The Secret Sharer Redux

For the past several months, I've been in something of a story telling funk. The words haven't come easily, and as a consequence my keyboard has gone practically untouched. This isn't to say that I haven't anything about which to write; anyone who spends a life fishing is going to have stories to tell, but the way in which to tell those stories remains elusive.

Fortunately, I've several years of material to draw from. For the next few days - or weeks, or months - I'll be republishing some of this blog's older posts. I start with The Secret Sharer not because it is especially well written, but because it expresses a notion that seems at odds with the act of blogging about fly fishing: keeping secret our best fishing spots.

The Secret Sharer 

Robin Hill (of Spey Nation fame) and I recently spent the better part of a day cruising a local lake, looking for any small sign of the outsized carp that we both believe swim its windblown currents. At one point late in the day, Robin looked over at me and remarked, "It's because of this ... because of days like this. People write us [Robin and Spey Nation co-founder Geoff Shaake] all the time asking why we don't discuss the places we fish. This is why."

He was absolutely right. Days like the one we experienced are the reason so few bug chuckers divulge the whereabouts of their piscatorial stomping grounds. We were methodically exploring every back back bay on the southern end of the lake. We had miles of water under the hull and under our lines, and at the end of the day we parted ways knowing that neither of us would ever tell people what we discovered or where we had fished.

As juvenile as it must seem to someone who doesn't fish, the simple truth is that secrecy is the rule. What's the first rule of Fight Club? And the second?  "You do not talk about Fight Club."



So too with fishing, but the question remains. Why?

Robin nailed it. We - the too few members of the faithful fraternity of fly flingers - do not talk about the places in which we wet our lines simply because of the work we've put into getting to know those places. Robin and I explored every back bay on the southern end of the lake. We put miles under the hull and under our lines. We stared into the shallows until our vision was blurred by the glare of the sun. We changed flies, lost flies, tweaked the design of new flies, but we did not catch a fish. Not one. We were skunked, busted, blanked. By any metric, we had a very tough day on the water.

Sometimes I'd swear that they really are ghosts

And again ... we will never tell anyone but our closest compadres where we fished.

Given the stench of skunk, I think it obvious that our secrecy doesn't result from having discovered angling gems that we want to hoard and keep to ourselves. We all know of places where the fishing can be exceptional, but exceptional fishing is not the reason we speak in code if we speak at all. Rather, we are oftentimes tight-lipped to the point of being antisocial because we've worked hard for what we have. We're reluctant to share with the world because the world does not share our experience.

So ... I've some advice for anyone who hopes for the key to the inner sanctum.

Do the work yourself.

Buy a map. Walk the bank. Float a section of the river or the edges of a bay. Take the time to learn the water, and you'll likely be surprised by how prolific the fishing may be. Then take what you learn, and lock it away. Keep it safe. Don't tell anyone, least of all me. In doing so you'll learn the greatest secret of all.

The best fishing is never about the river or the lake. It's not about a particular run or pool. The best days on the water are never about the spot. The best days we have will invariably come as a result of having worked to achieve them, and as a result of having failed along the way. It's all about the effort. It's all about the work.

Demonstrate the effort, and you'll find the right spots. Do the work, and you'll have your own secrets to share.

Losing Weight

When my wife was pregnant with our triplets she gained 100 pounds. One hundred pounds, and our children were six weeks premature. Of course, much of that 100 pounds was fluid; some of it - 15lbs 14oz to be exact - was baby. Most of Amy's weight gain, however, must have been love and hopeful anticipation because not once in seven and a half months of pregnancy did my wife complain. She was a trooper, and entirely dedicated to the well being of the lives growing inside her. All that having been said, she was more than happy to be rid of the weight once our children were born.

Now, to the point ...

Any of the three people who regularly read The Rusty Spinner are sure to know that this blog focuses much more on the why of fly fishing than it does the how of fly fishing. The how is done to death, and when it's done well, it is done much better than I am likely to do it. Over the past several years, however, I've had something of a revelation in my carp fishing that I think bears sharing: to follow the example of my wife and lose the weight.

I've been fly fishing for carp for over twenty years. When I began, I did what most bug chuckers do when they start chasing carp: I threw woolly buggers at them and hoped for the best. A typical outing had me fishing my home river for smallmouth bass, never targeting carp specifically, but always hoping I might find one willing to eat. Every so often I'd get lucky and cross paths with an enthusiastic fish rooting in the shallows, but these carp were always much more likely to spook than they were to take a #4 cone head woolly bugger.

As I matured as a carp angler - if such a thing as possible - and began to chase carp to the exclusion of other species, I tied flies that I thought would be more to their liking. These bugs were almost always constructed with tailing carp in mind. That is to say that they often mimicked crayfish and were heavily weighted - usually with beads or lead eyes - so that when cast to actively feeding fish they would drop straight to the bottom where tailing carp feed. If my casting was on point then chances were reasonably good that a fish would take. If my casting was off - even the least little bit - then the fish was likely to spook. Sometimes, the mere splash of my weighted fly entering the water was enough to send entire pods of fish scattering across the river.

