The Encounter

By Richard Edde

The sun on my face was warm, gentle and the fall colors of the aspen trees and willows spectacular.  I was fishing the Upper Gallatin River just outside Yellowstone Park when I rounded a bend and saw her.  She had pulled a nice rainbow from a dark pool and he was doing extraordinary acrobatic maneuvers.  From the sounds of her whoops and hollers I could tell she was having the time of her life. 

Ambling slowly to a flat rock at river’s edge, I sat, lit my pipe, and watched her.  She was tall with an athletic build, and sun-tanned face, like someone who spent a lot of time hiking these mountains and streams.  The woman played the fish well, expertly putting on the pressure, first right, then left, and within a few minutes she netted a fat glistening trout.  She held and admired him for a second then gently released him back into the cold clear water then bowed to him as he bolted for the nearest cover.  She inspected her fly, waded another ten yards upstream, cast again.

From my rock perch I watched, mesmerized by her deftness in the swift current, the tight loops she threw, how she seemed to glide through the water.  This was no amateur, no beginner.  This was a flyfisher whose skills had been honed by years on the stream, by countless hours of casting.  After releasing her third fish, she glanced my way, smiled, and nodded.  Still puffing on my pipe I waved, wondered what kind of woman this was.  She must have sensed my puzzlement for she picked up her line and ambled down to my rock.  

“Nice day isn’t it?” she said.  She took a seat on the grassy bank beside me.  

“It is indeed,” I replied, somewhat surprised by her quick easiness with me, a stranger.  “I couldn’t help but admire your technique with those fish.”   

She blushed and looked back upstream. 

“Those were nice fish all right.  There’s a big hole right over there.”  She pointed with her rod across the river to a large rock that split the current under a low overhanging branch.  “That last one was tough.  He seemed to be looking at the line instead of the fly.  I thought I had spooked him when he finally charged.  He ate it in one swift motion.  I didn’t even have to set the hook.  Wow, what a thrill.”

“What line you using,” I said.

“Five weight,” she replied, passing her outfit over to me.  It was a dark graphite rod whose the name was worn off from many years of heavy use.  The reel was a weathered Hardy.  

“Nice,” I said and passed the outfit back to her.

“Belonged to my father.  The man was a great fly fisherman.”     

 “Come up here much?” I said.

“First time on this river.  I’ve been fishing the Madison for the last week and thought I’d try up here today.  How about you?”

I had not done well, having several nice fish thumb their noses at my offerings.  I was embarrassed by her expertness and my clumsy attempts at luring the trout to my flies.  I hesitated before answering.

“Well, to be honest, I haven’t caught a thing.  Just my luck, I guess.  You sure seem to know just where the fish are.  You’re using a Royal Wulff, eh?”    

She nodded.    

“I’ve tried everything but a Wulff.  It doesn’t seem to match anything on the water though.”   

I looked down trying not to appear judgmental.  After all, the young lady was out-fishing me by any standard.  Who was I to say she didn’t know what she was doing?     

“Oh I know,” she laughed.  “It’s just what felt right.  You know?”    

I was puzzled.  “Felt right?”    

She reached into her vest pocket, pulled out a battered fly box, and opened it.   Stunned that her fly box was in total disarray I shook my head in disbelief.  Flies were stuck in all directions with no organization as to type or color, no rhyme or reason as to their placement.  Sensing my astonishment, she handed me the box of flies.    

“Pretty bad, huh?”    

“Please excuse my impertinence,” I said, “but how can you know what you’ve got in here?” I said.  “What to fish with?”    

I wanted to say her fly box was a jumbled mess and no orderly person could ever use such disordered collection but held my tongue.  I showed her my box with all the flies arranged in neat rows according to name, size and color.  Noticing her smile I explained my system.  There was a row of Ephemerella patterns, a couple of rows of Baetis imitators, a row of caddis flies, and so forth.   She looked at me, her features softening as the sun passed behind a cloud.    

