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The 10 Commandments of Wading

10 commandments of wading

Commandments of wading are many, and for good reason. A couple years ago, I decided to cross a side channel in the Yellowstone River to an island which would give me access to a superb run. Dave, my podcast partner, and I were fly fishing in Yellowstone National Park. The side channel was only about 25 yards wide. But the current turned out to be stronger than I anticipated. The side channel was deeper than it looked.

I made it halfway across before I decided to turn around. Even then, I wasn’t sure if I would make it back safe and dry. But I did, thanks to obeying a handful of the “10 commandments of wading” which I was tempted to break that day.

The lawgiver who delivered these to me was not Moses, but Duane Dunham – a veteran fly fisher and friend who used to teach fly fishing at a community college in Oregon. Dave and I have obeyed (most of) these commands over the years because we have no interest in drowning or taking a bath on a 40-degree day in March.

Or, if that unwelcome bath happens (it hasn’t yet), we want to survive it.

1. The faster the river is flowing, the lower the depth level you can wade.

This means wading only mid-thigh in swift water. I’ll go deeper than that in some slower stretches of the Lower Madison or the Wyoming Bighorn. But I stick to shallow stretches when I’m on a stretch of raging river.

2. Keep your strides short.

Panic leads to larger strides which can result in getting “stuck” in the current with your feet about a yard apart. This makes balance difficult. Besides, when you try to take a step, the current assaults the one leg on which you are standing and raises the odds that you will end up making a splash.

3. Make sure you have the right soles.

Felt soles, though controversial, are still the best, especially in fast-moving rivers with smooth-rock bottoms, like the Yellowstone River. They are controversial because for years, it was thought that fly fishers who didn’t fully dry out their soles and then fished in a different stream contributed to the spread of invasive species.

If you take the time to wash your felt soles and to let them dry before going to another river, you eliminate almost any chance of spreading an invasive species. Metal studs work well too – either as an alternative to or (better) in addition to your felt soles.

4. Use a wading staff.

For years, I’ve simply used whatever stout branches I could find along the river’s edge. Finally, last fall, I purchased an Orvis wading staff. Simms make a good wading staff, too. But you can assemble the Orvis in much less time.

5. Angle downstream when crossing a river.

This enables you to work with the current, not against it. The current will actually push you along. Remember command #2 and take short strides.

6. Don’t try to turn around in fast current!

This is where a lot of anglers get into trouble. Either use a sidestep. Or back up carefully. Remember to take short strides and to angle downstream as you back up towards the bank.

7. Wear a wading belt with your chest waders.

Seatbelts save lives (like the time I rolled my truck and landed upside down in a small creek). So do wading belts. They keep your chest waders from filling up with water if you slip and take an unexpected bath.

If you forget your wading belt, forget about wading for the day. I’m serious!

8. If you fall in, don’t try to stand up too quickly.

And keep your feet down river. Stay in a sitting position and wait until you reach knee deep water before you try to stand up.

9. Let your fly rod go.

If you need to use your hands to stroke to shore, give it up. Better to lose your fly rod than your life. You might even recover your fly rod downstream. If not, you now have an excuse to buy the latest and best fly rod you’ve been drooling over in your local fly shop.

10. Don’t wade fish alone!

It’s not worth the risk. At least avoid certain rivers or stretches or runs.

If you’ve rolled your eyes at any of the ten commandments of wading, let me I remind you how shocked your body will be by the cold temperatures of the big freestone rivers in the West.

Let me remind you, too, that one slip can lead to a broken arm or (worse) a head injury that can limit or incapacitate you. So when you break these commandments, you put yourself at risk. Keeping them will protect your life.

Wade safely, my friend. Wade safely.

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Fly Fishing Joy at the End of Days

fly fishing joy and the end of days

In the final scene of the movie “A River Runs Through It,” the narrator, Norman Maclean, is alone on the river, trying to tie a knot. He is old now. His brother Paul has been gone for five decades. His wife, gone. Most of his friends, gone.

The narrator says:

Now nearly all those I loved and did not understand in my youth are dead, even Jesse. But I still reach out to them.

Of course now I’m too old to be much of a fisherman. And now I usually fish the big waters alone, although some friends think I shouldn’t. But when I’m alone in the half light of the canyon, all existence seems to fade to a being with my soul and memories. And the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four count rhythm. And a hope that a fish will rise.

Only the river, which has flowed since the beginning of time, remains. It is the one constant in a full life, one of joy as well as tragedy and loss.

The Old Man and His Browning

Norman MacLean’s end of days are a lot like those of my father, whose hunting and fishing friends are now mostly all gone. My father turned 87 this year.

