I Love This Game

Finding a fishing partner is a concept that should be simple. Find someone else that fishes and go fish with them. But because this is a psycho sport, anglers get selective. And I get it. A good fishing partner needs to have a few essential qualities. First, they need to make time to fish and be reliable. No “life gets in the way” nonsense and no sorry bud I can’t make it at the last minute. Secondly, they have to be a team player since fishing is work. You need someone that chips in on the process, and makes you feel like you have a partner late at night when you wench up and clean the boat when you’re shot after a long day. Third, the person can’t be just a fisherman, and has to be somewhat normal to talk to so things don’t get weird in the boat. And they have to be trustworthy. You don’t share your secrets with someone that can’t keep a secret, and we all know that person that says they can keep a secret, but clearly can’t. If you think back on the fishing partners you have, I’m sure you’ll agree it’s a funny process how you come to meet these people. Because fishing is a sport that people are passionate about, people drop their guard when they meet another person that is a fisherman, and you can make “friends” out of people you don’t even know after a 20 minute conversation on the river. Before you know it you have that person’s contact information and sometimes you follow up. It’s weird but it isn’t. Regular social norms don’t really apply to fishing, because you trust the sport as a means for introducing you to good people, and you trust your gut to weed out the occasional oddball and bad apple you come across streamside. And a lot of relationships are forged through this unconventional gut instinct.

While my dad will always be my #1 fishing partner, my second in command when it comes to fishing partners is my buddy Don. The circumstances surrounding how I met Don is the classic random way that fisherman meet one another. If memory serves me right, we somehow began talking because we both fished the salmon river and met at a dark cheap hotel there after a long day of fishing, and yes I’m aware that sounds weird AF. Because that river is an enigma where you hate it even if you love it- and after talking and fishing that weekend, we agreed that we would fish the far more pleasant Delaware that following spring. We followed up on that idea and as planned we met up to float the main stem that spring season.

As discussed, we followed through and met up to fish the Delaware that following spring. It was early in the season when the fishing had just started improving, but wasn’t quite on yet. On that first float- the fishing was just decent, and in fishing with Don it was clear he was new to the big Catskill rivers. He was also somewhat new to the dry fly game, and not used to casting far distances, or from a drift boat, which left some room for improvement. Most obvious though was the fact that Don was a smart and passionate dude, and a team player that helped clean the boat and do all the things that kill you at the end of a long day. Cranking the boat up, getting the gear situated, splitting the drive after you have driven to the point you are nodding out. You can usually judge a man by the way they act in these situations, and his handling of that day convinced me Don was a team player. This along with his excitement generally when it came to the sport led me to respect him. So for these reasons, we kept fishing

The next time we fished was in May of that same first season- and the fishing was lights out. With the fishing being so good, I wanted to show Don the many stretches that the area offered, and we floated multiple stretches a day that weekend to explore the options.  That Saturday evening, we hit an epic evening sulpher hatch on the main Delaware. On that evening, we alternated on fish as we tried to methodically work our way through the stretch, but there were so many fish that greed started to take over and the focus started to become finding the biggest fish, rather than just another fish. After landing a nice, but just a nice brown, I pulled anchor and rowed downstream where I saw a big nose take a sulpher and anchored again, blacked out, and yelled in a fish whisper voice “I love this game!!” Don laughed as he was just starting to realize how much of a psycho I was at this point, and to this day, when the weather looks good and the conditions are right, I still get a text from Don with that quote alone that I suspect I’ll never be allowed to forget.

Once we settled in on that fish, Don threw at the fish for 15 minutes or so, and light started to fade as we frantically changed flies from a smaller and less visible emerger to an oversized spinner as a last ditch effort to convert before the light ran out. And in classic fashion after several prior fly changes, that evening ended with Don landing a 22” hooked jaw brown at dark. It was a far cast, in tough conditions, on a stretch he hadn’t fished before. And you always remember those fish.

