The bobber swims in circles for at least five seconds and I scream “SET!” a minimum of eighty times. Eventually, he finds it in his heart to sweep that big ol’ fly pole upwards and stretch that silly plastic line. There is twitching and headshaking. Long deliberate runs circle around the pool and I stifle the whisper that is pinballing in my brain “bigfuckingbrowntrout”. Saying such a thing out loud while staring hard at tense monofilament slicing green ether will automatically turn whatever is on the other end into an asshooked whitefish; such is the evil nature of river alchemy.

“He’s pullin on me pretty good”

“Just keep that line tight”

He doesn’t.

“Larry go git yer camera out I wanna get a picture of this fish”

He turns his attention away from the task at hand to call to his partner in the front of the boat. The line goes completely flaccid as the fish swims towards us. I dig the right oar as hard as I can, spin the ass end of the boat into the current and get his rod bent again.

“Keep the line tight!”

Shit. Ass. Whore.

You can’t call for the camera while the fish is still swimming, you might as well cut the line with your pocketknife. I hope it is the white-dog. It can’t be, not with those oil-rig headshakes. It has to be, any decent trout would have easily spit that barbless hook by now. We have to land this fish. We’re never going to land this fish.

“You seen him yet Larry? I ain’t seen nothing yet, kinda fights like a croaker”

His attention is once again severed from the fish, the first we’ve actually hooked all day,  and again the line goes utterly slack as it swim slowly and deliberately toward us.

Another violent oar-dig and Larry almost goes Greg Louganis over the side as he’s  snapping pictures of water hiding unseen scales and fins and, shit what is this anyway. Please, please don’t let this be a snagged sucker. There’s no way this is a trout.

“TIGHT LINE!”

I am all nerves and coiled spring. I am osprey staring into the green. We are gaining ground and I can see the bobber again. Was that a flash? Another run, shorter this time, he’s about done. Is that him, am I imagining it or can I actually…

“It’s a toad!”

Confirmation. No green back, no translucent fins, no pig snout. Solid brown trout hooked in the mouth.

“Don’t bring your fly line… the plastic line… into the rod tip.”

“Huh?”

It’s too late. The yellow balloon is now jammed into the top guide. The fish has come to the bow and his head is on the way up, I’ve got one shot. I am a pneumatic piston. Just as I fire the net toward the slab of gold, he throws his head out into the current and parts the line. Instead of a shower of water and an empty bag, which is what I’m expecting, the fish is in the net. I have won the lottery, I have dipnetted a 20+ inch brownie, we have absolutely no right to have caught it. It doesn’t hit the 2 foot mark like I expect but weighs in close to 5 pounds.

“Is this good?”

It’s his first day holding a fly rod, his first day on a Montana stream. They are on a family vacation to Yellowstone from Florida and decided to get a half-day guided trip. This is the first trout he’s ever caught. After that fish all we can manage to land is a 5 inch rainbow. At the end of the day, they’re disappointed. I suppose it all depends on your definition of good.

Make it a good one

OPEN THREAD! PILE ON!

Abbey on NBC from Eric Temple on Vimeo.

After G_Smolt’s thoroughly tasteless post advocating bead bouncing with a bamboo stick, we felt it was time to get back on track, appeal to our literate readers and pull this place out of the gutter.

But then, well, we got distracted.

Capr fishing explained:

Finally, a tying video without all the heavy breathing, instructional jibber-jabber and UV lamplight! And better keep that Scott dude away from your sister: he’s got fast hands, man.

Sealed drag reel? – Check.

Plastic line? – MmHmm.

Fluorocarbon? – Yup.

Gussied up 8mm bead?  – You betcha.

Bamboo rod? – Why the hell not?

Props to the Fine Bastard what made her, goofy lumps and all.

Glista’s just too good at this.

“The world was new each day for God so made it daily.” – Cormac McCarthy, The Crossing

There’s been a dearth of good news from the world lately. On the micro level, people are still fishing, still traveling, still finding maps and mazes through the latter bewilderment. The big picture has been basically shit though. BP fucked the Gulf royally, unemployment is at a 60 year high, the national political scene looks like Room 8 of the local high school where the deliquents, incompetents and developmentally challenged are warehoused for 4 years and “not getting worse” is considered “getting better”.

Maybe that is why, while reading through this morning’s news, the latest entry in the Times Editorial Notebook caught my attention.  

“A couple of weeks ago, I walked along a spring creek in the upper Madison Valley, just south of the town of Ennis, Mont. As my guide, Jeff Laszlo, explained, the creek is one of the unnamed tributaries of the Madison River, fed by innumerable springs along the valley’s rich bottomland. The creek meanders for miles before it reaches the Madison, gaining water, providing spawning grounds for fish and invaluable wetland habitat for birds. I looked on in disbelief, because the section we were hiking — nearly eight miles of cold, clear waters — did not exist before 2005.

Or rather, it existed until 1951, when Jeff Laszlo’s grandfather dewatered this section of land by digging canals to draw the water along the edge of one of the alluvial benches that define the Madison Valley. His purpose was to move water to other sections of his ranch and to improve the grazing. In the narrow agricultural logic of the time, his ditches made a certain economic sense. And if it seems strange that his grandson would undo all that work 60-some years later, Laszlo notes that he is simply obeying a different economic logic — one that considers increased biodiversity to be one of the ranch’s most important assets.”

Granted, restoration on the spring creek was done to start a pay to play fishing operation on the ranch, but this is not the Beaver. Instead of privateering a public waterway, Jeff Laszlo restored what had once been obliterated. It feels good to read about 8 miles or so of trout stream being added and not destroyed. We need more of this.

Even dead, he can still kick Tie Domi’s ass.

It’s become popular to call it “the poor man’s bonefish,” but that doesn’t really prepare you for standing knee-deep in a fetid brew of algae and dung, while listening to cow farts at disturbingly close range. No – I’m pretty sure that even if I was deaf, dumb and blind and someone was pouring a Kalik down my throat, I still wouldn’t mistake this place for Andros.

But then these details start quickly fading into the background as disturbance is noticed in the otherwise smooth shallow flats, and cruising fish start to be picked out in the tea-colored water, and the adrenals are throbbing all over again at the thought of channeling that inner egret; standing poised, motionless and studying…waiting for the right individual, delicately placing a temptation in its path, and waiting, waiting, waiting until the shadow of this beast practically darkens the fly before a little twitch gets its attention, and then, with another, it alters direction and you watch the inhale before stripping hard and everything erupts and you’re clearing your line as the first run hits the sound barrier. And while I still haven’t been able to fool myself into thinking I’m back in the Bahamas, I don’t really fucking care anymore, either.