Thursday, August 26, 2021

Everything That Goes Into Fly Fishing Besides Fly Fishing

If you’re like me, you spend more of your life around people who don’t fly fish than with those who do. I often find myself wrapped in a slew of emotions when confronted by the gulf between how others experience life and how I live mine, which is inextricably bound to my passion: fly fishing. Normally I can bear and process those emotions in silence, but when the other party, whether it be intentional or not, ventures toward diminishing my experience with phrases like, “It’s just fishing,” I have difficulty containing my frustration. In hopes of dispelling the dismissals of the unenlightened, I wanted to explore my own experiences with some of the many aspects of fly fishing that build up to the moments of tension and battle on the water, highlighting the culmination of a seemingly religious devotion that is much more than just fishing.

The Research

Simply grabbing a fly rod and heading to the water would seem nonsensical to most fly anglers. Before a wading boot is ever submerged, I’m taking significant time to research weather, flows, hatch charts, and local stream reports. If I’m exploring new water I’m doubling the time spent by researching wild trout reproduction maps, access points, and hatches specific to the water I’ll be fishing.

The Art of Fly Tying

An art form within itself requiring just as much time, patience, and practice as fly fishing, fly tying is an immersive and costly endeavor, but one in which many fly anglers take a great deal of pride, especially when looking in the net and seeing their handiwork embedded in the jaw of a fish. For me, fly tying is my sole creative outlet, my one form of artistic expression, and I value the many years I’ve spent learning and building my skills as a tyer while looking forward to everything I still have yet to learn.

The Gear

Three of my favorites.
At the beginning of a fly fisherman’s journey, having a functional rod is the most important aspect; many beginning anglers go with the typical 9-foot, 5-weight (or the just-as-typical 9-foot, 8-weight for saltwater) paired with virtually any reel just to get a feel for the sport. As one progresses, though, gear selection becomes a crucial, time consuming, and often obsessive facet of fly fishing. Selecting a tippet size based on water conditions, fly size/weight, and fish behavior, choosing appropriate clothing and wading gear to match weather and terrain, purchasing just the right grain sink tip line factoring in depth, current, and fly weight, and fine-tuning the formula for one’s Euro leader are just a few examples of the exhausting measures to which a dedicated angler will go in order to increase the chance of success. For me, all of those factors and many more are considered, but the most important contributor to my enjoyment and success on the water comes down to the hardware in my hand. If I’m fishing a small mountain stream with dense foliage, I’m grabbing my short, 2-weight glass rod for tight spaces, small flies, and feisty little wild trout. If I’m fishing a bigger, lowland stream maybe I want my 10-foot, 3-weight Euro rod with a perfectly balanced reel or, if the flows are high and stained,  my 6-weight streamer rod.  Some fly anglers even go as far as to construct their own rods from scratch, starting with a rod blank and using thread, epoxy, and other adhesives to attach the guides, eyelets, handle, reel seat, and butt section all customized to their own specifications. As for the reel, drag system, weight, arbor size, and durability all factor into purchase and selection. There are truly an infinite amount of choices that go into any day on the water.

The Night Before

My tying desk for last minute prep.
The night before any day of fly fishing involves a great deal of preparation. Gear selection aside, there is also last second tying, checking lines and leader, tying on fresh tippet, packing food, clothes, and gear, and then loading it all up in one’s vehicle so as to be on the road as soon as possible. While on the subject of waking, let’s discuss sleep. As a child, Christmas Eve was always my worst night of sleep in the entire year; the excitement and anticipation would keep me up, limiting me to maybe two hours of legitimate rest for the night. I no longer have this problem and often have to be dragged out of bed after oversleeping on Christmas morning, but the night before a fly fishing trip I toss and turn incessantly, my mind filled with the next day’s possibilities; for years I thought I was the only one, but I now know a number of fly anglers who struggle with the same childlike restlessness.

The Drive

My steed
Some anglers are lucky enough to live close to quality fisheries, only having to drive a few miles, but most have to put in significant windshield time to pursue their favorite species. There isn’t a wild trout stream within 70-miles of my home, so I have no less than an hour (usually closer to two-hours) of driving ahead of me before I’m presenting flies to trout. While gas, tolls, and vehicle maintenance are costly, there is something to the drive that makes it an integral part of the mental preparation for what’s to come. Out of necessity, I fish early in the day and will often be on the road as early as 3:15AM, a time of darkness and somewhat empty highways. I set my cruise control, listen to a podcast, and drink my coffee as part of a routine that helps center me for the day. Fly fishing is extremely cerebral, requiring intense focus and patience and the baggage you bring with you on the water can greatly impact your success.

