My first fly fishing mentor (JW) was probably still to this day the best dead-drift nympher I’ve ever seen in action.
He was unimaginably patient, quiet by nature and taught me right off the bat how to prospect for values in what some might consider to be an expensive hobby.
He was, however, a strict traditionalist in the spirit of the finest tweed-swathed, fly fishing blue blood from back East. (This was back in the early 80s before the explosion of fly fishing media and the relative free-spiritedness we take for granted today.)
He shepherded me to the old paper-bound Jack Dennis tying manual, the venerable stand-by Thompson Model A vise and ancient rubber-coated canvas, boot-footed waders. He favored big, bushy, high-floating Western style dries, dead-drifting nymphs and swinging soft hackles at the start of the hatch. He was even a die-hard glass guy before it was fashionable again.
To my child-like queries of ‘why?’ he often responded ‘that’s just the way it’s done’.
One of the great things about getting a season or two under your belt fly fishing is that you can begin to branch out, develop your own style and begin to make the thousands of mistakes that (most) fishers make along the way.
It’s like coloring outside the lines.
JW would probably blow a gasket if he took a peek today in my incredibly disorganized fly boxes, saw the thing-a-ma-bobbers in my pack, watched my casting elbow waggle or was forced to enjoy our typical river road trip breakfast of Rockstar energy drinks and 2 Tabasco Slim Jims.
He’d lecture about not using enough sun screen, wading wet as much of the season as possible and never putting a floor in the rower’s compartment of the cataraft. My funky soft hackle crafted for the Firehole, being far from traditional, would draw a groan.
Shoot, I bet he’d even wrinkle his nose at chasing carp on the lower Missouri, bass in the lakes or pike on the Flathead sloughs.
That’s ok, my friend. Though it’s a lot more fun to color outside the lines.