I think of Walter, who hunted upland game and waterfowl with us for 30 years until his wife Laurine died. Dad, my brother Matt, and I struggled to forgive him for putting away his Browning for good after she passed. He said he quit hunting because he had no one to clean his birds. That sounded so sexist to my post-modern ears, but it was Walter’s old world attempt to describe his sorrow.

Walter was only in his early 80s when Laurine died. He passed away in a nursing home about a decade later at 93, his lightweight 20 gauge (made in Belgium) never to be fired again. Physically, he could have hunted for most of the rest of his eighties. Dad and I stopped by the nursing home for a few minutes about a year before he died. He towered over us in his hunting years, but now was diminished in the wheelchair. The TV blared as we regaled him with stories from the last hunt. He said he was looking forward to seeing Laurine.

His Browning now rusts in its case with a son who doesn’t hunt.

Walter’s brother Albert also lived into his nineties – and hunted with us until his late eighties. He called it quits when he said the geese flying over him appeared as shadows, his eyesight failing. We didn’t argue with him, though he still had no problem knocking down birds. But it was time.

He lived for another five years after he stopped hunting.

Right before he died, he told his son, who was 70 at the time, “When you turn 80, start another business. You’ll have more than enough time to watch TV when you’re my age and can’t leave the nursing home.”

Albert and his son inspired me through the years to pursue my entrepreneurial calling. Walter and Albert are now gone, as are most of my father’s friends.

My father scans the newspaper obituaries every day, something those who are left behind often do. I spent a two-week sabbatical with him and my mother in North Dakota several years ago. Several times during the two weeks, he would look up from the paper and say, “Do you remember _______? He just died.”

If you get to live long enough, those you love pass on one after another until one day you discover that you are alone, in the half light of the canyon, astonished at the brevity of life. You have to decide whether to fly fish when only the river beckons, and the voices of others have gone silent.

Giddy at 80

About a year and a half ago, I got a call from my Dad. He had been out deer hunting, alone.

He said the November Dakota wind was howling up to 50 miles an hour, the temperature plummeting thirty degrees in a couple hours. On his way home from the hunt, a large flock of mostly snow geese was circling a harvested field along the gravel road, trying to land against the wind. My father stopped the truck, grabbed his Browning and three shells, crawled and walked in the ditch for about 50 yards, crossed the road, shot three times, and knocked down eight geese. Alone.

He had just turned 80 several months earlier.

On the call with me not long after, he was giddy, emotional, like a boy who just had shot his first goose.

There is much to be said about the fellowship of hunting, the late mornings after the hunt in the coffee shop, the Ole and Lena jokes that make you groan, the story-telling while picking up the decoys after a slow morning.

But there’s joy in the hunt itself, in the act of netting a 17-inch brown in late fall. Norman Maclean may be alone on the river near the end of his days, but there’s no place for sadness.

Big Flies and Fly Fishing Joy at River’s Edge

I watched “A River Runs Through It” again not long ago, and the final scene, like always, slayed me. I fired off an email to my fly fishing partner of forty years saying we need to promise each other that whoever remains on earth last will continue to carry on our fly fishing tradition, until like Albert and his failing eyesight, the trout become only shadows.

“I don’t see myself ever stopping,” Steve replied. “We will just have to fish big flies! And stay near the trail head. Wouldn’t it be cool to fish together in our 80s if God grants us both that much time?”

Yes it would.

But if for some reason I am granted days greater in number than those of my friends, and my kids are too busy to meet me at the river, I will walk the edges of the river alone.

What remains when the only companion left is the river itself is the joy of fly fishing that comes with the hope of a rising fish.

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5 Fly Fishing Safety Devices

fly fishing safety devices

Fly fishing is a gadget-intensive hobby. The stuff you need to land fish, to wade safely, to meaure water temperature, to tie on a size #20 fly, to waterproof that fly, and to weight your line seems to multiply at an alarming rate. Since I don’t want my fly vest to weigh as much as a WWII flak jacket (about 22 pounds), I regularly go through it and take out items I don’t need.

But in the interest of safety, there are five fly fishing safety devices that I never leave at home or in the truck. These devices are, ultimately, more important than split shot or forceps or fly floatant.

1. Bear Spray.

You must carry this with you whenever you fish in grizzly bear country.

Dave, my podcast partner, and I prefer UDAP (http://www.udap.com/), the spray developed by Mark Matheny of Bozeman, Montana. The spray canister is designed to fit into a hip holster so that you can shoot from the hip. There may not be time to remove the canister from the holster to spray a charging grizzly.

Why am I so insistent on carrying bear spray?

Several years ago, a friend and I bow-hunted in the Taylor Fork drainage northwest of Yellowstone National Park. The next fall, my friend took a business partner to the same spot. They were charged by a grizzly, and my friend’s business partner ended up with some broken bones and needed surgery. But my friend unloaded his canister of UDAP at the grizzly, and it fled before inflicting any more serious damage.