And this is why I've decided to lose the weight. Small unweighted flies enter the water with much less commotion than do flies tied with bead chain, barbell eyes, beads, or even lead wire. As a consequence, I'm able to make multiple presentations to fish that would likely spook if presented with larger and heavier offerings. If made to guess, I would say that on average I am able to make five or ten times as many casts to fish when I am using unweighted flies than I might make with weighted offerings. I'm not a mathematician, but I'm fairly sure this makes me five or ten times more likely to hook a fish.

Of course, fishing with unweighted flies in the the rivers I frequent does present a particular challenge. If my target is rooting on the bottom or suspended mid column then I must cast far enough upstream to allow my fly time to sink into the fish's field of vision. More often than not, the carp I chase are unwilling to move very far in following a fly so my presentation must be in the fish's lane to be at all effective. This can prove difficult at first, but any bug chucker who has spent time fishing for stream trout has likely had thousands of opportunities to practice.

On Amy's Legs and Using the Tools We Have

I hated - hated - high school chemistry. Ionic bonds bored me. Covalent bonds made me angry. I practically hulked out over Graham's law, and Dalton's law - who needs that kind of pressure? The teacher, Mr. DeMarco, was a former NCAA wrestler who was more chemistry than teacher, and at times seemed a strange amalgam of Randy "The Macho Man" Savage and Raymond "The Rain Man" Babbitt.



Most days, Mr. DeMarco had more patience for nitrification and titration than he did for any of the young people he was teaching. He was perpetually angry; at only 5'6" tall and 150 pounds he may have been short of temper because he was short of stature, but more likely he just didn't appreciate having to deal with chuckleheads like me. I enrolled in his class not out of intellectual curiosity but for wholly prurient reasons: Amy Salvadore and her legs.

Amy Salvadore was ground zero for every feverish, hormone induced, adolescent daydream I ever had. God help me, but I could stare at her legs for hours. She was an athlete: a soccer player who as a high school student played in two state championships and eventually went on to play at the college level; her legs told the story of that athletic prowess. They were magnificent - magnificent. Amy Salvadore was my Helen of Troy.

Liz Taylor as Helen of Troy ... look at those ... eyes.

Unfortunately, I never had the courage to try to convince Amy that I was the Paris to her Helen, the Antony to her Cleopatra, the Solo to her Leia. She was intimidating, aloof, and out of my league by any reasonable measure. My only solace was that while I was content to quietly fixate on her legs, Amy focused on her studies and soccer; she had no interest in the many boys that hovered around her like so many vultures circling a carcass.

From time to time, however, Amy would look up from her chemistry notebook and smile at me from across the classroom. Insecure as I was, I always looked away, embarrassed at having been caught staring. I should have thrown off my teenage cowardice and held her gaze if only for a moment. I should have returned her smile, and struck up a conversation after class. I should have been bold, swept her up in my arms, and carried her off to the locker room; I never did because I did not recognize those glances across the classroom for what they were - opportunities.

As I sit here at the keyboard, it occurs to me that writing The Rusty Spinner is a little like sitting in chemistry class and staring at Amy Salvadore's legs. Inspiration and opportunity are always just that close. Whether it's steelhead or trout, carp or bass, pike or musky - my next opportunity to write is never further away than a sloppy double haul. The trick is to recognize the moment when it comes, and be willing to take a chance. Sometimes everything comes together, I catch a few fish, and write something that may actually be worth the reading. Other times, not so much.

For the first time in over 20 years, I today found myself thinking of Amy Salvadore's legs as I stepped out of the shower and reached for the bath towel that hangs from the back of the bathroom door. Imagine my dismay at having discovered that someone - likely one of the three gremlins my wife and I spawned some seven years ago - absconded with my moisture wicking, Turkish cotton towel and left in its place a toddler's hooded body swab. More to the point, I was left to use this ...

Arghh Matey.

And there it was, my Amy Salvadore moment of inspiration: a diminutive caricature of an 18th Century pirate masquerading as a grown man's bath towel.

Bear in mind, that at 6' 3" tall and 300 pounds on the very best of days, I've quite a lot of surface area to cover. Anything less than an over-sized beach towel just isn't going to do the job very well. It's a simple matter of mathematics.

Needless to say, I didn't have many options. I could have swabbed myself with toilet paper, but the price of top shelf, double ply T.P. made that a cost prohibitive choice. I could have gone into my wife's cabinet, grabbed a handful of the cotton balls she keeps, and used that wad of cotton to dab the essential areas. The risk of chaffing made that an equally bad choice. I could have streaked from the bathroom to my bedroom, but as I've already said there were children in the house. With all I've done to mess with their minds over the years, I just couldn't bring myself to brand them with the indelible image of naked Big Daddy darting down the hallway. Wait for the air to do its job? Who has the time? Not this guy. I had no choice; it was the pirate towel or nothing.
  
Finally - after much rambling and digression - we come to the point, and the point is simply this: use the tools you have. How many times have we missed out on a moment because we weren't properly equipped? We show up to the river and discover that the hennies are done and the sulphurs have begun. Of course, we've left our box of sulphurs at home. Maybe we packed our waders but forgot to pack our wading boots. Perhaps we brought a 5# rod, but grabbed a reel mounted with a 7# line. We finally arrive riverside after a 40 minute drive, discover our mistake, and rather than take a chance we head back home, cursing our own stupidity along the way.

