Dream Trip

Here are some thoughts from a slow day at the office. I hope some of these echo happily in your mind and inspire you to head for the river with your fly rod. That old saying is still true: "a bad day on the river beats a good day in the office".

DREAM TRIP

Reflections from a slow day in the office in March, 2004

By: L. Woodrow Ross
© L. Woodrow Ross March 25, 2004

Here I sit looking out the window when I should be working. The trees are blooming and the first leaves are forming. The nights have been cool, but this weekend is supposed to be great. We may have some more cold weather, but the trout are on the move and I am frustrated by being trapped behind this desk! What in the heck did I do to deserve this? This is a free land, so I have a choice, and my choice is that I need to eat and pay my bills, so I guess I’ll keep on working.

At least I can dream. I remember the Yellowstone and the big Cutthroats last summer. When they were feeding on top, the big noses pushed through the surface and were as big as my fist. They were powerful and beautiful to behold, and as we fished, the bison forded the river behind us and made us thankful to be in such a beautiful place. As my friend Gene often says, “It just doesn’t get any better than this”. The biggest one hooked escaped, of course, but he fought a long and valiant fight and deserved to get away. We would have released him anyway, but it is his job to seek his freedom and our nature is to pursue.

The cutting room manager just walked in and interrupted my reverie, and we had to conduct some business; but now my mind can let me ease into the Birkenhead River in British Columbia in 2002. The current is swift and has the chalky look of water that recently collected at the base of a glacier and began its long, circuitous journey to the sea. It has a green cast, and the current is swift, whipping the water into a green tinted froth. There is little insect activity, but the Dolly Varden holding in the slower pools respond to the egg patterns. They are beautiful as they slip into the net. They are gently eased back into their ancestral waters and I watch as they slip into the green depths.

I hear the voices in the hallway, but it doesn’t keep me from slipping further into my inner self that longs to hear the water speaking to me and feel the gentle breeze upon my face. I can feel the tug of the current at my waders as I ease further out into the stream. I am in the North Mills River in North Carolina. It is a delayed harvest stream. It is springtime and I am having my best day ever there. The fish are 10” to 14” and are healthy and fighting well in the cool spring water. There is a good mixture of rainbows, brooks and some browns. I catch some of all three species and they are a delight. The rod bows repeatedly under the strain and the fish come grudgingly to the net. Several of the rainbows are strong fighters jump high out of the water as they rebel against the sting of the hook and the pressure of the leader. What a day to remember! Over 40 fish and many missed hook-ups.

I had to answer some e-mails, but I am back. What a drag having to work today. At least one of the messages was from my middle daughter, the musician. I had sent her a new poem and she will supply the music and maybe it will be enjoyable and useful to her. Now I can resume the tour of my favorite spots again. I have slipped back into my gear and find myself on the North Mills again, but it is only a couple of weeks back. I have caught some good fish, but have started back upstream with Gene and am staying close to him. He has only been fly fishing for a couple of seasons and is still having problems with detecting and hooking the fish. It is especially hard nymphing and we don’t normally use indicators. I stay close to him and try to coach him. We stopped at a pool that we had checked on the way down, but it had been fished by someone else and the fish were spooked. Now they had been rested and I moved in near him.

“Keep the rod tip up, but don’t raise it so high that you can’t strike to hook the fish. Try to keep it more horizontal, but as high as possible in that plane”. A few more tries and he still come up empty. I could see that the nymph was too high in the water column and I told him to try again and keep the rod tip a little lower and I pointed to a deep slot and told him, “Take another step out from the shore and drift the nymph right there. There is a fish right in that spot”. He made a perfect cast and managed a good drift right through the sweet spot and instantly had a hook-up. He fought and landed the feisty rainbow (about 12”), and I said,”Let’s do that again. See that rock that the current is swirling around? If you will cast two feet to the left of it, there is another fish there”. Gene made a good cast and another good drift with the rod in the correct position. He had another immediate hook-up and was delighted. After a brief fight, the fish escaped, but Gene was happy with his effort. I think that he really connected with the technique and I was very happy to see his instant success.

Nymphing is like that. You have to be able to get the nymph down and bump it along the bottom and be able to interpret the subtle movement of the line or leader. Any slight movement or hesitation in the movement should elicit a strike from the fisherman. It doesn’t have to be a big sweep of the rod to set the hook, just a lift of the rod will suffice. It is almost a magical thing to be able to read the water and know when a fish is taking the nymph. You may feel it, but usually not. You may see a flash as the fish turns if the water is clear and not too deep. You might even see the wink of white as his mouth opens to take the nymph, but that is not normally the case. It just seems to be almost instinctive and the reaction is something that is hard to explain to someone that has not experienced it. Once you make the connection, it all seems so simple.

Another minor interruption just occurred when our financial manager came in and dropped my check on the desk. I can live with that kind of interruption any time. I handed her an invoice from one of our contractors and discussed a deduction that needed to be made from the invoice and she departed.

Now where was I? I have left the North Mills and moved all the way to the Madison River, near Ennis, Montana. My grandsons and I have been fishing and catching mostly small browns. We had fished the braided channels above Ennis Lake and used a small emerger pattern that I had copied from a book that I bought that spring. We had a great time and I had a chance to spend some quality time with my family and still get in some trout fishing. We stayed on the water until about 10:00 pm one night.

That reminds me of an incident several years back when we were in Whitefish, Montana and the weather was extremely hot all week. The fishing had been lousy and my grandsons had not done well at all. There was a small pond near the condo and we had told Steven one evening that if we got back from dinner early enough, his grandmother and I would take him to the pond to fish. It was nearing dark as we returned, but true to our promise, we grabbed his rod and a few flies and walked to the pond. I didn’t have much faith in him catching anything in the pond, but on about the second cast, he caught a small cutthroat. He was ecstatic. He was fishing with a Madame X and cast again and again and finally landed another similar to the first. It was black dark by that time and no moonlight to lighten the sky. There had been some problems recently with marauding bears getting into garbage and Margaret was getting nervous. Steven kept saying, “Just one more cast”. He repeated that over and over and finally we had to insist that we leave. It was a wonderful experience and the Madame X was his favorite fly after that.

Well gosh, look at my watch! It’s 4:52 and I’ll be leaving at 5:00. Where does the time go when you’re having fun? You’ll have to join me on my next trip. I take these frequently and they are always enjoyable. Of course, we always remember the good days and the bad one fade into obscurity, but it’s my day dreaming and I’ll do it my way.

I hope you enjoyed these random thoughts. Join me again for some more outdoor/travel topics.

L. Woodrow Ross