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One Fly . . .

By Steven J. Meyers

Found in: | Outside | Fishing | Fly Fishing |

Nope. This isn't going to be about my exploits at the famous Jackson Hole One Fly fishing tournament, a three-day event held each fall in the shadow of the Tetons that raises money for the preservation of trout and trout habitat. I've never done it. I'm allergic to fishing competitions of any kind, even if they raise money for a good cause. Robert Ruark had it right in Old Man and the Boy when he suggested that anyone who makes a competitive affair out of fishing has it all wrong. Although I've never competed, I have several friends who have and have done well there. The idea is to catch more and bigger fish than anyone else using a single fly for each of the three days of the tournament. If you start with a fly the trout stop eating, tough. If you break your fly off on your first fish of the day or hang it up in a tree and can't get it back, too bad. Many days of intense conversation, serious thought and e-mails between fishermen have been dedicated to answering the question, "What fly?" The answers vary, but popular choices often involve large flies that can be fished effectively on heavy leaders (so you're less likely to break them off), flies that can be greased to imitate a dry fly or sunk to imitate something subsurface. Variations on the deer-hair muddler are popular. Greased, a muddler is a grasshopper or some other large bug on the surface; stripped with some lead on the leader, it's a sculpin or other baitfish. A trout might take it for any number of large adult or subsurface macro-invertebrates.

But that's not what this column is about.

I'd like to pose the question, "If you could only fish one fly for the rest of your life (a horrible restriction to place on any fisherman), what would it be?"

Immediately, fishermen would divide themselves into two groups for their answer. Some would assume the question to mean, "Which one fly could you cast in the most widely varied circumstances and have a reasonable expectation of catching a fish?" My answer to that would come quickly. Although many would disagree, I'd choose a black Wooly Bugger. I've fished them for everything from trout, to bass and pike - and it's amazing how many salmon and steelhead patterns are minor variations on this fluffy pattern. Buggers work in both rivers and lakes. Others I've had this conversation with have leaned toward the Clouser Minnow, which certainly does all of the above and seems to have an advantage over the bugger with saltwater species.

Another group of anglers might frame the question more philosophically, perhaps a bit less pragmatically. "If I had to spend the rest of my life tying on one fly, which one would I find most pleasing to fish?" Although a subsurface fly like the bugger or the minnow might catch more fish in more places in more varied circumstances, many would feel condemned to fly fishing purgatory if they could never again watch a dainty dry fly bouncing along the surface of a river or stream. For many of these fishermen, the fly of choice would be an Adams - possibly in the popular modern form as a parachute style tie. The Adams is broadly imitative and quite effective.

Why this question, why this column now? The broken femur I reported previously is now six weeks healed. Six weeks of not being able to place any weight on my left leg have passed. Six weeks of finding it quite painful simply to sit in a chair at the computer and write. Six weeks of mostly reclining and reading - and thinking.

The snow came down as runoff early this spring, and although it's been a fairly rainy spring and early summer, my buddies have been doing a lot of fishing. The creeks opened up early. The valley rivers saw stoneflies and blizzard hatches of caddis in June. And all I could do was imagine it.

In the imagining, one kind of fishing and one fly kept appearing in my consciousness. Soon, I'll be testing that broken leg. Soon, I hope to be walking. Shortly after that, maybe in another month, I hope to begin fishing. And on that day, when I imagine it, I imagine myself standing in a small stream surrounded by green aspen. The sun will warm my face and sparkle off the water shattered into a thousand facets of brilliance. The roar and tumble of creek over cobbles will fill my ears. My nose will take in the scents of woods, water, and damp earth. My eyes will be focused on a small Elk-hair caddis, the one fly I'd fish for the rest of my life, if I could only fish one fly - not because it would catch the most fish in the most places, but because it would bring me the most pleasure in this place.

And I would never again take the simple joy of standing in a stream watching that elk-hair fly bobbing along in the current for granted.