Thursday, January 10, 2013

The fishing was hell

Tom: You're going to hell.

Mike: I’ll be in good company. Do you think there’s trout in the Styx?

Marty: Now that Mike is a deep philosophical question…….. It being Hades likely the hatch is always on and your flies just a tad off. The eternity of refusal rises makes Sisyphus’ rock gig seem like a vacation. 

Image: Trouthunter

Mike turned to his guide, "Is it much farther?" he asked.

"No, in fact, we're there." answered his guide nodding a horned head in their direction of travel.

Mike turned back and discovered that miraculously they were standing on the banks of the Henry's Fork of the Snake; he instinctively knew it was the Railroad Ranch pool. The sky was so blue it hurt his eyes and the vast blueness stretched from horizon to horizon in the dazzling manner only found in the west. Fluffy blue clouds dotted the skies, a light breeze swayed streamside grasses and the sun edged towards the mountains casting long shadows. The air was cool enough to touch the skin gently and the air was alive with large, careening bugs.

"Salmonflies", the guide mentioned casually as he watched Mike's eyes light with wonderment, "We've hit the hatch at it's peak."

The fabled waters and legendary hatch were cause for pause. Mike felt inadequate standing in his dime-store waders carrying a stick purchased at a tag sale decades before. That was until he realized that the waders were new and the stick feather light. G3?! H2?! And his bones and joints felt lighter than ever and his vision keen. And his mind was clear. What magic had brought his elderly form to this state?

The pool ahead was alive. Salmonflies danced and skittered, flapped and struggled. Trout, trophy sized rainbows and browns, rose and slashed at the lively foodstuffs.

And there were no other anglers in sight.

The guide, who went by some unpronounceable name, tied on the sweetest Salmonfly imitation ever created. With a quick glance it could have been mistaken as a natural if not for the barbed point protruding from it's end.

To Mike's surprise, the guide tied the fly onto a twenty foot leader ending in 12x tippet. "They're leader shy", he said with a wink of a great red eye.

Mike's worries about small tippet and large flies were soon realized as the too small tippet tried to carry the too large fly through the air. The fly spun as he cast and fell limply in a pile of fine leader not far from the bank.

Frustrated Mike started to lift the line from the water for another cast. Just as he began the motion, a menacingly large rainbow rose from the murk and seized the fly. Too late in his back cast to react the leader lifted from the water and the 12x parted as it it wasn't there.

The enormous rainbow cartwheeled in the air a large fly dangling from it's mouth. The aerobatics were as awe inspiring as the girth of the beast. Mike stood agape as the trout leapt dozens of times.

Mike turned for another fly. 

"Damn, that was my last one" said the guide.

With graceful ease the guide produced another rod, a beast of a twelve weight, single-handed rod; light as a feather. Mike thought that he'd be chucking large, jointed streamers but instead the guide threaded on a #22 Griffith's Gnat.

"Really? A gnat?", Mike asked.

"Oh sure", the demon replied, "I see a beauty of a trout out by that rock sipping gnats as they pass".

Mike scanned the water. Sure enough, about sixty feet away, slightly obscured by the haze of swirling Salmonflies, Mike saw the nose of a beautiful Brown gently sipping on the surface.

So he cast.

The first cast was right on target but the heavy line splatted against the water and spooked fish for a dozen yards. After resting the water he cast again and couldn't get the fly into the zone or spooked them again or the fly dragged in the myriad currents. The rod felt heavier and heavier and the casting became harder and sloppier and no fish looked at his fly. And still they fed on Salmonflies, except for the one.

The guide switched flies regularly moving to a #24 and then a #26 and then even smaller. Soon Mike couldn't tell if there was even a fly on the line but he cast. And in those rare moments that the fly made it into the right lane, he had refusal after refusal. Sometimes the trout's snout even touched the fly. Once he hooked it and snapped it off as he set the hook.

And the sun hung just above the mountains at precisely the angle when he had started. And it was warmer. And the demon went into the fly box once again looking for just the right thing.

And still trout slashed and frolicked. And the Salmonfly swirled and skittered. And Mike cast.

After a time, two other anglers came to the banks but Mike didn't see them as he cast to the sipping trout twenty yards away.

"He's a good guy to fish with", one said to the other nodding upstream to Mike and his bat-winged guide, "It's good to see him."

"Yes it is, Steve, yes it is", said Tom.

And they cast small fies to ambivalent trout and hooked nothing.

And so it went.




  1. This, sir, is too freakin' funny. I can see that we have a long fishing road ahead of us, together. Tom will be a great third.

    You get inspiration in the weirdest places...

  2. I thought fly fishing hell was supposed to be catching big trout every cast.

    And you're both still going to hell.

    1. The horned one makes all sorts of promises before you hit the water. But they're no better than any other guide's guarantees.

  3. Having fished some of these waters precisely, I had to chuckle at this story. Just put myself in Mike's place, and, it was "hell". Too good, Steve!

  4. and I thought for sure when they got there the "horned one" was gonna hand them spin rods and power eggs, your version is better..

    1. :) The real punishment is that eventually they'll beg for the spin rods and powerbait and it will be denied!

  5. The styx is just for starters. There's a entire watershed in Hell that includes Lethe (the river of forgetting your polarized sunglasses), Acheron (the river of crowding bait fishermen), Cocytus (the river of missed strikes) and Phlegython (the river of broken blood knots).

    1. You experience in this watershed will be invaluable.