Can You Take Me Fly Fishing?

Photo by: Nick Boehme

Eight slips away slowly as nine is brand new on him, just since early July, and I'll miss this age forever, I think.  He draws closer to an age that is much clearer in my mind from my own life's memories but he's not quite there yet.  I keep hope that childhood lasts on him.

I took him to the stream a couple of weeks ago, I had asked if he wanted to come.  Sure, I'll come, he says.  I don't know if it was on his list as a priority of fun or of not wanting to disappoint with a different answer.  There is always that with sons, I think, and it is always appreciated by dads.

He hadn't been since last year, maybe last April, and now he was putting on waders more easily.  Asking questions about the fish, a couple about the bugs and such.  The interest, it seemed, was sparking.  Standing on the banks with two other fisherman upon arrival, shooting the old "here's what I'm throwing" and, "you should try this fly", and "I know Mike from...", Dean is already down on the stream..."Dad!  Come on, let's go!"  I chuckle proudly and excuse myself.

We start with nymphs because he's done that before and I can easily put the rod in his hands with this method.  Flip it up and across...keep the rod just in front of that fly line...and now...flip it back up and across...He does this pretty well but nothing strikes.

A couple of fish come to the nets of the other fishermen.  We stomp over, we look, he is enamored.  Daylight is fading fast and I'm feeling it.  I'd sure like him to hook up.  We went to the dry fifteen or so minutes ago and I've switched patterns two or three times.  I told you I was feeling it.  Gotta get this kid on a fish.  He's nine.  He'll remember.

We need to leave soon to pick up his sister.  In fact, we maybe should have left already.  It's feeling like "it is what it is" and his interest is turning to how deep he can get in the water before his boots start to fill.  I keep at him, "Nope.  Stop.  You're gonna get soaked" (he does), and finally, "we gotta go...last cast here..."

Slurp.

"Dean?"

"Yeah?", he answers as he looks across.

"Did you see that?  Did you see that fish rise out in front of that rock?"  It was just opposite us, right up close to the far bank.

"Yup."

"Watch this", I say as I strip the line and start the false casting.  "If he takes it, get ready..."

On the second drift the kid sees the take.  Fish on.  I hand him the rod instantly and the fun begins.

Photo by: Nick Boehme

He does a lot wrong.  He reels the wrong way at times.  His hands get crossed up.  At one point he reels the fly line right up to the end of the rod when the fish isn't ready.  I am tempted to take the rod more than once but, instead, I coach.  "Keep the rod tip up.  Easy.  Easy.  Let him run a bit.  Let him run."

He listens and responds and the fish comes to net.  Three grown men all around him, smiling.  Hey, kid, what a fish.  His smile outdoes us all.  He is thrilled.

I've taken him fishing before and I'll certainly take him again but this trip was a game changer.

About four or five days later while running family errands, my wife tells me that she and my daughter are going to be busy that evening and that the boys would have to fend for themselves.  He sits in the back of the car as the girls run into the store.  He taps on the back of my right shoulder...Hey dad?...Can you take me fly fishing?

Hooked.

Photo by: Nick Boehme

Fishing is like sex...

Fishing is like sex...even if you're not doing it, it's still fun to think about.

Tight lines,

Mike

Summer

I dipped the mesh back of the ball cap into the fast current and shook the excess cold water from it and slid it back on over my head. The brilliantly shining hot sun flashed and danced off of the stream. The green around me was lush and in seasonal abundance.  The coolness of the late June breeze that swept downstream, coupled with the wet cap sent a welcoming chill through me. I was wading up well past my knees, swaddled in the fast cold flow. I held the rod in my right hand as I stretched both arms out wide and looked straight up at the kind of blue I remember from childhood. Stared straight upward, stretched deeply, and gave thanks for all that this moment had to offer.

Evening Hatch

Sunlight slips down, its amber glow through patchy woods across the stream, filtering the perfect light of dusk onto the water.  Time is slowly going, or standing still, I cannot tell which and I don't think about it too hard.  This business about it "flying when you're having fun" is only true when you are thinking about the fun you are having rather than actually just going about the business of having it.  And I am.  A calm, thoughtless, one with nature, kind of fun.  Close to God's fun if I had to place it.  But, hey, I don't have to place anything. I just have to stand here in this river and fish.  