We've all been there - all of us - and while a toddler's pirate towel may not be the best tool for the job, it will still get the job done. Trust me. I know. I also know that hendrickson emergers and nymphs will continue to take fish during a sulphur hatch. Sneakers work every bit as well as our over-priced, sticky rubber, didymo resistant wading boots. Put a 7# line on that broomstick of a 5# rod, and you might discover you're casting better than ever before.

For my part, I'm going to chase muskies with an 8#. I've been putting off a muskie trip because I've convinced myself that I need a 10# before I go. Fly fishing companies must love that type of thinking, and it is just so much nonsense. No doubt the 10# is the better choice, but I'll get the job done with a lighter rod. As I see it, using the 8# may actually do more to improve my skills as a bug chucker and fly tyer than using what some folks might suggest is a more appropriate tool. So long as my line is in the water I've a chance, and a chance is all I really need.

If nothing else, I can say for sure that in twenty years I won't be looking back on this moment and wondering what could have been.

Daydreaming

My fingers tap heavily on the desk like a metronome counting time for an elegy that only I can hear. I stare out my classroom's solitary window - a post-modern monstrosity, which was no doubt designed for a prison before it was diverted to my school. With the open-mouthed vacancy of a Hindu cow, I watch snow fall heavily in the courtyard beyond the glass.

I cannot help my blank expression. I've had enough of winter, and the nor'easter blowing outside has me wondering if I've done something to anger the river gods. Clearly they're angry. Why else would they conspire with the weather gods to trap me here, at the frozen center of Dante's Inferno. I should be off chasing steelhead or trout.

Two days ago, the air tasted of spring, but today the wind wrestles violently with itself, conjuring little cyclones of sleet and ice that battle each other in the square. Mr. Roe's greenhouse - built by last year's departing seniors to teach this year's incoming freshmen the value of all things green - rattles and shakes, its spring hinged door flapping open and slamming shut in time with my finger tapping. I'd be surprised if it survives until April. I'd be surprised if I survive until April.

Today's study hall is overfull. I've been assigned 39 students this semester, but there are only 27 desks in my classroom. Typical. Students squat where they can; some stand while others recline on the floor. To my front sits a young woman and her boyfriend. The boy wears a Volcom t-shirt and what I believe to be his sister's jeans; he smells strongly of menthol cigarettes and unwashed nether parts.

I smile and nod when the girl turns to look at me, but in my mind I'm screaming, "Dear God! Can't you smell it?". Of course, the stench may not belong solely to the boy. Perhaps the girl smells of Newports and the boyfriend of body funk. Perhaps their unpleasant, pubescent aromas have mingled like explosive binary chemicals, and in doing so formed an odor more repulsive than either could achieve if left alone.

Regardless, the wintry mix outside prevents me from opening my classroom's double paned porthole to better ventilate the too small space, so I turn on my fan and quietly hide from the stink in the vortex created by the blades. Kids are great; they're talented, insightful, and uninhibited in ways that adults simply are not, but there's a steep learning curve when it comes to hygiene that many find difficult to master. Some don't even care to try.

)

Before long, my mind - if not my nose - is quieted by the gentle thrum of the fan's motor. With my gag reflex momentarily suppressed, I drift off to happier times.

In the space of a moment, winter has given way to summer, and I'm no longer a teacher. The world is green and warm; everything is fresh and new - as it would be when seen through young eyes. I'm six years old, younger by a year than my own three children, and my father (who was then younger by a decade than I am now) has only just given me my first fly rod. We're together, dad and I, each of us in cut-off jeans and running shoes and standing in one of the Battenkill's shallow riffles. One quarter mile above us is Shushan's covered bridge.

My father, a dedicated bait fisherman, drifts his nightcrawler through the deepest part of the slot. I stand upstream of dad - as I always did when I was a boy - and whip the fly line back and forth as he had shown me only moments before. Throughout the morning, I managed a handful of casts to four or five yards, but for the most part the line would fall at my feet or wrap itself like a hungry python around the tip of the rod. When the line did stretch out in imitation of an adequate cast, the current would grab its thick PVC belly and sweep leader and fly at a sprinter's pace down through the head of the run. Mending was beyond this particular first grader, which meant the chances of hooking a fish were miniscule. This only made the brown's splashy take all the more remarkable.

"Dad?"

"Wrapped around the pole again?"

"I think I have one."

"No you don't."

"I think I do."

"Just keep casting."

"I can't. The line is stuck in the water."

"Stuck?"

And then the scene changes. I'm a grown man, albeit a younger, less rotund man than I am today. It's a Tuesday in mid June, and while I should be at work - I am not. I've played hooky from my classroom, and later in the evening I will be absent from graduate school. As late as it is in the school year, my students are checked-out, their minds on summer vacation. They won't even know I'm gone. Professor Kelsh and research studies will just have to wait. Today is a mental health day; one that I have been desperately needing. Today, I am neither student nor teacher.

The day is beautiful in the way late spring days so often are: a brilliant sun climbs high in the cloudless sky, the water is a deep aquamarine that reflects the sun in its riffles, and the air carries the scent of blooming cornflower and coreopsis. Unfortunately, beautiful days are sometimes harbingers of poor fishing, and such has been the case throughout the morning. My partner and I had a few half-hearted nips as we nymphed through run, but as we stepped away from the tailout we had nothing to show for our efforts.

