Early this summer, I tried fly fishing for the first time. I had wanted to for some time, but a combination of physical limitations, unique circumstances, and fear of embarrassment had kept me from trying. But, near the end of a trip we ended up in Jasper with a few days time and a little extra cash. I inquired at the local fishing store and hired a private guide for the next afternoon.
Fly fishing has always appealed to me on some primal level. Like many other men in America, the novella by Norman McLean, popularized in the movie “A River Runs through It” starring Brad Pitt and directed by Robert Redford, kindled the flame of my interest. I’m not sure what the attraction is. There is the arcane but simple equipment, the strange names of flies like ‘Pale Morning Dun’ or “Royal Coachman’, the grace of an accomplished caster, or the thrill of the hunt. Maybe all these things are appealing on some level, but, essentially, it’s just as good an excuse as any to be outdoors in the mountains, thigh-deep in cold, clear mountain stream.
My first attempts, under the watchful eye of the hired guide, were clumsy at best, ludicrous at worst. There is something inherently amusing about a full-grown man standing in a park waving a stick, swearing at fairly regular intervals. At this stage, I didn’t feel much like a mountain fly fishing hardman. I felt more like a sucker tourist paying someone to make me look like an idiot. To my relief, we later moved to the river, where after three hours I was a little better, but far from casting tight loops and reeling in 20-inch rainbow trout. I did not catch a fish that day, but the seed had been planted.
That night in the tent, I poured over a photocopied map of all the fishing holes in the region that my guide had highlighted. The next day I convinced my reluctant wife to return to the store, “just to have a look” I said. No harm in that. I walked out an hour later with an early birthday and Christmas present, a pretty run-of-the-mill, six-weight, carbon fiber Redington rod and reel. But it was mine, all mine. I was like a little boy on Christmas morning.
Over the next few weeks, our summer vacation plans morphed from a photographic tour into poorly-disguised extended fly fishing trip. I had to throw my wife some bones in the interest of a long and happy marriage, so we agreed to spend some time in Calgary, Medicine Hat, and Lethbridge, visiting friends and family. The rest was up for grabs as far as I was concerned. And, it just so happens that my mother-in-law lives on the outskirts of Fish Creek Park in Calgary, less than one kilometer from some first-class trout water on the Bow River. Suddenly visiting my mother-in-law seemed a whole lot more appealing.
After meeting an old friend and fishing for two days in an early-season snow storm on the Elbow River near Bragg Creek, it was time to get to work on the Bow and tangle with some real fish while my wife caught up with her mother. Now, you have to understand that I am not what you might call the ‘typical’ fly fisher. First of all, because of an injury, I get around on a Segway: a battery-powered, two-wheeled, self-balancing device that looks a bit odd and futuristic to most people. Second of all, until I could convince my wife to spend more money on fishing gear, I had to use my Dad’s old, musty duck hunting waders from the mid-1970s. They were made from hunter green vulcanized rubber-covered canvas. He used them about twice in the late 1970’s, before his conscience got the better of him for blowing helpless looking birds out of the sky with a shotgun. He made my mom pluck the dead birds after he brought them home.
The waders had only been used intermittently in the last 30 years by high-school biology students from the school where my mother worked to collect water samples from the North Saskatchewan River. Every year they complained to mom that the waders leaked, and every year she did nothing about it. I spent two full evenings finding and patching all the holes. When I was finished, in many places they were more Aquaseal than rubber and I was high from the fumes.
So there I was, a guy in green canvas waders from the 1970’s with a fly rod case, wearing a red hat and fishing vest, zipping through a residential neighborhood in south Calgary on my Segway. I always tip my hat to strangers to be polite when I’m on my Segway. After all, I wouldn’t want to give Segway-riding fly fisherman a bad name. I get some strange looks, I tell you, even from other fishermen.
Once I got to the river, I unpacked my rod, tied on what seemed like a buggy-looking fly, and proceeded to wade in and fish for the huge brown trout that were reputed to lurk in these waters.
I spent the better part of the day without a single bite. Nothing. Nada. Zero. I changed flies, fished every likely-looking spot I could think of, tried different stretches of river, all in vain.
The next day, I had two bites on the same pattern of wet fly in less than ten minutes down-river of an island, but broke them both off in my excitement. I almost had one in the net. The third day: nothing. The Blue Ribbon Bow wasn’t looking so rosy and world-class after all. In any case, it was time for us to pack up, say goodbye, and head off to Medicine Hat to visit some relatives. I caught a couple of Goldeye down there on the South Saskatchewan River, but apparently they will take anything, and skill is not a requirement.
It wasn’t until we had passed through southern Alberta, steadily moving west through photogenic ghost towns, that we began to get back into real trout country. I got more and more excited as we approached Lundbreck and the famous Crowsnest River. To make a long (sad) story short, I spent the better part of a week fishing the Crowsnest, Oldman, and Livingstone rivers with little to no success. There were fish rising all around me, but nothing I saw would bite. I hooked one rainbow on a Black Prince/ Hopper-dropper, and that kept me going through the week. It was maddening. To make matters worse, I fell in the Oldman River and gashed a hole in the knee of my ancient waders. The aged, sun-bleached rubberized canvas ripped like tissue paper and the icy water came flooding in. That was the last straw. It was time to get a hotel in Longview, repair my waders, do some laundry, watch some cable TV, and regroup. We resolved to leave the next day.
On the way out of the backcountry, we stopped at a campground on the main highway ‘just to have a look’. The guy behind the counter in one of the fly fishing stores in the Crowsnest Pass area said this water was fished out and not to waste my time. I pulled on my rubber boots anyway and headed down the rocky slope to the stream with my vest and rod. It was hot down in the river valley and I could hear grasshoppers moving all around me in the dry grass. I tied on a foam hopper imitation and cast it into some fast pocket water. On the second cast I felt a solid tug. It had an unmistakable ‘live’ feeling to it, unlike the logs and rockfish I had caught all week. The fish ran and then shook its head. I kept the tension on, as I was using a barbless hook, and reeled in line as fast as I could. When it got close enough for me to see it, I could tell it was a fair size, much bigger than anything I had caught before. I yelled up to Jess to bring the camera. When it saw the approaching gaping black hole of the net, it ran again. Eventually, I netted it without much fuss, wet my left hand, and gently cradled it for a quick picture. Then I let it spit out the hook and admired it briefly before submerging the net and watching it quickly swim off with a huge grin on my face.
I had landed my cutthroat trout and I knew I was hooked for good.
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