I've been a trout junkie for most all my life. Very early memories as a kid, casting rooster tail spinners in a cut bank twists and turns of high desert creeks and eastern Oregon brings a smile to my face even today. The weight of the rod is a spinner pulls through the current, the vibration purring up the line, and then the sudden slam of a strike. It's so addictive.
It was something that blew my mind and instantly captured my heart as a kiddo as much more than anything at school, sports, or even friends could come close to. In general, I loved exploring as a kid. With a rod, a rifle, or even just a stick in my hand. I recall feeling like adventure laid behind every rock, just waiting to be discovered.
And true adventure is, after all, so easily compared to the nostalgia of childhood memories. At least for me it is. Books of being stranded on desert islands, building real life tree forts I dream I could live in, and seeking the learning to live off the land in the sea. Are you kidding me?
That stuff was so rad. Fishing tied a lot of that sense of adventure together for me, and those memories of walking back to camp with a creole full of fish, man that was enough to make this even extremely shy kiddo, being with pride from ear to opie ear. Make me that the sensation that comes along with retrieving a cast and anticipating when and where a strike will come from is universal. I think it spans the entire world of recreational angling.
And by geographic default, the strikes that I've wished for have most often been from trout, landlocked or sea run. Fat obnoxious foam, terrestrials bobbing cluelessly down a grassy bank beneath the shade of overhanging Russian willows. I can dream all day of gator-like jaws rising slowly beneath the casually closed and then sink after engulfing the fly like a sock puppet lazily plucking grapes from the vine. Even bobber fishing is enticing.
Your presentation unfolds just the way you want it to and sets up perfectly to drift into that slot where you're certain that the biggest fish in the river lives. The moment that bobber drops and the way it darts upstream as it does, with certainty you react, chopping your arm upward and stripping down tension, setting the hook and getting the first sense of how much weight is at the end of that line. Oh yeah. Then of course there's the tantalizing endeavor of tight line presentations.
Whether it's a swing or a strip, holding onto a line that's dangling the goods in front of a fish feels like a countdown to action. Action that's been sought after with deliberate effort, cast after cast, spot after spot, day after day. It's a brew of anticipation, surprise, opportunity and possibility. Things that on any day, any cast and at any moment could become a moment that never ever has forgotten and relived in a constant loop of the good old days just like I myself can so easily recall.
And I'm sure you can too. My thrill ride of trout fishing Nirvana likely peaked in 2002 or so. I was a student at Boise State University enjoying all the flexibility of being away from home, surviving Spartan land part-time employment. I fished a lot, like an insane number of days.
I can't remember exactly how many days, but I did keep track and at one point kept the journal documenting days and outcomes of fishing the local waters that welcomed me so generously in the years leading up to and following that time. I learned my local rivers to a level that a rational person could call creepy. I had pet fish all up and down the river in a variety of spots that I'd memorized from every angle. The trout fishing that I had dialed in so keenly was an embarrassment of riches.
But like everything in life, the good old days did not last. Fisheries ebb and flow, and it's not so much that the fishery faltered or left me, it's more that I left it. There's a major that I consider paramount for when and where and how I spend my precious days off. It's simply quality of experience.
And with the growing population of Boise paired with the super great fishing so easily accessible to anyone willing to go, the river that I considered Nirvana simply became too crowded for me to enjoy my days there. And over time, I came to admit that the quality of experience just wasn't the same. And I'm not describing this to complain simply to acknowledge that that's the way things go. And sadly, that's the way that I had to go.
Over time, I began digging harder into new waters, driving farther, walking longer, keeping secrets and creating new definitions of fun and success. Now this is nothing new. I mean, people all over the world do this all the time with countless pursuits. So it was my own time to do the same.
And if solitude was what I wanted, I needed to find it and earn it on my own. And then I could boast in myself of the quality of experience that I was creating for myself and my close friends. Now, whether it's hunting, fishing, biking, finding the quote new, on my own has become as fulfilling as anything. From the most remote beaches of Baja to the backcountry gems filled with undisturbed wildness or populations of fish barely exposed to angling pressure.
Discovering things like this on my own brings infinite levels of reward and satisfaction. It's the discovery that I'm addicted to. And the sense of self-accomplishment and pride and ownership of places that I find by my own endeavors. Eventually, this new acceptance of diversifying my fishing satisfaction led me to the dark side, with straight up textbook peer pressure, just like they warned us of in school.
A shady guy I met through angling media named Ben said I should try some bass. He said I would love it and all the cool anglers were doing it. But that's fishing from a boat, though, right? I asked, well, yeah, you gotta have a boat, man.
I'll get with the program, but I hate fishing from boats, I replied. Small boats like these are okay, just a couple of folks out having a good time on public water he pressed on. I mean, I was no prude. I'd fished from boats and even tried bass several times as a kid.
