A Fly Rod of Your Own 1. A FLY ROD OF YOUR OWN The goal of fly-fishing isn''t just to catch fish, but to catch them with style. Or, to put it another way, no one ever sets out to be half-assed at anything. You''d recognize style when you saw it even if you didn''t know the difference between a fly rod and a pogo stick. (If you''re like me, it was the mere sight of a good fly-caster that finally sent you out shopping for a fly rod of your own.) Think of those fly-fishing films in which all the tailing loops and motorboat drifts ended up on the cutting room floor, leaving only the economy of effort and absence of theatrics you''d notice in anything that''s done so well it looks easy. Filmmakers will tell you this ineffable quality is as difficult to capture as it is to find. After all, the first rule of style is: don''t try to show off if you don''t have the chops.

And the second rule is: don''t show off even if you do. The fundamentals of fly-fishing take time and effort to learn, but once you get the hang of them you''ll begin to have days when you fish beautifully. You won''t be wrong if you feel that you''ve now entered the prime of your prime: the time when you''re old enough to know what you''re doing and young enough to do it without breaking a sweat. You can even be forgiven for thinking you''ve reached a pinnacle of competence and that from here on out it will always go this smoothly. It won''t, but every day on the water is still a fresh start, and every fisherman goes fishing expecting the best, just as every painter sits down at his easel planning to produce nothing less than a masterpiece. I''m not one of those natural-born fishermen--it didn''t come easily, and I''ve always had to work at it--but I do have my moments. I''ve been fly-fishing for over forty years now, and even if I''m not the best wader, caster, fish spotter, or flytier, I''ve learned to work well within my limitations, like a three-legged dog that can still go for a nice, long walk. The effect is cumulative.

You naturally bring everything you know to every day of fishing, and the more days you have under your belt, the more you bring. If nothing else, the fly rod that once seemed so strange and awkward will now be thoughtlessly familiar, and the push of current against your legs and the slippery, uneven bottom are no longer surprising. Do you still remember the first time you waded into a river that tried to knock you down, and what a shock it was? I do, but only because I walk past the exact spot every few weeks and always shake my head over that dumb kid who tried to cross right there instead of thirty yards upstream where it''s so much wider, shallower, and easier. I wasn''t thinking clearly because I''d spotted a large trout rising in a side channel on the far side of the river--the biggest trout I''d ever seen there--and in my excitement I took the direct route. My father once told me never to take my eyes off my goal. He forgot to mention that I should also glance down at my feet from time to time to avoid falling on my face. I didn''t catch that fish, and never saw it again. I wonder now if I imagined it.

There are few broad strokes in fly-fishing. It''s all specific details strung together in a precise order; too many details to think about, really, but over time you wear neural pathways and the process resolves itself into something like instinct. This happens gradually and comes from nothing but repetition. There are no shortcuts, and the hunt for shortcuts only distracts you from the business of letting the craft become second nature. Eventually you lose track of how little you think about it until someone asks you to teach them how to fly-fish and you do have to think about it. Why can''t you explain it better than you do? Well, partly because you''re not a casting instructor, but also because by now you''ve made hundreds of fine adjustments that you''re no longer even aware of. Still, some days you fish brilliantly and some days you don''t, for reasons that are never clear. Often it has to do with the quality of your concentration.

Fly-fishing isn''t as hard as some make it out to be, but it does demand your full attention, so if you''re worried that your investments are going south or that your wife is cheating on you, chances are you won''t fish well. It sounds like heresy, but there really are days when you should have stayed home to take care of business instead of going fishing. Other times it''s as inexplicable as any other kind of off day. Yesterday you waded sure-footed through fast, waist-deep current, flicking accurate casts at will; today you''re stumbly in six inches of water and your fly finds every twig and leaf in range. Maybe you should have checked your horoscope before leaving home. Or maybe it''s garden-variety stage fright. I almost always fish better with friends or when I''m alone and unobserved than when there are strangers around--especially strangers who stop to watch or, worse yet, train a camera on me. There are some casters who don''t mind an audience and a few showboats who thrive on the attention, but most of us can do without unsolicited reviews.

Once I was steelhead fishing on the Sandy River in Oregon with a guide named Mark. It was my first trip with a two-handed rod, and I confessed to him that I was self-conscious about my spey casting. He just shrugged (guides can be ambivalent about a client''s "feelings"). But then a little while later we came around a bend and saw a lone fisherman halfway down the run making one effortlessly perfect spey cast after another. Mark said, "Just stand here and stare at the guy for a few minutes and watch what happens." We did, and sure enough, as soon as he noticed us, he got flustered and pooched his next cast. Mark was just trying to show me that even those who know what they''re doing can be ill at ease about their casting, but I immediately felt guilty about it. As a demonstration this was educational, but it was also pointlessly mean.

Years later I ran into Mark and told him my spey casting had improved since we''d fished together. He said, "Well, it would have had to." For all the talk about innovation and the hot new fly patterns, rods, reels, lines, tactics, and destinations, most days fly-fishing simply consists of going through the motions, and there''s nothing wrong with that. (Woody Allen said, "Eighty percent of success is just showing up.") The motions are often complex, subtle, and difficult to master, and they exist in the first place because they''re known to work. Certain kinds of steelhead and salmon fishing are entirely mechanistic, designed to work the water in identical increments with a controlled swing so that every fish in a run will see your fly swimming at the same depth and speed. This kind of fishing usually goes best when it''s done in a kind of trance, which is a good thing, because a trance is unavoidable. Trout fishing is sometimes more surgical, especially when you''re casting to rising or visibly nymphing fish and the accuracy of your cast and the quality of the drift are crucial, although fishing is still an oddly passive-aggressive business that depends on the prey being the aggressor.

The particulars are always unique and sometimes surprising, but over time you see fewer and fewer things that you''ve never seen before, and what seems like inspiration often involves nothing more than going through a second or third set of motions, as in, "When all else fails, fish a beetle." On the other hand, genuine creativity breaks at least some rules; so if you''re skunked and get a weird but interesting idea, try it. The worst that can happen is that you won''t catch fish, which is what''s happening anyway. There''s also the matter of being free and uncluttered in your fishing. This has never been easy for me, because I''ve always been a sucker for all the paraphernalia that bogs down the sport. Even as a boy the fishermen I admired weren''t necessarily the ones who caught the most fish but the ones with the biggest and best-stocked tackle boxes--tray after tray of brightly colored plugs with stylized scales or frog spots and the blankly staring eyes of cartoon characters. I still have my father''s old tackle box just as he left it the last time he went fishing nearly half a century ago, right down to the fossilized worm crud on some of the bait hooks. I take it down from the pantry shelf and open it every few years for sentimental reasons.

This is now a private observance, because in the past I''ve shown it to collectors who all said it was a damned shame that the potentially valuable old lures weren''t in mint condition in their original boxes, but had actually been fished. But back to being lean and mean. Too much stuff leads to too much fumbling, both physical and mental, while clarity of intent can take the place of one hell of a lot of superfluous tackle. I''m able to travel light on the familiar freestone creeks near home, where I fish comfortably with half a dozen flies and no more other odds and ends than will fit in a pants pocket. Part of this is the result of years of trial and error over wild fish that have to feed aggressively and opportunistically if they want to feed at all. The other part is the knowledge that most of these creeks are only minutes from home, and tomorrow is another day. I can sometimes manage the same thing while steelheading, although all the spare Skagit and Scandi heads, cheaters, tips, and poly leaders that steelheaders now carry can make the handful of flies a moo.