Why I Fly Fish by Chris Santella - STC

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WHY I FLY FISH

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SE NAT O R M I K E E NZ I It means more than talk

THERE’S A COMMON REFRAIN AMONG ANGLERS about the old time/money

conundrum: When you’re young you have a lot of time to fish, but not necessarily enough financial resources to get to where you want to fish. Later in life when the bank balances are a bit more in the black, you no longer have the time. It’s not much different for a U.S. senator.

“Since coming to Washington, I get lots of offers to fish with people,” Senator Mike Enzi began, “but I don’t get many chances to take them up on their offers. Even though I get back to Wyoming most weekends, I don’t have much downtime. I generally have three to five meetings a day with constituents in three to five towns.

In Wyoming, towns are pretty spread out. That means a lot of time driving around.

I certainly had a lot more time to fish before I got this job, but I’ve figured out one way to sneak in a little fishing. I have a travel rod that I always carry with me. If we’re driving along a road that happens to border a trout stream, I’ll try to pull over and fish for an hour here and there. I’ve learned that spots right along the road can be pretty good places to fish. Other anglers often ignore those spots, thinking they’ve LEFT

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been overfished, and that they’d be better served pushing further away. My roadside fishing has reinforced my commitment to using barbless hooks. It’s certainly better for safely releasing fish, but it’s also good for releasing constituents. During my

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WHY I FLY FISH

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C AR L HI AASE N Making sense of the madness

“TO ME, THE WHOLE INTOXICATION OF FLY FISHING is sight fishing,” Carl

Hiaasen declared. “It satisfies our primal instinct to hunt and provides the challenge of putting a fly into that tiny radius where the fish will eat it. I got hooked on sight fishing to bonefish with a fly rod when I was a teenager, when not many people were trying to do it. It’s one of the more extraordinary experiences in fly fishing; success requires so much to go right. You can get the same thrill from casting to a rising trout. It’s a gas trying to get a tiny fly to drift where the trout will eat it. It’s not quite the same as having to hit a moving bonefish or tarpon or permit, but it requires the same concentration. There’s the same connection to the water…though if you tied a trout to a bonefish, the trout would be pulled inside out!”

Carl began chasing bonefish in Biscayne Bay in high school, after an apprenticeship on the canals around his hometown of Plantation, Florida. “I had a dear friend in junior high named Bob Branham,” Carl continued, “and he had a twelve- foot aluminum boat with a six-horsepower outboard. (Bob went on to become an acclaimed bonefish guide.) We’d go out in the canals and fish for bream, bass, occasionally baby tarpon. We’d read in Field & Stream about using fly rods with poppers and rubLEFT

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ber bugs on the surface, and that’s what we did. We caught a lot of fish, mostly little guys, casting into the shoreline. It taught us precision; if you’re four feet too far away from the shore, the fish wouldn’t come out and get it. When we could drive,

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WHY I FLY FISH

FRANK MOORE

put the fish high on their agenda, but often they’ll circumvent what’s right for the

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ABOUT THE ANGLER

fishery resource.

“When the state decided that they were going to put hatchery steelhead in the North Umpqua, I initially thought it would be great. After the second return, I felt it was awful. The hatchery fish don’t have the same body configuration as the natives.

F R A N K M O O R E is the most celebrated angler on one of the world’s most celebrated steelhead rivers, the North Umpqua. Frank began guiding on the river more than sixty years ago and has led many dignitaries to the river’s fabled pools. He and his wife Jeanne built and operated the Steamboat Inn, which has catered to steelheaders since the late fifties. He served

They’re a mess, and most fight like an old boot. They’re a different fish. I collared

two terms on the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission, was a commissioner on the State

a biologist one day and told him, ‘I bet you a thousand dollars I can tell a hatchery

Water Board, was a member

fish from a wild fish on the end of my line in five seconds.’ He said he didn’t have

of the National Parks angling

that kind of money. I suggested one hundred dollars, then one dollar. Finally he said

advisory group and many other

‘The average person doesn’t know the difference,’ and that was that. His attitude

local, state and federal boards.