“You see,” I said explaining, “I try to match the insects on the water.  If there’s a hatch on, I’ll catch a few bugs and try to use something similar.  Matching the hatch, they call it.”                  

“I’ve heard of that,” she answered.  “Just never seemed a need to go to all that trouble.”

Now I was intrigued.  This pretty young lady was catching fish.  I was eager to learn her secrets so I placed my pipe in a pocket.

“Well, what do you do?” I asked.

She closed her fly box and leaned back against a lichen-covered rock, pulled up a sprig of tall grass and began chewing on it.  Her features, although weathered, were soft.  Her blond hair hung in curls from underneath her visor.  The sun returned from behind the cloud sending welcome warmth through my aging bones.

“I just wade out into the water and stare at my flies.  It comes to me after a while.”         

This was incredible.  I had to learn more.

“After a while?” I said.  “You just look at them?  Meditate?”

She chuckled, pulled the grass from her mouth.  Her green eyes sparkled like the shimmering dots on the river.

“Sort of, I guess.  After a few minutes of looking at all these flies I know which one I’ll use.”    

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

I really couldn’t believe what I was hearing but the scientist in me pushed for more answers.

“You mean you know what you’re going to fish with?  It just comes to you?  Sort of a revelation.“

Her dimples got a little deeper when she laughed.

“Well, I have to stand in the water a while,” she said.  “You know, get the feel of the river.  Get to know what the fish want.”

“This is obviously not a left-brained approach, is it?”

She laughed again and wiped a strand of hair from her tanned face.

“I can’t explain how it works, it just does for me.  Your method is very scientific and I’m sure it works well for you.  But I couldn’t do anything like that.  It seems awfully complicated.”

Complicated it might be.  Work well?  I didn’t know.  She was the one catching fish.

She continued.

“I listen to the river.  Yes, I’ve read a few books on how to read a river but they’re just too difficult for me to comprehend.  My daddy always told me to listen to what the river has to say.  Stand quietly and you’ll know.  It will come.  The answer is right out there.”

“But what about finding the fish?” I asked.  It sounded implausible but I was fascinated, intrigued.  This young woman appeared to have latched onto something so foreign to anything I knew but obviously effective.  I was determined to understand her method. 

“Well, just look upstream there and think like a trout.  Where would you hide?  Where would you feed?  Study the river and listen to your inner voice.  Soon, you’ll know.”

Stand quietly, listen, the answer will come.  It sounded more like a religious experience than science.  Zen and the art of flyfishing.  I had spent many years studying insects, fish behavior, stream ecology, fly tying, casting mechanics, behavioral drift, and anything related to the sport.  I was, by my own account, a pretty fair fisherman.  Yet here was a young woman whose approach to trout fishing was anything but scientific.  Totally at odds with the so-called experts.  Think like a fish.  Pretend you are a river.  The truth was she had caught more fish in a half an hour than I had all day.

“Well,” she said, standing, “I need to be going.”

She extended her hand.  I took it and she said good-bye.

 “It was nice talking to you.  Hope your fishing improves.”

“It was fun,” I said.  “I’m sure it will.  Maybe we’ll meet again upstream.”

She turned, headed up the rocky bank and just before she disappeared among the trees she turned and waved.

 “Think like a trout,” she called.

That was the last time I saw her.  I suppose she’s still fishing with that old rod and Hardy reel.  The afternoon had been mystical, ethereal, almost like a vision.  As the years have past since that day, the memory has faded somewhat with my advancing age leaving me wondering if the meeting ever happened.  The woman’s face has long since dissolved into a generic one.  I never learned her name or where she was from but now each time I venture out into those fast, mountain waters and each time I think about the fly I’m about to tie on, I find myself repeating a familiar refrain.  

If I were a trout, where would I be?  What would I want to eat? 

Communing with the river. 

And my fly box isn’t quite as organized as it used to be.

Richard Edde is a retired physician living in Oklahoma.  He has published 5 action thriller novels.  He was an avid fly fisherman when he was younger and his health allowed.