The Setup

I love setting up in the dark.
Reaching the destination and setting up to head out is an important part of each trip. Making sure one’s waders and boots are snug yet comfortable for the trek ahead, rigging up rods and making those last second checks for weakness and imperfections, assuring that all necessary gear is present, functional, and easily accessible, and going over the plan for the day are all important parts of any day of fly fishing. My goal is to be ready to fish at first light, so I’m almost always setting up in the dark; to make things easier I’ve even installed multiple LED lights in the rear storage area and hatch of my vehicle.

The Trail

Trout don't live in ugly places...
For any wilderness explorer, taking those first steps on the trail carry an electric level of excitement and it’s no different with fly fishing. Walking trails along rivers or stopping to observe the wildlife and scenery, a fly fisherman experiences the beauty of nature in ways that may have nothing to do with fish, but are no less special, whether it’s admiring the view of the Grand Teton range at a distance or taking the time to watch a fox cross the creek by trotting on a fallen tree. Sometimes it can be tense, such as those moments when bears are involved, but if you survive them you walk away with an unforgettable experience and a story to tell. I’ve mentioned this before, but when people belittle the impact that fly fishing has had on my life, I think of these moments and find myself replaying in my mind the lines from Rutger Hauer’s iconic monologue in the film Blade Runner: “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe.”

The Handling and Release

1st person view
of proper handling.
Not all fly fishermen practice catch and release, which is fine as long as one stays within the law while not abusing the fishery (sadly it is possible to abuse a fishery while still acting within the law), but many stress the importance of proper handling and release as an integral part of preserving fisheries and regard watching a fish swim off healthy under its own power as one of the more rewarding and satisfying moments in a day on the water. Such handling and release practices include the use of barbless hooks and rubber-mesh nets as well as keeping the fish submerged while only handling it with wet, bare hands to face it towards the current in slower moving water until it’s ready to swim off on its own. Fly fishing photography is also an art form of its own, but when releasing fish, the photo should never compromise their health and safety.

The Bond Between Angler and Fly Rod

I take a lot of pride in fly fishing, its history, what it stands for and represents, as well as what I’ve been able to learn and achieve through it over the past twenty-plus years. Fly fishing is a fusion of art, science, and logic like nothing else in the human experience, requiring so much of a person’s being and energy; it’s also incredibly diverse, specialized, and ever-changing, making it impossible to master even if one had ten lifetimes to do so. When I’m walking along a river, rod in hand, I’m acutely aware of fly fishing’s past, present, and future as well as my own, recognizing the cork within my grip and the graphite extending from it as a crucial part of who I am.  

The End (?)  

Returning to my vehicle at the end of a long day, I usually find myself exhausted, dehydrated, and starving, mostly because I’m so focused on trout that I forget to eat or drink while covering miles and miles of stream. Weariness aside, while packing up and making the long drive home my head is filled with the day’s events; perhaps it’s excitement over a large wild brown netted or reflecting on a point in the day when faced with a clutch situation and having made all the right choices and moves. The reality is that just as often I’m thinking about the fish that popped off right at the net or the bow-and-arrow cast that went a foot too far, into an overhanging branch. Whether the scales dip more towards success or failure in a day, nothing changes my excitement for the next time I get to do it all over again and how thankful I am to have fly fishing in my life.


Friday, August 20, 2021

Travel and Fly Fishing

 At my age (36) people around me place tremendous importance on two things: children and property. By choice, my wife and I have neither. Oftentimes, whether intentional or not, those closest to us tend to diminish and devalue our time, experiences, and the very nature of our existence because we haven't created life and don't own a small, rectangular patch of land with a house on it. Occasionally they even have the nerve to pity us. In these moments I often think of the fly fishing adventures I've had while travelling over the past five years as well as the first line of Rutger Hauer's unforgettable monologue in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner: 

In reality, the standard 2.5 kids and the house with the white picket fence just aren't part of the plan for everyone. For some it's not practical and others just don't want it; in our case, it's basically both. 

Upon our return to New Jersey after graduating from college we were met with a budding recession, Chris Christie's war on educators, and my shitty family, all of which led to personal, financial, and career struggles that took years to climb out from under. 