"I think I'll head up top and give it another go. I know there's fish there, and I'm sure I can get one of them to take."

"Alright, I might switch over to a sinking line and try the slot down below."

"Give a yell if you zip one."

"Will do."

I cross the river in the shallowest portion of the tailout, and when I reach the far bank, I do as I said I would and switch over to a 200 grain sinker. My fly choice is simple: a #4 woolly bugger with olive hackle and a barred yellow tail - one of my favorites on this river. On my first cast, the line slips free of my off hand, and my double haul becomes an underpowered single that ends with leader and fly wrapped around the rod's tip. It's been twenty odd years since I caught that first brown, and my casting hasn't improved at all.

Fifteen minutes and four feet of tippet later, I'm again false casting. This time, I remember to hold onto the running line; the forward stroke and the second haul are timed as they should be, and everything is right in the world. The line slides through the guides with a pleasing "Pfffffffttttt," and the rod jumps a little as weight of the shooting head pulls against the reel. I watch the fly turn over the leader, the tuft of yellow marabou touches the surface, and the water erupts in a turquoise explosion. For a moment, I'm convinced a bobcat or shetland pony has jumped into the pool. I look to my reel, vaguely aware of an unfamiliar screech coming from its inner workings. When my eyes finally focus on the freely spinning spool, I witness a sight that until that moment I had only ever read about: backing - white as a sucker's belly - stealing away from the reel like a falcon diving on a hare.

Again, the scene changes, but this time I'm not looking back; I'm dreaming forward. And in my dream I see that next steelhead trip, which is likely to be the last for the year. I see the first day of trout season and the hendricksons that will soon drift in circles through the eddies of the Flats, the Ball Field, and The Springhole. I see snouts poking through the surface of the Delaware and ice cold beer and luke warm scrambled eggs served on the bow of Shawn's drift boat. I see cruising carp and slashing pike. I see bowfin and gar, brook trout and sunfish. I see the shadow of a musky, and the whisper of a laker. I see all the promise of a year on the water.

The bell rings, and it's all I can do to wade out from under the stupor. I look up from my daydream to find the room empty of students; the odor that accompanied them seems to have followed them out the door. I sigh heavily, knowing I have to put my dreams on hold for a while. In minutes, twenty-four young men and women will cross the threshold separating the chaos of the hallway from the tranquility of my little corner of the world. Some of those young people will need my attention.

Some will almost certainly want to spend the class daydreaming, and today - I think I'll let them.

Tying Trout, Thinking Steelhead, and Dreaming Carp

Day 87 of the Snowpocalypse...

Three days ago we exhausted our stores of craft beer and ate what was left of Charlie. Vodka is running low; we've been forced to cut it with orange Tang and grape Shasta. Only one bottle of scotch remains ... One bottle. Yesterday morning, Ana washed down two Xanax and an Ambien with half a bottle of Nyquil. Thirty minutes later she wandered off into the drifts singing Do You Want to Build a Snowman. We haven't seen her since; she was our only hope for re-population. God help us all.



It's that time of year when Jack Frost does his very best to remind us he's a badass. This year especially, winter is making it a point to keep its frigid little rat claws dug firmly into the northeast and Great Lakes regions. As of February 13th, ice covered 88.4% of all five of the Great Lakes. For the mathematically impaired, 88.4% is pretty damn close to 100%. In most high schools and junior colleges, 88.4% gets you on the honor roll. This is the year Frosty gives the valedictory address.

Wonder what it is that keeps that last 12% from freezing? ... warm springs? warm air? nuke plants?

And with an especially harsh winter comes a correspondingly bad case of the shack nasties. Cruise the Facebook fly fishing circles, and you'll see what I mean. Bug chuckers are everyday killing other bug chuckers. Steelhead usually help to assuage such senseless slaughter, but conditions have been poor for fishing and prime for nonsense. Let's hope spring comes soon. Fly guys sometimes thumb their noses at dropbacks, but this year a little dropback fishing might just save a life. Some people - myself among them - need desperately to get out of the house. 

As it does for many bug chuckers, tying flies helps me to assuage all the temperature induced craziness, and lately I've been a bug wrapping machine. My bugger barns are full to the point of being overfull. I gave dozens of last year's marabou monstrosities to a friend in order to make room for this year's batch, and still there are feathers sticking out past the seal of the waterproof boxes. In addition to all the usual suspects - buggers, zonkers, etc. - articulated behemoths will have a place in this year's stash. I first fished articulated flies some years ago, but I figure it's time I jump on the bandwagon in earnest.

The nymph boxes are also full. Just this morning I finished up the last few cased caddis, and tonight I'll start filling in the gaps amongst the dries. Of course, I'll have to see what remains from last season, but I already know I'm in need of hennies, olives, and green drakes. Maybe a week's work, which means that in only seven days I'll be back to daydreaming.

