Part
4
Walt
scanned the water intently as he walked. I followed behind, stumbling on a bank
side rock and almost falling down trying to keep up. The creek in this spot was about 100 feet wide and the water
was around 5 feet deep out in the middle. Walt went up to the top of the run in
front of the shallow riffle and sat down on a fallen log and pulled the worn
fly box from his vest pocket.
“This
is a perfect night to try and fool one up to the surface Anders,” he said as he
withdrew a heavily hackled dry fly from the clip inside.
“This
is my own creation here. An elk
hair tail, simple natural dubbed body and some spun deer hair up front. I’ve
been playing with these materials for a while now and I like how they float. I
make a few changes to it every now and again and it fishes pretty well.”
“I
call it the Meadow Muffin” Walt continued.
“You
name your flies Walt? I said inquisitively.
Well
yeah, a flies gotta have a name don’t it kid?
“There
are plenty of famous flies out there by lot’s of famous guys and I fish a lot
of those flies. I also like to create my own. That’s the fun of fly tying son,
there are no rules and you know what? The fish don’t care most of the time if
it has the right profile and is sized right for the situation.”
He
grabbed the leader from the fly line on the already strung rod and clipped the
wet fly off and stuck it in his hat, quickly threading on the new dry fly in
it’s place. He tied the fly on in an interesting way. After tying a simple clinch
knot, he took the line and put a half hitch in it and slipped it over the eye
of the fly and secured the hitch directly under the center of the eye.
“That
there is what ya call a riffle hitch, it keeps the fly riding up at the surface
when you have tension on the line and its quartered down stream swinging
through the run.”
All
of this was new to me, fly rods, steelhead, bushy dry flies, riffle hitching,
tension on the line; Walt may have just as well been speaking Chinese. I just wanted to watch him cast the fly
line and see what this was all about.
He
then greased the dry fly with something out of a small jar and walked to a
small rock outcropping that allowed him to be slightly above the water without
getting wet.
Wordlessly
he pulled line slowly from the reel, the gears and pawl growling low. After he
had a little line off the reel he cast the line slightly down stream and the
fly landed lightly and came under tension and waked across the surface of the
fast, upper part of the run. When it got down stream of him he pulled a bit
more line off and repeated the cast. Soon he was casting around 50 feet of
line, and it was a sight to behold. There was no wasted motion as he pulled the
line off the water at the end of the cast and flipped the whole thing behind
him in a smooth fluid motion. Once the line was straight behind him he brought
the rod forward, pulling down on the line in his left hand and sending the line
out over the water in a tight loop, the fly neatly turning over at the end of
the cast, line and fly landing straight and coming under tension immediately.
It was a mesmerizing dance of man and fly rod; it was a beautiful thing to
watch.
Walt
had now made his way to the middle of the run, the water had slowed and there
was more depth to the water. Rather than the fast, tumultuous water of the head
of the run, the water now was flatter, glass like and swirly at times. The
surface water shimmered with the influence of the many boulders just under the
surface.
Walt’s
fly skittered and danced across the water like a water skeeter, pausing
slightly at times only to be torn away by a puff of water to continue it’s down
and across arc. Again and again he cast as he slowly moved down the piece of
rock he was standing on.
“Ah,
it feels good to get out here again and cast” he said after some time.
“I
don’t think I fished down here at all the last few years.”
After the wife passed I just never……..”
his voice trailed off without finishing.
Then
he began again, his voice noticeably breaking with emotion ”I was in a really
bad place there for awhile Anders.”
I
didn’t really know what to say, but could relate to what he was feeling for
sure, what with my Dad being gone too. I started to think of my Dad again as I
watched Walt cast. I fought with my own emotions in that moment, trying to keep
it together but I just wanted to cry.
Luckily
Walt broke the tension with an excited yell.
“Did
you see that?” Walt squealed in a voice I had not expected from a 70 year old.
I
had to admit I had no idea what he was talking about, my mind had drifted to
thoughts of my father, the river and what was happening in front of me went out
of focus briefly. Snapped back to reality with Walt’s exclamation, I turned and
looked to see where he was pointing.
“I
just rose a steelhead right over there, right off that break on the far side
where that log is laid in the water. I had a feeling he would be there!” Walt
then started to pull in his line but did not recast.
“Whatcha
gonna do now Walt?” I said, having no clue what had actually happened, or what
raising a steelhead even was. My thought was it was a good thing as that’s the
fish he was chasing. I expected to see him send the fly back over to the lie
and catch the fish.
I’m
gonna have a smoke is what I’m gonna do.” Walt said suddenly very calmly.”