It took about 8 years to be relatively free from those issues and after having lost over a decade of our youth to college, career setbacks, crippling financial stress, and my family's bullshit, we chose a life of adventure and exploration within our means rather than shackling ourselves to the perceived ideals for which society said we should strive. 

Everyone's path is different and we've chosen to live unapologetically on our own terms, doing exactly what we want to do with the time, energy, and youth we have left and I refuse to let anyone tell me that my life has less meaning and value because I don't have kids. It can sometimes be lonely, but I'm proud that we found our own path rather than mistakenly and futilely trying to conform to others' ideals because it would have been just another case of the square peg in a round hole scenario. 

For the remainder of this post, I want to highlight some of my favorite fly fishing adventures from our travels over the past five years as a way of reinforcing that you don't have to live up to anyone else's expectations and goals to find happiness and meaning in life. 

Kananaskis Country, Alberta, Canada (August 2016)

After making an exhausting late-afternoon hike up a mountain to reach this gorgeous lake on our first trip to Alberta, I was greeted with a killer caddis hatch and rising cutties everywhere. Watching my first cutthroat trout come up and sip my caddis off the surface is such a cherished memory for me.

In and Around Calgary, Alberta (August 2017) 

My first trip fishing with my good friend, Todd, from Calgary featured a crazy, unplanned all-nighter spent hopping around multiple sections of two rivers including the Bow in Calgary, chasing bulls, browns, and rainbows with streamers. I didn't land anything big that night, but I did fall on my net and shatter it and I was able to get back to the Airbnb to get 30-minutes sleep before a planned hike with my wife.

Great Smoky Mountain National Park, Tennessee (August 2018) 

My first-ever native brook trout were caught during a trip to the Smokies in Tennessee in August 2018. Because of the water temps, I stuck to small, freezing cold mountain streams within the park having a blast catching native brooks and wild rainbows on dries that whole week.

George Washington National Forest, Virginia (April 2019)

This trip to Virginia taught me so much about the difference in recovery time of lowland streams and mountain streams. The last few hours of the evening drive there were spent navigating through torrential rain and the next morning I found that the creek I had planned to fish was pure chocolate milk. Instead of giving up, we went to Murray's Fly Shop in Edinburg where I was taken over to a contour map and shown a blue line in George Washington National Forest that may have had enough time to recover. What I found was a pristine small stream loaded with aggressive native brooks that I had a blast catching for hours while nymphing with my then-new 2wt glass rod.

Bow River, Calgary, Alberta, Canada (August 2019) 

For my third trip to Alberta, Todd gave me VIP treatment and not only took me to fish water that most visitors to the area never even hear about, but he also introduced me to some of my favorite people I've met in fly fishing: bull trout expert Jon, all-around great angler Lem, and guide and streamer-master Brett, the latter of which we spent the day with on his drift boat, floating the Bow River through Calgary. It was my first time on a drift boat and one of my favorite fly fishing experiences.

Old Man River, Alberta, Canada (August 2019) 

The events of August 16, 2019 on the Old Man River were such an important part of my experience as an angler that I wrote about it in a previous piece, titled Old Man

Adirondack Mountains, New York (October 2018, 2019, 2020, etc.)

Some of our trips are just short weekend road trips, like our annual October visits to upstate NY, and I don't always have a ton of time to fish and sometimes the conditions aren't ideal when we're there. On our trip in 2019, I had three hours to fish and chose a section of river near the cabin that had easy access, but mostly held stocked fish. Aside from this day, I haven't specifically targeted stocked trout in roughly four years, but boy did I have fun crushing stockies in the few hours I had, beginning with a 20" rainbow on the first drift with my girdle bug.

White Mountains, New Hampshire (September 2020) 

Sometimes it's hard to plan in advance your approach to fishing new water far from home, so you have to be flexible. On our trip to New Hampshire in September of 2020, I rigged up my 2wt glass rod at the Crosstrek to nymph a small brookie stream and as I was walking through some high grass I realized I was surrounded by hoppers. An hour and a quick rig change later and I was having the most explosive surface action I'd had in years with ferocious brookies literally torpedoing themselves out of the water to take my hopper.

Green Mountains, Vermont (July 2021) 

Many times, travelling affords me the opportunity to meet awesome people in person who I had previously only interacted with through this Instagram account. Last month I had the pleasure of meeting up with Aaron of Crooked Feather Outfitters to fish a river in Vermont during a weekend trip to Manchester and though we didn't get into many fish, it was great hanging out with and learning from a great angler and person like Aaron.



