frustration. He had raised fifteen or twenty fish, some very large, and had yet to stay glued for more than ten seconds. "They ought to have a fish hatchery someplace where you could practice just fighting and landing big fish before you came out here and tried it", he mused. The light and the air were beginning to feel like evening, and the tempo of rising fish increased. Matt was raising a fish every twenty feet or so. Finally he got lucky and a fish stayed on until he had cleared the line and he landed it. We celebrated it for five or six seconds before Matt spotted another fish above and was rushing through the water to cover it. Lose a few, land one, lose a few, land one, Matt was beginning to learn the stripping techniques to keep the line tight as the fish took off for the deeper water. Once he had the fight under control, I would cast above and nearby, and began hooking the occasional fish before Matt was finished with his. Onward up the river we worked. We got shadowed by the sun setting behind the Mutton mountains, and the upwind evening breeze cooled perceptibly. There were fish rising every ten feet now, you could miss or break off one and cover two more even within Matt's limited casting range. I kept trading rods whenever Matt lost his fly, which was rarer now. He began landing two, losing one, and while he was busy fighting his fish, I would step inside and above him and easily reach the next fish in line so we were almost always fighting two fish at a time. We would get untangled, giggle, and proceed ten feet and repeat the whole silly double hook up again. When it actually began to feel dark, and spotting the fly became an issue, we had literally ground to a stop, unable to progress upriver because every cast was resulting in hookups for both of us. Movement was unnecessary. Matt lost count of the lesser fish he had landed, but kept a firm mental grip on the six real slabs he could claim. Eventually, we quit. We had about a mile of hike back down the railroad tracks to the campsite and dinner, and that was a completely different little fisherman walking back down the river than had started up. We were both quietly bursting with a combination of pride and good luck, and it was hard to keep from spontaneously bursting out with laughter from time to time. "Well," I said, "that's about as good as it gets." Matt thought for awhile as we walked. "Now that I think about it, this place IS a fish hatchery where you practice catching big fish". The cure, the fourth stage, is to share and teach. Trump Doyle, McKenzie Flyfishers, July 1990
		<= Back
			Table of Contents			Fishtales Start		Order/Contact