It’s funny how, in the fishing world, we get used to being around water. And if we’re not physically in and around it, odds are pretty good we are thinking about it. Water, and the things that live in it.
For a lot of my career I’ve been lucky enough to spend a great deal of time around water.
Whether it was shuttling vehicles and picking up drift boats on the Missouri, long evenings on the Gallatin after a long day in the shop, or floating the South Fork of the Snake as a kid, the West is synonymous with water. In the past year or so I’ve been able to get a taste of the salt—Cape Cod, Florida, Belize, and the South Pacific. I can honestly say that week in May of endlessly wading flats on a small French Polynesian atoll was pretty damn close to heaven.
I’ve struggled here in Vermont. In short, it’s not what I’m used to. Combination of my first desk job, small streams that don’t give me room to open up my cast, and limited trout numbers. They’re here, for sure, but limited. It’s taken some adjusting. But, at the end of the day water is water, and there’s something about it that just puts the mind at ease. For many of us, I think, water has a way of calming the brain and making the world just a bit better.
So in the midst of some rather cagey days here of late, I’ve been taking long lunches and running off to a little local stream in pursuit of native brook trout. Call it snotty—whatever—but fishing for natives is alway more fun than fishing for stocked fish. Something about this being their natural environment and the fact they’ve been here long before we were. It makes each fish just that much more precious, and I can’t help but look at a native fish and think damn, he’s a survivor.
The little brookies are ambitious—today I grinned unabashedly when one little guy kept nibbling at my fly, sometimes twice or even three times in one drift. He cold never get his mouth around it but damn he tried. Really, there’s a pretty impressive life lesson there, when you think about it. Something about the mottled backs, white-tipped fins, and sprinkling of reddish dots makes these little fish something special, and in turn makes the days just a little bit better.
Even when I show up to my 1 PM meeting with wet clothing due to a larger brookie wrapping around a log on the other side of the creek and my insistence that—dammit—I’m going to lose my last size 16 buzzball. Flip flips come off and it’s time to wade (cheers to skirts that dry quickly).
So here’s to water, even if it’s maybe not the exact water we want at the time. Still convinced the stuff has some magic properties that make everything better.
By the time you guys read this Sunday morning, I’ll be two days into a shoot at Alaska’s Bristol Bay Lodge. Look for some fun shots coming up next week.