Pocono Mountains, Pennsylvania (July 2021) 

During a weekend trip to the Poconos in PA to visit my wife's family visiting from Florida, I woke up at sunrise the first morning and snuck out to the blue line in the backyard. Unable to find anything online about the stream I had no expectations and was so pleasantly surprised to land one of the biggest and most colorful native brookies I've ever landed among others on a dry-dropper rig.



Teton County, Idaho (August 2021)

My trip on the drift boat of Will of WorldCast Anglers two Saturdays ago was the most successful, action-packed day I've had in my 6+ years of fly fishing for trout and one I will never forget after catching a mix of more than 35 trout, mostly browns and cutties with a few cutbows and rainbows mixed in (The South Fork Slam) and even a surprise whitefish. The day started by twitching foam stones up top and later in the morning shifted to a hopper-dropper rig. Plenty of action up top and below with powerful wild trout smashing or sinking foam and screaming off line while making big runs and swimming circles around the drift boat. Some milestones hit today: first trout in Idaho, first ever cutbows, PB cuttie, most trout in a day, biggest brown of 2021 (so far), most species of trout caught in a day.


Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming (August 2021)

Two days after topping my personal-best cuttie a few times on the drift boat, I landed this beautiful, hard-fighting, new personal-best cuttie in sight of the beautiful Grand Teton range in Wyoming. I missed it on the first take but saw it flash and knew it was big then hooked it on the next drift, stopped it from hanging me up numerous times, and finally landed it.


Pennsylvania (2018-Current)

Even though these trout aren't from overnight trips or long vacations, I'm always excited for each day trip to PA in the Crosstrek. I've landed so many of my favorite trout there over the past three years since I made the decision to focus on what in my opinion is the best state for trout East of the Rockies. I've landed trout on eleven different streams in the Keystone State and that isn't even a fraction of the amazing streams that PA has to offer.

Final Thoughts

We only get one shot at this. Life, that is. Beware of the influence of structures and constructs such as family, religion, government, and society and find your own raison d'ĂȘtre (reason for being) through adventure and experience.

"Your future is whatever you make it, so make it a good one." -Dr. Emmett Brown

Thursday, August 19, 2021

Old Man

 “Don’t worry about them. They won’t bother us,” remarked Todd, a native Albertan and a good friend who didn’t even need to look away from the nymphing rig he was tying to know I was a little uneasy about the free-range cattle that were inching closer to us as we were setting up alongside his Tacoma. One cow in particular, large and jet-black, was ahead of the rest and aggressively mooing at us every thirty seconds, its ear tag dangling in the wind, bringing back a memory of my previous visit to Alberta. 

Two years prior, as Todd and I were crossing pasture land (with permission, of course) a small drove of cattle began to form circular ranks, pushing their young to the inside as we passed. I asked Todd what they were up to and he coolly remarked, “They’re getting in a defensive position. They probably think we’re bears.” 

The moo of the jet-black cow brought me back to the present and after a few more minutes of its clockwork bellowing, Todd set his rod against the tailgate, walked to within ten-feet of the beast and casually said, “Shoo. No treats for you.”

The cow didn’t budge, Todd shrugged his shoulders, and we went back to work. In the few minutes we were setting up the clouds had rolled in and the wind picked up, blowing flies and tippet across the tailgate. Everything portended rain and I thought about my rain jacket balled up in a suitcase back at the AirBnB, which was no less than a hundred miles away at this point. 

“My third trip to Alberta and I still haven’t learned my lesson about the unpredictable nature of mountain weather,” I thought. I hadn’t seen the AirBnB, a shower, a fresh change of clothes, or a tooth brush in about thirty-six hours, having slept the previous night on Todd’s couch after a day of drifting the Bow River followed by an early evening of hiking for bull trout in Kananaskis Country. At this point, we were at our second river of the day and the fifth river in the past two days with a stillwater dry fly outing planned for the following morning.

Todd sensed rain as well and proceeded to rummage around in the back seat of the pickup, finding two rain jackets. He then came over to my side of the truck and handed one to me, warning that it had seen a few thorns and branches in its time and might not be entirely waterproof. It was better than nothing and I thanked him as I put it on. The rain began as we locked up the truck; it was one of those sideways rains carried by the wind.