Winter dreams are warm dreams, aren't they? Steelhead have only just begun their spawning dance, trout season is not yet open, and already I've carp on the brain. I've plans, big plans. If even a few come to fruition then I should have plenty of blog fodder come August. This year, my flies and my tippets will be lighter. Time spent stalking the flats has taught me that lead eyes and beads spook fish. This year, the weight is gone and most of my carp bugs will be little more than chemically sharpened steel wire and blended fur. I'll get to tying them just as soon as I've wrapped up those drakes.

And so goes day 87 of the Snowpocalypse. I think it's colder now than when I began this post, and tomorrow is likely to be colder still. I suppose I'll survive; I suppose we'll all survive, but I don't see any way we make it out of the season completely unscathed. It's too damn nasty out there.

The World Has Turned

After a long and particularly equatorial summer (read: hot and wet), the world has finally turned. I first noticed it the other night as the kids and I sat around the fire, and I watched as they practiced the nuances of properly roasting marshmallows. Their initial attempts back in July reminded me of that most famous of scenes in Apocalypse Now when napalm erupts along the tree line behind Robert Duvall's character, Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore. "I love the smell of napalm in the morning," Kilgore remarks, "that gasoline smell ... it smelled like ... victory." When set ablaze, marshmallows are remarkably napalm-like; they burn every bit as hot, stick to everything they touch, and even smell faintly of a sort of seasonal victory.

As the weeks have progressed since those first forays into the realms of sugar and soot, I've been seeing fewer fire hazards outside the confines of the stone brazier but exponentially more golden-brown caramelized goodness. The kids are finally getting it. When blowing out the amber flame that caressed one particularly well roasted marshmallow - perhaps his best offering to date - my son turned to me and said, "Dad, summer's over ... isn't it?" He looked a little crestfallen, and I nodded.

Yes, indeed. The summer is over, and as I sit here at my keyboard I find myself revisiting all the hopes I had for the season; aspirations that for myriad reasons - usually family, unfishable river conditions or indecisiveness - went otherwise unfulfilled. Foremost among my grand plans was musky. Going into the summer, I was determined to boat at least one of those snaggle-toothed apex predators. I did my research, and discovered that New York was surprisingly rich in flourishing muskellunge fisheries. I charted each river's course, marking on maps the likely put-ins and portage sites. I gave the wiggle test to several 10 weights, and tied a slew of outsized flies. And then - in the most anti-climatic way possible - it just didn't happen. Work got in the way. Family got in the way. Weather got in the way. Life got in the way. Maybe next year (of course, it doesn't help my fragile angler ego any that near the end of August one of my friends managed his first musky ... on a trip I was invited to attend).

This was also going to be the summer that witnessed me catch over 100 carp in the months of July and August. Again, I failed, but I think my inability to catch so many fish owes more to the nature of carp fishing than it does to any distractions. It was nothing short of hubris to believe that in roughly sixty days I would sting so many. Even if I was on the water everyday and everyday the water was perfect for sight fishing - hindsight suggests that such a high figure is a little ridiculous. Carp are far too difficult to stalk, and honestly I just don't have that kind of mojo. I caught enough fish to keep me happy, but I've learned not to project my foolish expectations onto such an unpredictable and uncannily wary animal.

     

Of course, I was supposed to explore new water - places that for now will have to remain distant and aloof. The ghosts that swim the phantom currents of those rivers will remain safe from the sharpened reckoning of my fly boxes for at least another year.

And while I am sad to see another summer come and go, I have to say that I am genuinely looking forward to the change. I find I'm filled with the hopeful anticipation that only autumn can bring; my dreams are filled with oranges and reds, chromatic silvers and buttery yellows. Bass, carp, and even muskellunge have given way to kings and coho, brown trout and steelhead. Reports suggest that the salmon have begun their annual push, and the trout will shortly follow to gorge on eggs and flesh.

So if I've a lesson for my boy I suppose that it is this: do not mourn the summer. Instead son, be patient and remain hopeful. The summer has indeed passed, but there are still new places to explore. There are still fish to catch. At the change of the season there is always a silver dream to chase.

Robin's Mirror

A short video of Robin Hill (of Spey Nation fame) catching his first mirror carp. I've interspersed the video clips with some pictures of common carp - only because Robin's fish spirited itself away before I could snap a few photos. More than anything, this was a chance for me to play with a new video camera and editing software so please bear with my amateurish efforts.

What Do You Get When You Mix Vinegar and Warm Water?

"I know it's last minute, but I'm going over to the _________________ in _________________ to see if there are any carp around if you're interested."

I received that text message at 11:31 in the morning, and by noon I was helping Robin to spot tailing fish as they rooted in the mud.

The fish were there, but they were skittish - even more so than usual. We managed only one smallish carp to hand, and that one fish was either very dumb or desperately hungry.

Photo: Robin Hill

Before long we had visitors, which isn't entirely unexpected when fishing so close to town. Normally, I try to be cordial when I meet someone riverside. Yes ... there's always that part of me that wishes I had the water to myself, but I've learned my world is a happier place if I lock that feeling away in the darker recesses of my brain. Call me Buddha. Anyway ...

There was something about this fella' I couldn't quite put my finger on, and then all at once it hit me. He was bowfishing ... and he decided he needed to kill the same fish we were targeting. 