“Have
a smoke?” “Why? I thought you were trying to catch a steelhead”
“I’m
just letting the fish settle down a bit Anders, there’s no need to rush this
thing. I know right where he is now, he showed himself to me.”
“What
did he do, I was daydreaming and missed it.” I said awkwardly, kicking myself
for not watching the whole drift of the fly.
Walt
pulled out his pipe and stuffed it full, lighting it with the flick of a match
across the leg of his jeans. He took several long draws on it before he
continued.
“Pay
attention here son, I’m trying to teach ya something. Ya can’t go drifting off
into Candy Land and expect to learn anything about fishing. This is important
stuff I’m trying to show ya!” He said gruffly.
“Now,
raising a steelhead is a big deal Anders. It’s when you get a fish to move to
the fly, almost commit and then for whatever reason, miss the fly, or decide he
doesn’t want to eat it. The main thing is, we fooled him into showing us a few
of his cards. These cards he
showed will tell me a few things.
We know he liked the fly. I now know where he lives, and by the type of
rise I have a good idea he’s aggressive and will take another whack at this
thing.”
Walt
sat down on a corner of the out cropping he was walking down and leaned back
against the smooth stone, worn and weathered from a thousand storms. The sun
dropped on the horizon and the last rays disappeared behind a big sugar pine
tree. I looked over in the field next to the creek and noticed the big mule
hadn’t wandered far. The waist high grass kept him plenty busy eating to his
hearts contentment.
Walt
puffed on the pipe a few more times and then knocked it out on the heel of his
boot, the embers fairly glowing in the fading light. He stood again and regained his position on the rock. The
line was coiled up on the rock in a pile, waiting to be recast. The length was
the exact distance where the fish rose.
“Imma
gonna give it right back to him, same distance as before and see if I can get
him to chase it” Walt said, excitedly.
“Oh
boy this is fun, I almost forgot how it gets my heart a racing when these fish
start to playing with me!”
I
wasn’t gonna miss a thing this time. I watched intently as Walt gathered the
line from the rock in his left hand and made one false cast backward then forward
adding about half the line. In one more move backwards he added the rest of the
line and sent it out over the water in a perfect arc. Before the line hit the
water he reached upstream and flipped the line straight, the fly then landed light
as a feather and started to wake.
My
eye was tracking the fly as it neared the soft inside seam below the log, the
water was glassy and flat and quite clear. I saw a large shadow moving quickly toward the fly, it was
the steelhead for sure. The fish slowed as it got nearer and then came behind
the fly, rising to the surface slowly then refusing the fly again in with a
flash of its body. A slight bulge
of water was all that was left on the surface. The fish returned back to it’s
lie and the fly continued to swing.
“Oh
he’s gonna eat something for sure!” Walt said with confidence. “It just may not
be this fly”
He
stripped the fly line in through his weathered hands again dropping it in loose
coils at his feet. He grabbed the end of the leader and with his teeth he
nipped off the deer hair fly and placed it in his hat. He pulled the small wet
fly that he had attached to his hat earlier and tied it on.
“This
is the comeback fly. I almost feel bad putting it on cause he’s gonna whack it
this time. I could keep playing with the dry fly but he’s toying with me. This
will seal the deal you watch.“
Walt
wound up about 10 feet of line off the rock with a few turns of the reel.
“Whatcha
doing that for Walt, wont you be way short of him now?”
“That’s
right son, I’ll be a bit short but I want to slip it down to him a couple feet
at a time now. I’m gonna re-cover the water a little above him and let him
settle again. When he sees this little Coachman, he’s done.
Walt
started in casting again and even a little shorter still, holding some line
back in his left hand on the first drift. The fly was so small I could not see
it and I followed the fly line as it swung, imagining about where the fly would
be. Another cast and drift still 10 feet short of the lie. The next cast fell
about 7 or 8 feet short of the lie and started to swing, suddenly there was a
large boil and Walt’s line went tight, snapping against the guides, the old
Hardy paying out line in short staccato bursts.
“There
he is Anders! I knew the Coachman would get him!”
The
fish was taking line fast and jumped several times. It was a steelhead of
6-7lbs and it was beautiful. Walt played the fish wonderfully but he had gotten
to the end of the rock outcropping and could not chase him without getting wet.
The
fish jumped two more times and spit the hook, the once taught line now laying
limp in the slack water on the edge of the creek.
Walt
threw his head back and was yelling and hooting like a crazy man. I had no idea
a fish could make a man act like that.
Yahoooooooooooo! His big voice boomed of the canyon
walls with pure joy.
I
too was caught up in the moment. I had just witnessed a fish that would change
my life.