Frank has worked diligently over

was disappointing.”

the years to protect the North

In times of great stress, it’s human nature to gain comfort by putting ourselves—at

Umpqua; he has received the

least mentally—in a place of calm and happiness. Frank shared one such moment of

National Wildlife Federation-

escape from nearly seventy years ago. “After we broke out of Normandy, my division

Sears Roebuck Foundation Conservationist of the Year Award,

(the U.S. Army’s 83rd Infantry Division) was heading up the Brittany peninsula. At

the Izaak Walton League Beaver

one point, east of the city of Dinard, we crossed a bridge that spanned a river. Down

Award for conservation achieve-

below, on the banks of the river, was a restaurant, and in front of the restaurant

ment, and the Anders Award for

there was a beautiful Atlantic salmon, hanging from a hook. I can see it in my mind

Wild Trout Management. He has

clear as day; it’s stuck with me all these years. I remember thinking as we raced on,

been awarded the international Federation of Fly Fishers (FFF ) Conservation Award of the Year

‘I wish I could stop and find a fly rod and try to catch one of those magnificent fish.’

for his good work in fisheries management and the Conservationist of the Year from the Wild

It took me away from where I was to a very different realm. It didn’t last long, but for

Steelhead Coalition. He has been enshrined in the World Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame.

a few moments I was in a different place.”

In 2011, Frank was appointed by President Sarcozy of France as a “Chevalier” of the Legion of Honor in recognition of France’s infinite gratitude and appreciation for his contribution to the United States’s decisive role in the liberation of France during WWII . A short time after WW II he was made an Honorary Citizen of Ste Marie du Monte, the village at Utah Beach in Normandy. He has fished in many places throughout the world, but to him there is only one North Umpqua River.

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NI C K P R I C E You never stop learning

SINCE 1977, Nick Price has earned his living (and legions of fans) playing golf. But

he’ll readily admit that his real passion is fly fishing.

“My dad was a huge fisherman,” Nick recalled, “and so were my brothers. Nearly all of our holidays were spent as fishing trips. When we lived in Durban, we’d head to the Drakensberg Mountains and camp on a stream there. Brown and rainbow trout had been introduced to some of the rivers. When I was a toddler, my father would take my two older brothers fly fishing downstream, and I’d be left at the camp with my mom. I vividly remember complaining that I wanted to go fishing. My dad had a couple trout rods, and he ended up tying nine feet of leader material to the top eye of one of the rods and attached a fly to the end. I found a log that went over the stream by our camp, and I sat for hours on that log working the fly while he and the older boys went off on their own. Eventually, I caught a trout. I was three and a half.

“When I was six or seven, my dad taught me to throw a fly rod. By this time, we’d moved to Rhodesia. The eastern highlands of Rhodesia, like the Drakensbergs, had streams where trout had been introduced. The streams were very small. When you learn to fish on such small streams, you’re very close to the fish. Many times you LEFT

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can see them. This was how I got the taste of fly fishing. Once you get competent enough with your casting and fly presentation, it’s all about the hunt. That’s why sight casting to fish is the most exciting form of fly fishing for me.”

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RO B E RT RU B I N The camaraderie runs deep

MUCH OF ROBERT RUBIN’S LONG CAREER in the financial industry has

unfolded in the granite-ribbed canyons of Manhattan. Yet it’s the broad meadows of Montana and the white sand flats of the Bahamas that command his attention whenever time permits. “I love to get out to the spring creeks in the Ruby River Valley, O’Dell Creek near Ennis, Nelson’s Spring Creek by Livingston, the Boulder River near Big Timber and Slough Creek in Yellowstone National Park, up by Meadows Three and Four” Robert began. “I also love bonefishing. My two favorite Bahamian destinations are North Riding Point on Grand Bahama Island and Flamingo Key on the west side of Andros Island. Over the last twenty-five years, I must have been down there one hundred times, mostly quick two-day trips.”

The delicacy of spring creek fishing has great appeal to Robert. “These waters are very technical,” he continued. “The streams are intimate, the water is flat and very clear, and there tend to be many small currents, which make presentation challenging. You have to get the fly—often a very small one—to just the right place. And you have to be very careful, as the trout are particularly sensitive. A cast that’s too long, a fly that drags across the water, even too heavy a footfall on the bank can spook them, LEFT

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and you may as well move to a different spot. I like to use very light rods, which make for a delicate presentation. I had one very fine day last summer on a spring creek near Dillon, using a one-weight. In the course of the day, I hooked maybe ten