When we walked downhill to the water I thought about how fitting it was that we were fishing the Old Man River. Having severely lacerated my foot in a shark fishing mishap the month before, I was walking slowly with a limp, still favoring my left foot. Also, the previous day’s adventures had left Todd with a sore hip that slowed him down and left me with slices in both heels from brand-new wet-wading shoes the manufacturer insisted could be worn without socks and which I had no choice but to wear again to the Old Man. As we approached the river I saw it was a fast-moving, fairly wide section of water with numerous drop-offs into deep pools intermingled with large rock structure throughout. The bank from which we approached had a manageable incline, but the opposite bank was a steep cliff wall at least a hundred-feet high where the river had cut through the rolling hillside as it went down along a wide bend.

The particular section of the Old Man we were fishing held mostly cutthroat and bull trout, so we each carried a nymphing rod but Todd also brought an 8-weight rigged with a heavy streamer for the sections that looked good for bulls. Todd got into a few cutties quickly while I was still trying to shake off the skunk from the previous evening’s hike for bull trout and our early morning small-stream cutthroat session, during which I missed a few takes on a hopper. After about an hour with no action I had to remind myself that this was Todd’s home water and I was fishing out of my comfort zone with my 9-foot 5-weight and an indicator rig instead of my usual 10-foot 3-weight Euro setup. 

After another hour of alternating between nymphing for cutties and chucking streamers for bulls with only a quick follow from a wary bull trout, Todd decided we needed to change things up and suggested we walk downstream to a point where we could cross the river and then work our way upstream along the cliff wall to fish a deep section he knew of with multiple ledges: prime bull trout water. 

As we walked downstream and crossed the river, the wind and rain picked up. When we reached the cliff wall on the opposite bank Todd said we had to climb about twenty-feet up from the river and he pointed to a ledge that jutted out from the wall where we could stand and walk for a distance to get to the next fishable section. 

Todd led the way and when we came to the ledge it was clear that both hands were needed, so he passed me his rods, climbed up, and then took all three rods so I could also climb up unhindered. After handing off the fly rods I reached up, placed both hands on the ledge, and firmly planted my right foot on a small chunk of protruding stone to push up to the ledge. Shortly after putting all of my weight on the foothold, it crumbled and fell out from under me. At that point I had my elbows and hands firmly planted on the ledge and the instant I felt the weightlessness under my feet I used the momentum from the initial swing of my dangling legs to push up using only my upper-body strength. While struggling up I felt a pop and a tear in my left shoulder and before sliding down to what would have likely been a non-fatal but definitely vacation-ending fall, Todd grabbed me under the arm and hoisted me up the rest of the way. 

Hunched over on the ledge, I quickly felt my shoulder pop back into place. With the tearing sensation fresh in my mind and the pain still very acute, my first words were, “I just messed up my casting arm,” even before thanking Todd for saving me. Without another thought of what had just happened I held my 5-weight and went through casting motions to make sure my arm could still function by keeping my shoulder stationary, using only my wrist and forearm to cast. After a few successful attempts to assure myself, we were ready to move on. 

As we walked along the ledge, Todd remarked that most of the cliff wall was sandstone and I shouldn’t have put all of my weight on it, especially in the rain. He followed it with “I guess I should have mentioned that beforehand.” I just laughed and continued on as the wind and rain relentlessly beat at us. 

When we approached the point of the ledge where we could proceed down to the water, a sizable chunk of the sandstone cliff wall crumbled and crashed into the river about thirty yards behind us. At that moment I looked directly up at the outward-jutting wall looming over our heads, resigning myself to the possibility that it could be lights-out at any time. 

We both laboriously re-entered the river and Todd handed me the 8-weight, pointed to the underwater ledge, and instructed me on fly placement and presentation for this particular spot. After a few casts the pain in my shoulder was spreading to my forearm and wrist and I had to hand the rod over, telling Todd to have a go at the bull trout we knew were in there. On his first cast he coaxed a colorful bull out from under the ledge but it wouldn’t take the streamer. As the fly hit the water on his next cast, another chunk of sandstone crumbled and crashed into the river, much closer than the previous one. I also noticed that the rain was becoming more intense and had soaked through my jacket, causing me to shiver with each cold gust of wind.

As I stood there clutching the nymphing rods in intense pain from shoulder-to-foot, soaked and shivering from the rain and the wind, and watching Todd bomb out casts into the deep pool while clearly favoring his hip, a thought entered my mind: “We’re insane and we’re probably going to die doing this someday.”