Keep in mind that a canister of bear spray does no good buried in a pouch somewhere in your fly vest. So you need to hang it from your wading belt (and that is the next device!).

2. Wading Belt.

This is not a luxury item, yet some beginner fly fishers forget to scrounge through their duffel bag in order to find it.

Ideally, you shouldn’t need to search your duffel bag. Keep the belt looped through the single belt loop in the back of your waders. You can’t afford to leave it behind. Without a wading belt, your waders can fill up with water if you fall or get swept into water over your chest. That means you will sink instead of float to the surface.

3. First Aid Kit.

A friend of ours got a hook deeply embedded in his finger while releasing a trout last summer. After Dave, my podcast partner, removed it, we were glad to have some Neosporin and a band-aid. Besides, you never know when you’ll get blister or sprain an ankle. I could keep listing the injuries which a first aid kit will treat. But hopefully you get the point.

4. Communication Device.

In some cases, a cell phone works great. Honestly, I get better cell reception at certain spots in the backcountry of Yellowstone National Park and Rocky Mountain National Park than I do in my office in the northern suburbs of Chicago.

Seriously!

Apparently, the team of Verizon workers who appear in those television commercials prefer the great outdoors to the ‘burbs. There are a few places, though, where Dave and I carry two-way radios. We’ve been known to swap information about what flies are working best or to brag about a trout we’ve just landed.

But we carry these to make sure we can call for help if needed.

5. Flashlight.

There’s no excuse to be without a flashlight. Twisted ankles happen. Or inclement weather slows down your return hike. Sometimes, even the most punctual fly fishers (if such persons exist) can’t resist the urge to keep fishing until Dark Thirty (or O Dark Thirty!).

One alternative is to load a flashlight app on your cell phone. However, this will drain your battery in a hurry. With so many compact, lightweight flashlights on the market, you’ll be better off keeping one of those in your fly vest.

If you hike in far enough to fly fish a mountain lake or a remote stretch of river, you might also consider fire starter (a butane lighter and a folded paper towel) and even a space blanket (a thin metal-coated sheet which folds up into a pouch the size of your wallet).

Water-purification tablets are advisable, too.

Even though you are anxious to get to the river, don’t forget the items that will help you avoid or at least cope with dangerous situations. Yes, you could lighten the load by removing the first aid kit that you’ve never used once in the last five years. You probably won’t need a flashlight, either, since you’re planning to get back to your vehicle before dark.

Chances are, though, that there’s going to be a fly fishing safety device that will help protect you during one of your fly fishing trips this year.

Don’t leave home without it.

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Resisting the Urge to Fly Fish until Dark Thirty

At the end of Ernest Hemingway’s short story, “Big Two-Hearted River,” Nick Adams has a decision to make.

He has had a fine day catching trout, and he has approached the place where the river enters a swamp. It is fast deep water, shaded by the big cedars which tower over it. Nick is inclined to avoid such a place. He fears wading in water up to his armpits. He also fears that it will be impossible to land big trout in such a place.

But therein lies the problem. There are big trout in this stretch of river. Nick is tempted. To keep going or to quit?. That is the question.

Should he go after the big trout or save them for another day?

Hemingway ends his novel like this: “Nick climbed the bank and cut up into the woods, toward the high ground. He was going back to camp. He looked back. The river just showed through the trees. There were plenty of days coming when he could fish the swamp.”

I wish I had a bit more of Nick’s instincts to leave some trout for another day. But I am greedy. Whether I’ve caught two or ten or 25 trout, I want to exploit a day on the river for all its worth.

Why end it too early? If it’s a great day, I might never get another one like it.

But over the years, I have learned the wisdom of quitting at a point of satisfaction, even though I could squeeze out another hour or two and add to my total of trout landed. There are a few reasons why this is wise, even if it’s hard to do:

Dark Thirty’s Rude Behavior

First, there is no need to make a habit out of arriving home later than I promised.

My wife recently bought a piece of decorative art at a Hobby Lobby store and put it on my desk. It reads: “GONE FISHING. BE BACK AT DARK THIRTY.” Been there, done that. Early in our marriage, we lived in Paradise Valley, south of Livingston, Montana. I had the day off from my job as a ranch hand, and I promised to take my wife to a concert in Bozeman that night. First, though, I planned a quick trip to fish the Yellowstone River. I told her I’d be back in plenty of time.

But I arrived home at Dark Thirty.

The good news is that we made it to the concert about one minute early. The bad news is that we were rushed, and the conversation on the drive over the Bozeman Pass was not as pleasant as the scenery. This resulted from my inability to resist the lure of one more cast, one more stretch of water, one more fish. Yet one led to another and another and another (casts, not necessarily fish).

If you can’t tear yourself away from the river, you’ll end up being rude to those you love.