But I'd heard of guys that had fallen all the way into the bass scene, and even recalled seeing pictures on weathered magazines stashed in rock piles and tree forts as a kid. In recent years, I'd even seen some videos online. At first, they made me a little sick to my stomach. I mean, the way those guys talked, and how they cranked up fish into their boats by the lips and then chucked them over their shoulder when they were through comparing that bass to the bass they taught the day before, or even the cast before, I felt a little dirty texting Ben about going along with him.
I'd make sure my wife couldn't see me peering into photos of glistening bass that Ben was sending to me late at night. He said that once I went after bass, all I would care about was fishing for bass. Well Ben was wrong in the sense that after getting in his boat and going bass fishing, I not only found myself hooked on bass, but actually a host of warm water species. You remember in school when they talked about that doubling effect?
The way that if you did alcohol first, you'd be more likely to try a cigarette next, and if you smoked a cigarette, you'd be twice as likely to start making meth, cooking rats for food, and melt your brain to the point you turned into a Trump supporter? Well, they were totally wrong. Actually, maybe they were right, but either way, bass fishing was Ben was awesome. And something I was not prepared to deal with was that while we were side fishing bass, we were also able to spot and target other warm water species.
Big species, like 20 to 40 inches big. And those fish ate flies too. I was blown away by how much fun it was to explore the waters that I'd driven past countless times without a thought of fishing them. I have a boat, I told myself.
It's barely big enough for myself and a whistle pig, but it's a boat. It needs a whole bunch of holes repaired, but it's a boat, and I also have a motor. The old motor had been longed to my father, and if you've listened to my previous stories, you know about the character that he was. Well, this little boat was what he tossed on the top of his truck and drove down to Baja to fish the Sea of Cortez.
At 12 feet long and paired with an eight horse motor, it looked nothing like what I'd seen in bass fishing videos or even the crusty old magazine pictures. But it was mine. It was rotting in my backyard, and it was my gateway to self-exploration, experimentation, bass, and beyond. Following a few hundred dollars in materials, a bunch of repairwork and three splashy coats of house paint, the rest of that summer found me dropping my little dinghy into waters I'd been raised to consider filthy.
I started studying all new kinds of waters in different areas. I pinned in access points, logistics, and water info, spanning 90 miles. I spent late nights scanning the web for digital treasure, looking for clues to aid in my success. I was so excited to be learning, pumped for what I may find, but I had a lot to learn.
I needed to figure out what kind of water smallies preferred and when, what big-mouth bass we're looking for, what water temperatures were too cold, a maze of rabbit holes, and I was having a blast going down everyone. The idea of experience was now in my control. I could find places to have great days in solitude, just gleefully taking it all in and loving every moment. I would of course encounter an engage with other people, some of them real characters too.
One particular day, I was motoring upstream along a brand new stretch of river. The mid-summer air was thick with wildfire smoke, and visibility was especially low. It looked like the awful pollution I've seen pictured in China, but the dramatic ridge lines created elegant and swooping shapes as the smoke colored them into the distance individually, like in a painting. It was calm as butterfly wings, and earlier in the day had pushed well over a hundred degrees.
By earlier, I mean minutes earlier, a feature of living on the west edge of this time zone. And as the bold summer sun does not fully set until the steep reaches of the clock, and daily high temps may not occur until eight o'clock at night. It was still really hot. Rounding a thick tree-lined corner, I was a bit startled to find a cluster of ragged tents under a bridge I was puttering beneath.
Extending out into the actual water itself, one of the tents featured a row of lawn chairs at its waterline perimeter. Content in the thick, dark shade of the concrete bridge, a trio of folks pinned camp chairs deep into the knee-deep water and mud beneath. A few were dipping cheeks. Then, nearly invisible monofilament lines drooped away from spacey, slack rod tips.
Or actually, I guess I should say pull tips. Hell yes, absolutely brilliant I thought to myself. Doing my best to be friendly, unassuming, and curious, I enjoy talking with people I mean on the river. I can't always do it, but I try.
Because it never hurts to make friends on the water for more reasons than I can lift, really. But being that I was exploring new places myself, it was all the more reason to offer a hardy hay there. Now you guys have this summer fishing program all figured out. My introduction gained skeptical looks, but a few chuckles, so I continued on.
This has to be the best fishing camp I've seen in years. I mean, you guys are in full dark shade, totally out of sight, and practically able to fish from inside your tent. This is incredible. I had broken the ice, and they began friendly chit chat, despite having to reel up their lines so that I could pass the gap between them and the first concrete pillar of the bridge.
Instinctively, I felt like I was invading their space and their water. After all, I'm from the world of fly fishing etiquette, where space and distance are paramount hurtices. But since I'd rounded the corner in my tiny boat and unintentionally found myself right in their water, there was really nothing I could have done to prevent it. And I think they were equally as surprised to see me as I was seeing them.
In a strange sense, I considered it since they were after all gear fishing. Another angler ambling up, casting into the same water, was more than normal than any kind of faux pas. It's kind of weird, isn't it? I mean, in fly fishing etiquette, giving anglers ample space is a traditional common courtesy.
