Fly fishing is not fishing at all — it’s picking nature’s lock. What is the trout eating? I try to find the combination, and so my approach to the upper Owens begins.
I glide to the river’s edge and investigate for signs of feeding fish. A shadow on the river bottom may dart an inch or two to the right or left in ambush. A nickel-sized spot on the river’s glassy surface may bend with the trout’s sip. A splash can break the silence. But today, none of these is happening.
I palm a rock from the water and turn it over. It teems with midges, mayfly nymphs, caddis casings, a leech, and bugs I do not recognize. I inventory other variables: the time of year; the time of day; the water level, temperature, and flow; the underwater structures and vegetation. So much information overwhelms me.
I lift a cigarette from my chest pocket and smoke. I do not smoke at home, where I am a father and a husband and a neighbor who cares how others see him. But on the river, where I go to be alone, I undergo a metamorphosis. I become the Marlboro Man or John Wayne. Here I am a sinner and a badass. I am free. I take a drag and feel my muscles relax.
I have fish to catch, and so I return to the river’s riddle. I pluck the bugs from the boulder and drop them into a glass vial for closer inspection. My son would love this. He is seven and he likes bugs and he is a good boy. Why haven’t I brought him? I’m suddenly ashamed. I extinguish the cigarette only three pulls in. I hastily select from my box a fly that matches something in the vial — a wild guess — and tie it on. I’m about to fish, and the tincture of my son fades from my mind.
My father gave me my earliest lessons in fly fishing. He told me that trout live in holes where they won’t expend more calories than they’ll consume. I find a calm bend in the river that fits that description, but I cannot reach it from the shore. I wade into the river to position myself better. The first wade of every trip is a baptism for me. I feel the water squeeze my legs. I fight the current. It’s cold. I am now standing in the trout’s cathedral, and I feel devout. I make myself a promise I often break: “I will not leave until I land a fish.”
I cast above the bend, and my fly drifts on target, then past it. Nothing. I cast again, and midway through my drift the river blossoms with mayflies. Unlike my Marlboro Man transformation on the river, theirs is a graceful metamorphosis. One lands on my rod, its lithely tapered torso and translucent wings as delicate as fly fishing itself. I pause to admire.
I select a mayfly pattern and try the bend one more time. A strike is certain now. I imagine setting the hook in the trout’s paper lip, landing it, cradling it in my hands, and then, after this David-and-Goliath battle, placing it back in the water in the same way I used to slip my son into his bassinet. It will revive — it always does — and it will swim away, alive and well.
But again, no trout takes my fly. I break the silence of the river with a canon of excuses, but I don’t buy my own bull. I retreat back to the bank, where a log sits like a pew. I take a seat and light my second cigarette. It doesn’t work as well as the first, but it’s good enough. I reassess the variables. I did everything right. I don’t get it.
I watch the swarm of mayflies in awe and disgust. I finish my cigarette and reach for my rod, which is resting at my feet in juicy meadow grass. A meaty grasshopper jumps from between my feet and into the river. I watch it churn its way downstream and swing into my river bend.
It disappears in a splash.