That initial success led to immediate confidence and further improvement from Don. During the next few trips that season – I noticed obvious improvement in the way Don casted to the fish we set up on. He fundamentally changed his cast, slowing things down and using the reach and positioning needed to present correctly to the selective fish we were fishing to. I also witnessed other subtle improvements. Bug identification. Fly choice. Spotting fish. Comments that indicated he was paying attention and understanding more and more each time. He was getting better, quickly, and it was enjoyable to watch.

And like all anglers- Don hit the inevitable wall of frustration on year two. The fishing isn’t always good, or easy, and when you have some initial success that first season, it is easy to think you can repeat that every time. But then you realize there are many challenging variables in this sport, and that it presents curve balls such as wind, seasonal changes year to year, and other inconsistent factors that prevent you from overly simplifying things. Once you become a better caster, things also get harder in other ways- prime example being throwing a further line but having to figure out how to consistently set the hook from far distances, and getting the same good drift you used to get from half as far away. And once you can cast further, you are always going to throw from further away rather than go back to your old ways, which requires you to learn and figure out how to address these new challenges. Being a competitive guy, and wanting to get better, Don occasionally got frustrated during this phase of improvement, realizing initial success isn’t the same thing as consistent performance. But he stuck with it.

Going back to my the essential key qualities for a fishing partner, I stand by my position that a fishing partner needs to bring something to the table. And Don does. Being an engineer and a generally heady individual, if you give the dude a task that involves maps, or any other sort of logistics he will figure it out. This brings new ideas on where to fish to the table, and generally makes you feel like you have a competent partner in crime when it comes to setting up a trip. Add in the fact that I’m the son of a plumber that can barely use a wrench, having Don as a handy counterpart is a plus, if not downright needed on my end which I agree is somewhat pathetic. But most of all, scheming and engaging in this sort of joint reconnaissance is half the fun of the adventure, which over time becomes more and more why you fish in the first place. And the more a fishing partner schemes, and is willing to explore rather than insist on hitting the same spots, the more you scheme, and the adventures keep happening. I think that process and realization kept Don enthused, even while he was going through the growing pains that every angler experiences when they revamp their technique in the midst of their learning curve.

Over the next two seasons, Don and I fished a lot of different places as his learning curve continued. He started to understand and learn when and where you fish at certain times. The difference between freestones and tailwaters and when to fish each, and why. And after a while, rather than explaining things, I’d be getting texts from him with USGS charts or other data about why we should give a certain spot a shot that weekend. The rate of improvement was impressive, and by year 4 of fishing together, we were slightly shy of being neck and neck, with my only edge being casting to fish at extreme distances, and sticking particularly picky fish during a complex hatch. The day it became apparent how much Don had improved was a day we weren’t fishing together. That day, I was floating a less popular stretch of river, and saw a guy downriver casting and thought damn that dude has a nice cast- only to row down 100 yards and realize it was Don. He was willing to leave the more consistent stretches to explore and learn lesser known stretches on his own. He could now really throw a line. He had taken his game to the next level.

Heading into this season, I expect Don to continue to improve as he has, while I hang on by a thread. And I expect that will push us both to get better. A little competition between fishing partners is a good thing and builds camaraderie. While I understand two old friends fishing the same pool every season is a nice story in a different way, I don’t wan’t that to be my story. I want to push it further every season. And you need a fishing partner that aligns with that view, and assists in that pursuit to make it happen. And yeah, you could go it alone, but how many fish can you net for yourself before you think it would be nice to share those experiences with another angler? There is a line between fishing not being a social sport, and being an isolationist. And that line is a good fishing partner. Partner being singular, as three is always a crowd whether it be in the boat or on the stream. In furtherance of this pursuit, there will undoubtedly be more schemes that revolve around hitting new water, how to get there, and how we’ll do it on our own. And I know I can split the drive, split the rowing, split the cost, and have a hand in pulling it all off. And at the end of the day, that’s what makes a good fishing partner.