Snagged

Fishing was never easy for me. I found it boring and stressful, as a child. The idea of touching worms and fish grossed me out. In fact, one of my earliest childhood photographs depicts my (much younger) father tormenting his bawling son with a freshly caught perch and a devilish smile across his face. Mom offered a comic book bounty for the biggest fish caught just to get me to participate.

Dad loved to fish. It was his release. Taking us fishing – not so much. We snagged more than we fished and the old man spent more time untangling our messes than fishing. When he wasn’t fixing snags, he was griping about fixing snags. No one could gripe like my old man – not even the rookie version. He had an aptitude for it and is a veteran now that he’s in his 60s.

We were terrified of him. He was never violent but could be terrifying nonetheless. We hated coming clean on wrongdoings and there was nothing more egregious than a snagged fishing line on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. It was understood amongst us boys that you kept your mouth shut and rod straight should you find yourself in the salad. We would sit there, lines tight, until the wary eye of the seasoned angler happened to glance our way. He always knew. He ignored us sometimes but he knew. Mom was there to point it out whenever that happened. He would’ve ignored her too, had it been possible. She had a way of being heard when she wanted to be.

“Steve?”

Silence.

“Steve?”

Silence.

“Steve!”

“Whaaaaaaaat?!”

“I think your son has a snag.”

“Ahhh for crying out loud! Which one?”

“All of them.”

The results were always the same. You could hear his heart racing and synapses snapping up-and-down the Cheboygan River. He’d throw a fit, reel in his line, and mutter his way down the bank – arms flailing for maximum effect. He would then spend the next 10 minutes trying to free the line. If that didn’t work, he would break off and spend another 15 retying and baiting. Then there was the state of our reels, which was usually abysmal post catastrophe. That would add another 20 to 30 minutes, depending on the size of the nest we’d constructed by not owning up to the mistake. By the time the old man had one of us straightened out, another would get fouled up. It was a never-ending cycle of comedy and despair. To fully grasp my father’s frustration, you’d have to have lived it yourself or attempted to change consecutive flats on a busy highway with temps well into the 90s. He must have been out of his mind to have subjected himself to that level of anxiety. But that is what good parents do – and I had great ones.

These memories have always made me smile. Now a right hand filled with river-kissed cork makes me grateful. I am a fisherman. It took me 20 years to get here, but I am here nonetheless. Dad knew what he was doing. He understood the bond-building elements of outdoor activity and how important planting the seed was.

Now its my turn.

If you enjoyed this post, please check out our latest Traditional Outdoors episode with Glen Blackwood of the Great Lakes Fly Fishing Company. Glen is a life long trout enthusiast and his passion for the sport is infectious. We also talk about taking kid’s fishing and share a fantastic online resource for doing so.

A Bowhunter Goes Fly Fishing – Part II

Hello and welcome! If this is your first time reading Life and Longbows, STOP here and read my last post before proceeding. You won’t have the back story otherwise.

We proceeded up the Rogue, Rob in the lead, your’s truly in the rear, and Jon in the middle to better soak up the buffoonery around him. We fished every riffle and every run Rogue provided for the next several hours. Had it not been for a constant stream of Memorial Day kayakers, we’d have had the river to ourselves in addition to the perfect weather.

Nymphing wasn’t at all what I expected. My idea of fly fishing was an arching rod angling skyward, streaks of neon-colored line snapping the air, and colorful monsters leaping into landing nets. Nymphing wasn’t any of those things. It reminded me of bait fishing. You found a place you thought a fish would be, you tossed your line upstream of it, then let the current take it to the spot – rinse and repeat. There wasn’t anything graceful or romantic about it to my novice eyes but my opinion changed after watching Mudry hook his first trout of the morning.

I’d never seen a trout caught on a fly rod in person. Jon was watching his line drift through a riffle one minute and drawing line through a bent rod the next. It happened that fast; no dramatic hook set, no breaching behemoth, no dramatic exclamations. Jon gave a quick jerk of the line with his left hand and continued to draw and pinch until the little brown was splashing around in front of him. He leaned the rod back, gently pulled his catch from the water, removed the fly from its jaw, and returned it to the murky depths of the Rogue. It was quick and he was calm throughout the whole ordeal.