Notice the acute angles forming what is commonly known as a Douchebaggerian Triangle

I have to say it was a first for me. I've been low-holed dozens of times on any number of rivers, but I have never been low-holed by a bowfisherman. I couldn't help but stare in wild-eyed wonder.

Douche.

Sensations

Let's get right to it ...

The four most under-appreciated sensations in fly fishing ... so sayeth The Rusty Spinner.

#4. The distinctive "Thunk, Thunk, Thunk" of a newbie's knuckles beating against the handle of his reel's backward spinning spool - while the steelhead he's inadvertently hooked does its best to run back to the mouth of the river.

A steelhead is a special animal: streamlined, strong, fast, ridiculously fast in fact, and almost wholly unpredictable. I've been led to believe that the only other fly rod quarry that comes close to eclipsing the steelhead's athleticism are albies and tarpon, but I haven't chased either so I'm left to wade my little freshwater corner of the world relatively certain that steelhead are the most dynamic fish that bug chuckers like myself are ever likely to chase.

 Photo: Benjamin Jose

And because few fish compare to the steelhead for its strength and tenacity, little can be done to prepare the uninitiated for his or her first hookup with a chromer. Mine came nearly 15 years ago on the Salmon River in New York. My friend and guide for the day, Shawn Brillon, had taken me to one of the spots on the river notorious for being a petting zoo. I was assured that the fish would be stacked one atop another like strippers on a banker's lap. If a newb (stealing the term from my video game playing students) was going to hook a fish anywhere in the river then that spot was as good a bet as any and a better bet than most.

Five or six hours after having first stepped into the water my arm was growing sore from the repetition of casting, and my mind was drifting off to warmer and more prolific fishing trips. Naturally, it was in that moment - a moment in which my cold addled brain had finally shuffled off its mortal coil and began to travel the astral plane - when the first steelhead I had ever hooked (and the largest I've hooked in the fifteen years since) decided to swallow my ridiculously gaudy fly. Everything happened so quickly that my synapses were overloaded and simply ceased to function. In that moment, I wasn't an angler; I was a spectator witnessing an angler's demise. I had as much hope of setting the hook, adjusting my drag, and fighting that fish as I did of being named Playmate of the Year. As a consequence, I was left with little more than broken images of a tail as wide as both my hands when splayed side by side, a short and frayed length of tippet, and three sore knuckles on my left hand.

Such is the case with most bug chuckers who opt to chase winter chrome. They read about steelhead for years before finally stepping into the river. They tie dozens of flies, and invest thousands of dollars in gear. They almost always go sleepless the night before that first trip (sometimes that insomnia follows them throughout their steelheading lifetimes), and when the day finally arrives they usually finish out with little more than tired eyes and raw knuckles.

#3. The penetrating stench of thousands of putrefying salmon carcasses.

How do I describe the aroma that descends on a king salmon river in the weeks after the annual spawning run has begun?  Hmmm ...

 

Imagine a piece of road kill; a piece of day-old road kill. Perhaps it's a raccoon or an o'possum. Perhaps the dearly departed is a porcupine or your neighbor's cat. Whatever your choice, put the image foremost in your mind. Now imagine you've discovered the animal as it stews and boils in the blistering August sun. The coon - or perhaps the cat - is bloated near bursting. Maggots crawl from all of its orifices - ALL of its orifices, and fat green-bodied flies swarm about its head.

Now consider that immediately prior to its death, the animal crawled out of a fetid bog. The fen and our festering friend both stink of mud and decay. There's a damp sourness that hangs in the air. You feel soiled, as if you're somehow infected by the bitterness.

And we would be remiss if we forgot the Amish. Yes, the Amish. As it happens our friend has died in Amish country. The devout frequently ride this particular stretch of highway in their small black buggies, beards and bonnets blowing in the wind. Their horses - straining against the leather rigging - have made the trip from farmstead to farmstead so many times that the animals run on instinct. They hardly notice the trail of dung that marks their route. As it happens, our friend's slowly disintegrating body has come to rest upon an especially generous pile of Mennonite manure.

Such is the penetrating aroma of a salmon river during the height of the run. The stink lingers for weeks, but that stench ... that gloriously putrid stench ... is certainly a harbinger of better things to come. Steelhead.

As long as there's death on the wind we know there's steelhead on the way.

#2. The don't-so-much-as-breathe anticipation you feel when a carp considers your fly. 

You're seventeen years old. You and your girl are sitting on the bench seat of your father's brand new, 1990 Nissan hard body pickup. It's late, very late; on any other night you could expect an earful from the old man as soon as you walked through the door.

"You have any idea what time it is? ... not a word ... shut it. Not ... a ... word. Say good night to your mother. She's been worried sick. You and I will speak tomorrow. I would cancel any plans you might have, and there'd better not be so much as a scratch on that truck."

But tonight isn't just any night. Tonight is prom night. You've a pass from your mother and your father's reluctant blessing. Pop let you take his truck because he'd be damned if he was going to pay for a limo, and you've discovered that the truck works just fine. More than anything else, it is the truck that allows you this moment.

The festivities have been over for an hour or so. You, your bevy of friends, and their respective dates had been dancing vigorously and awkwardly for four hours. All the while your girl took your breath away. Never in your wildest pubescent imaginings had you seen such a beautiful creature. She was an angel on Earth, and she was there with you.

