On rare occasion someone says it in such a way that completely captures the experience of fishing, from darkened early morning departure to darker parking lots and damp feet …

… and his prose is damned good too.

Take a look at both and tell me if he hasn’t got the high points for an entire season in one eloquent missive …

In October my father called to wish me a happy birthday, and to remind me that in all probability I now have more years behind me than I do ahead. Thanks Dad. With that in mind, I made it a point to get out on a lake somewhere before the onset of winter, and so this past Saturday I headed east into the Sierra Nevada range for a solitary day of fishing.

I’d invited my friend Neil to join me, but he declined because the weather forecast called for rain and snow. Neil is a steelhead fisherman, so I couldn’t help but take it personally, but going alone gave me the opportunity to experience the maxim often quoted by Singlebarbed: one is a fishing trip, two is half a fishing trip, and three is no fishing trip at all.

I left the house at 5:00 AM, and was on the water and fishing by 10:00. My trip took longer than it should have because someone had hit or removed the sign identifying the road that leads down to the lake and I ended up driving right past it.

This lake usually presents me with a number of mysteries,and it did not disappoint. There were fish rising and jumping and carrying on everywhere I looked, but I didn’t see a single bug anywhere on the surface. I suspected the fish were chasing midges, and so I tied one on under an indicator and chucked it out there. No luck. I rigged up my father’s old fiberglass five weight with a double tapered Cortland Sylk line and a furled leader, then tried out some new mayflies I’d recently tied, more to see how they looked on the water than anything else. I also tried a new ant pattern, as well as a new beetle pattern. No love there either.

I rigged up my six-weight with a clear intermediate line and tied on a streamer. After casting out the fly I remembered what happened the last time I fished streamers, and decided I had better put a band aid on my stripping finger. The band aid ended up sticking to itself (with my help)and I messed around with it for five or ten minutes, all the while drifting in circles aimlessly around the lake. That’s about when a nice brown grabbed the streamer and started peeling line off the reel. I got a few more bumps on the streamer, but I was never able to duplicate the unique retrieve that enticed that first fish.

Throughout the day I’d been sampling some Costco-brand beers my wife had purchased for me – it’s what all the cool kids will be drinking a year or two from now – and it was while I was watering one of the bushes in ______ Cove that I noticed what looked like a small black caddis fly squashed onto the side of my raft. I hadn’t seen anything like it throughout the day, but since nothing else had worked I decided to tie on the closest thing I had to it and give it a whirl. I hooked a nice brown on my second cast, and the fish kept hitting that fly for the rest of the day. After releasing my sixth fish, I re-cast the fly and let it sit for a few seconds, then saw a very slight ripple and watched it disappear. I set the hook and started stripping in line, but instead of the fish coming towards me, my boat started drifting towards the fish. After a couple of head-shakes the fly popped out and sailed right back towards me. I never saw what took the fly, but it must have been pretty big.

I figured that by now it had to be lunch time, so I went back to the truck and pulled out the nice big tri-tip sandwich I’d bought for Neil, and then checked the time. It was 4:10. I wolfed down half the sandwich and then got back on the lake, and after hooking several more fish I finally lost the fly, which I took as a sign that it was time to pack up and head home.

Attached are some photos. (click for a larger image)

I could struggle for weeks and never see anything with this type of eloquence. I guess to some folks the lying and exaggeration comes natural, while the rest of us have to work at it.

Dear Izaak Walton – Costco beer is simply … so … very, working class. While we delight in keeping both elitists and purism at safe distance, we do have some standards … and that bottle must be presented empty and downstream, and with great force.

… and our thanks for letting us join your trip.