Jims Wanderings

10-12-26

To fish here and come back for more, you have to like throwing at sippers on a mirror surface. Discovering what works, perhaps something new.  Seeing what you can get away with. The fish are always watching. They see our kind pretty much every day, sometimes all day. They still gotta eat, but ever so cautiously.

This run is knee deep, and has some firm bottom in between the weed beds. It’s been good mahogany water for me. I fished here once with Gunner decades ago in as thick of blue wing hatch as you can get.  Maybe one of the heaviest I’ve ever seen. I don’t think it’s ever like that anymore.  Today it’s just peaceful and quiet.

I’ve never heard the creek so silent. Dead calm. No cars. No people. Hardly any birds. Just an occasional blurp from a trout.  It’s so quiet I almost don’t want to hook one and break the silence.  It’s so refreshing just to stand here and watch, and try to listen. I’m layered up, warm, and dry.

The glare and low light makes it hard to identify the risers. Could be 15 inchers, could be 8. Most are closer to the latter. Not knowing keeps the curiosity up though. The fish can’t see the leader or line throwing a shadow below. I grease all the way to the fly, so the indentation is still there. They probably still notice, but maybe to a lesser extent.

Up and across still doesn’t produce like down and across, even when I perceive the drift to be drag free. I still get some eats where the water gains the slightest little bit of texture from weeds or a slight increase in speeds.  I throw over the weed mats, only my tippet and fly landing in water on the other side, like my old friend and client Norman taught me. I still remember the weed patch on Wyoming’s Green River where he said, “this is how we do it on Silver Creek,” and then proceeded to stick several nice fish from a position I never thought possible. It is so quiet and peaceful out here this afternoon, and he’s constantly in my thoughts.

Norm taught me things about dry fly fishing in one or two sentences, just calmly showing and telling how it was done as I pretended to be his guide. He knew the Purdys on the Double R ranch below the Preserve, and told me Silver Creek stories every time we fished. Stories about him and Whitlock chasing trout. Sometimes I wish I’d have asked more questions, but he shared what was needed and what he wanted, nothing more.

He told stories that began with, “On my little stream.” A few miles of a little stream flow through his ranch in Wyoming. Apparently it is a fine little stream, but I never got an invite. I don’t think anyone did.  “My little stream.”  How cool would that be? 

There were steelhead stories from the Dean, where he had a prime week reserved for decades.  Other stories started out, “In New Zealand, . . . ” He never did tell me exactly where he fished down there either, but it was the best of the best, not where all the travel agents sent everyone.

I would call his office in San Francisco to report hatches as he had asked, and his secretary would say, “Mr. Kinsey is busy right now may I take a message?” “Yes it’s Jim in Utah, I was calling to give him an update about the fly fishing.” “OH! Hold on let me connect you to Mr. Kinsey!” She apparently had clear instructions about what was an important phone call. His work address traced to the TransAmerica building. I have a hunch he owned the whole thing, but we never talked about his career. Just fishing, and life.

He always fished a 5 wt. San Francisco era Winston, and let me cast it a few times. Smoother than butter. Norm’s casts were buttery smooth because decades earlier they had become part of him, his soul. I don’t think that Winston hurt though.

He had little bottles of the most killer liquid floatant I ever used. Norm’s Super Gink I called it.  It remained liquid whether hot or cold. (Petroleum?)  He never told me what it really was. On one of our last trips he said it was the same thing as Dave’s floatant, but I bought some of Dave’s and it wasn’t the same.  I asked if it was Bergman’s formula, but he said no. Before we would fish, he’d “mix some up” and give me a little bottle. I never did figure out what it was, and have never found anything that floats a fly like it.

When he told me about places in Wyoming, Idaho, or Montana, he wouldn’t go on and on about it. He would simply say, “you need to go try . . . ” I always did. There’s a couple I still haven’t told anyone about. Anyone.

So every time I’m here on “everyone’s creek,” I think of Norm, the stories he shared about fishing here, and the lessons he taught me. Now where was I? Oh yeah, it’s cloudy, I’m just starting to see a blue wing or two, 12:30. Now 1:00. Still just a stray here and there. 1:30. No bugs. What would Norm do?

He’d tie on a little H&L, make the most beautiful up and across cast, and calmly stick one.  He’d slowly work his way up or down the run, casting enthusiastically yet calmly, just as if standing in the middle of a great hatch.  It didn’t matter to him, he was on the creek casting the dry fly, waiting for the trout to rise.

When I’d start a conversation about what was going to happen or what could happen, usually in the form of a question, he would always just reply with, “we know.” He’d be laughing at me today, in his subtle sort of way. His face always had the look of confidence, happiness, and amusement, all at once.

We fished drakes in June on a river just big enough to float a raft, not far from his ranch. In the fall we fished blue wings on the other side of the state, not far from my shack near the lake.  One river we floated, the other small tail water we walked.  Both were devoid of other fishermen back then.  Peaceful, like today.

When we fished in the fall I would usually lobby for a parachute adams, my “one fly” of the day back then.  He would oblige because that’s the kind of person he was, but after a few fish he would bring it in and say “I wanna try one of my little flies.” He’d pull out one of the heavy Wheatley compartment boxes from his bulging vest.

“Let’s try an H&L.” “How about a Rat Face?” “I like these.”  I’d give him my puzzled look and he’d show me his choice, then share some of the times and places he fished it in the ’50s and ’60s. It was always traditional, usually in Catskill style. He’d hand me the fly and the end of the tippet to tie it on, just to make me feel useful and slightly deserving of his generous tips.

He had a tyer that supplied his own flies because he couldn’t see to tie them anymore. One day the Parachute Adamses I kept giving him were all coming apart after a few fish. He finally asked me where I got them and I told him they were from Sportsman’s Warehouse where I could buy them for a buck and a quarter each. Cue “the look.” I said they’re usually pretty good, and he said, “yeah, made in Sri Lanka.” So was born calling all the shitty-tied flies I bought “Sri Lanka’s.”

So today I do what Norm would do. I slowly make my way up a long flat on the creek, casting an Adams when it feels good, to whatever fish seem enjoyable to cast to. I’m in a daze, sort of dreaming. Not stalking fish, just being part of the creek. No pressure, not a lot of effort, just the peaceful rhythm. I try not to disturb what is happening, or isn’t. There’s an occasional disturbance, but not for long.

2:30 and still no hatch.  It’s getting lighter, and I even see a little patch of blue sky here and there.  Any cast with an upstream angle is history now, but it just doesn’t matter.  It’s been a perfect day.