Wherein I Touch a Fish and Do Not Even Die
I’m scared of fish; terrified, in fact. I know that this is a source of skeptical amusement for lots of people (particularly those reading this blog) and also that dating a fishing guide will require confronting this issue to some extent. Though the prospect of handling a living creature of the piscean variety sends me over in shudders, I saw this as an opportunity; maybe if I was exposed to fishes, I could gain some kind of appreciation for them, learn to conquer my irrational fears and failing that, he was probably well equipped to defend me should one of the little buggers prove all my worst suspicions true and move in for the kill.
We went out on Karl’s driftboat on the lower Mckenzie and put in at about 1 pm at Hendrick’s Bridge on a day of high overcast with temperatures that wavered between “brisk” and “it’s MAY dammit.” Karl chose this section of river because it is part of a study being conducted by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife in cooperation with the Mckenzie Fly Fishers and Trout Unlimited. The objective is to try and obtain the size of the native trout population in the portion of the river recently set aside for their habitat and determine a course of management that best serves the future of the Mckenzie, its trout and salmon species and the communities it touches.
Our aim was to capture, tag and document the statistics for any native redside or cutthroat we encountered. Though I’d once practiced casting in his front yard to his encouraging refrain, “There you go ….. You’re pretty good for a first-timer,” I was extremely skeptical that I would catch any fish. This was, I admit, skepticism tinged with hope … but I digress.
I sat in front, casting into whatever waters Karl pointed towards me towards, marveling at the way one needs to read the water to be both safe and successful on the river. There are eddies, log jams, slicks, rocks and deep calm pools all with their own unique beauty and danger. I got to enjoy the course we set while he remained vigilant for not only what might snag my flies or the boat but where the trout might lie in wait.
After about an hour we anchored at a promising gravel bar and I took up a dry fly with a wet fly trailing. I’d been using a nymph and bobber and was already growing tired of casting it. K kept pointing to fish in the water but I could never quite see what he was trying to convey. As soon as he wasn’t busy tutoring me, he cast out himself. Almost at once he had a fish on. Once I saw the motion that indicated the presence of a fish, I couldn’t unsee it. He hauled in a smolt, plucked it off his line, put it back in the water and had recast with barely a pause.
The next grab was much harder, his rod bent at a much more dramatic pitch and he worked the fish much longer before getting it close enough to the boat to net. He hauled a large and lustrous native out of the river and held it out for my inspection. The fish was undeniably beautiful but also thrashing in a desperate bid for freedom that sent me reeling back, torn between honest admiration and utter terror. We tagged #721 and measured her at 436 mm at the fork (about 17.5 inches to the tip of the tail) before we put it back in the water to scamper? off on her merry way.
#721
I did briefly reach into the cooler where we had confined the fish while Karl took his notes and recorded his stats. I realized it wasn’t the slime on the fish that bothered me but rather the unadulterated muscularity of the beast. These are creatures made entirely of motive force. They are remarkably strong for their size, and this is what I find so intimidating; they are much smaller than me but would give me a run for my money in an arm wrestling match. If they had arms. Or could breath out of water. I mean, that would be a tough match to set up. A fish in a tank, me in some sort of articulated sleeve …. Wait, what was I talking about again?
After that catch, I had a clearer sense of what to look for in the river if I wanted to place my fly where a fish would eat it. I took to letting out more line and making an arc wider around the boat just past the rim of the shallows and into the deeps beyond. After about three minutes of riding the arc, pulling and recasting my fly, I had a hard hit at the end of my line.
“You got a nice one on, eh?”
I started pulling back on my rod to fight the fish and I was stunned by just how much force the fish exerted against my tugging. Karl told me to let him run a bit if I needed to but my line was jammed and wouldn’t spool off the reel so I just hauled on him with all my strength. In retrospect, it seems clear that it was something of a miracle that I didn’t lose him with my clumsy angling, but I did indeed reel him close enough to the boat for Karl to scoop into the net and bring him aboard.
“That is a nice trout.”
His deadpan delivery was more convincing than any more effusive display would have been. We tagged and measured my fishy opponent and good old #723 came in a few millimeters shy of Karl’s redside, but not by a lot. He measured 428 mm, over 17 inches to the tail tip and was promptly declared a nicer trout than many people have caught after months of trying, let alone on their first go-round. I credit the skill of my guide wholly for this outcome. I decided, after some consideration, that I needed to record this victory, both over the trout and my own terror by posing for my first grinning hero shot. This of course meant, I would have to touch the fish.
Heaving a deep breath, and steeling myself as best I was able, I took hold of the trout and hoisted him out of the cooler. He promptly thrashed with great force that even more effectively communicated the strength I had found so shocking in competition with my fly rod; this was a strong fish.