Ploink.  A rise.  I had hoped for that.  Ploink.  Behind.  To the left.  Another.  Ploink.  Ploink.  The white, yellowish sheen of the large fluttering bugs that dance up and over the stream must be what I have come here for.  Sulphurs?  Ploink.  Yup, sulphurs.

I lose my breath, just for a second.  Swallow hard.  Calm now, man, choose the right fly.  Ploink, ploink, ploink.  They all look so similar in the fly box all of the sudden.  Concentrate.  Ploink.  How could all of these pale flies even be in here??  Settle.  Settle...  

Choose.  Now tie a good knot.  Getting tough to see.  Ploink, ploink, ploink...you get the idea.

There, across the stream under that overhanging limb, is the most consistent rise.  It'll demand a good drift across a couple of these currents.  Easy now...easy...and...Thwack.  Shhhuuup.  And the fly line is ripped up off of the water.  Novice.  Stupid.  

I shrug it off.  Breathe.  I address another rise.  A take.  Fish on.  Okay...I can do this.  Another cast, another fish.  Here we go.  Good choice on that fly, hey?  Little guys but they stoke the confidence.  

The last of the light is fading.  The chill in the air on the back of my neck after the first hot day of the season.  The place really comes alive now with an abundance of sound as sight slips softly away with the day.  The environment becomes something that I am no longer separate from. It shrouds my existence and welcomes me into it as an equal part.  I stand, watching.  Listening.  Calm.  

Back under the tree, the rise is back.  I try again.  The cast effortless, thoughtless.    

PLOINK!

Photo By: Nick Boehme

 

I Need a Bender

I slip down the rock and mud trail and hit a small landing to watch the unfamiliar stream.  The water rolls off the hood of my cheap vinyl rain gear.  A ball-cap underneath keeps the drops from hitting my nose.  Drip, drip, drip.  I watch.  Only an hour to fish.  I've taken the risk to be here, dead in the center of a late afternoon in which the weatherman has doomed with a call for two to four inches of rain and it seems that, for once, he's on point.  If this is truly the case, tomorrow morning will be out.  My thought is that maybe I can beat the "real rain" and remain on the water for the small window of time I've actually got.  I need to be back to a work function this evening so this quick fix will have to do.  Just this morning I had all intentions of "working straight through".  In fact, those intentions remained right up until the work day ended and I sat at my desk and thought, "Who fishes in stupid weather like this anyway?"  Yeah...right.  I sprang up like a mad man and now here I am.

This is my vice.  This is my addiction.  But this is just another quick and untimely sip if you will.  What I really need is a bender.

I need a trip where the sun comes up in pink over the hills as the truck rolls out and across the meadows. The morning dew glistens off the tall grass and wildflower as I lazily look out the passenger window, the beaten ball cap slung over my brow.  I'm tired but ready to take on another stream.

I need the music to be just right to set the tone of the day.  A tune that is unknown to me but is somehow all too familiar. The driver knows this and says nothing of it even though he made the selection with purpose.

The rods rattle in the back, still strewn up from streamer fishing off the beaten path in the depths of last night.  A bottle of something smooth that followed and maybe a cigar smell that lingers on my flannel sleeve as I rub my nose against it like a kid.  Something about the cool early June morning through the crack in the window that makes my nose run just slightly.

Soon, a map spread out on the hood, the wind kicking up the corners, as the GPS signal is lost up here and this little gem wouldn't show up on a computer anyway.  We bounce from small stream to small stream.  We fish hard, once in a while stopping to chomp on some fresh jerky that we picked up at a dusty old country store, deep in what is clearly not our neck of the woods.

The fish are plentiful.  There are sizable browns and wild cutthroat trout.  The first of these jewels is the first of a lifetime and a memory all its own.  She tangled in some overhanging briar patch on the far bank, and I barely managed her to the net.  When I finally do, the large thorns stick out of my arm as I rip it away from the brush, drawing some blood at which my partner finds uproariously funny.  He's right.