Leaving with Your Story Intact

Furthermore, if you stay an extra hour, there’s no guarantee that a great day will stay great.

I remember a stellar afternoon on Madison River in the Bear Trap. I caught a lot of big rainbows. So when the afternoon shadows started to fall, I decided to keep fishing even though I’d have to rush home in the dark, wolf down my dinner, and make it to a meeting with no time to spare. I didn’t quit, but the trout did. During that last hour, I caught one.

Better to leave imagining that you left a dozen there than to leave frustrated.

The Urge to Fly Fish and Real Satisfaction


There’s an even deeper reason, though, to quit while you’re ahead.

Suppose that the extra hour on the river turns out to be an action-packed sequence of landing one trout after another. Will you leave more satisfied? The truth is, no. That’s right. You can never catch enough fish to be satisfied. You will always want to catch one more.

Last year, my podcast partner Dave Goetz and I fished a banner stretch of Sixteen Mile at the northern reach of Montana’s Gallatin Valley.

By 4 p.m., we had each landed a ridiculous amount of trout. The friend with whom we were fishing asked us if we wanted to keep fishing. In that moment, I finally mustered up the courage to say no. Part of it was because I was wrecked. Dave and I had hiked and fly fished in the back country of Yellowstone National park for two straight days. I was exhausted. That helped.

Part of it, though, was the sense that we should end a glorious day while we all felt good about it. I knew in that moment that my greedy desire to catch another dozen wouldn’t make me feel any better about the day. Besides, the fishing might slow down. And we were looking forward to a good meal at Sir Scott’s Oasis, the legendary steakhouse in Manhattan, Montana.

Like Nick Adams, Dave and pulled ourselves away from the creek. We decided to save some fishing success for another day. We didn’t fish until Dark-Thirty.

And I’ve never regretted it to this day.

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Coping with the Better Fly Fisher

My younger brother Dave did not get the memo that I was supposed to be the better fly fisher.

I grew up thinking that one of the perks of being an older brother should be out-performing my younger brother, Dave, who is two years younger than I. He always out-performed me when it came to hunting and fishing (and baseball and basketball, too, but that’s another story).

If I caught one trout, Dave caught three. If I caught a twelve-inch trout, he caught a sixteen-inch trout. The first whitetail deer I ever shot was a doe. A day later, my brother shot his first deer. It was also a doe. But Dave’s doe had six-inch antlers. Yes, a hormone defect caused it to grow spikes. The next year, I shot a six-point buck (eastern count) on the first day of deer season. Not to be outdone, Dave shot a 10-point buck a day later.

I eventually got over my frustration. I had no choice. Even if I prepared better or read more or raced to the best spot before my brother, he caught larger trout and more of them. On a rare day, I might outdo him. But the roles would quickly reverse themselves the next day. So I learned to cope. Over time, some insights began to dawn on me.

First, I realized that fly fishing is not a competition.

There’s no award for catching the most fish when you’re floating the North Platte or wade-fishing the Gallatin. Now that comes as news to a lot of guys. We are born competitors. We have the biggest ‘this’ and the biggest ‘that.’ We’ve hiked further, caught more fish, experienced worse weather, fished with the best guides, and tied more incredible flies than anyone else with whom we happen to be talking. If you’re not convinced of that, tell a fly-fishing story and listen for that guy who has a bigger and better story.

Of course, competition can be a good thing under certain conditions. But it’s foolish if it robs you of the joy you get from landing six nice rainbows on a size-18 Pale Morning Dun. Why does it matter if someone catches ten and they each run an inch longer than the trout you landed?

Second, it’s okay that some fly fishers have a knack for catching more fish.

I was fishing the Boulder River in Montana last summer with my friend, Brand Robinson. We walked up the river together, fishing opposite banks. Every time I had a strike, I looked over at Brand to smile and communicate, “I got another strike; how about you?” The funny thing was that every time I looked over, he had a fish on the line. It occurred to me that I was missing about fifty per cent of the trout that rose to my parachute Adams.

But Brand didn’t miss one. I’m a couple years younger, and I fly fish more than Brand does. But like my brother, Dave, he is an exceptional athlete. His hand-eye coordination is impeccable. So on most days, he’s going to catch more fish. I’m at peace with that. Some fly fishers are simply more gifted than I am. That’s how life works, and it need not diminish my joy over a fine day on the river.

Third, it’s easy to fly fish with people who are better than you are if they are humble. Those are the fly fishers with whom I choose to spend the day– Dave, my brother; Dave, my podcast partner; and Brand, my friend. We may kid each other about who catches more. But all of us are secure enough that we don’t have to out-fish each the other to validate our worth as men or fly fishers. I don’t have any interest in fly fishing with guys who are good and want me to know it.