This is happiness. Combined with sheer terror.
We slipped him back into the river, tagged and ready for fishy action. We had a few more bites and caught a few more fish but nothing else quite so dramatic. As we neared the take-out, Karl let me row the boat and I found my capacity to do so with some facility pleased me almost as much as landing the trout had. And, touching the oars was a whole lot less distressing.
It really was a fine and wonderful day on the river. I had thought I would enjoy myself but there was something more fundamentally gratifying about the experience than I expected. I was cold and surprisingly tired after we were finished. Not least of all, I was slightly sore from casting and my first battle with a redside. I had learned something about the water, and about myself. I had pushed past the limits of my assumptions, and seen something that was indeed powerful, but also beautiful, fragile and singular to this place in which we live. It made me care profoundly about protecting something that nonetheless scares me.
Some proponents of the continued presence of hatchery trout in the Mckenzie River watershed make the claim that inexperienced fishers (read here: tourists) can’t catch or land a native. That they are too elusive strong and wily to be caught by anything other than relatively expert fishermen. That without these planters, that are slow, weak and easy to catch, and who compromise habitat for native trout, the tourist fishing industry on the Mckenzie will collapse. I submit the following rebuttal: if a person who is utterly inexperienced, generally uncoordinated, and so nervous about fish such that she is not even entirely sure she wants to catch one lest it be in the same boat as she, can catch a native, on her first time out, anyone can.
As to the “tourist fishing industry” collapsing, I will repeat a losing argument previously made by me to the McKenzie River Guides. Montana went to no hatchery plants on their blue ribbon streams years ago, despite the same Doomsday prognostication. Try to book a guide today to fish the Missouri, Madison etc., and you will find that your booking has to be a year in advance. The industry there has found that the message that Kevin Costner, as Ray Kinsella, received in Field Of Dreams was right: If You Build It, They Will Come. If we build a native rainbow fishery, people from afar will flock to the river for an opportunity to fish for, and release, an honest trout.
Great, great read and should likely be hoped that the proponents of maintaining hatchery fish in the McKenzie monitor this site and read as well. Thank you “First Time Fisher” and your guide.
You seem way too good for Karl. But he does have a nice boat, and he did find you that nice fish…
This is great!!! Well done, and great fish!!
I still get scared rowing! Probably should be… nice fish!
Well written article that was very engaging. My wife was hooked suddenly on flyfishing 5 years ago after hooking and fighting a bluegill from a pond with a 4-weight rod. She was hooked on the connection you feel to a living (and surprisingly strong) thing that is much more intimate than she expected, having caught fish before by other means.
I second the assessment of the Montana situation. I have been to the Bitterroot River Valley twice and am going back this year with my dad, a notorious single-egg bait fisherman of small streams of years past (Gasp! The horror!). I had ideas of setting up a spinning rod/reel for him with a Frog Hair float and using nymphs and wet flies, to which he was “all in”. Upon inspection of the Montana regulations for the region, unless I read wrong, I discovered that bait fishing and harvesting of native fish is actually allowed on the section of river we will fish. That’s harvesting of all species including cutthroat, the trout thought to be the most gullible of all trout and therefore the easiest to over-harvest. I have caught cutthroat up to 20 inches out of that river, and lost browns that went bigger. I see a healthy native population in spite of the regs, on a river that has not known hatchery fish for a long time.
No word yet on whether dad will go with eggs or flies. It’s awfully tempting for him…
Superb writing and a wonderful story, with a unique point of view. I really hope we see more from you here, Autumn.
So do we have to clean up the clubhouse now that Karl invited a girl?
Great stuff, Autumn & Karl!
I got my mother who hasn’t fished in ages into a similar wild redside on the study section last week. She had caught a few smolt and washdown hatchery fish first. Her comment after landing the big wild ‘bow says it all — “I wouldn’t trade this one for a hundred of those little things!”
Jim, I think you’re mistaken, the Bitterrot is “Catch-and-release for cutthroat trout”
including cutbows. I hope you and your father have a wonderful trip
Nice bit there and lovely fish. It appears Karl has latched on to a young Hemmingway. Abit smaller though, and ah differant gender, probably a little less drinking capacity, but still very Hemmingwayesque. Bravo you two.
That’s it right there …. Me neither.
Good guiding, good fishing and an excellent story. Go, Karl and redsides.
Brock is right; catch and release for cutthroats in the forks, and for all trout in the mainstem for the most part (there are exceptions). That’s harvesting only, though. Bait is still allowed on the forks (below the dam/falls) and on certain sections of the mainstem (again, there are exceptions). That is still pretty surprising to have bait fishing be viable in a catch-and-release section of river. Not used to that here in Oregon.