Under A Blue Moon Over a quarter-century of angling incompetence has led me to expect nothing better, and to be happy with my mostly-fishless bumbling. After all, fly-fishing, like Enlightenment, is a journey, not a destination. My hooking percentage is great, if you count water weeds, deadfalls, and bankside shrubbery: Sometimes over 90%. My casting is very consistent: Three acceptable casts, then one where the tippet tangles inextricably around the rod. My fly boxes invariably hold a selection of flies appropriate to some other species on a totally different type of water than that which I'm fishing at the moment. Possibly even only appropriate for alien fish on another planet. Just as a person growing up in a dysfunctional environment comes to think of that lifestyle as "normal", I've come to consider a fishing trip that's a continuous chain of minor disasters and blown opportunities to be what fishing is all about. Then one day something strange happened. I was on a Club outing, and having a good evening. Which, since my expectations are so low, meant that I was "in the now", enjoying myself. I didn't notice one of the other women had been watching from the bank until she spoke: Y'know, you're a beautiful caster. Then she wandered onward, leaving me severely shaken. I hope I didn't respond to her with the thought passing through my mind: Are you blind, drunk, or crazy? I stood there for awhile, staring at the fly rod in my hand as if I had no idea how it got there or what to do with it. Then I noticed the leader, virginally unknotted; The fly, which I'd tied on ten minutes after arriving; And recalled at least ten fish, competently hooked and released. For the first time it dawned on me that Lady Luck has an expression other than a malicious grin. That was the first time I can recall that everything went right on a fishing trip, but not the last. Once in a blue moon, it happens: I'm in the right place, happen to have the right fly, my casting comes together, and the fish have a lapse in judgment and an irresistible case of the munchies. Mind you, it's not predictable. Often I don't realize something special has happened until someone else points it out. And angling's mishaps are never entirely absent, just less frequent and severe on these 'blue moon' days. But good days do happen, leaving me unnerved and disbelieving. It's not frequent enough to make me go on a soaring ego trip, but I have developed a certain confidence. The blue moon will shine again. My humility is reinforced by the large part Luck plays in all this. Twice I just happened to learn and practice a new tying technique the night before, finding myself with an ample supply of The Right Fly when the hatch started. Once, I was tying what everyone else was convinced would be hatching, and tied a slight variation that turned out to be just the ticket. Later I moaned about losing this fly, the only one I had (isn't that always the way?). My companions consoled me that the fishing had indeed been hard, each of them had only caught two trout during the massive hatch. That shut up my griping quickly; I'd caught eight, not all by a long shot on The Fly. Sometimes Luck turns a dark moon to a blue one. One stifling hot evening, during Sulphur time, I slipped and sweated my way down a once-familiar stretch of stream, probing with a searching pattern while awaiting the main event. One suicidal rainbow per four lost flies; About an average day. I reached the head of the main pool to find that a once-favorite lie had been totally altered by a fallen tree washed down during the spring spate. A couple fish were sporadically rising in the resulting large pocket, and numerous casts convinced me that there was no way to get a decent float over them. While wading over to free my fly from a snag on the pocket's edge, I slipped and caught myself on a large boulder. My nose inches from the eddy behind it, I was able to see something I can never normally see with my notoriously poor vision: A half-dozen spinners, idly whirling in the surface film. Not Sulphurs. Slate Drakes. And I actually had some. Those familiar with Sulphur time, over 40, and with failing vision (a surprisingly large portion of the fishing population), understand that you get one fly change during this hatch before it's too dark to tie a knot. This time, I went with my observation instead of tying on a Sulphur in anticipation of the evening's rise. And I was right. It wasn't 'a fish per cast', not on this heavily-pounded pool, but my elbow was aching from fighting hefty trout by the time I crawled (It was too dark to see to walk) up the steep path to the road. My companions' Sulphurs hadn't worked at all well; They were frankly puzzled about what those trout had been rising to. I told them I'd used an Isonychia spinner 'with some success', but heroically refrained from mentioning how much success. I find it oddly embarrassing to do so well, when I'm normally so inept. Whatever deity blesses me with these blue moon days definitely has a sense of humor. It's not only that I'm ashamed to brag when I'm 'high hook'. It's that the good luck strikes most often at an inappropriate time. Usually when I go out with a beginner. On one occasion I left a novice probing a likely run while coaching another downstream. I returned after a half-hour or so, observed for a minute, and said, I think your nymph is dragging out of the hot spot. You've mastered basic casting, let me show you how to mend line. I took her place and her rod, managed a workable cast despite the unfamiliar tackle, and demonstrated the upstream mend required with a fast current between the angler and the fish. BAM! Although it would certainly demonstrate the usefulness of the technique, I hated to humiliate the girl by having hooked the fish she'd been trying for, on her own fly and tackle. Babbling on about current speeds and line handling, I deftly manipulated her rod downstream out of her sight, throwing slack in the line in the hopes that the offending fish would free himself. He did, and I breathed a silent sigh of relief. That happens more often than pure chance would allow; In fact, I've become very leery of demonstrating any technique onstream to anyone, especially using their tackle. It's the most deadly fish attractor I know. There's got to be some comedian of a deity involved. It's a topsy-turvy world when I have to find excuses for fishing success. Honestly, I'm usually as klutzy as you think, it's just there's a blue moon tonight... Like the celestial phenomenon, my blue moon fishing days are rare. I'm strangely glad of this. Somehow, I find it hard to use the words "expert fly-fisher" and my name in the same sentence. It's just not 'me'. Some computer hacker must have pasted my face onto that grip-and-grin photograph. The woman with her entire fly line tangled around various accessories dangling from her vest... That's me. That's reality. But sometimes I think about the revelation I had in my early teens: That the most popular girl in the school was subject to the same insecurities and self-esteem problems I suffered. And I wonder: Are all those anglers in those magazine photos just having blue moon days? Good grief! Are they all like
me?!?! |