By John Kumiski
Bob and Dave were father and son, visiting the Goodnews River Lodge for a week during my first season working there. They were fly fishers, wanting to catch silver (coho) salmon. Bob was a financial planner, and Dave was a college student. I had the pleasure of fishing with them for two days.
The target species is silver salmon, specifically males.
Many fly casters share a common casting problem: they bend their wrist on the backcast. This lowers the rod tip and opens up the loop on the back-cast to the point where the line often hits the water. Bad back-cast, bad forward cast. The two casts work as a team.
Bob took this problem to a whole new level. He actually hit the water with his rod tip on his back-cast- on most casts. Try to do this yourself- it’s almost a physical impossibility!
Of course, I, being an erudite and sophisticated Alaska fishing guide, pointed out this problem. Then I tried to get him to correct it. Only someone who wants to correct a problem can correct it. Bob had probably been hitting the water with his backcast for more than 20 years. It was his unique calling card in the fly-fishing world, one he was proud of and not interested in changing.
There’s an expression in the English language, “His eyes glazed over.” This really happens. I’ve seen it happen several times, all with men, all when I tried to correct a casting problem they had, without being asked to. It happened to Bob. I took the hint and shut up. Let him cast the way he wants, John.
After fishing from the boat for a while with some, if limited, success, we went to a place where they could wade close to the fish. Bob’s longest cast was about 25 feet. Wading, they could get that close to the fish. Nearby was a gravel bar where I could clean the fish we already had. I told them, “Just cast your flies along that bank. I’m going to that gravel bar to start cleaning your fish.”
Dave asked, “What do we do if we get a fish?” Really? The question surprised me. I said, “You’re on your own. Good luck!” “NO!” shouted Dave. “Don’t go! We’ll leave a half-hour early so you can clean the fish.”
That really surprised me, but okay. And we did leave a half-hour early. I had two limits of fish to clean.
Hooked up to a silver- it’s exciting!
A few days go by, and I have Bob and Dave in my boat again. Just after midday, I found one of the bigger schools of silvers I have ever seen, probably a couple thousand fish, just holding in a gentle current. I anchored the boat as close to them as I dared, knowing Bob’s best cast was only 25 feet. His casts would miss, miss, miss, miss, then he’d get one there and hook a fish.
Hooked up the line flies!
Meanwhile, Dave is catching one every cast. He’s not a great caster, either, but he’s light-years better than Dad. I put a surface fly on his line just to slow him down. He was very happy, too. Like most fly fishers, he loved watching the surface strikes.
Things are really easy for me for a couple of hours. The fish are right there. We can plainly see them. There are so many that every decent cast gets a strike. My fishermen have their limits, and now we’re just catch-and-release fishing. Then Bob says, “John, can we go back to the lodge?”
“Is something wrong?” I ask. Then I hear the sweetest words a guide can hear- “No, we’re just tired of catching fish.” Holy cow, how often does THAT happen?!?!?
At 3:30 in the afternoon, on a rare, perfect-weather day at Goodnews, my workday is almost done. I clean and pack their fish, then take my time cleaning and fueling the boat, feeling pretty good about life.
Silvers jump when hooked!
The season ends, and I return to Florida. My mind often ruminates about what happened to me at Goodnews that summer. One of the things I keep returning to is Dave telling me not to leave to clean the fish.
When I told him, “You’re on your own,” I had screwed up. My conclusion was that Bob and Dave are not fishermen in the sense that I’m a fisherman. I fish every chance I get. The only fishing they do is one week a year in Alaska, and always with a guide. Dave had never actually handled a live fish in his life, had no idea how to hold it or unhook it. So, when I told him, “Good luck!” he had a panic attack. What I should have answered was, “Just bring it over and I’ll take care of it.”
Another jumping silver.
Guiding is a service business, and in that moment, I failed to provide service. I would do better in the future.
