Fishervolution

The creed of the fisherman suggests that he will go through an evolution as a fisherman.  At first he will just be happy catching any fish at all.  Then he will want to catch large numbers of fish.  When catching lots of fish gets boring he will want to catch big fish.  When his evolution is complete it will not be necessary to catch big fish, lots of fish, or even any fish at all if the experience is good enough.  For the evolved angler, just fishing with his favorite method is enough to satisfy his fishing needs with the results being a secondary perk. 

For example, there is a sect of fly fisherman who only want to catch steelhead on a swung dry fly.  Catching a steelhead is a tough venture given their relatively low numbers with respect to the amount of fresh water within which they reside.  Catching them on a fly rod is even tougher.  Catching one on a swung fly is even a little more difficult.   Then getting steel on a swung dry fly is the ultimate challenge short only of pulling a steelhead out of the water with your bare hands.  While I can appreciate the challenge, I just don’t see the point. 

To me, fishing is about the act of trying to catch fish with the emphasis on catching fish.  While the act of fishing can be extremely cathartic and relaxing it soon turns into outright boredom if I am not catching anything.  Freud might suggest that I am fixated on my catching-large-numbers-of-fish stage, but he can go screw his cocaine-snorting self.  I might just be an un-evolved primate who uses a long stick to fish, but I want to catch fish when I go fishing, damn it!  That’s the whole point! 

Of the numerous fly fishing styles there are three main styles: dry fly, streamer, and nymphing.  Dry fly fishing is the most traditional method and garners more fanatical fisherman than any of the fly fishing styles.  It is definitely a cool experience seeing a trout or steelhead take a fly off of the surface.  When a hatch is flush and the fish are taking them, fishing dry flies can undoubtedly be the most effective tactic.  Unfortunately, flush hatches are more of the exception than the rule.  Streamer fishing is based on the imitation of forage fish and other larger crustaceans.  Streamer fishing usually results in much smaller numbers of fish caught, but this is how some of really big fish are caught.   Nymphing is the method of imitating the subsurface foods that a fish would consume typically using a weighted fly or weight on the line.  In the past few decades the use of strike indicators (aka bobbers to the bait fishing folk) has become a deadly tool for bite detection.  It has been estimated by the experts that 90% of a trout’s diet consists of subsurface food items, so nymphing is naturally an effective technique because it puts the fly where the trout is feeding most often. 

Like anything else indicator nymphing takes a bit of refinement to experience success.  Just tying on an indicator and a couple flies won’t “auto magically” result in fish on the line.  For a given stretch of water the depth and speed of the water must be taking into consideration when determining where on the leader the indicator needs to be placed and how much weight must be added to get the fly (or flies) down.  If the water is moving swiftly then more weight must be added to get the fly down more quickly.  The converse is true for slower water.  Once set in the correct position, the strike indicator not only acts to detect strikes, but also serves as a way to fix the effective length of the leader.  Most fish find the currents near the bottom of the river ideal for conserving energy and intercepting food (kind of like putting your recliner right next to the fridge).  Getting the fly near the bottom is critical to success.  This simple concept is the singular most important concept to effective nymphing. 

The most important purpose of the strike indicator is to detect when a fish has taken your nymph.  The indicator will usually move upstream or cross-stream and dip downwards into the water when a fish has firmly taken one of your nymphs.  The problem is that fish (especially trout) have eaten enough bugs to determine fairly quickly that a your funny looking nymph with a long brown pointy tail is a shenanigan.  Before it hooks them, the fish can spit the fly out so fast that there will almost no disturbance on the indicator.  I hate to speculate on a figure like this, but for every strike that is detected by the indicator there is at least that many that go unnoticed.  After seeing enough drifts (thousands and thousands of them) of the indicator the fisherman can develop a heightened sense for bite detection.  Even though the indicators appears to be drifting naturally impeded by neither the bottom nor fish the fisherman will set the hook for no perceptible reason and there will be a fish on the end of the line.  Dumb luck perhaps, but it begins to happen with enough regularity that it converges to something other than luck.  The best I can describe it is with The Force.  When Luke Skywalker was on the Millennium Falcon with the blast shield over his eyes and the floating laser droid was firing shots at him how did he know when to block the lasers?  The Force. 

While nymphing is arguably more effective than dry fly fishing, proponents of dry fly fishing claim that watching a bobber all day is boring and is nowhere near as visually stimulating as watching a fish slip, slurp, or crush a fly off the surface.  Okay they may have a point here, but, at least to me, the thing about dry fly fishing is that it is relatively easy.  In most dry fly scenarios, the fish’s position is already known by the observant angler.  Surface feeding fish are usually easy to see because the fish itself is visible or the fish’s rise form is definitely visible.  When fishing a nymph suspended beneath an indicator more often than not the fish is not visible.  This leads to some very exciting moments when the indicator dips or jumps upstream (indicating a strike) and hook is set into a fish of unknown species and size.  First comes the head shakes from a hooked fish, which can give away the size of the fish (fast short shakes usually means a small fish and big slow heavy shakes mean it could be a bigger fish).  The difference in headshakes between a 10” trout and a 40” king salmon are considerable.  The former is almost cute and the latter will damn near remove your shoulder from the socket.   Next comes that first sight of the fish, sometimes this is just a deep flash in the water, but other times it is a fish breaking the surface with an acrobatic aerial display.  

One spring while nymphing one of my favorite steelhead rivers, I had such a vivid first sight of the fish that it is burned into my memory to this very day (multiple years later).  I had gotten up early and had a prime run all to myself to nymph to my heart’s desire.  After a few drifts my indicator stopped and dipped and I struck.  At first nothing happened so I figured that I had hooked the bottom, which is a very common occurrence if you are nymphing properly.  A second later I watched my indicator start to surge upstream in a sound that can only be described by an out of tune violin as my leader was slicing upriver through the flowing water.  The fight was on!  As I continued the fight I got my first look at this juggernaut.  My first sight was a pale yellow torpedo shaped flash in the deeper portion of the run.  At the time I would have sworn that the flash must have been 6 feet in length; it really wasn’t but I was temporarily delusional from the fight of an epic fish.    (The picture above is the said fish.  Not 6 feet by any means, but truly a memorable fish.)   

I have handful of experiences that been just as vivid as this one was while nymphing.  I guess that my point is that nymphing can be every bit as visually exciting as seeing a fish take a dry fly.  And not only that, but the odds are that I am probably going to catch more fish too.  Sometimes just seeing the indicator dip, setting the hook, and getting that breathless first sight of a good fish is enough to make my day.  Maybe I have evolved a little bit after all.