They bore me. I enjoy fishing with friends who are better than me but don’t feel a need to remind me of that hourly.

Fourth, fishing with better fly fishers makes me better. That’s the silver lining in the proverbial cloud. Now sometimes, the reason why other fly fishers are better is due to their unexplainable knack for having more success. But often, I learn something from their casting or the way they drift their fly or even from their choice of fly. Watching them succeed makes me better.

The crazy thing is that these insights have caused me to cheer for my friends and take pride in their success. Now and then, the competitive spirit rises in me, and I will sulk (at least inwardly) when someone bests me on the river.

But I’ve gotten a lot better at coping with others who out-fish me. I’m especially at peace with it when I’m writing about it. Now I just have to practice what I preach the next time my brother or my friends catch more trout than I do.

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Louis L’amour Helped Me Find New Waters

When I was a 19-year old college student in Montana, I got addicted to Louis L’amour western novels. They were potato chips for the soul. I became fond of the Sackett brothers, mesmerized by a Texas Ranger named Chick Bowdrie, and enthralled by Kilkenny and the way he protected Nita Riordan. But one of my all-time favorite Louis L’amour characters was the kid at the crossing, a rugged western character who called himself Flint. In this post, I apply a principle from the life of Flint to my life as a fly fisher.

Flint didn’t do any fly fishing. Regrettably, none of L’amour’s characters did. But the novels are set in the post-Civil War West. A few characters caught trout with their bare hands or with a worm on a hook. But there were no fly fishers in the bunch. Still, I learned something from Flint that has helped me find new waters to fly fish.

Early in the novel which bears his name, Flint recalls his early days in New York City as James T. Kettleman. What he did to become a wealthy financier and speculator is something I’ve learned to do to become a better fly fisher. I’ve learned to listen.

Flint’s first job in New York City was driving a hansom cab—a horse-drawn carriage, which was the forerunner of a modern taxi cab. He discovered that business leaders often discussed their affairs as though the driver was deaf. One day, Flint overheard a discussion between two businessmen about a building they planned to put up and the way they intended to acquire the property for it. The next morning, Flint moved quickly and bought an option on an adjacent lot. He sold this lot two weeks later for a substantial profit.

Then, Flint spent a year working as a messenger for a brokerage house. He kept his mouth shut and his ears and eyes open. Using the information he gained, he made good investments and watched his net worth grow. Later, Flint developed an information service of office boys, messengers, waiters, and cleaning women. They listened for him and then reported back to them. The information helped him make a fortune.

The Flint Technique

I’ve applied this technique to finding new water to fly fish. Over the years, I’ve overheard many conversations in fly shops or a local café when I’ve pretended not to be listening. Usually, I just listen. Occasionally, I’ll ask a question. Sometimes, people volunteer information because they think the person who asked for it will not follow through and try their secret run. But I do. And find new water.

I have dozens of scraps of notes in a drawer near my fly tying bench. I’ve written names of streams and maps of stretches of river which might be productive. I don’t fish all of them. But I fish some of them, even years after I’ve scribbled the information on a business card or the back of a copy of fish and game regulations.

In the mid-1980s, I heard a couple guys talking about fishing Tower Creek and the Yellowstone upriver from Tower Fall in Yellowstone National Park. I filed away that information. A year later, I used it and hiked up from Tower Fall. I discovered some magnificent water there that I’ve fly fished over the years. I’ve landed dozens and dozens of cutthroats over the years as a result of listening closely to a single conversation.

Listen and Find New Waters

So do yourself a favor.

Listen closely when your fellow fly fishers start bragging or telling stories about a great day on the water. They might just mention a stretch of water that will be worth trying. And if you need any guidance on the art of gaining information from careful listening, pick up a copy of Louis L’Amour’s novel, Flint. But remember. Reading these novels is like eating potato chips. You can rarely stop at one.

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3 Disciplines to Master the Spring Creeks of the Driftless

Recently a friend who lives in the American West said he had heard of the great fly fishing in the Driftless (southeastern Minnesota, southwestern Wisconsin, and northeastern Iowa).

He wondered if he should put together a trip.

I paused.

He lives within an hour of the Madison, the Yellowstone, and the Gallatin, the big freestone rivers. He fishes three or four times a month. He has hit the Mother’s Day Caddis Hatch on the Yellowstone, he has hooked into the big spring rainbows on the Missouri, he has caught the running fall browns on the Madison, and he has had those late summer days when almost every other cast with a hopper pattern surfaces a gorgeous cutthroat.

Why should someone who lives near such waters fly fish the Driftless? In short, it will put every facet of his fly fishing game to the test.

Here are just three disciplines that forced me to up my game and begin to master the spring creeks of the Driftless:

Casting in and around Trees

It’s one thing to cast with a modicum of precision and distance when your backcast has no competition. You load your rod and let ‘er rip.

