Saturday, May 15, 2010

A Reacquaintance

I went back. Back to where it all began. A drift down memory lane.

Last week I hopped on a big old jet airliner, leaving behind a wintery Montana for a sun drenched Arizona. It was good to go home, to see family and friends, to just be in Flagstaff, and to wet a line at some familiar haunts.

As I eased my Teva clad feet into the water of Oak Creek, and later Wet Beaver Creek, I felt an overwhelming sense of deja vu. At the same time I felt distinctly out of place. I haven't been fishing small streams nearly enough since I moved to Montana, and it showed. For the past three years I've been focused on learning how to fish the big water of rivers such as the Yellowstone, Madison and Missouri, a task that was quite overwhelming initially. Now the tables had turned and I seemed to have lost my old knack for catching trout on small streams.

The intimate pocket water of these Arizona streams had my drifts feeling like awkward, discombobulated, thingamabobbered, obtrusive affairs. I was sloppily spooking fish left and right in the low, clear water. The combination of my 9' rod and even longer leader were rather ridiculous...it's tough to load a 5 weight with only a few inches of line extending beyond the rod tip!

I was humbled. I thought I'd learned so much in Montana over the past few years. I thought that I was going to bring those new found skills back to AZ with resounding success. That wasn't the case, I quickly found that I couldn't impose my new tricks upon these streams. Eventually I settled back into old rhythms, shortened my leader, employed a dry-dropper setup, reduced my false casting, and kept to the shadows as I worked upstream. It felt good to be back in tune with things.

I returned to Montana a couple of days ago, just in time for the opening day of fishing season (many small streams and larger rivers such as the upper Madison are closed until the third Saturday in May). Despite the fact that yesterday may very well have been the last day of fishable conditions on our big freestones until after runoff, I found myself on a couple of small streams in the Gallatin Canyon. I loved every minute of it.

I've been reacquainted with the magic of small stream fly fishing and I'm looking forward to maintaining that connection.

6 comments:

  1. Hey Will, nice post, and I'm glad you were able to return to some of the AZ streams! There is definitely something about small streams; they always strike me as the soul of fly fishing, and getting back to the basics (although Oak Creek in particular can be a pretty technical, demanding stream...).

    Iain

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  2. Hi Iain,
    It was nice to get back and fish Oak Creek in particular. I've fished BA Creek a few times since moving away, but haven't had too many opportunities to get to Oak until now. You're right, it can be a very demanding fishery at times! Have you been getting out much lately? I keep looking/hoping for an updated blog from you...
    Will

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  3. Will,
    I have been getting out lately, a lot in fact (maybe too much), particularly through April and early May, mostly on Oak Creek--the fishing was superb, particularly in April, and I landed more good Browns than I deserved...all the recent fishing combined with wildlife surveys for work, and I haven't made the time lately to post on my blog...I will though, and soon, and I have numerous Brown Trout mug shots to include as well, so stay tuned!
    Iain

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  4. Will,

    I just finished your book and I am making a mental list of all the smaller streams here in AZ I'm going to fish this summer. I have really enjoyed reading both your blog and book. Glad you were able to make it home and enjoy the water. Thanks again for all the work and knowledge you put into your book.

    Ben

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  5. Iain - Sounds like you've had quite a spring. Looking forward to your next report... I get some sort of vicarious enjoyment out of them!

    Ben - I appreciate the kind words about the book. I hope it gets you pointed in the right direction. Feel free to drop me a line if you have questions that I didn't answer in the book about any particular destinations. I see from your blog that you found some rim country brookies...nice work! That was a spot I wasn't about to divulge in the book. Happy wanderings.

    Will

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  6. Will, great post. To me, the thing that makes an outdoors writer/communicator authentic is the acknowledgement of times when they just don't 'click.' For me, that's 90% of the time. It's the 10% of the time when things do 'click' that get me out there!

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