"Oh no! Dude... Don't tell me!" Said a worried Jason Sackmann. Jason had come from Spokane, Washington, to Boise for work, and was able to squeeze in a day of fishing with me, something we had been trying to accomplish ever since I discovered that Jason fly fished. I stood over my fly gear on the South Fork of the Boise, just about to piece together my fly rod, when I set it back down to go see what Jason didn't want me to tell him.
"What's up?" I asked, peeking around the trunk of the car. Jason was rummaging through the trunk of the car, which was empty except for one fishing pack that he kept shifting around as if something was purposefully hiding behind it.
"Dude... I think I left my vest." He said, turning over the fishing pack for a fifth time before coming to the realization his vest was not playing hide and seek.
"Don't worry about it, I have plenty of flies for us." I said, and walked back to my fly rod without a worry.
"Oh no! Oh you've got to be KIDDING ME!"
I hadn't even put together the first section of my fly rod before Jason erupted for a second time.
"What now?" I asked, speaking a bit louder this time, so that I could continue gearing up.
"My reel was in my vest pocket..." Jason said, sounding like his excitement bubble had just been deflated.
"Geez, when it rains it pours." I said, peering around the trunk to look at Jason.
The look on his face made me erupt in laughter, but Jason was not following suite. I know exactly how he felt. I too had once forgot my reel on a fishing trip, and it was like running smack-dab in the face of a dementor: worry, panic, denial, and an ice cold chill that floods your mind to the point where you feel like you can never be cheerful again. Those of you who have experienced this dread know that not even a good piece of chocolate can help. Still laughing, I strolled over to my gear bag and pulled out an extra Lamson reel that I quickly handed to Jason. As soon as the reel hit his hands I could tell a small weight had been lifted.
With our, I mean my, gear secured to our fly rods, we headed downstream to find a nice place to start fishing.
Other than chatting via Facebook, Jason and I hadn't seen each other in over sixteen years. Our friendship had been rekindled through fly fishing, and as we walked he told stories about old friends that I haven't thought about in a long time. I could tell his mood had greatly improved in a matter of minutes as we walked and talked, and after a funny story he turned towards me.
"So how about you, man, what have you been up to?" He asked, happily.
"Me?" I said with cheer. "Well lately I have been wondering how the hell someone could have forgotten their fly fishing vest and fly reel when they knew they were going to fish the South Fork of the Boise River today."
Jason's smile faded faster than Jimmy John's delivery.
"Dude...?" He said, with a pleading note in his voice.
I again started laughing, then pointed to the water.
"Come on. We're here, let's fish."
"So how would you approach this?" Jason asked, standing in the water and unhooking his fly.
"I like to cast my fly upstream around those rocks. Almost like I'm searching for fish on a small creek." I said, pointing to the riffles created by the rocks where I thought fish may be holding. Jason nodded and started fishing a great looking run just downstream from us.
"Would you like to hit that first?" I asked, pointing my rod tip at a small pocket of water just behind a snag.
"No, go ahead." Jason said, and started to fish a small pocket just downstream.
I cast my fly to the small pocket of water and lost sight of it, then it fell to the surface. I still kept my eye on the pocket, because I knew my fly would eventually drift over it. I saw a small flash just at the surface of the water, and decided to set the hook.
"Hey, Jason!" I said looking over to him while my fly rod danced with a fish.
"Already? Seriously... I hate you!" He said back, and watched me bring in my fish.
"Okay, seriously... teach me me how you are fishing." Jason said, abandoning his spot to join me.
"You bet." I said, and I quickly explained my tactic and why I think it works. Jason caught on to the approach quickly and began to fish.
"Let me see what fly you are using" I said after hooking into another fish. I saw it was not the same fly I was using.
"Want to switch your fly? The one I have on is working." I asked.
"Yeah, if that's okay." Jason said, and I started pulling out my fly box. As I looked for the right fly, I noticed some fuzz attached to my fishing vest. I looked up at Jason and saw he was looking at the river while I scanned my box for a fly. Without him noticing I plucked off the fuzz from my vest and quickly rolled it in between my fingers. After a quick second I looked at the fuzz and saw it looked like it could pass for a small mayfly, which is exactly what I was hoping for.
"Here you go." I said, and handed over the fly/fuzz so that only a small part was sticking out of my fingers. For all Jason knew, that was the wing of the fly sticking out. Jason pulled out his forceps and opened the jaws to grasp the fly, but just as the jaws of his forceps clamped down, I dropped it.
"WHOA!" Jason yelped, as he saw the object hit the river. His fingers jabbed at the piece of fuzz like a frantic feeding chicken as it drifted downstream. In a last desperate attempt to catch what he thought was a fly, Jason started clawing at the river and was just about to bolt downstream until he looked up at me. I was watching him with my hand covering my mouth, visibly shaking with laughter.
"Uhhh" Jason grunted, and started to smile and laugh at himself.
"All I was thinking was, 'how could you be so careless with your flies?'" He said with a laugh as I handed him the real fly and he started fishing.