It’s quite another to drop a size-18 nymph with a one-foot dropper at the top of a run in a nine-foot wide stream with branches draped over you. When I started fly fishing the Driftless after twenty years of fishing in the West, I was shocked at how poorly I cast. No doubt, I wasn’t great in the West either, but in the Driftless, I was a genuine hack.

The Driftless forced me to learn how to cast with greater precision. There is still not much art or science to my casts, but at least I am more aware of my shortcomings. Fishing the Driftless forced me to pay attention to my cast and focus on placement in the run. I’ve learned the art of casting sideways in the presence of brush and low-hanging trees.

Crawling Up to a Run

Frankly, I had read Gary Borger’s book years ago, but the whole “stalking trout” concept was lost on me. It wasn’t until I started fishing the Driftless that I realized that much of my fishless afternoons and evenings was due in part to how I approached the runs.

Just recently, I watched a fly fisher trudge upright like a drunk Sasquatch into a beautiful Driftless run and begin to cast. He stood in the middle and toward the back of the run and cast upstream, in full view of the run, the sun casting his huge shadow across over the run. He cast for what seemed like 20 minutes, and then moved on. With his giant profile, my guess is that the trout spooked ten yards before he stepped into the water. I never saw a fish rise to anything he cast.

In the spring creeks of the Driftless, you cannot ape the Brad Pitt character in the movie “A River Runs Through It.” You just can’t. Fish are wary. The streams seem to be heavily fished. And to catch them requires stealth and strategy.

If you’re catching trout in a spring creek, most likely your knees (and maybe even your elbows) are muddy. You simple cannot stumble mindlessly from run to run.

Rather, you size up the run, see the next run above or below the one you are fishing, and figure out how to maintain a low profile throughout your casts. And as you move stealthily to the next bend in the stream.

Eliminating False Casts

I like to false cast, to be perfectly honest. It’s a third-rate fly-fisher’s go-to move to gain distance and accuracy. I’m no athletic god, and my fly fishing skills are simply one more confirmation of that patently obvious truth.

With false casting, the problem is, of course, that what may work (or at least have fewer consequences) in the West (when you’re standing in the Madison River and casting 40 to 50 feet) is a sure fire means in smaller spring creeks to chase away fish. They react to the movement, dart back under the rocks, and refuse to take anything you drift by them.

The trick is to fight the urge to revert to false casting when you need it most. To cast with a minimum of false casts requires endless amounts of practice before you can shoot the line out accurately (or lob it out awkwardly) while hunched over the edge of stream on your knees.

In the end, I recommended the Driftless to the person asking about it. But he may not be as great as he thinks he is. After a few days in the Driftless, though, he’ll be a better fly fisher than he is today.

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Why I Learned the Art of Fly Tying

The art of fly tying – I may not be the best one to champion the art of anything.

Two decades ago, I learned to tie flies, and the flies I have tied over the years are truly wonders.

Now I’m not bragging.

My flies are mediocre at best. But they are wonders considering that I was born artistically challenged. And I still am. At age 54, I draw at about a 5-year old level. When our family holds its occasionally-annual gingerbread house competition, the mansion I construct ends up looking a shack in a third-world country.

I repeat, I am artistically challenged. So it’s a wonder that I’ve actually caught trout on the flies I have hand-tied.

Why in the world did I set out to tie flies, knowing that I have zero artistic talent?

Here are five reasons I learned the art of fly tying. You can figure out which ones are silly and which are serious. Maybe this will inspire you to learn to tie flies too. Here we go, starting with number five (drum roll, please).

5. It would help me learn to say “tying flies” rather than “flying ties.”

If you’ve never made that mistake, then you won’t understand. But it’s so easy to get tongue-tied and talk about flying ties (think about that image) rather than tying flies. I figured that if I was around a veteran tie flyer, whoops, I mean fly tyer, I would learn to say it right all the time.

Alas, I was wrong. So this really is not a good reason to become a fly tyer.

4. It would put hoarded stuff to good use.

I’m not a hoarder, even though it runs in my family. But like most folks, I have a garage full of old extension cords, balls of yarn, and peacock plumage. Yes, peacock plumage!

One of my neighbors in rural Montana had peacocks, and my kids used to pick up some of the long feathers and bring them home. As any fly tyer knows, peacock herl is used in a lot of fly patterns. The yarn turned out to be decent dubbing, and the old extension cords have provided me with a lifetime supply of copper wire. The downside of this is that I’ve become a magnet for stuff people want to discard.

I could buy the top-of-the-line Sage rod if I had a five-spot for every time a friend said, “Here, I thought you might want this for fly tying material.”

