No Days Better

 Floating down a river in a drift boat is one of the most pleasing ways to spend time on the water. When you’re fly fishing from that boat it’s even better. 

For the fifth year in a row, I’ve joined friends to camp and float some northern rivers and cast to the smallmouth bass we believe are waiting. On these waters there’s also always the chance for a pike or muskie, which can come as a surprise, and flies are lost to those sharp-toothed predators. 

Whenever you’ve caught so many hard fighting fish that your well-tied deer hair popper is finally destroyed, that’s a good day. But the day wasn’t over, so I tied on a new one and caught still more beautiful smallmouth bass. 

This year we were on a different stretch of a different river than the last four years. We reserved sites in a state campground close to the river and planned for the easy shuttle some eleven miles downstream. A better group has never been assembled. 

Easing along with the current, we cast to the likely targets: rocks, downed trees, backwater eddy seams. And we hooked them and fought them. Sometimes the fish were right where you’d believe them to be, and sometimes they’d hit close to the boat just as you were about to lift and cast again. Theories were offered as to explain where the bass would be, but little proof was provided. Of course, if we knew it all, the sport would disappear. 

Each member of the group is an experienced fly fisher with many fish under their belts. But at the end of the day all were in agreement that these were the toughest, strongest bass we’d ever had the pleasure of landing. While they weren’t the longest bass ever caught, they were broad and stout, and seemed angry at being hooked and showed it. Two or three shaking jumps at first, then the pulling dive for the deep. 8-weight rods double over, I wasn’t the only one worried about a broken rod. I can’t say how many fish were landed, no one kept count. Deer hair and Boogle Bugs ruled the day. All fish were released. A couple of pike were caught, and a muskie or two were spotted without being hooked. 

Breakfast burritos, camp coffee, and hearty boat sandwiches started things out before a big, delicious meal cooked outdoors and a fine evening around the fire sharing whiskey-enhanced stories, then crawling into our tents to recover before doing it all again the next day.  

 It’s a good life. 

9.9 Johnson

 
Hot and humid. Doesn’t happen all that often here up north, but when it does... well, the air is heavy and sticky, mosquitoes love it, and the bandana around my head keeps the sweat from dripping onto my eyeglasses whenever I do something other than sitting around.  

Sitting around. I’ve always been pretty good at it and even better now that the decades have settled onto my body. A comfortable chair in the shade of the front yard birch, listening to the birds with my dog laying alongside and enjoying the wisp of breeze.  Tempted to turn on some tunes in the house, some blues could pair nicely with the temperature, and let the music reach out through the window screens. No... love the blues but nothing tops Mother Nature. 

Hmmm... a forearm specked with bits of yellow deer hair. Trapped on sticky skin and arm hairs not easily brushed off in this humidity. Trimming small bluegill poppers outdoors to keep from cleaning the fly-tying desk, let the trimming fall and lose itself in the gravel driveway.  

The old Johnson outboard motor has been hanging on Dad’s homemade motor rack for years. He was smart to have wheels on it and I can roll it around in the garage. An ‘81 model, time to mount on the Jon boat (I named her "Sweetwater") to see how she runs. Started right up and pushed me around the lake just fine. Good times. 

Another day, the temperature is better. Pleasant. Sitting on the deck with a fruity cocktail poured in my Ned Smith Ruffed Grouse lowball glass. Ruffed grouse, King of Gamebirds – the heavy June rains have us wondering how the hatch came off. Gabbi the setter lies next to me, not wondering about anything, just content. And the bourbon is top-shelf, at least where I go.

 
“Expectation is the thief of Joy”. Casting those little poppers to bluegills hiding under lily pads is almost a sure thing. The bigger, popular, more glamorous fish can be unpredictable, but if it doesn’t work out there’s still reason to be there. Because it’s beautiful. That’s reason enough.