What really makes for a “good day” on the river?
It’s a question we bounce around in the shop a fair amount when people always say “I had a good day today on the (insert river name here)”. One man’s good day might be considered average, or even bad, to some people. So what does it really come down to? Size of fish, number of fish, type of fish?
In my opinion a good day on the river doesn’t have a damn thing to do with numbers or counts. Sure, a day when you catch 40 fish is great. Everyone loves those. But some of my absolute favorite and most memorable days on the water over the past few years have been pretty terrible fishing. It’s the experience that counts.
Last week Ethan, Kaitlyn and I drove up to the Upper Madison in hopes of finding some fish eating dries. The day started off with a series of mishaps I don’t need to list here, but suffice to say our original plan to drive to Craig didn’t pan out. Kaitlyn hasn’t fished some of the famous water up there and had never thrown a dry fly before. The forecast looked stormy, but the promise of cloud cover gave us the confidence to make the trip.
Cloud cover we got. We were the first car in the parking lot (to everyone’s great surprise) and immediately found rising fish in the pocket water. The fish up there are always picky, but that day in particular it seemed. We threw the book at them as rain showers came and went. The only taker Kaitlyn and I had was a tiny brown that ate a BWO emerger. She had never seen fish rising like that and was shocked and amazed at the sight of large brown trout 20 feet away taking tiny dries off the top. I love introducing people to things like that. Just watching her face light up was worth the drive.
The day wore on and the fishing was slow. Ethan managed to get some action on a chubby and Kaitlyn and I caught some whitefish on flashy nymphs. People showed up. Storms moved in. By the time we headed back to the car for lunch we had only landed a handful of fish. But that’s just the way it goes.
Was it one of those days I’ll talk about and remember for a long time? Not really. Was it a “good day”? Absolutely. Any day on the water in a beautiful place with a good friend and the girl you love is a pretty damn good day if you ask me. Everyone’s definition of a good day is going to be a little different. What’s yours?