3. It would allow me to use the feathers and hides I collected from hunting trips.

One of my dreams has been to catch a trout on an elk hair caddis that I tied using the hair from a bull elk I would shoot with a bow. Believe it or not, that actually happened. However, my counsel is: if you want to tie flies from the fur and feathers of game you harvest, just stop. Those materials are harder to work with than the commercial elk hides or feathers you can buy for a handsome feel.

Here’s a bonus tip. If you’re stubborn and decide to use the fur and feathers from game you harvest, don’t tell anyone your intentions. Otherwise, you’ll have friends giving you deer hides, turkey feathers, pheasant feathers, and all kinds of other raw materials.

2. It would eliminate the need to shell out two bucks (and more!) for a hook with a bead and some wire.

Now we’re getting serious. There are some fly patterns which are more than worth the two bucks I pay for them. But tying a bead head brassie only requires me to put a bead head on the front of the hook, followed by a couple turns of peacock herl, and then a few turns of copper wire. Even I can do that relatively quickly.

San Juan worms are the same. If you can tie on a piece of chenille, and then use a lighter to cauterize both of the ends, that’s all it takes.

1. It would make me a better fly fisher.

This is the most important reason of all. When I learned to tie flies, I got more than I bargained for. I learned a lot about the feeding habits of trout, when certain flies worked (and when they didn’t), and how much of a trout’s diet comes from beneath the surface (something I needed to hear as a lover of dry fly fishing). Learning to tie flies is worth it for no other reason than becoming a better fly fisher.

Like playing the saxophone, fly tying is easy to do poorly. But even a poor imitation can catch trout. That’s the key. My theory is that a lot of flies are tied to catch fly fishers, not fish.

I’ve never interviewed a trout, but I’ve caught a lot of them on some of the rather clumsy looking patterns I’ve tied. So don’t be afraid to give the art of fly tying a try. If I can do it, you can do it, too.

Still not convinced? Then try something else. Perhaps tie flying.

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Why Great Days on the Water Are Hard to Remember

Great days on the water are hard to remember. They just are. Last summer, Dave and I had one of our best days ever on the water. A friend invited us to fish a creek in a remote area of Montana. We fished a stretch that meandered through a large ranch, miles from any fishing access. In recent years, the ranch owners have allowed few people to fish on their property. They have saved it for veterans, particularly wounded warriors.

But thanks to our friend, Dave and I were invited to spend a day on the creek.

Slow to Crazy

The day began slow, with a trico hatch that, as Dave said, “I just didn’t have the energy to fish.” Tricos are so small, and we came prepared to fish terrestrials, the big bugs. This was one of the last days of July, and it was warm. The creek was small, but we wore waders, in case we stumbled across a sunning rattlesnake.

About mid morning, the trout began to rise to hoppers – and just about anything else that was big and floated. And they never stopped. By mid-afternoon, Dave and I had each landed over forty trout apiece. They were mostly browns and rainbows, most in the 14-16 inch range. We also landed a few brookies and a couple West Slope Cutthroat.

The crazy thing is that I can’t recall any particular fish I caught. That’s unusual. I usually remember the 17-inch brown that emerged from an undercut bank to attack my hopper pattern. Or the 16-inch rainbow that darted to the surface to snatch a Royal Trude as it drifted by a rock. However, I don’t remember anything like that. I have a couple photos of rainbows I caught. Both are striking fish with their crimson stripes against their dark bodies. But I don’t recall catching either one of them.

Great Days on the Water and Angler’s Amnesia

So why do I seem to have angler’s amnesia when it comes to those fish? I have some theories:

First, I think my inability to remember a particular fish was due in part to sensory overload. Catching 40+ fish is an exhilarating experience. I highly recommend it, and I would love to do it again. But the more fish you catch, the less any particular fish leaves an indelible mark on your memory. Maybe that’s the beauty of days when you catch only a half-dozen fish, and one of them is a plump nineteen-incher. I caught a rainbow trout like that a decade ago between Quake and Hebgen Lake. I fished all morning and only caught one other trout. Oddly enough, I remember that fish vividly, while 40+ trout I caught a few months ago have seemingly vanished from my memory.

Second, I think the surroundings had something to do with my case of angler’s amnesia.

I was more captivated by what I saw around me than I was by any particular fish. What I remember from that day is landing a trout right under the railroad trestle where a scene from “A River Runs Through It” was filmed, where Jessie drives her Model T through a tunnel with Norman hanging on for his life in the passenger seat. I also remember the sight of an old trapper’s cabin. And then there was the railroad bed over which the Ringling Brothers used to haul their circus equipment to their ranch for winter storage. The two railroad tunnels were stunning, too.

Third, I think the human imagination struggles to preserve sharp images of what moves us most, including our most poignant memories.

