To Be a Kid Again!

Sometimes I wish I was a kid again. Sometimes I long for the days when I didn’t know so much.

 Way before I understood the relationship between water temperatures and fish behavior, before I worried about run sizes, falling barometers, river levels, dry winters and reservoir storage, before I knew about sodium sulfite bait curing processes, chemically-sharpened hooks and Nano-Titanium rod blanks; prior to figuring out peak fish migrations dates and travel lanes and feeding patterns — back before it all, the river was always so full of promise and anything was possible.

From age 10 to 15, I would spend almost every waking moment of each summer on the American River with my best buddy Rusty. 

Most often, we were blissfully ignorant of the fact that we were in the middle of the worst salmon run in recorded history or we were fishing for steelhead during shad season or that the lures we were using didn’t have a prayer of being eaten.

The American was a magical place, its green currents filled with fish that were larger than life and every cast was made with great anticipation. We always believed that a striper of epic proportions or a salmon the size of Rhode Island was a cast away or just around the next bend.

We didn’t care if it was a drought — the low water just made it easier to cast across to the opposite bank, where, we were sure, the big ones lived.

Warm water didn’t bother us either. Unaware of its negative effect on spawning salmon, we always appreciated it when we decided to take a swim after not catching anything.

For Rusty and me, the best time to go fishing was whenever we felt like it – we didn’t pay any attention to the time of day or the calendar.

I miss those days when I didn’t know so much.

Last week, I was in Portland to sign a contract to write a couple of books and, while there, I was invited to do a little steelhead fishing with Nick Amato, editor of Salmon Trout Steelheader Magazine and Fred Contaoi who is the chief rod designer for a major rod company.

 Nick predicted there would be a good number of steelhead in the river and expected we’d have good success. When we got there, however, things didn’t look too great.

We intensely fished a few of his favorite spots to no avail with spin gear and it looked for all the world like it was going to be a slow day.

 So, I switched over to fly fishing – if it was going to be a tough day, I’d rather get skunked throwing a fly around than a glob of bait. At least I’d have an excuse if I didn’t hook-up since I’d only caught one steelhead on a fly in my life.

So, for several hours, we fished some excellent steelhead water. Nobody was catching anything but I began to realize that I was having the time of my life. I happily swung flies across beautiful tail-outs, through choppy runs and tasty pocketwater. As I worked the fly around the edges of boulders and along current seams, I imagined a silvery steelhead materializing from nowhere to inhale it and what the surge of the rod tip would feel like when the fish dashed downstream after feeling the hook.

 In four hours of fishing I didn’t have so much as a strike but was loving every minute of it. Though I’ve caught a million steelhead on hardware and bait, the idea of luring one to a small wad of feathers and glue was exhilarating to me.

The river was a ribbon of promise and, for the first time in ages, my heart pounded expectantly with each cast. It was the most fun I’ve had fishing in years and the shot in the soul I guess I was in need of.

Man, it’s sure nice to feel like a kid again!

Epilogue


Had the day ended there, I would have been happy and content, but it got even better. After fishing leeches and other wet attractor patterns for the first half of the day, we switched over to indicator nymphing (purists call it “dummy dot fishing”).

Through trial and error, we cracked the code and found that the steelies wanted No. 14 mayfly nymphs. Already having the best day of fishing I could remember in a long time, I also ended up having an epic day of catching.

The three of us hooked and released around 45 steelhead from five to 12 pounds, which is an unbelievable number even for bait fishing. I had one stretch in which I hooked three fish on four casts and we had a couple double headers and even a triple hookup.

By sunset, I had hooked 17 fish on nymphs and then capped off the perfect day by catching my 18th and final steelhead of the day on a dry fly.

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