And then the two of you were alone in Dad's pickup; parked on some nameless, unpaved, backroad - music playing quietly on the radio. Your lips were close enough to share a breath, and her eyes - oh, the look in her eyes. Your hand slid slowly up her stockinged thigh, and she did not protest. Instead, she moved still closer ...

To this day you vividly remember your hand shaking. You remember the bead of sweat on your brow, and you remember thinking, "Is this really happening? Is this REALLY happening?"

Such is carp fishing. Every time a carp inspects a fly, the bug chucker connected to that fly holds his breath. He wonders if this will be the one. Will the fish eat? Usually, the answer is a resounding "No!" but every so often the answer is, "Yes!" Our hands shake, and maybe we even sweat a little. That's the joy of carp fishing. Nothing is certain, and every time is like the first time.

Yes, I just compared carp fishing to sex ... don't knock it until you've tried it (both carp fishing and sex).

#1. The gut wrenching agony we experience after losing what may have been the best fish of the year.

You can fast forward the video to about the 48 second mark, and then watch the hysterics ensue. My reaction kind of says it all.

That's the funny thing about disappointment though; it is disappointment - and perhaps an equal dose of hopeful anticipation - that keeps us coming back to the river. All of us know loss, but regardless of that loss we're always back on the water at the first opportunity. Losing fuels us. Losing shapes our memories. Losing drives us to pursue the ephemeral and chase the intangible. In many ways, losing may be the best part of the game.

Behind the Music: Carp

I've been dreaming about steelhead, but my chrome imaginings won't see fruition for another month or two at least. To try to dull the pain of waiting, my waking hours are spent thinking about carp. Yes. Carp. I'm convinced that they're the closest thing to steelhead that summertime bug chuckers might find in fresh water.

 
Over the past few years, common carp have received quite a bit of attention from the fly flinging public, and much of this is deserved. Carp are abundant, accessible, and able to test a reel's drag in a way that's uncommon in most warm water fisheries (those in North America at any rate). But still, I find myself asking, "Why?". Why so much time, money, and effort spent chasing a fish that was - until just a few years ago - generally considered a trash fish?

I think part of the madness - and it is as much a madness as is chasing any other gamefish - is market driven. Across most of the country - in fact, most of the globe - trout fishing is a very limited endeavor. Trout simply do not exist everywhere a bug chucker might wish. The same could be said of bass, pike, stripers, muskellunge, salmon, bonefish, tarpon, etc. The list of fish available to fly flingers goes on ad infinitum, but none - excepting perhaps panfish - are as accessible and available as are carp. Similarly, few fish are as challenging a quarry as are carp.

As a consequence, the fly fishing industry - an industry that caters to a small niche market and is always on the prowl for new customers - benefits immensely from the carp's popularity. New rods, new reels, new lines, and new flies are everyday being marketed to a new group of customers. It is no coincidence that most major fly fishing publications - periodicals that derive a substantial portion of their income from advertising revenue - have recently printed articles detailing the ins and outs of chasing carp. Brownlining has indeed gone mainstream.

And given the common carp's recent ascendency and celebrity, I thought it might be time we were given some insight from the perspective of those folks who best know this fine gamefish (yes ... I said gamefish). I thought it might be time we went "Behind the Music" or "Under the Water" as the case might be with our friend the common carp. If Stevie Nicks deserves her own special, then so too does Ol' Noodle Lips.


So what I've done here is to transcribe the first few moments of an episode of "Behind the Music" that will otherwise never see the light of day - even though it is certainly deserving of the honor.

Behind the Music: Carp

Narrator: He's been called a ghost.

Dave Whitlock: Like hillbillies noodling for dinner, he has an aura that's more than just slime and bottom feeding.

Narrator: He's a country boy who cast a spell on the world of bug chucking at a time when bug chuckers were looking to be enchanted.

Tom Rosenbauer: Carp. He's entirely about attitude. You can't make him eat. You can't make do much of anything. He'll do whatever the hell he wants to do, and there's nothing you can do about it ... not unlike a Salmon River snagger.

Narrator: For centuries, the common carp was misunderstood and much maligned. He was worm food. He was garden fodder. He was fertilizer.

John Gierach: A.K. once gave me a carp fly tied with quills that were specially dyed in a combination of pureed and blended mango nut butter, lilac milk, and wasabe.

Narrator: He seduces bug chuckers with the challenge of selectivity, nearly imperceptible takes, and insanely powerful runs.

April Vokey: I wasn't married to carp, but I would have been had he asked. We had some good times ... oh yeah, good times.

Narrator: He first rose to prominence on the U.K.'s coarse fishing scene.

Carp: It was one big pellet-fed, pay-to-fish-the-pond party.

Narrator: Then he stole the spotlight as a 226 year old koi, which was sold at auction for 13 million Yen, and died shortly thereafter.

Lee Wulff's Ghost: What is wrong with you people? I chased ocean-run Atlantic salmon with nothing more than my rugged good looks and the sheer force of my will. Think Kurt Gowdy would ever narrate a film about carp? Well ... do ya'?

Narrator: Like a phoenix rising from the ashes of its own funeral pyre (or a drunken frat boy slowly asphyxiating on his own vomit), carp is enjoying something of Renaissance - a rediscovery and rekindled appreciation for all things stank.

