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.