Biblical Mayfly Emergence

Fly Fisherman Magazine's website reports a massive emergence of hexagenia mayflies along the upper Mississippi River in Wisconsin. The photographs and radar images - the hatch was large enough to register on radar - taken from local newscasts and the National Weather Service are ridiculous ...

Read the full article and see more images here.

Mot Juste: Redux

Three weeks. I've gone three weeks without wetting a line, and this morning my piscatorial withdrawl is hitting me especially hard. I'm forced to dive into my day dreams, imagine trips yet to come and remember those that have already happened. What follows is a post that first appeared January 9th of 2012. It is the chronicle (or perhaps non-chronicle) of what might have been the most exciting day on the water I have ever witnessed. The river gods were generous in a way they haven't been since and may never be again. Ahhh memories ...  

mot juste (noun) mō-ˈzhuest: exactly the right word or phrasing

As much as I enjoy fly fishing and everything the sport entails, I must admit that bug chucking isn't always the most exciting endeavor. That isn't to say that fly fishing isn't my passion, but let's face it, most days on the water pass uneventfully. We make a few hundred casts. We catch a few fish. We have a good but otherwise unremarkable day.

Yesterday was not an unremarkable day.     

Yesterday was something altogether different. Yesterday was the kind of day that haunts the average bug chucker - alchemically changing innocuous daydreams into obsessive compulsive disorder.  Yesterday was a day of fishing so exceptional as to leave both audience and actors alike wondering if a second such day could ever be possible. Yesterday was special.

And having experienced yesterday, I realize I've an obligation to share the story with my friends and readers if for no other reason than to let them know that yesterday is possible. So now I sit here at my keyboard, trying to string together the narrative of a day that was entirely unlike anything I have ever before experienced, and I find I simply haven't the words. I'm completely at a loss.   

Perhaps I lack the spectacular vernacular of a more accomplished wordsmith. Maybe I should stick to fly tying, and forget all about this blogging thing. I suppose it could be true that those who can, do; those who can't, teach (when not flinging flies I'm a high school teacher). All I can really say with any certainty is that I don't know what to say about yesterday. I don't know where to start, how to finish, or what it all might mean in the context of a season on the river, let alone a third of a century spent stream side.

Maybe it's enough to forgo the details. Maybe it's enough to dispense with the numbers, statistics and the play-by-play, and simply say we had a very good time. We had the kind of day the river gods parcel out all too infrequently, and if we never have that kind of day again then at least we'll have been given that moment, and the indelible impression of something very special. We'll have the memory of a day for which there really are no words.   

 

Broken Glasses

Funny, don't you think, how easily we become attached to things. Not people. Not places. Not ideas. Things. Consider, for example, that I own three bamboo rods. This is barely the hint of a collection, and I am hardly a connoisseur, but I do cherish the rods nonetheless. Truthfully, I'm infatuated with them in a way that borders on clinical obsession, especially when one considers that they rarely ever see the water. I tell myself that I'm holding tightly to the trio so that I may someday pass them onto my three children, but that's not entirely true. I would like for my kids to appreciate fly fishing and bamboo rods as I do, but in the end I expect the rods will be buried with me.

My 7' 4# Quadrate ... love that little stick.

But not everyone is drawn to rods as I am. If you're a reader or follower of this blog then I suppose there's a chance you appreciate over-priced tomato stakes as I do, but there's as good a chance that bamboo does nothing for you. Instead, you've likely a favorite fly box or lucky hat. Maybe for fifteen years or so you've been driving the same, slowly disintegrating Nissan pickup - she's carried you to every river you've fished for nearly two decades. You might cherish your old Hardy Lightweights, or it could be you collect flies designed and tied by notable tyers. Regardless, I think it fair to say that you each own at least one item - probably an item in some way related to fly fishing - with which you would never part. For my good friend and fishing partner, Ben Jose, that item is - or rather was - a pair of sunglasses.

Future's so bright ... he has to wear shades.

Sunglasses? Hey, I'm right there with you. I don't understand it either. I mean, they're sunglasses, right? Most of us lose at least one pair a year, but to hear Ben tell it, these sunglasses were special. They had traveled the country and the countryside as Ben's loyal companions; they had been witnesses to some of his finest and worst moments as a fly fisher. They fit like an infant fits into the bosom of his mother: warm, safe, and loved. They were a comfort. They were essential.

They were.

And now they're gone, having been crushed under the weight of a linebacker sized man and a studded wading boot. Their paths collided in the early morning haze of the river, and now this object that was so very precious, simply is not. Ben's prized sunglasses - trusted friends who had traveled with him to Minnesota, Colorado, Idaho, and numerous points in between - are nothing more than mangled plastic and glass.

In the moments after the sickening crunch of polarized glass filled the otherwise silent morning air, Ben was struck by an unexpected thought: his glasses simply did not matter. We were on the third day of a four day steelheading binge. We had caught fish when river reports were almost universally bleak. Ben took his first steelhead on the swing, and we were sharing a great piece of water with the best of bug chuckers. How could Bennie possibly be upset over the demise of his sunglasses when so much else was going so well? For four days at least, sunglasses and bamboo rods just did not matter. Moments mattered and the people who shared those moments mattered. For Ben, the moments that most mattered on this particular trip were those he spent with his father.

Make no mistake, Milo showed the boys how to get the job done

Milo Jose - septuagenarian, devoted husband, father of three, himself one of 15 children, long time bug chucker, and former Exulted Ruler of the local Elks lodge - was joining us for the final two days of our four day annual odyssey. Milo had never caught a steelhead. Milo had never hooked a steelhead.

Never.

Hooked.

A steelhead.

Imagine you have the opportunity to take someone to the river, and put him into his first chromer. Imagine the pressure, the anxiety you might feel, as you stand by your sport's side hoping for that first hookup. Imagine seeing him make that first solid cast. Imagine his fly making just the right drift. Imagine the line going taught as a ten pound, silver jump-jet spools the reel of its line. Imagine the smile on your sport's face, the grin spread from ear to ear. Now, imagine that sport is your dad.

Could there possibly be a better moment, a better gift for a son to give his father?

So what if Milo's first fish wasn't a ten-pounder? This little guy may be even more memorable.

I hope that Milo enjoyed the day as much as his son and I did. I hope that Ben finds a new pair of sunglasses to replace the old, but more to the point I hope Bennie remembers fondly those streamside moments he spent with his dad. More than anything perhaps, I hope that when the time comes, my own son will think enough of me to share with his old man a day on his favorite steelhead run.