Fly fishing enthusiasts are kind of like a cult. Not unlike yoga-holics or extreme computer techies, they have developed their own language, created their own fashion, and have spent countless hours honing their craft. Men and women who are really into fly fishing talk about the Zen-like meditative state they go into while fishing and they treat it much more like a religion than a recreational activity. My dad is one of these fly fishing enthusiasts, and today I found myself floating down the Yellowstone River with him on a tiny boat as he tried to lure me into this fly fishing cult.
This is the third time he has tried to turn me onto fly-fishing. The first time was in Maine about ten years ago, and the second was in Oregon back in 2002. Both times I found the activity close to unbearable. I couldn’t come close to figuring out how to properly cast, and the few times I did get lucky and managed to get my fly out on the river I found myself wondering why on Earth anyone would go to such lengths to try to catch a fish. Fly-fishing is just impossibly difficult, it looks cool when you watch someone who is really good at it, but it is about as easy as writing your name on a high ceiling with a ten-foot pencil. I’d go through the motions, pretending to be trying and having a good time while really day dreaming about all the other things I’d rather be doing. I knew he was excited to have me out fishing with him so I didn’t want to let on that I absolutely hated fly fishing, but I new I’d rather be doing just about anything else.
But today I think something clicked, or at least I reached the point where I knew how to do more than just get my line tangled around my fishing pole or caught in the tree branches behind me. Today I managed to actually cast the fly onto the river, and then actually catch a fish! Now I must admit that fly-fishing is really pretty cool. It takes an immense amount of concentration and has nothing in common with the old fashioned “put a worm on a hook and wait for the fish to chomp on it” approach. You cast the fly out and then stare at it really hard while it floats down the river. If you are patient enough and lucky enough, you will actually see a fish swim up to it and bite at it (fisherman call this a strike). At this point you have to jerk the line back really quickly to set the hook, otherwise the fish will just spit the fly out of it’s mouth and swim away. You have about half a second to do this, so if you are not paying close attention you will totally miss the fish.
What is really cool is that you realize that if you stare at the river long enough (and if the water is clear enough) you will start seeing fish. This is totally crazy. You see these buggers swim by and look at your fly, maybe take a little poke at it, swim around it once or twice, and then bammo! they hit it like a bolt of lightning, and if you hook it than all shit breaks loose. You reel it in, wrestling with it all the way, and then unhook it and let it go. Maybe you take a picture of it before you put it back. (Most serious fly fisherman, my dad included, don’t keep the fish. They use barbless hooks and let the fish go right after they catch them. It’s catch and release, and no fish end up getting killed.)
Now, I don’t have any aspirations of joining the cult of the fly fishermen (Dad, since I know you read my blog, DO NOT give me a fly rod for my birthday). I’d still rather be out searching for the perfect shot with my Bolex, but I have to say that I will always look at rivers a little differently now, and not cringe the next time my dad invites me to go fishing with him.

my first trout