelhead angler that doesn’t spey fish has reasons to resent the spey angling niche. Every Great Lakes tributary has its 6-12 spey “regulars” that frequent one of a few classic long glides/pool that allows them to lay out long casts and feel like they are in the right place. As a passerby, you never see these dudes hook fish. You never see them catch fish. You get shit from them for “low hole-ing” them when you step in 300 feet below them when on that river customary norms provide enough room for a 30-50 foot drift at most. This causes nearly every non-spey angler to think the spey scene is delusional and a waste of time. Even being committed to the two handed approach now, I still believe the above to be mostly accurate.
That first season, I tried to read up on equipment and couldn’t understand most of what I read due to technical jargon and nuanced gear references. It seemed like you needed the perfect line for the rod you had or it wasn’t going to fish well. Terminology was complicated and reading about it often left me feeling like there were numerous words for the same thing, and I debated whether the spey scene was gear obsessed vs. this gear was actually necessary. I started pulling off at parking in the areas where I knew these few “spey” pools were that I had seen gents swing for years without any confirmed prior success. When there, I’d ask questions to spey anglers I saw like “what tip are you using” “what pattern are you fishing” and of course “any grabs”? The answers offered no consistency, and served as the start of my acceptance that spey fishing is largely subjective. Most things don’t matter to the fish as much as the angler dwells on them. And that trial and error was the only way to start developing your own personal understanding and instincts on what you had confidence in when engaging in this beyond low percentage method. However, there were some benefits to the spey that I noticed early on too. For one, the run and places that set up well for the swing were not always places that most other anglers focused their time on. This helped in finding water to fish and escaping crowds. I found that swinging flies helped to fish deeper/slower moving runs in colder steelheading months that were always a pain to dead drift with a one handed rod. I found that swinging flies helped isolate fish on years that the runs were poor and covering the water well was critical. And I realized how nice it was to go to the river with one box of flies, 1 spool of tippet, and tie perhaps only one knot all day. And it felt good to actually cast for these fish.
Stuck on these pros and cons, I dragged along my nymphing rod and my spey rod in 2017, exposing the true harms of my identity crisis. I nymphed up less fish because I bounced back and forth from running a bobber to swinging a fly through various runs and pools all day. Never committing to or dialing in either. The first day I went steelhead fishing with only my spey rod was due to weather, with heavy snow coming down on a Sunday that I planned to pack it in by noon and drive home. I wanted to cover water and fish quickly to get out in time before heading back, so I brought only my spey rod with me. I launched my boat at first light and drifted down a bit before getting into a quiet section of river. I jumped out of the boat and started at the top of a run no one was in. I tried to fish the run by the book, making casts to the soft edge in the middle of the river and patiently letting the fly complete the swing below me before setting up to recast. It was snowing hard at this point in time, and oddly focusing on this process got me in a zone where I wasn’t thinking about the weather. I wasn’t really thinking about anything, I was just repeating the process as I took 1-2 steps down each time, feeling like I was going through the motions. I was 3/4 of the way down the pool when in the middle of my swing, I heard my running line make a “ping” noise almost like someone plucking a guitar string, and shortly after felt a no doubt rip in my line. I lifted the rod and my first steelhead on the swing broke water. This confirmed what I felt was real and not a figment of my imagination as so many other leaves, rocks, and maybe “grabs” had turned out to be that fall. When it set in that I had a steelhead on, I distinctly remember feeling that rush of excitement that mirrored the way I felt when I had hooked my very first steelhead years ago. The way I had felt when that first trout rose to that ant. The rush I got from every meaningful first in this sport. The plan to get back there had worked. I awkwardly fought the fish not being comfortable with the added rod length at that time, which was recognized by a spey angler that had been walking past me on the bank. He helped me land the fish, which I explained was my first on the swing. He responded with the cliche ” the tug is the drug, brother”, reinforcing that most stereotypes hold some truth.
MAKING THE FULL COMMITMENT:
That first steelhead on the swing was a catalyst for significant improvement in the season that followed. Confidence and some initial validation go a long way when pursuing any fish. My ratio in terms of time spent nymphing versus swinging gradually but steadily became disproportionate to the point that carrying two rods became a nuisance. I was subconsciously over it for a while, but it took time to accept it. I rationalized that there was no point to fishing in a way that emphasized a “means to an end” approach, when the sport of fly-fishing objectively lowered your success rates when compared to other methods to begin with. The decision to take up fly fishing was never centered around ensuring I was successful. It was centered around the way I felt on the occasions I was successful.
After making this leap, I grew to appreciate how handicapping myself with the spey rod expanded my creativity and thought process when fishing for steelhead. By that I mean I knew the method I had chosen put me behind the 8 ball most times, but it was the only rod I had so I had to find a way to try and make something work. I thought hard on water depth and speed, how to get my fly down in pools that were not traditional swing water but looked like they could/should hold fish, and how to cast in areas that did not provide for unobstructed casting. Being in these situations made me a better caster without even realizing it, made me learn what tips work where, and the aspects of fly design that matter for fishing certain types of water and situations. The more times I put myself in these situations the more I started to get feedback from the fish. Whether it be grabs that I did not convert on, or the few fish a season that I did land, I took something from each of them. The lie, the speed of the swing, your fly depth relative to the fish, and so on. The intense focus that I found myself developing while swinging flies became a surprising substitute for actual activity generated by catching fish. A way that a fly felt swinging through a run with the right amount of tension indicating depth and speed was right got me hyper focused as I anticipated the take that later and most times doesn’t come. A grab from a fish that didn’t fully take, and then making fly changes with comeback flies and trying to get them to commit on the fly was also rewarding. Enjoyably casting out to hypothetical lies the fish should be holding in and visualizing what your fly was doing as it came into that water wasn’t boring. It was actually sometimes very intense and served almost as a form of meditation even when no fish came from those efforts.
It is not easy to write words that justify all of the above. It makes no sense that catching way less fish served as a means for generating more excitement on a species that I was previously fading on. In trying to anyway, I think it boils down to the thrill of playing, and sometimes winning a hard game. Working with the tools at your disposal to try and accomplish something difficult is in fact rewarding, and naturally causes you to set appropriate standards for accomplishing the task overtime. You go in with a mindset that you think you have an opportunity to find success, while also being simultaneously aware that being blanked is very possible. The angler in you favors the possibility of a positive outcome though, and causes you to fish hard in furtherance of it. The day every angler progressed to the fly-rod and never went back is a testament to the fact that a different kind of feeling comes from prevailing at something difficult. To sustain the same rush you initially experienced from success on the fly alone, sometimes you have to raise the stakes. Lesser success isn’t really a concern when the alternative is that dissipating feeling that feels more like deja vu. To hunt and seek out fish in the way a steelhead angler does on the swing prevents that process from setting in. Success is too infrequent for an angler to become numb to those breakthrough moments of success. Turning the pursuit into a hunt rather than merely a day of fishing changes your perspective. Does a hunter expect to shoot 3 elk a day? Does a bowhunter expect an elk period on any given trip? The answer that serves as motivation to go and try is simple. Maybe.
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