The weather was perfect, fish were rising, we had the whole day to fish, and yet my mind was elsewhere. I watched from the bank as my good friend Andy lengthened his cast to cover the top of the run he was fishing. The white post from his Parachute Adams suddenly appeared in the roughest water at the head, drifted three feet, then disappeared. He set the hook and a rainbow trout rocketed out of the river, twisted in the air and crashed into the dark green water.
We were less than an hour into our day on the upper Sacramento River and the fishing seemed to be as good as we hoped. It was the beginning of May and for the previous month, we’d watched water flows, air temperatures and weather forecasts, waiting for the first to drop, the second to rise and the latter to show clouds. Finally, they aligned – on a weekend, at that – and the combination of conditions yielded our prediction of a great spring baetis hatch. Bugs were hatching, fish were happy and we didn’t even have to play hooky.
As he played the fish, I unzipped a pocket in my waders and grabbed my phone to take some pictures. But instead of opening the camera app, my finger unconsciously tapped on the Messages icon. I blinked and looked eagerly for the blue dot that signified a new, unread text. Not seeing one, I came back to the present and took a couple photos of the rainbow as it swam away into the cool water.
“Anything?” Andy winked.
I was caught, checking my phone yet again, in hopes of finding a response to the question that I’d posed hours earlier: an invitation to a woman I recently met to get a drink together.
I shook my head.
“The service is pretty spotty down here,” he encouraged. “She’ll write back. And you’re up!”
I stepped into the river and he handed me the rod. We’d already hooked two fish in the run but hadn’t yet made a cast onto the far side of the river, where a thin but distinct seam line ran the length of the pool. The river was less than 50 feet wide but willows behind me made a backcast impossible. It took me several tries but using a combination of roll casts and Spey casts followed by quick, repetitive mends, I was able to land my fly in the seam and get a good drift. Another rainbow took it in a splash. I forgot all about my unanswered text for the few minutes it took me to land the fish, after which I promptly checked my phone again.
“I think it’s like boiling water,” Andy said. “You might want to just stop looking.”
Hours later, we settled into the truck for the drive home, our feet and legs sore from bouldering our way upstream and crossing the river time and again and our eyes exhausted from staring at dry flies floating on water. I was nodding off in the shotgun seat when my phone dinged. I raised it quickly, as if setting the hook again and read the text message.
“Well?!”
My smile in response said it all.
Two months later, Stacey and I made our own trip to the upper Sacramento. It was her first time fly fishing for trout, but she loved rivers and wild places, so I was confident that we’d have a good time. As we drove, I told her about fishing with my father as a boy and then listened closely as she described her maternal grandfather, who was considered the family angler. After arriving and getting ready, we walked the train tracks to a pool I knew. I did my best to curb any expectations of us catching fish but also couldn’t help myself from describing what it’s like to see a trout take a dry fly.
“How do you know which fly to choose?” she asked.
I considered several involved answers but also wanted to be clear that there are rarely absolutes in fly fishing and that we’re free to do it however we like. So instead, I offered a strategic non-answer.
“Let’s see what the river tells us!” I replied.
Reaching the pool, in silence we took in its hypnotic, aquamarine glow and soothing gurgle. The water was clear but still the depth appeared infinite, and in the heart of the pool, we couldn’t quite see the bottom. Sun shone on us brightly and we could feel heat radiating off the gravel bar and boulders around us. We found a large one next to the river and took a seat to rig up. I strung the rod then grabbed the tippet.
“Now what?”
“Now we watch.”
In addition to it probably being the right thing to do before tying on a fly, the strategy was also a way for me to formulate a plan that would make the fishing as straightforward as possible and set us up for success. The pool wasn’t large so I knew there was a risk of spooking fish, and I also knew that any complicated rigging would be difficult to cast. I was considering a couple different scenarios of nymphing rigs that I figured could be water-loaded when a bug flew through our line of vision.
A lone yellow sally fluttered into the middle of the pool and touched down on the water’s surface. A moment later it lifted off but as it did, a small rainbow trout came clear out of the water in pursuit. I grabbed my dry fly box, where I knew there were a couple yellow sally imitations and opened it on my lap for us both to see. She pointed directly at one. I tied it on and handed her the rod.
Wading into the river, she found her footing and prepared to make a cast. A fish rose in the middle of the pool.
“See that?” I whispered. “Go for it!”
As she started false casting, my eyes followed the layers of blues and greens up from the river and into the trees and finally the sky. I grabbed my phone to take some pictures. The screen lit up and as I went for the Camera app, I noticed a text from Andy.
Yo! How’s the fishing? Any bugs?
I looked up just in time to see her first cast land on the water and her fly start drifting downstream.