Jason didn't disappoint. A rising fish caught his eye and he presented a most scrumptious fly. The fish took and Jason played the fish like a pro.
Sadly we were near the end of our day, because Jason had to get back to Boise for a dinner arrangement.
"I'm staying at their house, so it would be quite rude of me blow them off." He explained, as I tried to talk him into staying until the evening hatch.
"I understand." I finally said, and we geared down to head out.
"I had fun, and you taught me a lot of new stuff I am going to try on my home rivers." Jason said, as we drove away from the river.
"I need to get up their to fish." I said.
"If you come up, let me know." He said back.
"You will be the first person I call." I said. Jason nodded with some encouragement, and my mind started working on how I could get up to visit Jason this season.
"Are you ready for this? Your first mountain lake?" I asked excitedly, while holding Mason in my arms. His little eyes darted from left to right, taking in his surroundings after I brought him out of the back seat.
"Da da da da..." Mason said in such a hushed tone that I knew I was the only one to hear it. A bird flew by low and quick and I was surprised at how quickly Mason's little head whirled around to catch a glimpse.
"Did you see that?" I whispered to meet his tone, "that was a bird."
"Da da da..." Mason replied softly still looking in the direction the bird flew.
"Should we get you in your pack so we can get going?" I asked him, still in a hushed tone. It took him a moment but he turned his head to look at me with a smile. "Da da daaa." He said again, this time louder, and I took it to mean he was ready.
"He looks so good in his pack." Gracy said, flashing a smile over to him. Mason, of course, reciprocated with a smile of his own, and so Gracy knelt down in front of him to take in the while picture...
"He has his new pack! With his hat..." Gracy said, touching the hat to make sure it was secure, "...and what are these?!" Gracy's voice shot up an octave, "Are these your hiking socks that Dad picked out for you?" I looked over to see Mason smiling.
"Yep! He has his special hiking socks on to bring us good terrestrial fishing." I said, pointing out the grasshopper to our friend, Edie, who was joining us for the hike.
I slipped the pack on my back with Mason secured in it like we had practiced at home. And just like at home he was happy to be in it; even more so today because we were outside. Once everyone was ready, the five of us started on our walk to the lake. The fifth was Kiwi, who was leading the way.
"How are you doing back there, Bug?" I asked Mason, as we walked by a marshy spot on the hike. I had stopped so both Gracy and Edie were standing right beside me.
"Could you look over Mason and make sure there are no mosquitos on him?" I asked. Just in case we got attacked by the little buggers, I had brought a bug-net that could protect Mason as we hiked. After a thorough inspection by both Gracy and Edie, finding no bugs, we kept on to the lake.
"There it is, man, your first alpine lake!" I said with a smile.
"Is he looking at it?" I asked Edie who was there at my side.
"Oh yeah, he's looking." She said, as we continued our hike up to the second lake.
"Lake number two!" I said to the group as I slipped Mason off my back and in the shade.
"Hey guys come look at this. He's making a new face." I said. Both Gracy and Edie came quickly like I had offered free pie along with Mason's new look.
"He looks like a cabbage patch kid." Gracy said, and both of them played with him while I stepped away to gear up for fishing.
It was one of Edie's first times fly fishing, so I tied a little green beetle on her line and gave her a quick lesson on how to roll cast.
"Oh!" Edie looked at me shocked after a fish hit her fly.
"Don't worry, you already did the first thing right. You set the hook." I said happily.
Although it was Edie's first fish on a fly rod, it was not her first fish ever. She played the little fish well, and I stepped into the water to to unhook the fly from its mouth after she had brought it in.
"Not a bad little fish!" I said, looking back at her.
"The colors are nice." She said back, and I let the fish slip away so she could watch it swim home. After Edie's first fish, I stepped away to catch some fish of my own. I watched from a distance to see if Edie's roll cast was still good, and it was. I then flicked my own fly out and watched as a little cutthroat trout snatched it from the surface.
Both of us were putting on quite the clinic for Gracy, Mason, and Kiwi, who were watching from under the shade of a large pine tree.
I would have like to have taken a fish up to Mason, but he was too far away and I didn't want to hold the fish out of the water for that long. Mason was still enjoying his time out on the upper lake, but it was soon time to go check out the lower lake.
The lower lake proved to be tough fishing. I did manage to hook one fish, but it came unbuttoned when I tried to get an underwater shot of it. Sadly that was all that I was able to hook into, and after a while of searching for fish, I ended up back where Gracy and Mason were hanging out. Edie was also not having any luck fishing, and lost her fly in a low hanging branch which ended her fishing for the day. I started to gather all the fishing gear together for our hike out while Gracy and Mason watched from a nice sitting rock.
Mason hates being in his car seat, but after a nice hike like today he didn't seem to mind. Kiwi slept on her bed that sat beside Mason's car seat as we stopped at Ice Cream Alley in McCall. I had promised myself I would only get one scoop in a cup, but because we had accomplished Mason's first alpine lake I ended up with a waffle cone with two scoops of cookies and cream.