It's kind of a norm that if for example, a car is parked in a particular spot. Other fly anglers consider that spot taken, and move along. Like using your turn signal or holding the door for someone behind you, the serenity of solitude of fly fishing is viewed with a light of respect and privacy in this gentleman's understanding. That's just how the cloth is cut.
With conventional tackle, however, it's like the opposite is the norm. Other waters will feature banks lined with anglers clustered around the best areas, sometimes standing shoulder to shoulder, casting over each other's lines, and nobody's bothered by the cluster. I'd liken the comparison to public versus private restrooms. Imagine for a second that you invite your new neighbors over for their appetizers.
You're in your bathroom using the toilet when the door suddenly opens and a cousin-aty character strolls in, offering a friendly nod as your head spins and you say like, hey, somebody's in here with your eyes popping out of your head. No worries, Eddie says, casually staring at the back of your head and picking his nose in the mirror as you wrap things up. But compare that to the restroom standards of etiquette at a stadium or an airport. For guys at least, you and a ton of other dudes are shoulder to shoulder in line in some cases, pissing in a long trough and staring at a river of urine from the dude standing next to you flow past.
It's a weird thing to think about, and when the gear angler, who's grown up using nothing but trough urinals for this example, says, that fly fishing asshole sure was a dick about it when I tried to use the bathroom at his house. I mean, I watched him go in there so I know it was the guy's room, and the fly fishing guy comes out of his home bathroom all bug-eyed and tells his wife we're never having those inbreds over for shrimp appetizers again. Anyways, the conversation continued as I figured I'd talk them up a while and see if I could learn about the fishing. Few bass, smallies, was about all that was revealed at first.
But then as we continued the banter, they let me in on their secret. We're really here for the night fishing, the chattiest one said. Cat fishing is great on the spin. We have a little trick that knocks them dead.
We'll drink whiskey all day, and then at night when the bottle's empty, we fill it with glow sticks, tie it to a big rock, and chuck it out there in that hole right there. It sits on the bottom glowing and catfish swarm all around it. Then we cast our bait right out to that light, and get them all the time. It works great.
It was entertaining nonetheless, and memorable as far as river people counters go. And I chuckled thoroughly as I continued upstream. I'd been watching a long stretch of river-right shoreline that looked promising for bass. Each time I considered shutting down the motor and hooking in towards the bank, I'd look upstream and see yet another chunk that I'd better include.
This took me over a mile upstream, and by the time I finally killed my four-stroke outboard motor, exchanging it for the nearly silent electric prop, I wondered if I'd have enough daylight to even make it back to the truck if I fished this whole run. Carefully, I emoted to 30 or so yards of the grassline, pulled up the prop, and arranged both tiller handles so they were out of the way. I pulled a glorious 18-ounce takati light from my cooler as the sounds of floating ice tickled the well-worn and stained-in-er walls of my 15-year-old Coleman cooler. I'd spent all of $30 on it.
It was old enough now to drive and a scarce fraction of the weight of its hips or contemporaries. My old-school coolers are proven partners that I'd never leave town without. The sounds of sprinkler pivots sounded off in time like a snare drum teasing the open space in your favorite song. I reached for my six-way radian and set my feet to balance on the aft bench seat of my tiny tin boat.
Its bow was pointed directly upstream, and being left-handed, this presented me with a perfect angle to firecast at the river-right bank, combing the juiciest drips of shoreline habitat for wall-worthy small-mouth bass. The scenario alone was satisfying. In that word is a great way to describe what I think of day-of-fishing should be. Satisfying.
I drifted along in the current at a strolling pace, and looking upstream and down, smokey, stained glass was all I could see as the river unround over a mile in a combined line of sight. My casting platform was perfect. My angle and distance to the bank were perfect. In between casts, I'd snug the rod under my arm to tilt icy takati after takati.
It was like being in the bow of a drift boat being guided down any number of destination blue-riven trout rivers you could name, except I was all alone. Having moments like this aren't as much about selfishness, of wanting it all to myself. Its actually about the experience of having the opportunity to simply be all itself. I wasn't looking over my shoulder, watching the river for the shape of another boat rounding into sight.
I wasn't listening for rubber treads suddenly gripping the road as yet another car pulls over to unload a gaggle of anglers, and then have to watch the gaps between trees for waving fly rods or casts of flyline poking out downstream. This moment belonged in time, only to itself, to me in the river. God that I feel lucky. Satisfied.
Content and relaxed, like pure actual fishing. Nothing else to interfere at all, not even the wind, it was just pure perfection. And I was catching fish. In fact, fish were the only thing to erupting, this endless drift down such a dreamy stretch of ink.
What's remarkable about this experience is that I've never enjoyed fishing from boats. I've never really been overly interested in pursuing warm water species. I mean, I'd experienced incredible bass fishing in certain specific scenarios, but hadn't given much thought to where else and what else these new fisheries could provide. I'd mostly been fixated on finding the best trout and steelhead opportunities.
But now, thanks to my introduction to Ben and a coming of age of what I want fishing to provide, a new world of opportunity has unfolded, and countless miles of riverbank exploration are part of it. I love exploring. Thanks for listening and coming along.