A few miles from the ranch where Dave and I had our banner day, the south fork of the little creek we fished curls by a knoll on which a sheepherder’s cabin is perched. Western writer extraordinaire, Ivan Doig, was in the cabin on his sixth birthday with his parents when his mother took her last breath.

Asthma claimed her life.

Doig writes about his struggle to remember the event in a haunting sentence near the beginning of his memoir, This House of Sky:

    Through the time since, I reach back along my father’s tellings and around the urgings which have me face about and forget, to feel into those oldest shadows for the first sudden edge of it all.

Every momentous event in life is a bit like that for me. I try reach around the photos or the accounts of family members in an attempt to relive memories which are trying to elude me.

Beautiful Memory Loss

So the next time you have an unforgettable day but forget the details, be assured that you’re not experiencing memory loss. You might simply have sensory overload. Or maybe your day was full scenery or experiences more remarkable than the fish you caught. Or maybe it’s the common human struggle to recall vivid images of life’s most momentous events.

Whatever the case, your inability to remember the fish you caught adds to the mystique of your experience and makes it unforgettable.

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Three Lessons My Dad Taught Me about Fly Fishing

My dad taught me three of the most important lessons I ever learned about fly fishing.

The irony is that he never fly fished. These three lessons my dad taught me came during the handful of times he took me trout fishing with a spinning rod or during the dozens of times he took me hunting for pheasants, white-tail deer, or elk:

1. Be patient with youngsters.

There should be a Chinese proverb which says, “Teach a child to fish and try not to go crazy in the process.”

I remember the time we were camping in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. I was nine, and my brother, Dave, was seven. We were trying to spin-fish in a little trout stream that came rushing down the mountainside over boulders. My dad took off his shoes, rolled up his pant legs, and spent the better part of the next two hours wading in ice-cold water, dislodging our Mepps #2 spinners from every rock and logjam in the creek.

I was excited when he told us that we were hooking into a lot of “bottom bass.”

It took me a couple of years to figure out what a “bottom bass” really was – a code word for a snag on a rock or whatever else lurked under the surface. It took me a few more years to appreciate the patience my dad had that afternoon. If he hadn’t been patient and helpful, my love for trout fishing might have been demolished or at least delayed.

I’ve tried to practice patience with my own children. My two adult sons love to fly fish, so I guess I didn’t ruin them with too many fits of impatience when they snagged a pine tree limb or my fly fishing vest with their back casts.

Of the three lessons my father taught me, practicing patience is the most obvious and the most difficult to do.

2. Invest in quality equipment.

When it came to firearms, my dad did his research.

He figured out that a .280 Remington (7mm Express) would be a great all-around caliber for both deer and elk. He worked up a hand-load with 150-grain bullets that had the flat-shooting of a .270 and the punch of a 30.06. Before Winchester and Remington produced a line of mountain rifles with synthetic stocks, he found a gunsmith in Belgrade, Montana who built a mountain rifle for him. He had learned about David Gentry from voraciously reading the major firearm magazines. Then, when I was in the market for a new hunting rifle, he encouraged me to consider a Ruger Model 77.

Also, my dad had no time for cheap scopes. He insisted that my brother, Dave, and I save our dollars for Leupold scopes so that our targets would be clear and illumined if we had a chance to shoot a few minutes after legal shooting light began or a few minutes before it ended.

I have followed this approach when purchasing fly fishing equipment. I’ve done my research and invested in rods made by Winston and Orvis, as well as in reels made by Orvis and Lamson. The right equipment can help with well-placed casts and with landing a big rainbow or brown trout.

3. Work together as a team.

When I hunted with my dad, there was usually another brother involved — either one of his or one of mine. We learned to make this work to our advantage. If we were hunting white-tails, we would often post somebody along a game trail, and then two of us would circle back and walk through the timber or coulee in hopes of pushing something along the game trail by the posted hunter. It worked on several occasions. If we were bow-hunting elk, we would put a caller (with an elk bugle or a cow call) about twenty yards behind the two guys in front who would get in position for a shot.

Our thinking was that an elk which came within 40 yards of the caller would get within 20 yards of one of the shooters. That strategy worked, too.

Of course, it works differently with fly fishing.

We’re obviously not trying to push trout to a waiting fly fisher! But when my fly fishing partner, Dave, and I are on a river, we find ways of working together. Sometimes, it is as simple as using different fly patterns to see which one works best. Occasionally, one of us will work the same holes or runs together — one fishing above the surface with a dry fly, and the other below the surface with a nymph or a streamer.

Most times we’re working together by alternating runs as we work up or down the river. Or one of us stops fishing to help take a photo or help with a tangle. We work together rather than compete against each other, though I like nothing more than to land the biggest fish of the day.

Yes, there’s something special about fly fishing with your dad or with your son or daughter. You can learn a lot and teach a lot in the process. These three lessons that my dad taught me are priceless.

Just pray for patience.