Read Online All Fishermen Are Liars by John Gierach - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: John Gierach
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hoping for something like My Dinner with Andre , but it could always turn out to be Dude, Where’s My Car ?
My friend and I came on the stream at a shallow riffle with a bend pool upstream and the glassy tail of a bigger pool just visible above that. At first it seemed bigger than I expected it to be this high up on the drainage. Then, after only a few seconds, it seemed to be exactly the right size. We split up there and I forced myself to ritually watch the water for five whole minutes on general principles. The best fishermen I know are all cool customers who take their own sweet time, and even on days like this when I don’t feel the requisite stillness, I try my best to fake it.
This was a high-altitude-meadow stream at a perfect clear, late summer flow, running mostly in the open between the exposed gravel of its own high water line, but shouldering up against dark, root-bound cut banks on the outsides of bends. It was morning on a day that would reach into the low eighties with a deep blue sky and cumulonimbus clouds the shape and color of cotton balls. This was an entirely recognizable medium-sized trout stream, but it would have a few peculiarities of its own that I didn’t want to overlook by being in a hurry. I also wanted to take a moment to wonder how I’d managed to drive right past this lovely little thing so many times over so many years on my way to something I thought would be better.
There were a few odd mayflies and caddis in the air, but nothing you could call a hatch and no trout rising. So it came down to what I was in the mood for. On an out-of-the-way freestone stream like this, any number of things can work, but did I want to bank on the mysterious, unseen pluck to a nymph, the bulge to an emerger, the considered sip to a dry fly or the splashy lunge to a hopper? With nothing much to go on, I picked two old standards: a medium-sized, drably colored parachute dry fly and an equally nondescript nymph pattern on a dropper. The open secret to stream fishing is that your affection for your favorite fly patterns can be contagious.
I started casting methodically to cover the bend pool, first the slower current on the inside, then the faster main current, then a nicecast tight to the far bank in the deeper slack where I got a fish on. I’d been staring intently, but still somehow missed seeing if the fish took the dry or the dropper. All I knew was that something happened and I set on instinct.
This felt like a heavy trout, but it also didn’t feel quite right. And then it was in the deep, fast current feeling weirdly logy as if it had me around a stick, and then it was coming up on the inside of the bend and I could see a good-sized fish being chased by a much bigger one. But then no, it was a big one on the dry fly and a slightly smaller fish on the nymph pulling in opposite directions. The big one was a nice big trout that I really wanted, but I had a light tippet and a 4-weight rod and two good fish on and this couldn’t possibly end well. But then the smaller fish somehow got slack and threw the hook, and at that point the big one was just a rod’s length away, so I slid it over to me and cradled it in my hand. It was a good seventeen inches long and it all happened just that fast, before either one of us had a chance to think it over.
I rolled the trout on its back to immobilize it, plucked out the barbless hook and then righted him in the current. He was sleek and firm: a muted greenish, grayish gold with the fine black pepper spots and orange chin slashes of a Snake River cutthroat. He rested just long enough to give me a good look before he squirted out of my loose grip. The fight couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds and the fish wasn’t even tired, just a little confused.
So the conversation with this new water had begun and we’d hit it off nicely, like a first date that began with a clumsy exchange that we both thought was funny. I can’t help but think of trout streams
My friend and I came on the stream at a shallow riffle with a bend pool upstream and the glassy tail of a bigger pool just visible above that. At first it seemed bigger than I expected it to be this high up on the drainage. Then, after only a few seconds, it seemed to be exactly the right size. We split up there and I forced myself to ritually watch the water for five whole minutes on general principles. The best fishermen I know are all cool customers who take their own sweet time, and even on days like this when I don’t feel the requisite stillness, I try my best to fake it.
This was a high-altitude-meadow stream at a perfect clear, late summer flow, running mostly in the open between the exposed gravel of its own high water line, but shouldering up against dark, root-bound cut banks on the outsides of bends. It was morning on a day that would reach into the low eighties with a deep blue sky and cumulonimbus clouds the shape and color of cotton balls. This was an entirely recognizable medium-sized trout stream, but it would have a few peculiarities of its own that I didn’t want to overlook by being in a hurry. I also wanted to take a moment to wonder how I’d managed to drive right past this lovely little thing so many times over so many years on my way to something I thought would be better.
There were a few odd mayflies and caddis in the air, but nothing you could call a hatch and no trout rising. So it came down to what I was in the mood for. On an out-of-the-way freestone stream like this, any number of things can work, but did I want to bank on the mysterious, unseen pluck to a nymph, the bulge to an emerger, the considered sip to a dry fly or the splashy lunge to a hopper? With nothing much to go on, I picked two old standards: a medium-sized, drably colored parachute dry fly and an equally nondescript nymph pattern on a dropper. The open secret to stream fishing is that your affection for your favorite fly patterns can be contagious.
I started casting methodically to cover the bend pool, first the slower current on the inside, then the faster main current, then a nicecast tight to the far bank in the deeper slack where I got a fish on. I’d been staring intently, but still somehow missed seeing if the fish took the dry or the dropper. All I knew was that something happened and I set on instinct.
This felt like a heavy trout, but it also didn’t feel quite right. And then it was in the deep, fast current feeling weirdly logy as if it had me around a stick, and then it was coming up on the inside of the bend and I could see a good-sized fish being chased by a much bigger one. But then no, it was a big one on the dry fly and a slightly smaller fish on the nymph pulling in opposite directions. The big one was a nice big trout that I really wanted, but I had a light tippet and a 4-weight rod and two good fish on and this couldn’t possibly end well. But then the smaller fish somehow got slack and threw the hook, and at that point the big one was just a rod’s length away, so I slid it over to me and cradled it in my hand. It was a good seventeen inches long and it all happened just that fast, before either one of us had a chance to think it over.
I rolled the trout on its back to immobilize it, plucked out the barbless hook and then righted him in the current. He was sleek and firm: a muted greenish, grayish gold with the fine black pepper spots and orange chin slashes of a Snake River cutthroat. He rested just long enough to give me a good look before he squirted out of my loose grip. The fight couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds and the fish wasn’t even tired, just a little confused.
So the conversation with this new water had begun and we’d hit it off nicely, like a first date that began with a clumsy exchange that we both thought was funny. I can’t help but think of trout streams
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