Fishing lessons

Always keep learning

Whether I was hunting or fishing, I have learned many lessons over the years. Most of these are from the “school of hard knocks,” and others from the three pennies of common cents I was born with, and the rest of them by accident.

Some of these lessons include such important things as how to remove a size 3/0 fly from the palm of my hand, a gar has really sharp teeth, don’t attempt to pick up a swimming, snapping turtle, and don’t trust an opossum just because it’s lying motionless. Never take .30-06 bullets to the deer stand when shooting a .243 caliber rifle. If the shoestrings on my old pair of hunting or wading boots look like they are going to break, then they will at the most inopportune time.

I learned not to forget a flashlight when I expect to fish a river until dark, and it’s a mile back to the truck. Don’t be cool wearing flip flops through a mountain valley of ferns. There are creatures that bite and sting hidden among the leaves that don’t like intruders. I also learned how the plant, Stinging Nettles, got its name.

These and many more lessons have left an indelible mark on my memory. Some lessons are recurring. Never plan a fishing trip on your wife’s birthday, no matter how exciting the trip may sound or how many buddies are going. Trust me, it’s not worth it. Don’t even let them send any fish pictures to you unless you can sneak away and look at them alone.

Never stop learning

One of the most important lessons I learned is that not every fish wants to cooperate when offered a tasty morsel or imitation. It gets frustrating to know that a creature with the brain size of an English pea can get me so worked up. Even now after all these years. Experience has taught me to walk off and search out a dumb one. 

It gets disappointing after standing in a river and changing flies thirty times and not even catch a sucker. Under these circumstances, I usually leave frustrated and complain, “There ain’t no fish in there. Doubt I will come back.” But I usually do. It takes me about 24 hours, and I am ready to return. These fish sure don’t know what they are missing by not putting their lips on a well-constructed bit of fur and feather. Maybe they learned their lesson the last time I caught them.

Fly fishing is a sport where a person never quits learning. It’s easy to learn something every time I wade a mountain stream. I usually learn that the fish were biting better the day before.

Trying to book a guided trip to the coast several months in advance has its rewards and some tough lessons. When booking in advance, a person never knows what the weather will be like then. Inevitably, it seems a front always moves in the night before a big fishing trip, and the north wind howls as the guide drops his boat into the water. The entire day is a struggle, rewarded only with a small fish. At the end of the day, your guide looks at you and says, ” You should have been here yesterday, we killed ‘em.” I have a hard time swallowing this lesson.

A work in progress

After it happened three times in a row, I learned to book guided trips using a combination of the Farmer’s Almanac and Solunar Tables, while cross-referencing books on fish behavior and any local knowledge I could find. I’ll keep you posted on my success rate. If only I could have figured out how to get there yesterday.

Here’s another lesson I learned the hard way, which is usually the case. After fishing a tailrace river in Tennessee for three straight summer days, my waders developed an odiferous problem. The intense sun baked me for hours as I waded the cold river, casting and catching some nice trout and perspiring in the heat. Every so often, the wader’s aroma would waft upward.

That third evening, when I took off my waders, the smell was almost unbearable. It had to be worse than most athletic locker rooms. I tried airing and turning them inside out, but that didn’t seem to budge the stench.

Don’t overdo it

After dinner that night, I had an epiphany. Driving into a nearby town, I found an auto parts store. Four auto air freshener packages were purchased, the kind that you put under the seat. I thought the “New Car” fragrance would work well in my stinky old waders. That evening, I stuffed one each into the neoprene wader boots and the two inside pouches. I decided to pinch the waders tight like a sandwich baggie and hope for the best the next morning.

This idea worked, except for one minor detail. I probably overdid the total number of fragrance packages needed. As I started fishing, the “new car” scent became almost overbearing. My eyes started watering profusely, so I put on my wader belt directly under my arms to block the rising fumes. That seemed to work for most of the day, except for the chafing from the high-riding belt. It took a while, but I finally got to where I couldn’t smell this new scent anymore. I guess my nose adjusted.

Later that afternoon, several of us went to dinner, and as the waitress came around to take our cocktail orders, she looked at me with an envious expression and politely asked what kind of new car I had bought. Needless to say, everyone at the table broke out laughing.

A lifetime spent fly fishing has taught me lessons of one kind or another on every trip. I guess that I will keep chasing fish on the fly and keep learning. ■