"Sorry, Mason you are to small to have ice cream." I said, taking a cavity-making bite off the cone.
"Awwww, that's sad." Edie said, as we walked back to the car to head home.
"Why did you let me get two scoops? I did not need this much ice cream." I complained to Gracy, who was enjoying her two scoops as well.
"Like I could stop you." She said sharply.
"But it's a celebration for Mason's first hike, so it's worth splurging." Edie said, keeping the peace.
"Whatever, Erik can find something to celebrate every time we go out for ice cream." Gracy said twisting the knife. But it was true. I looked over at Edie and gave her a sad nod to confirm what my wife had said was true. I looked at my double scoop like it was the epitome of my bad choices, and slowly ate it in silence until I had devoured every crumb. It was Mason's first mountain lake, after all...
Travis and I always threaten to stop and fish on the way home from Montana, but the drive is long and we easily talk ourselves out of stopping in order to make it home at a reasonable hour. Luckily we both had had a lot to drink that morning, so we stopped at a small launching point on the upper Salmon River that had a bathroom. Before returning to the car, we walked over to the water's edge to stretch our legs before hopping back in the car.
“Let's fish it!" Travis blurted out, as we looked over the river. "I have always wanted to stop and fish, and never do."
"You know I'm in!" I said, as be both scampered back to the car quickly to rig up.
Travis handed me a small container of grapefruit, while he downed a fruit cocktail as we slapped the rods together.
I had tied on an attractor fly while Travis bit off the tag end of his spruce moth.
Travis's spruce moth got hit almost immediately, but when he set the hook nothing was there.
I decided to head upstream and found a few rising fish of my own. I flicked out my fly and saw it was getting hit, but the fish were obviously too small. I switched to a smaller fly and, dare I say, hooked into the smallest fish of the year.
As the little fish darted away, I looked up and saw a much larger fish by comparison. By comparison, I mean the fish I just saw was easily four inches in size. I flicked my fly over to where I had seen it rise, and saw its head come up to snatch my fly. With the smallest hook set he was mine, and that made the stop worth it.
As I headed back downstream I saw that Travis was hooked into a fish, and even at my distance it looked like it was way bigger than anything I had caught.
"So how many did you get into?" I asked Travis as we packed our gear away to hit the road again.
"I got two." He said.
"Me too, but they were tiny fish."
"That one you saw me hook into was the big one, but it still wasn't that big."
"Where's our next stop?" I asked.
"Geez..." Travis though about it for just a second.
"We could stop at the Big Lost, but that would add almost an hour to our drive."
We sat in silence thinking about it, but then I said exactly what Travis wanted to hear...
"Screw it, let's go!"
We pulled off the dirt road that followed the upper Big Lost River, and were ready to fish in no time. Travis lead the way down an embankment to one of his favorite spots to fish.
"This is the spot Reese and I fished, and I remember it being good." Travis said as we stepped into the water. I had on a large attractor fly and fished a spot that looked good, but got nothing. Travis came in right after me and fished the same spot, but to my surprise a fish came up and took his fly.
"Whoa! What are you using?" I asked, as he fought his fish.
"Purple Haze, Baby! You always fish a purple haze when on the Lost." He said, matter-of-factly.
"Good to know." I said, as Travis's fish danced around at his feet.
Of all the boxes of flies I had in my vest, none held a purple haze. You've got to be kidding me, I said to myself looking back through my boxes. There it was: one purple haze stuffed in between some darker mayflies... Thank goodness.
I tied on the little purple fly and a fish came up and took it like clock work.
"Purple haze, Baby!" I yelled with delight as I brought in my fish.
Nether Travis or I wanted to be the ones to say it was time to go, but after a few fish we promised ourselves it would be enough. There were no regrets as we pulled onto the main road headed towards Sun Valley and then Boise; breaking up the day with fishing made the day and drive go by fast. All was going good until we took the corner that over looked Phi Kappa Creek.
Travis slammed on his breaks and pulled over to the side of the road, and we both sprang from his car. It was like a storm cloud loomed over our heads as we approached the flipped truck, and we could see deep divots in the gravel road where the driver slammed on his break to avoid what had happened.
"Hello?!" Travis yelled as he jogged to the truck.
Everything was quiet, too quiet. If this had just happened there would be all kinds of creaking sounds protruding from the truck, yet seeing the shattered glass and caved-in cab was still a ghostly sight. Travis slid down the steep embankment like he had done it 100 times, and that's when he saw the service sticker.
"Jeez, you would think they would put up a better sign than this." Travis said, looking at the small white service sticker that matched the color of the truck.
"You would think..." I said rather happy we didn't come across something worse.
"What a way to end the trip." Travis said as we got back into his car.
"Right? I think we should just take our time getting back home." I suggested as Travis started his car and drove away from the truck.
"Heck yeah." He agreed, and we make it back to Boise in casual time.
