Enjoy this excerpt from my book “A Day on the Water.”
Spoiled Clients
I helped to guide a trip with four gentlemen who were accustomed to slaying fish on private water and expected public, wild water to fish the same way, especially since they had guides. This is completely unrealistic as private water doesn’t see nearly the pressure that public water does. Most private water access is fished with a very limited number of anglers for a day with two days off to allow the fish to rest. This means that the private water fish are much more likely to respond, and that the fishing can be lights-out good. Public water? Well, not so much.
One of the four anglers I was working with, Keith, was rather vocal about how fishing with our shop hadn’t panned out so well on their previous trip. He was a classic SAM, a small, angry man with a small, angry man’s patience to match. After working in the service industry for 40 years, I have become fairly skilled at disarming people and troubling situations. Sometimes, all you have to do is to give clients a glance, not smile, not show any emotion. It works anywhere, honestly. Just let their shitty comment hang there, twisting in front of them. It starts to stink, and they will either shut up or apologize. I told him that we had his best experience in mind and to just trust his guides. At one point, he walked up to me having just fished this sweet run with zero luck. I put him there because I knew it was a good run and held plenty of fish. He hadn’t been there more than a few mins, so I asked how many casts he’d made.
“I made a dozen casts in there, and nothing ate my flies. There’s no fish in that run,” he complained.
“A dozen casts?” I asked. “A dozen, Keith? Okay, how about we go back and start at the bottom of that run and maybe try again, huh?” I started past him, toward the water he’d just abandoned. He started to say something, but I took large, noisy steps through the river-polished gravel to get out in front of him and drowned him out momentarily.
“I’m telling you,” Keith continued, half-jogging the few steps to catch up, “there’s no fish in that run. I fished it. I made good casts in there, and nothing even looked at my bugs.”
“I believe that you fished it,” I answered. “But, there are definitely fish in this run. Let’s take another look at it together.” I stopped at the bottom of the pool, on river left, just above the tailout. I took his rod from him, checked that his rig wasn’t fouled–it was, so I fixed it, stripped off some line and let the river take it downstream. I had noticed earlier that he liked to have a lot of fly line on the water. “So. Listen, my guy,” I started. “I know you can cast, but you may have a little too much line on the water to get the kind of drift we need here. The Eagle is a technical place to fish. Meaning, this time of year, the water is gin-clear, and we have a lot of obstructions and pocket water with all sorts of weird currents and stuff, right? Now, there are some nice runs like this one here in front of us, with a nice, flat, laminar flow, but we have to fish a bit closer and high-stick with less line. We want to slowly work our way out to the best part of the run. You see there, where it gets darker along that seam and slower water?”
“I do,” Keith answered somewhat petulantly.
“Okay. So, our first cast or two should be on the edge of that channel just to see if anyone is home. Remember that fish feed in lanes and won’t always be lined up behind each other in the best water, so it’s worth checking to see if any fish are in the slower water along the edge of the channel. Got it?” I asked Keith without looking at him.
“Got it,” he sighed.
“Good. And, above all, we must have a perfect drift.” I looked at him. “It’s tough to get a good mend if you have a ton of line on the water, so let’s shorten things up to start. We don’t need much more than a rod’s length worth of line.” I lifted the rod up to show him how little fly line I had actually pulled off the reel and then pushed the rod down in front of me to send the flies where I wanted them, right along the edge of the deeper channel, about 15-feet from where we stood. I threw in a quick mend that sent my fly line upstream and out of the way of the rig.
“That was nice,” Keith said, mildly impressed.
“And, it’s okay to mend more than once. Lift your line straight up off the water at about the same speed the water is traveling so as not to disturb your rig and, consequently, move your flies. When your rig is right in front of you, mend the line with a big, ole circle around your indicator.” I made a second mend and slung the fly line and leader upstream of his indicator. The indicator never moved, and the rig drifted by perfectly.
“Oh, wow. That’s way cleaner than what I was doing,” he admitted.
“It’s got to be, my guy.” I said. These trout want that drift to be perfect, or they won’t give it a second glance. Be patient with your mend, or utilize a reach-mend to keep that drift drag-free for as long as possible.” Keith had some years of fishing under his belt, so he knew what to look for. He just needed someone to show him, to remind him. I let the rig swing slowly to shore, lifted the rod, paused and cast again. I threw in a reach-mend and got a really nice drift just a little further into the dark water of the deep channel. “You know how to do a reach-mend?” I asked him.
“I do,” he answered flatly.
“Cool. We shall see,” I joked. Right then, the indicator hesitated, and I set low and pulled the line tight. A fish! It rolled hard at the surface and left a huge boil then bolted for the deepest part of the channel. I handed Keith the rod, and the fish broke off seconds later.
“Shit!” he ejected and shook his head. He looked at me. “How did you do that? I worked that area over and had nothing, nada, zilch. You make two casts, and you’re on a fish. The fuck?” He was incredulous, baffled. I thought he might chuckle or relax a bit. He did not.
I laughed and said, “Oh, you warmed it up for me, Keith.” I asked him to lift the rod, so I could make sure his rig was still in one piece. It was. “Okay, Keith. Let’s get after it. Like I said, there are fish here. However, they are wild fish and want things presented in a certain way to look as natural to them as possible. It’s just the nature of fishing this water. It’s not easy.”
“Shit. You make it look easy,” he grumbled.
“Okay, my man. I want you to start on the edge of the deeper water and work just that area for a dozen casts. Make your drift as long and flawless as possible. Then, take a step forward and repeat. After that, give it another dozen casts. You got me? Sometimes, we have to really work an area over before we get fish to eat. Your drift has to be perfect. Not just pretty good. It has to be flawless. Hit every section of that water and make your drift perfect. And, use less fly line than you think you need.”
“Okay. I’ll try to slow things down and work with less line,” he sighed. He was still irritated that I had made it look so easy.
* * *
The truth is that it is that easy if you do what is needed. I didn’t know I was going to catch a fish, but I had a pretty good feeling that I might. I didn’t do that to embarrass Keith. He managed that all by himself, the little shitgibbon. Some people are visual learners. Others are stubborn, childish shits and need to have something presented to them in living color. Keith was a decent fisherman, but he was being lazy. He was accustomed to fishing private water where the fish eat whatever you throw at them. He expected all fish to eat his rig no matter the quality of his presentation. As it turned out, his drift was shit and his mend was atrocious. Of course, he refused to listen and did not have a great day. He did catch a few fish, but he would overplay them and lose them. He refused to grasp the concept that wild fish will simply play differently than stocked fish–for Keith, all fish were the same. At the end of the day, he peeled off his gear and climbed into the shotgun seat of his group’s rental car without so much as a word to anyone and sat there, pouting, pretending to mess with the stereo. The car wasn’t even on. There was probably some other stuff going on there, I reckon. Best to leave him to it. Maybe I’ll be a counselor next time.
Clients will sometimes imply that their guide is at fault, that the guide hasn’t used the correct flies or that since there are so many insects on the water, why aren’t the fish taking their flies? When you have a guide, you’re supposed to always catch fish, right? Well, reader, you tell me. Are you?