A break in the action with a cold beer at a tavern that feels like days gone by.  Can you believe these wings?  "Damn good", is muttered as we quietly lick our chops.   For years the story will start, "Remember that old lady shootin' pool?"

Some more fish at the camp waters that sip on emergers in the fading orange light.  We've certainly had a day to remember and there's more around the bend tomorrow.

Later, the fire-pit lofts a smooth cedar smoke through the overhanging moonlit trees.  A guitar strums quietly, muted only by the crickets and the distant trickling of the stream.  I start to doze in the camp chair, hands comfortably clasped behind my head, looking straight up at the stars. There must be a billion of them, I think.  Eyelids slipping down...almost there...almost there...

For now, none of that is in the cards.  The reality is that it's pouring in New York with a lot more work than time and only small trips to close waters.  And yet, the addiction always prevails.  I'll take the hour in all its hard earned glory.  I'll chuck this nymph as the sheets come down. 

Eventually, a small brown puts a bend in the rod and comes to hand.  She swims happily away and into the fast current and in that instant I know that this is just as good. 

I slog back up the trail as I head for the car.  Gotta hurry back now.

A bender would be nice but a drop of the stuff is better than nothing at all.

The Journey

It started with Dad, years ago.  It began in beauty. 

I hung the waders in the attic over the garage the year he died.  Once every so very often, they would find a stream.  

There were sparse Beaverkill trips that masked a sad search for a man I couldn't find, no matter how many times I could swear he was just around the next bend in the river.  The fish did not matter.  

There was a splash of stream-side manner in California, hanging the wrong fly in the wrong stretch of water at the wrong time of year.  It was a cast into the dark of a search for who I was at a time of uncertainty. It settled me temporarily and the fish did not matter.

Another long lapse as the waders grew dryer and dryer.  Cracks in the boots and dry rot in the old Hodgman suspenders as they hung up there in that dark place.  Years went by.

Life moving...

Eventually, a rallying cry to family and old friends that unearthed a new found quest for calm running rivers and emerald green pools.  It was just a few years ago.  The company mattered and the fish did not.  Finding my way.

The journey continues.  Its purpose evolving.  Its sadness and uncertainty lifted entirely and replenished with joy and laughter.

And the fish do not matter.  

What begins in beauty must return to beauty.  

Itch

Last week after work one evening I had the chance to fish a local stream for the first time and it did not disappoint.  I had stopped at this particular section of the Croton River back in early April to take a look and what I found was just a simply gorgeous stream.  I was happy to be able to wet a line there so I met up with a young angler who shared some great nymphing techniques and we fished together for an action packed couple of hours.  Brown after brown came to net.  Nothing too large but these were spirited trout.  A surprise rainbow even came to hand as we worked our way downstream.  I had hoped to find some fish on dries but there were very few rises and we were having so much fun fishing subsurface that I thought it best to stick to this method.  It was nice to fish with this kid and I silently appreciated his youth, knowing that he has his whole life ahead of him and he's got one of the keys to happiness all figured out.

With the itch of the dry fly not scratched and sparse time over the past several days, I hit a local stream for the last hour of daylight this evening.  I thought for sure that with the warm temps there would be bugs about and plenty of them but this just wasn't the case.  When I arrived at the stream I debated going with nymphs again but ultimately decided against it.  After all, I specifically came out here without dinner, straight from my son's soccer practice, to fish dry flies.  A commitment being what it is, I stuck to it.  I tied on a Hendrickson because this is the hatch that I keep hearing about to match the season.  Soon enough, a fish came to net.  It was a hell of a good feeling coaxing a fish to the top.  It wasn't large and it was only one, but it rose to the fly.  Scratch, scratch, scratch, ahhhhhh.  After a couple more misses, it turned off.  I reeled up the line and clipped off the fly.  I looked to the sky and gave thanks.

Hope to get out again soon.  It's already starting to itch again.

Tight lines.