Big Fish

With a prime rib dinner and a half-bottle of Beaujolais inside me, I strolled across Allenberry's lawn at twilight in a lazy, satisfied mood, pleasantly anticipating the justly famed Yellow Breeches Sulphur hatch.  A rabbit froze at my approach, and I slowed, stepping softly, waiting for her to run.  Closer and closer I crept, until I could reach out and touch her with my rod tip.  Gently I stroked her back with it a few times, then she could take no more of this weird behavior, and bolted into the rhododendrons.  Grinning, I continued down to the well-manicured stream banks and eased into the water.  What a civilized way to fish, I thought contentedly.

The hatch was just starting, and I laid my Cream Variant over one riser after another.  My fishing skills were not such that I expected a lot of results;  The fact that I had some hits (which I naturally missed) was enough to keep me happy.  Trout had me psyched;  They still do.  That they are there, beautiful denizens of clean water, and condescend to show occasional interest in my flies, is all I can ask.  I should want to catch them, too?

Upstream I heard my fishing partner's reactions as she, too, missed hits.  With darkness falling rapidly, and ever-increasing numbers of flies on the water, not to mention fish rising everywhere, it was hard to determine whether a given rise was to one's fly or a nearby natural.  As the activity neared its peak, the water looked as if it was being pelted by a hailstorm, and the hatching Sulphurs filled the air like a blizzard in reverse.

 In fact, little happened except the line slowly cutting water upstream.  It took a few befuddled seconds for me to recall that the books said this was the behavior of a big fish.  Wow!  I started shaking.  The trout continued its leisurely progress upstream, came to the surface in a brief swirl beyond my sight in the darkness, then turned and headed equally slowly down past me.  It became visible as it passed my legs, at least twenty inches of brown trout, its sinewy length, spattered with spots, seeming to take forever to go by.  Totally panicked, I clamped down on the rod grip and reared back, and the 7X tippet popped like a cobweb.

It took a number of years before I finally actually landed a fish over fourteen inches long, my arbitrary definition of a big fish.  I considered it pure luck when I did it.  It was the middle of a sunny summer day;  The fish was a brown trout from Penn's Creek, a plump fellow between 15 and 16 inches, whose bright colors said clearly he'd been in this heavily-fished stream long enough to have seen many, many flies go by.  The fly was one I'd designed and tied the previous day with these very conditions in mind.  Sophisticated fish, crystal-clear water in bright sunlight, tricky upstream stalk to cast under overhanging greenery, a  fly of my own creation…  Of course it was luck!  Even more luck when the fish dove under a submerged branch and I somehow did the right thing to save the situation.  That certainly wasn't due to improved skills from experience.  I knew that playing big fish takes a certain technique:  A technique you learn by playing big fish.  Few big fish had been tempted by my ragged flies and multi-thumbed presentation up to then, so I'd had little chance to practice playing them.  Those few had been connected even more briefly than that first one, there and gone in a couple of adrenaline-charged seconds.  Therefore I'd resigned myself to catching the little ones and put all thought of trophies out of my head.  I released that beautiful brown with a feeling I'd just participated in a once-in-a-lifetime miracle.

But, as time passed, a strange thing occurred:  Once in awhile, with increasing frequency, my complacency would again be shaken when my tiny fly was unexpectedly engulfed by something several times the size I'd expected.  Even more unnerving was the fact that I actually landed most of these lunkers.  To this day, each one is a total surprise, a bolt from heaven.  So certain am I that lightning will not strike again, I never deliberately seek big fish.  I use small flies, choose my tippet to be just heavy enough to extract my fly from shrubbery intact, and drag out the big rod mostly for easier casting on big water.

I admit to having become a little blasé about small panfish, having caught thousands over the years.  I've even developed something of an ego about them:  When they aren't biting I scowl and wonder what's wrong with them that they are so unresponsive to my flawless panfishing skills.  I feel much the same towards yearling bass.  Trout still impress me, but I find I respect the wary wild fish more than the unpredictable hatchery truck breed, too naïve to know what they should eat and what is a danger to them.  Even so, my admiration for the Salmonidae borders on superstition, irregardless of their size or origins.  Each one I catch is still an event, although not as much as during my early, mostly fishless, angling career.

But those rare encounters with big fish, whatever their breed, still fill me with the same humble awe I felt when I caught that fine Penn's Creek brown.  It's like being a child again, that gee whiz feeling of accomplishing something marvelous beyond any expectations.  When a lunker bass sips down my battered panfish popper and comes boiling through the surface into the air, radiating power and fury, I'm thrilled and terrified.  I no longer hear the theme music from Jaws playing in my head when this happens, nor a distant voice crying Thar she blows, Cap'n   Ahab!, but I do go into disbelieving shock.  I've gained enough experience and self-discipline that I now have what I call my "Big Fish Help Utility" that comes online in my brain as soon as the adrenaline jolt hits, taking the place of my reasoning ability that flew out of my ears when the fish struck.  It gives me advice:  Ease off, you ninny, let him run!  Just a little light tension with the forefinger…  OK, now take in the slack and get him on the reel.  My, you had a lot of line out.  Whoops!  A jump, drop the rod tip!  Now keep the pressure on.  Ignore the arm muscles aching, keep pulling to the side. To the side, dummy, make him work!   Lift and reel, pump him in.  Another run, let him go.  No, guide him away from that rock!  Almost there…  Whoa, he's still not tired!  Gentle touch on the line there, he could still throw the hook.  Got him!  Then I lift the sleek, muscular miracle clear of the water, just enough to work my little fly loose with tired, trembling hands, and slip him back into the element from which he so unexpectedly came.  A moment later, and I'm alone, only my aching muscles and my racing heart convincing me that what I remember truly happened.  And certain, in my humility, that it can never happen again, not to a ten-thumbed, graceless duffer like me.  Luck, it was all luck, my fly just happened to pass above him when he had a sudden whim to do something stupid.  A tab-top tied to a kid's cane pole would have done just as well.

It's said that an angler goes through three stages:  Seeking to catch a lot of fish;  Seeking to catch big fish;  And seeking a quality fishing experience.  My angling self-esteem was never high enough for me to aspire to Stage Two, I went directly to Stage Three after my initial need to prove myself was satisfied.  But, after over a quarter-century of fumbling around with a fly rod, a few big fish have begun to seek me.  When it happens, it's an orgasmic high.  I feel undeserving, yet triumphant, terrified and awestruck, and fall in love with fishing all over again.  If I ever cease to feel like this, I'll know it's time to put aside the fly rod and pick up something else.  Like a harp and a halo, for I hope and believe I'll never lose this thrill until I'm long gone.  And maybe not even then!

--Rabbit Jensen--