By Bryan Archer
We had come to fish the Lamar River, just 40 miles long, and only fishable in late summer, after the long period of high water had subsided, when the river started to show its bones. Now we could see the gravel beds and shingle that were no longer covered by water. Close by, larger rocks the size of small boulders were stacked up in piles the height of one of the banks, forced there by water from the winter snowmelt, the source that created and fed the river. The river itself is famous for cutthroat trout, named for a distinctive red ‘slash’ below its jaws. We were there to try to catch this fish that I had only glimpsed in photos in the fishing magazines. I had waded into the cold, clear water about ten feet from the bank, and was casting upstream with a single nymph pattern called a Pheasant Tail nymph, appropriately tied with Cock Pheasant tail fibres. It represented an emerging Baetis, or Olive nymph. This fly has a worldwide reputation for catching fish that may never have seen an Olive nymph. Invented by Frank Sawyer some 60 years ago, it is ‘the’ universal fly pattern, able to tempt fish regardless of what other food is in the water.
A classic Pheasant Tail Nymph
I worked the Pheasant Tail nymph, quartering the water upstream, mending the flyline (moving it during the drift) to compensate for the ‘bow’ created by the river’s flow. There were no rises to hatching flies, and little in the way of fly hatches. I wasn’t surprised: there was a nip of autumn in the air even in late August. I persevered with the sunk nymph, a copper wire rib weighing down the nymph pattern, but not enough to send it down to the bottom of the river. I had a take after about half an hour, then hooked one and landed my first cutthroat trout after about an hour. When you catch a species for the first time, it’s a very special day, and looking at this trout with a body of yellow-brown and olive hues and a great red ‘slash’ along its jaw, I was elated. I quickly removed the barbless hook and returned it to the river. Cutthroat trout, native only to North America, although not on the endangered species list, are regarded as a sensitive species. Non-native species such as brook, brown, and rainbow trout should be culled, the Yellowstone authorities insist, as they have led to the decline of the cutthroats by accessing their larder and interbreeding with them. Despite this decline, Yellowstone has the largest population of cutthroats in the world.
Holding a wild brown trout caught on Loch Corrib, a famous water well known for its head of indigenous wild brown trout, before returning it to the water.
After fishing the Lamar, we fished the Madison River. Bigger than the Lamar, it is 140 miles long, and its character changes throughout, from slow and meandering to white rapids. It runs into Quake Lake, which was formed in 1959 when an earthquake created a massive landslide. The landslide, which left 28 people dead, stopped the river, and the water backed up to create an ominous lake with spectral remains of trees, only their trunks remaining to push up through the water, enhancing its ghostly aspect. The Army engineers were able to cut a spillway so that the Madison could be released. Passing through Quake Lake and beneath the white-water rapids, the river is swift-flowing, and snow-capped mountains frame the skyline. It is beautiful.
We tried the Lamar using dry Daddy patterns (imitations of Daddy Long Legs), and then our old standby, Pheasant Tail nymphs, but remained fishless. As we were packing up, an osprey swooped by, passing horizontally along the river. Ospreys are rare in England, as rare as they are in America. They are slightly less rare in Scotland and Wales, and where they are found, the nests are protected with surveillance cameras and dedicated bird watchers. Before the Madison, I had only had glimpses of them through binoculars from ‘Official Viewing Sites.’ Its feet dipped into the water and out again, with a trout securely held in its huge claws. Now, there’s a fisherman, I thought admiringly. I had watched kingfishers back home, so small and adept at catching on the small streams I used to fish, and these fish-catching birds are just magical to me.
I once said to a friend, “Don’t you wish you were John Gierach, fishing three or four times a week and then just writing about it?” He rebuked me — “No, I wouldn’t want to be anyone but myself” — and of course, he was right. It is a foolish idea. I have sometimes tried to match my competition partner’s actions when we have fished together in a boat, and he catches, while I don’t. I know the fly-line he is using, have a fair idea of the flies on his cast, and have watched his method of retrieve, and I copy all these assiduously, but with little or no success. Something small but different in what I am doing in copying him is cruelly rendering me fishless, and I am at a loss to know what it could be. I learnt a lesson: do not presume to try on the clothes of another person by imitating his methods, but ignore him (and the success he is having – hard as that is) and fish in a way that comes naturally to you. It might not yield any fish, might be the day you come in fishless, but you have remained true to yourself, your own thought processes have prevailed, and you have not been hijacked by the influence of another person.
From the book, The Meditative Fisherman: Lifetime Reflections on Fly Fishing by Bryan Archer, with illustrations by Emma O’Connor-Bray
Bryan Archer has lived most of his life locally to Blagdon Lake, and has been fishing for over 40 years. The Meditative Fisherman is his first book, which he began writing at the respectable age of 72. He is a father and grandfather and currently lives in Wales. Read more about The Meditative Fisherman: Lifetime Reflections on Fly Fishing at https://www.ensemblepublishing.org/home/authors/bryan-archer