Gene Simmons: I once had sex with a carp ... twice, I twice had sex with a carp.

Narrator: Thrice.

Henry Winkler: In the months before filming, "Hollywood: Part 3", I lobbied to have the script changed so that my character jumped the carp, but ultimately the network insisted on a shark. Networks don't fly fish.

Colonel Kilgore: And Charlie don't surf.

Dick Cheney: I haven't the heart for carp fishing.

Bing Crosby's Ghost: Doo Be, Doo Be Doooooooo.


Carp: Why didn't someone tell me I smelled like this?


Narrator: Tonight, Carp, the story behind the scales ...

Dear River, WTF?

Dear River,

We've been together for a long time now; this past spring marked twenty years. The day we met, I was eager and full of energy, and you were the undiscovered country - an unknown whisper of a trout stream in an otherwise forgotten corner of my world. Twenty years. Nearly a quarter of a century, and I'm still wading your runs. 

In many ways, you're much the same as you were the day we met: beautiful if perhaps a bit temperamental, and able to make me smile as no one else can. For years you were constant as the north star, a friend whenever I have needed a friend, a confidant who helped to wash away my worry and regret. But something is different. Something small but significant has changed, and I know you've felt it too.

You don't embrace me the way you once did.  There was a time when I knew - with absolute certainty - that the third week of April meant the start of a tremendous hendrickson hatch. Fish would rise - big fish - with the carelessness born of a long winter, and I would leave the river every evening having been reminded that I am a man. After the hendicksons were sulphurs, and then drakes, and eventually white flies. Every hatch - every fish - was an assurance that you loved me the way that I loved you.

And as much as it pains me to say, it's over, isn't it? Seems I just don't know anything anymore. This year the hendricksons came in March. March? Really? Why? How could you so easily discard my favorite hatch, and throw it away in the weeks before the season began? You must know that the first hatch of the year is always the best hatch of the year. Was it deliberate? Did you want it to cut? Did you want it to hurt? It did. Still does. March? Really?

And now that spring has turned to summer and the time for trout has passed, I have to ask, "Where have the bass gone? What of the carp and pike?" Your lower water - the nether region - was special in a way warm water too often is not. Fish swam everywhere - in every run, riffle, pool and pocket, and fishermen were largely absent. Your water has always been gloriously absent of anglers; I've never had to share you with anyone else. But not now, not anymore, and I think you enjoy all the attention. I'm sad to say that wading your lower water just isn't quite the adventure it once was.

And why do you insist on embarrassing me? Why? Used to be that whenever I would introduce you to a friend or acquaintance - you would do the right thing. You would try to accommodate my friends because you wanted to me to be happy, and yes ... you wanted me to play the part of hero. That's not the case anymore. Is it? Now, whenever I bring a friend by - be it for trout, bass, carp, or whatever - you take advantage of the situation. You emasculate me. The water and the fish never behave as I predict; I'm left to shake my head and think I must not know much of anything anymore. I've never been so full of doubt.

So that is why - as much as anything else - I've decided that we need a break from each other. You need time to become whomever it is you're becoming, and I need a chance to explore other corners of the world. Please don't misunderstand. I love you. I will always love you, but I am afraid that I cannot go on loving you if things continue as they are. Maybe after we've spent some time apart we'll discover that what we really need is each other. I hope so. I do.

Fondly,

Rusty

Carp, New Waders, and Videographers ... Right in My Backyard

Amongst the many fishing blogs that I frequent is the OrvisNews.com. For those of you who haven't visited the big O's weblog, I really have to recommend that you give it a look. It is very nicely done - polished and professional - and intrepid bug chuckers might be surprised at the abundance of material that isn't directly related to the company's products. I digress ...

While perusing a string of recent entries on the big O's site, one in particular caught my eye. The entry is a video promoting a new line of waders that will be available in the fall. The waders look promising, and I'm sure I'll end up with a pair, but that isn't what caught my eye. What did get my attention were segments of the video that feature Tim Daughton (one of Orvis' many product developers) and Christine Penn (a merchandise coordinator with the company). Those of you that have followed my blog for a time may remember Tim from posts entitled, Boys Day Out and Dyslexic Steelheading. Again, I digress ...

The video segments that feature Tim and Christine were shot - quite clearly for someone who knows what to look for - right in my backyard. It would seem that my carp water is also Orvis' carp water. A brief correspondence with Tim confirmed my suspicions. For the sake of context, Daughton is the narrator of the video, and while it's clearly a marketing piece, I think you'll enjoy some of the footage as I did. Certainly, it's worth a couple minutes of your time.

Finally ...

They've been teasing. No. Teasing isn't the right word. They've been tormenting - yes tormenting - me. Hundreds of them. Everywhere. Basking in the sun, and sulking in our early summer. But they haven't been gamers; they haven't wanted to play. At least, not until today.

Today, the sun hides behind a grey mass of clouds, and the carp have their tails pointing skyward. Finally. A shot.

Finally.

Not the biggest fish, but after a long drought - and an infuriating early season where other mud runners were catching them in March - it does feel good to be on the board. Now if we could only make the rain stop.