For some that might be a wake-up call to step back, think about their priorities, re-assess the role fly fishing plays in their lives, and take it slower and easier going forward, but that’s just not me. In that moment a beaming grin shaped itself in spite of my stoic, weather-beaten facade and a single tear, imperceptible in the rain, ran down my cheek, with both stemming from the overwhelming joy I felt at having found something in life I loved so unconditionally and with so much passion that nothing would ever stop me from doing it to the fullest. While I didn’t land a single trout and my shoulder was left in significantly bad shape for a few months, I consider it one of my most successful days on the water in that it tested my commitment and resolve to pursue what I love in life with the assurance that if I remain committed to fly fishing it will continue to inspire, motivate, and heal me for as long as I can do it. Accompanying my joy at having fly fishing in my life was a sense of sympathy for those who don’t have something that, as a great woman has described it, sets their soul on fire. However, where there is joy and sympathy in the world, there is always hope that they too will find their way.


The Secret of Life and How I Figured It Out

“Do you know what the secret of life is? One thing, just one thing. You stick to that and everything else don’t mean shit.” Curly, the fictional cowboy who uttered this cryptic statement in the 1991 film City Slickers also implied that the “one thing” is specifically tied to the individual and the act of finding it is an act of self-discovery. Many can’t be bothered with it, some misinterpret it, others are afraid of it, a few are lucky enough to find it before it’s too late, and then there’s me: I found it at the age of thirteen and it took nearly twenty years and plenty of emotional mileage to realize it.  

Growing up at the Jersey Shore, I was exposed to both freshwater and saltwater fishing at a young age and by eleven, if I wasn’t fishing I was watching fishing shows. Occasionally, one of them would deviate from bass angling to focus on fly fishing, a concept so alien to me that I couldn’t make sense of it no matter how many clips I watched. Not only did the technique go against everything I thought I knew about fishing, but the scenery around it was infinitely distant from that of my small beach community and felt inaccessible to one such as myself from a lower class upbringing. Even though I couldn’t comprehend fly fishing, I wanted to try it.

Bob Popovics and I, circa 2017
Through a family connection, local saltwater fly fishing legend Bob Popovics learned of my interest and generously introduced me to his saltwater fly fishing club, taught me the basics of casting and presenting saltwater streamers, and gave me a large plastic tub filled with tying supplies, including a new Renzetti vise, the only vise I’ve ever owned. With Christmas and birthday money I scored a functional 3-weight Cabela’s combo and a 9-weight Fenwick HMG. Other odds and ends were acquired, some bass fishing tools were repurposed, and I was ready to dive in. Initially it was a solo effort casting dries for panfish and streamers for largemouth in local ponds, but I soon found friends who practiced inshore saltwater fly fishing and for years we rode our bikes all over town in search of striped bass and bluefish.

By twenty, the demands of adult life took hold and I was overcome with a fear of failure, of ending up like much of my family: unfulfilled and miserable. This drove me to devote myself entirely to education and career pursuits. I was working full-time through college and after graduating balanced no less than two jobs to survive while establishing my career. From the ages of twenty-one to twenty-nine, fly fishing was out of my life in exchange for an inordinate workload of which I could never seem to stay ahead. After years of letting my profession take me over completely, my worst fears were realized: the life I was leading was unfulfilling and I was miserable. While the positive impact I made professionally was unprecedented, I had sacrificed myself entirely to that success and my reward was being let go by superiors who didn’t value my devotion and sacrifices above the bottom line. To compound my situation, the experience left me severely depressed. I no longer had a sense of self or any identity that wasn’t tied to my career and I didn’t even value my own existence.  

I soon found comparable employment but I was barely holding it together. Upon realizing I couldn’t go on like this anymore, I thought of what once made me happy and immediately realized how much I missed fly fishing. Around this time, my girlfriend proposed that we purchase a tandem kayak to spend more time in Nature and that summer I paddled and casted for largemouth as often as possible. I was enjoying my reunion with the sport I loved so much, but still something was missing. The following Spring, I overheard two colleagues in the breakroom discussing fly fishing for trout in a Northern New Jersey stream. Growing up at the shore, my only experience with trout involved casting mealworms for hatchery fish in tiny, muddy creeks smothered in dense foliage, the antithesis of the sprawling Western rivers in those old fly fishing clips. I was doubtful that it was even possible to fly fish for trout in New Jersey, but I wanted to try and decided to head North that Saturday morning, May 9th, 2015. 

