Fish or Cut Bait (Heaven Prohibit)

Is this an adage or an idiom? More like, don’t catch fish and go tie more flies. In a few days, the season will open up in the great north (north of here), and thousands of hopeful candidates will rush to the waters in a relentless pursuit of stocked trout. Yes, those misaligned refugees from a hatchery and without a home in their native waters to fall back on. Mostly near natives like the trusty brown trout or the west coast refugees like the sleek rainbow. The true natives are holed up in small pockets spread thin across the Appalachian Mountains, Adirondacks, Green or White Mountains up into New England and the Maritimes of eastern Canada.

Please note I’ve labeled brown trout as a near native, based on my theory that sometime ago, sea-run browns did populate our rivers like their distant cousin, the Atlantic salmon. They go together like ham and eggs. Browns follow salmon upstream to feed on the abundant eggs and fry that eventually emerge. Why they disappeared is anyone’s guess, but logic suggests that overfishing by European settlers decimated the populations of all salmonoids in the New World.

So, on opening day, some will plod along, chasing the elusive stockies, and spend the next few days racking up the numbers and bragging to all who are in earshot, “You shoulda been there! It was like knocking off cans at a shooting gallery!” or some similar adage or idiom.

Little Sailboats

Sitting at the vise, he felt that familiar itch. He envisioned March browns, Hendricksons, Tan caddis, drakes, and spinners. With a debarred hook in the vise, mental notes and the order of operations flowed from memories of thousands of previous flies and patterns. Never consulting a reference manual, he tied on the perfect hue of thread, took a half dozen barbules of wood duck, a pinch of dubbing of the right color, and began to create magic. Now, two hackles measured and tied in. The wings, made from the same wood duck tips, were even and carefully centered over the thorax and tied in. He ensured there was no excess thread to bulk up the body and that the eye was not crowded. With care, he placed the hackle tips in his pliers and spun them behind and in front of the eye. A few wraps of thread and three turns of the whip completed the creation. Finally, he snipped off excess materials and prepared another one for the box.

Mayflies duns, sitting in the film, float leisurely as they need time to dry their wings. They are both beautiful and vulnerable. Little sailboats come to mind, their journey from egg to adult nearing its climax when hungry trout sip them as they drift by. What appears to be wholesale slaughter is simply the rhythm of life. A few escape, perform the mating dance at dusk, and lay eggs for the next generation. This ritual has been unbroken for thousands of years. Little sailboats amuse me like many others before me and many more after I am gone. It’s a beautiful reminder of the circle of life.