Learning to Fly

Then suddenly, your line goes whizzing across the water and your rod is bent in half, just like you see in all those movies, only it is far better here in my salty skin with an achy forearm, shameful mending style, and determined grin.

I have just scratched the surface of fly fishing and I somehow find myself filled with regret for how much time I have wasted not doing it at all. The infinite access to slow moving streams and wide, rapid rivers has encouraged me to try here in Montana, alongside a few good new friends that are patient and tie clinch knots faster than I can. I like that the act of fly fishing can be one of solitude and yet so gregarious at the same time. One moment we are laughing and netting fish and feeling droplets of water splash our cheeks from wet high fives and the next we are twenty yards apart each in a rhythmic hypnosis determined for an indicator twitch under a pink dusk sky.

I feel childish and smitten with this new found love. I am enamored with clenching the wooden lip of the fly case in the local shop and peering over the shiny copper beads and ridiculous neon streamers like a small child might look at chocolates on the other side of glass in a candy shop. I am eager to throw a handful of the lingo I caught wind of hanging out with new friends out into the conversations at work and amongst strangers in the diner as if I could ever have something to contribute to a conversation about this wildly simple and yet strategic hobby. It’s as if I learned a new language and you can speak it just by slipping into soggy waders and spending lots of time in valley carving water well into the part of the day where the sun encourages you to lower the brim of your hat right down to your eyebrow line.

I have missed more fish than I have caught already and I wear that information like a badge of honor, completely green to back casting and setting hooks. In the same breath, I am purely joyful and I find that the stubborn fight of a trout has made me laugh louder and widened my eyes far more than most things in this life. To see the brilliant yellow shine and pulsing patterns as the trout swirls through the bottom of your net still in the water is striking. The orange specks encased in round black stamps and the smoldering yellow scales like the embers of a bonfire late into the night all light up as you watch it bolt upstream and far from your hands. A fish far prettier than I could ever be. A creature so far from us and so unique, to let its delicate belly rest in my wet hands just for a moment is like falling in love. As soon as I place this trout back in the endlessly moving river, I will long to meet one like it again, and I will return to the river as often as I can in hopes to catch another, should fate allow it.

Trout are tricky. My friend uses another word to describe them, but I will spare you the choice of word, although I assure you it is a bit more accurate. Catching these elusive river dwellers is far from easy and yet a very worthwhile pursuit. My first trout catch on a fly rod was on a warm October evening. The river was burning in warm fall colors that bounced off the rapids from the trees along the bank. I had torn my rod through the air with each subtle twitch and at long last, I had managed to pull my rod just swiftly enough to find something on the other end of the line worth catching. I watched the trout surface and belly flop back into the dark moving waters; the moment invoked an almost ancestral nostalgia. It was as if I had been here before, and my non-committed casts were hardly indicative of the instinctual tug I gave the rod just as I watched my line sink into the water. The fish fought and I let fly line slip between my fingers graciously. After a few decent runs, I drew the fish in close and my friend netted him for me (probably to relieve me from my struggling and the line wrapped around me). I stared down at the fish and its spotted body, shimmering in the sun, slimy and gorgeous. I had learned so much in just one day on the river and yet had so much more to learn but looking down at that fish, I was unashamedly verklempt. I hope to always remember my first fly rod catch. Caught to the song of new friends laughing; people generous in their educational tips and cheerful shouts. The sun beaming over an October river in the middle of Montana with leaves blaze orange and squawking pheasants flying overhead.

The theories of the river, the transient moment of meeting the fish eye to eye, the aspen shedding yellow leaves into the drifting water, the coyotes howling as the stars poke through the dimming sky; it was all intoxicating. The loud laugh and yell of, “fish on” or, “fuck, I missed another,” is all worthwhile regardless of if you found the honey hole that day or not. I feel lucky to have met a handful of people here in Montana so far who enjoy sludging through mucky river bottoms and have spent enough of their time doing so to make catching fish a feasible opportunity for me as I wade into the unknown and roll my ankle often on unsteady rocks. I now often find myself in bed at night, reminiscing about the day’s catch. I think of the silky pink stripe centering the rainbow trout’s scaly body, the brown trout, waxy and fragile, pulled from the water like glaze dipped pottery pulled from the kiln and the opportunistic whitefish quite charming (and tasty) in its own way.

Montana has introduced me to many great people, many great views, many great fish, and many missed fish, as I mentioned earlier. To be waste deep in a cool October river swirled with mud from our heavy steps as we crawl through the dusk-stained river, pink and orange, coyotes yelping and howling as they celebrate the start of night and a cold whitefish hanging from my hip, its sliced open red belly flashing in the water, is to know true mindfulness, it is in fact and entirely a blessing.

These places where we pluck an occasional fish from are still vast and wild and unimpressed by our small bodies wading in the river with fly rods in hand. The coyotes are unamused by our heavy wet boots scraping across the gravel as we head for the truck with each hair on our forearms upright from the howls. This land is their land and we are simply passing through their homes in the night with hushed giggles and wide eyes, in search of hungry trout.

I think I’ll spend many of my days in waders from now on, rainbow trout and mountain whitefish tied to old twine on my hip; should I be so lucky.