At dawn I rigged up my nearly twenty-year-old 3-weight setup with an olive Woolly Bugger and hit the road. When I arrived, the stream was packed with anglers and vehicles. What I didn’t know was that this particular stream was the most popular, heavily pressured trout stream in the state and I chose to fish it on a weekend at peak season. Today you couldn’t pay me to fish elbow-to-elbow for stocked trout, but that day I was in heaven. Driving along the stream, I was stunned at the water clarity and pristine surroundings, so unlike the muddy, narrow creeks I had fished near home. It looked like one of the fly fishing segments I had watched long ago, but still maintained a distinctly Jersey feel. Finding water like this in my home state was beyond anything I could have hoped for and a sense of the day’s importance was palpable. I miraculously found parking and put on my ancient, ill-fitting rubber waders, strapped on an old wooden trout net, grabbed my 3-weight, and hit the trail. Personally, I despise elitism, especially in fly fishing, and believe one doesn’t need the best gear to be successful, but I can also be self-deprecating and acknowledge that I looked just as clueless as I was.

Years of fly fishing had taught me to keep my distance from other anglers and it took a while to find an unoccupied section; after walking nearly a mile I discovered a spot where the presence of two massive, car-sized boulders forced the water into three separate runs: one running in-between the boulders and two to the outside. The run I chose along the near bank was slow and short, dumping into a deep, wide pool. Of course, I did everything wrong on my approach. Instead of coming from downstream and working the tail first, I came from upstream scrambling down an incline overlooking the pool, knocking pebbles in the water, and positioning myself alongside the middle of the pool. I casted diagonally into the head, letting the Bugger sink for a few seconds before stripping it in. As the fly came back into sight, an eighteen-inch hen stocked rainbow came out of nowhere and crushed it. Immediately the rod went into full-bend and I was acutely aware that I was living what I’d once deemed an impossibility. Remembering that child watching TV on his mother’s couch and receiving brief glimpses of a world out of his sphere, hooking this trout changed everything; I had found my “one thing.” 

The stocked rainbow
that started it all...
After a prolonged fight, during which the stocked rainbow used its limited battle experience to repeatedly make for the deep water of the pool, I was able to turn it into the net and a passerby snapped a quick photo before release. For the rest of the day I worked that Woolly Bugger in every unoccupied pocket, run, and pool. While I only landed two more rainbows, I had aggressive action in almost every section and I was beaming. I met friendly, helpful anglers on the trail, shared my story, and listened eagerly to any tips they sent my way. That afternoon I went home feeling reinvigorated with a new-found appetite for learning I hadn’t experienced in years. Without realizing it, fly fishing for trout had become my religion.

  Once so weighed down by life I could hardly get off the couch, I wouldn’t have recognized myself in who I’ve become and owe everything to one stocked rainbow. Over the past six years I’ve travelled extensively for trout, viewing life as one fly fishing adventure after another, whether it be catching brookies on foam hoppers in New Hampshire or Euro nymphing streams for wild browns in Pennsylvania. I’ve climbed mountain trails in Alberta to chuck big caddis on glacial lakes for cutties, drifted dry-droppers for wild browns and rainbows on spring-fed New Jersey creeks, short-line nymphed native brookies out of mountain streams in Tennessee and Virginia, indicator nymphed and streamer-fished the Bow River through Calgary on a drift boat for browns, and those are only a few adventures out of hundreds in other states and provinces, with each experience being special for its challenges, rewards, lessons, and most importantly the friendships made on the water with like-minded anglers all over North America.   

Since May 9th, 2015, I’ve been happy. Yes, life is far from perfect but I’m much better equipped to navigate the rougher waters after having found my one thing. I now recognize that what I do for a living doesn’t carry with it any existential truth, but simply provides a means for me to pursue those truths in Nature. Genuine fulfillment for me was never found sitting at a desk, typing on a computer, or nodding off in a meeting; it’s in clear streams deep in the forests up in the mountains where I’m more likely to come across a bear than someone sipping coffee and making small-talk about the weather. I still work just as hard as ever and take pride in my career accomplishments, but now the little things that once gnawed away at me and had seemingly world-ending potential just “don’t mean shit” when compared to the beauty of a wild brown nymphed out of a spring-fed mountain stream.