For those of you who don't understand how a magazine works, it's basically an exercise in smoke and mirrors. You are presently reading this summer column, which under normal circumstances would regale you with wondrous tales of all things green, summer and Vermont. The reality is, due to the way magazines are managed and constructed, and, more importantly printed and distributed, I am writing this column while locked in an ice-covered house, tucked deep in the coldest, darkest heart of winter. As such, inspiration is a bit hard to come by, for I am staring out the window at a landscape of stark white, streaked with the dark patterns of black leafless trees. It is beautiful, there is no doubt, but there is nothing warm in it. Now is when I should be writing next winter's column, but alas I am not that organized.
I am though, engaged in something that relieves me of this dark winter mood, the mild depression brought on by passing frozen streams, tagged by Mother Nature in her annual game of freeze tag and waiting for her to come running by and tag them once again in Spring to run quick and free. I am sorting flies-fly fishing flies in all their hundreds and thousands of incarnations. I have hundreds of flies, maybe thousands if I were to sit and count them. They represent every insect, reptile, small fish and mammal that goes anywhere near a body of water and perhaps could be considered food for bigger fish.The bigger flies for larger fish and ocean-going predators are fairly easy to organize since these fish are not terribly picky and will attack anything smaller than they are on any given day. You could in fact throw anything at a bluefish and get a response. In fact, one of my friends and I bet you could throw a moose turd at a bluefish and get a response. We therefore had local woodsman and moose-turd-artist Dickie Davis build us a moose turd lure.
It worked.
A box of flies for stripers can run the gamut from big squid to tiny baitfish. Chances are one box of various patterns will carry the answer. Bass are no different-that is to say, mean and hungry. If it moves and the mood strikes them they will tear into anything that remotely resembles something alive and edible.
But trout flies are an entirely different, fascinating and daunting story. There are hundreds of species and thousands of sub-species of insects that inhabit the waters in which trout feed, each insect vulnerable and tasty in all their various life stages from egg to adult and every nymphal, pupal and emerging adult stage in-between. What makes it even more intriguing is the refined palate of the trout who, like a finicky sommelier, will inspect, sniff and turn away in disdain if the offering is not perfect and to his liking. Multiply this endless parade of aquatic bugs by the endless variations of imitations devised by anglers far more astute in their knowledge of entomology than I, and you have a staggering array of flies from which to choose.
There are the hallowed, purist patterns with stately names such as March Brown, Light Cahill, Adams, Quill Gordon, Irresistible and Infallible-names that bring to mind ships in Lord Nelson's navy. And then there are the new age flies, with punk rock overtones-Green Meanies, Rubber-Legged Copper Johns and Nymph-o-minnow-ac. Each one has been carefully designed by some semi-possessed angler to perfectly imitate some minute species of bug in some various stage of its life, to be fished in some particular part of some particular stream, at some designated depth of water, in order to simply fool a fish with fur or feather, which is the original premise of fly fishing. Bait as we know it is unquestionably a more productive fish catcher, but there is no art in bait. There is only the act of feeding a fish as opposed to the art of fooling a fish. If you need to eat, I suggest fishing with bait. If you need to fish, then an artfully tied fly offers greater sustenance. I have happily done both for both reasons and am unashamed for I know the difference.
Staring out at the bleak and cold, I take comfort in the fact that I have time, that the rivers are still, and that there are hundreds and hundreds of flies strewn across the desk, their destination box yet to be determined. How do I sort them? By species? By life stage? The possibilities are endless and every time I think I've determined a reasonable course of organization, I run into yet another group of flies that doesn't fit the pattern and therefore the path to organization must once again be rethought. But there is great satisfaction in this process. I am learning more than I ever thought possible when I began. Actually, the object was not to learn anything at all, only to simplify, and yet I've found just the opposite to be true.
As I dig deeper and deeper into this seemingly endless project, I find myself anxious for the work day to wind down so I can get back to it, for though the rivers are locked in ice, for the couple of hours I sit here they are not. As I sit here peering through my glasses and magnifiers at tiny little artificial insects no bigger than, well, tiny little insects; and putting them in their designated boxes, to no doubt be moved two or three times, I am fishing. I am thinking of what I'll see on the water that will turn me to that box and that particular little fly. I am thinking of how I will present it and how it will act, how it should act based on its design. I am thinking of the rise that will come and the sudden straightening of the line and the arc of the rod as it points to the thrashing fish. I am fishing each time I pick up one of these and determine its place, its box, and its prominence in my arsenal. Hundreds of times a night I am fishing, and, for a few quiet and warm moments in front of the fire it is no longer winter; it is summer, the rivers are free and so am I. ◊
Paul Fersen, aka Bucko, is a regular columnist for Stratton Magazine and the author of A Peach Tree in an Apple Orchard: Tales of a Southerner's Life in Vermont, a collection of columns which have appeared on these pages over the past three decades.
