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The Soul of Fly Fishing

CONTENTS 12 LEARNING TO LISTEN Fred Campbell

Despite the sun never going down, summer sleep comes easy in Thaidene Nene, “Land of the Ancestors.” The Dene Nation who live at 62-degrees North, on the banks of Great Slave Lake, share their vast, powerful place with Hooke’s Fred Campbell.

20 LEGEND OF THE MARGAREE Tim Myers

On Cape Breton Island, on Canada’s east coast, even mainland Nova Scotians are “come-from-aways.” But that doesn’t mean the locals won’t show you to the best pools. Just follow that dog.

26 QUEST OF HONOUR Bob Covey

“Not many people want to book a trip to New Mexico go chase six-inch Gila trout.” Joe Krzykwa does. His mission of passion, to catch new species on flies he’s tied himself, would take a lifetime of dedication to log and record. And it has.

32 GET JACKED Tim Harden

A species once snubbed, jacks are making a comeback. Just ask destination fly fishing guide, Jako Lukas, who plunked down in Texas not to fish the famed redfish flats, but to go jack-wild for jack crevalle

38 PROFILES

John F. Turner A lifelong river guide, dude rancher, wildlife biologist and conservative conservationist, Turner was appointed as Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service by President George H.W. Bush in 1989. 10 42 46 52

Stream Lines Tight Loops Tight Lines On the Vise Long Lines

56 60 64 66

Wandering Currents Stillwater Secrets Water Marks End of the Line

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STREAM LINES

Pissing the Day Away

Derek Bird I’m always willing to share a few fly-fishing secrets. My favorite fly, for example, is the one the trout are taking. My favorite season is the one when trout are biting. My favorite stream is the one where the trout are plentiful and the anglers are few.

The Soul of Fly Fishing

ave you ever fly fished with someone you didn’t know very well? I mean it should be easy. It’s just fly fishing. You cast a fly. I cast a fly. I catch fish. You catch fish. We have a good day. We sit and talk about it over a drink afterward. Share a few laughs. Then head home and tell our significant others about how amazing the day was fishing with our new BFF. Insert heart emoji here. That’s the fairy tale version. The reality is often far more complicated and uncomfortable, especially at first. I’m not a hundred percent certain as to why, but I’m 99 percent certain it has to do with our “factory settings.” We seem to be pre-set to want to be the best, and to achieve this we have to catch the most fish. And when we fish with someone we don’t know, we’re not certain where they exist on this faux scale. Wait. When I say that out loud, it sounds a little juvenile, or like what my dad used to affectionately call “a pissing match.” Did I just say humanity’s factory settings are set to pissing match mode? I’m not sure? I’m going to have to flush this out with a fabricated scenario that’s at least somewhat plausible. Here it is… You’re looking forward to fishing for the day with your friend; let’s call him Freddy. You know him well. You’ve fished with him many times before so you know what to expect. What you didn’t expect is that his brother-in-law is in town. Freddy calls you and asks if it would be ok if he tagged along. He fly fishes and brought all his gear on his holiday. You acquiesce because you’re a good friend and you’re willing to sacrifice predictability for the unknown because you know your friend would do it for you given the same circumstance. Enter the brother-in-law; let’s call him Gregg. On the drive, you make small talk. He says he wants to see Trump win in 2024 and you bite your tongue because you’d rather take a cannonball to the groin than

live that rerun. He drives another wedge by saying he thinks Nicolas Cage and Keanu Reeves are the best actors in Hollywood, and that solidifies your assumption Gregg is from a different planet in another solar system. By the time you’re streamside, setting up your gear, you’ve deduced that Gregg is brash and carries an air of self-confidence which borders on cocky. According to him, everything about him is better, right down to the new patterns he tied specifically for this trip (most of which you’ve never heard of before). Gregg gives you a punch on the arm, indicating he’s your best buddy now, but you interpret that as “it’s gotime.” So now the unspoken competition is on. He starts out with a couple of trout on his Freddy’s Foamulator McMicro Caddis, a new pattern he named after his brotherin-law, your fishing partner. Gregg says the next time he’s at the bench he’ll create a fly and name it after you. You force a smile, reel up, and hike upstream to get away from your new “best friend.” Now you’re fishing alone, muttering things like “Bet Gregg’s got a box full of Squirmy Wormies and Eggs in that vest of his. You know what, that guy puts the ‘egg’ in Gregg.” You start to feel a little better by brooding about Gregg, the guy who ruined the good day you were supposed to have with your fly-fishing friend Freddy. You know, the Freddy of Freddy’s Foamulator McMicro Caddis fame. That guy. You get the picture. It doesn’t have to be Gregg. Really it could be anybody. And sometimes it’s not someone you don’t know. It can just as easily be a person you fish with often, where you get into the drift boat and the unspoken competition is on. He’s catching lots of fish and you feel like garbage. Or you’re catching lots of fish and he feels like garbage. I suspect this is a universal feeling. If we’re not in the spotlight, if we’re not the best, if we’re not catching the most, making the most, talking the most…then we feel the way Gregg makes us feel.

There’s a way to reboot these factory settings though. It doesn’t have to be like this. The solution seems difficult at first, but it’s actually not all that complex. It’s to…dare I say…here it goes… communicate the expectations for the day. For example, “Gregg, when Freddy and I fish together, we’re kind of a team out here. We like to help each other out. We’ve got each other’s backs. When the trout are onto a fly, we share the info. We take turns on sections where there’s not enough room for multiple anglers per hole. We don’t race to the next hole to get there before each other. Are you in?” To which Gregg could respond with a confused look and assume you’re from Portland, or he could jump on board with the way you and Freddy like to fish together. Either way, you’re not going to get sucked into the unspoken “a real man catches the most fish” competition of the day. Granted, the conversation doesn’t have to be cordial and all “validating our feelings.” Maybe you measure high in testosterone and low in sensitivity and you want to go toe-to-toe with Gregg, fly rod in hand. The conversation might be more like “Gregg, you look like a good fly angler. Let’s put your skills and Freddy’s Foamulator McMicro Caddis to the test today. How about $100 per trout over 18 inches? I’m guessing you’ll catch lots of micro trout on your McMicro Foamulator. It’s not about numbers on this stream, it’s about size. Just one rule: No Squirmy Wormies and no Eggs. In fact, nothing under the surface. It’s all got to be dries. You in?” Then you can have a conversation about the rules and whether or not Gregg wants to play, or add a few rules himself. Or maybe he surprises you and just wants to join you and Freddy on the river and learn everything you two have learned over the years.

Psychologists call it a “play-by-play.” To steal a gambling cliché, it’s the conversational equivalent of placing your cards on the table—discussing expectations. The conversation can be uncomfortable at first because we don’t naturally do it. Sometimes we tend to hide our thoughts and feelings because of our own insecurities and other times we do so because we can use the unknown as a way to control and manipulate others into doing what we want them to do. But the more you communicate, the more refreshing it becomes. A short conversation alleviates the pissing match (but not the need to urinate—that you’ll have to figure out yourself). When you’re out with others, a brief discussion allows for fly fishing to be about fly fishing. Because let’s be honest, if we’ve learned anything from the “warm” sections of water in the public pools of our youth, no one wants to share water with you if there’s a pissing match going on, especially if you’re wet wading. But if you’re in your own waders, by all means, piss away the day.

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