“You didn’t even use your reel.” I said.

“Nah. He was a little guy.” Jon laughed. “You don’t need to use the reel on those guys. You have to watch how you set them. Too light and they’ll get off. Too heavy and you’ll either hit yourself in the face or launch them to the next county.”

“Do you ever use the reel?”

“Oh yeah. If I have a decent fish I do. You’ll know the difference.”

He caught two more that way, leaving me to question my technique or lack thereof. His calmness threw me the most. His movements seemed simple – effortless. He never looked as though he was working, whereas I was analyzing every step of the process and trying not to get snagged.

“Your casting too much. Let your line drift upstream until it starts to work its way in front of you, then let it float a bit longer.”

I did what I was told. I flicked my line upstream and let the nymph drift with the current until my line was straight out in front of me. Suddenly, the line went taut vibrating the rod from tip to cork.

“Woah!” I yelped.

“You’ve got one, man!” Jon laughed. “Keep that rod bent and start drawing line!”

I tried to do as instructed; drawing line with my left and pinching it with my right. Keeping the rod bent was my biggest challenge. I hadn’t fought a fish in over 15 years and was used to letting the reel do the work. This was an entirely different ballgame. Still, I managed to land the little brown and the memory that accompanied it. The size of the catch didn’t matter. I had landed a trout with a fly rod – something I’d only thought of doing a week prior. How quickly things had changed.

We fished well into the afternoon with little effort. Time slipped around us like the current at our waists – only a bit higher in Rob’s case. At around 1:30 he waded through a deep bend and climbed into a stretch of what he assumed was shallow rapids. Jon followed to put a little distance between us. I’d just suffered the loss of an overpriced nymph and stayed put to re-tie. This lucky bit of misfortune resulted in a pristine point of observation for the calamity that was about to befall my comrades.

What Rob thought was “shallow” rapids was actually a rock shelf that gave way into a 3-4 foot mucky hole. He ascended the shelf, lost his footing, then descended in the manner a toddler might a Fisher-Price plastic slide. Jon howled. I howled. Rob’s reaction was…complicated. He splashed. He thrashed. And he howled but not like Jon or I. This was something else entirely. Something I’d only heard at the John Ball Zoo when the chimpanzees discovered something they didn’t agree with.

“Ohh! Ohh! Ohh! Ohh! Ah! Ohh! Ohh! Ohh! Ee! Ohh! Ohh! Ohh! Ah!”

He bobbed around in the hole like this for several seconds, thrashing and spewing and making horrible noises until Jon waded over to help. When he leaned out to give him a hand, Rob took a whole lot more, pulling him and all of his gear in with him. Chaos ensued as my friends fought to retain their footing. The water exploded into a mess of waders, rods, line, and sunglasses. It reminded me of two boar hogs fighting for a wallow that wasn’t big enough for either of them. The ordeal was over in minutes but seemed like an eternity. Neither friend dried out the remainder of the trip. Both carried a little bit of the river back to the truck.

We pulled several fish out of that stretch, including a nice 12″ brown I excitedly butterfingered back into the brine after a solid fight. It would’ve been a major confidence boost but I couldn’t make it happen. The missed opportunity left a bittersweet taste in my mouth the remainder of the trip. I felt inadequate for missing the fish but more legit because of it. I knew the feeling all to well. I felt the same each time I’d slipped an arrow over a deer.

Our day concluded with a handful of trout caught and released, sunburns, squishy waders, and smiles as wide as the Rogue itself.

A new chapter of my life had begun and I’d just penned the first line.

My appetite for fly fishing knowledge has become insatiable between posts and I am happy to report I’ve made major improvements. My casting has improved, I’m catching fish, and I’m having fun. Having a wealth of information available on YouTube has made all the difference and I am thankful for all of the content available on the subject. Check out Joe Humphrey’s video on nymphing, for instance. It is unbelievable and totally changed my perspective on fishing nymphs and wet flies.