I’ve got plenty of flies in my vest. If I were smarter, I’d organize and consolidate them into fewer fly boxes and become a more efficient, ruthless fly fisher.
Instead, I waste time rummaging through a multitude of containers until I find something I guess will work.
Case in point, last week I was fishing one of my favorite pothole lakes. It’s managed as a put-grow-and-release fishery, and like a lot of potholes it’s full of scuds, so those stocker fingerlings grow fast.
It wasn’t fishing well, unfortunately. I expected a blue-winged olive hatch, and while there were brief flurries of surface action, the wind would invariably kick up, vanquishing my hopes and dreams.
There were a few nice cutthroats making like Australian shepherds along the shoreline, however. They’d herded up some LGFs (little gray fish), and every so often a finned Aussie would slash through the bait ball for a snack. An even bigger predator lurked nearby, under a fishing pier. That cutthroat was more than 20 inches long and occasionally cruised out from under the dock to nosh on a few minnows and remind the smaller trout who was boss.
I’d planned for mayflies and scuds, so when I grabbed my fly boxes at home, I didn’t bother with streamers. As a result, I was unprepared for the opportunity before me and seething due to my short-sightedness.
I contemplated the brewery options in the nearest town. If I wasn’t catching any fish, I figured, I might as well enjoy a refreshing beverage.
Then I recalled I’d brought my own refreshing beverages and sat down on my tailgate to drink one and consider my life choices. One of those choices is allowing my vest to descend into chaos. I started rummaging through pockets, discovering multiple plastic mini cups full of flies; lidded cups that travelled from fly shop to an obscure pocket on my vest, never opened again.
Then I found a card-paper box that seemed promising, despite being crushed. I opened it, and right on top was an articulated Olive Sex Dungeon. Eureka!
My eyes can be bigger than my fly rod, at least when it comes to oversized flies. Last summer, I couldn’t resist picking up a handful of articulated streamers, just in case. Kelly Galloup, of Madison River fame, has become a bit of a celebrity guru, proselytizing on the trout-deceiving virtues of oversized blobs of fur and feathers resembling bait fish, and I’m as susceptible as anyone to the latest thing.
My problem: the stoutest trout rod in my current rotation is a five-weight, an older St. Croix. It’s a great rod, from the days before St. Croix abandoned fly rods, though the company jumped back in recently. This rod has been my mainstay for a long time, and it will cast a 5-inch articulated streamer, but that doesn’t mean it does it well.
I cut my tippet back to where the leader was roughly as thick as my arm and tied on that ridiculous Christmas ornament and headed back to the fishing pier. Casting that fly on a five-weight wasn’t ideal, but I managed. And twice, the big cuttie streaked out from under the dock to chase the Dungeon. The first time, it stopped just short of eating. The second time, the trout caught sight of me as I stripped line and was spooked back to safety.
I wish this were a tale of perseverance, of how I finally fooled an epic trout into making an unfortunate life choice. Then I could have written, “See boys and girls, so long as you never give up, all your fly-fishing dreams will be fulfilled.” But a disappearing tail was the last I saw of that fish, so instead all I’ve got is, “Get your dang vest organized and buy yourself a proper streamer rod, you dolt.”
It will be delivered next week.