Good memories sometimes get lost under the weight of new memories. Time passes. With no particular occasion to bring that specfic memory to light again, it fades from easy retrevial until it seldom surfaces, if it does at all. Then one day something triggers that memory again – and there you are back in time, the memory as fresh and colorful as if it’d happen just today.
Do you remember the first fish you caught with a fly you tied yourself? I sure do! Although I had to be reminded of it. Two pictures popped up in my social feeds, each a screen capture from some old GoPro footage, on a post I’d made 11 years ago in 2014. The first two fish I caught on flies I tied myself!
The fly was (my attempt at) the Utah Killer Bug, which was an extremely popular fly in the tenkara community at the time. That popularity was partially based on how simple the pattern is to tie. It is essentially just wrapping wool yarn around a hook and tying it off. Although I can’t find any pictures of my first dozen to share with you, please trust me when I say they were… “rough” at best. But they were good enough to fool two trout that day!
I was fishing a smaller Driftless creek not far from Madison, Wisconsin. It was a typical midwestern day in “Smarch”. Windy, sunny, cold enough to need a jacket, warm enough to have to unzip it most of the time, snow patches over half-frozen mud. Despite the chaotic conditions, I was having fun.
After drawing zero action on a few promising looking stream features, I crept around the bend and spotted a rise at the top of this small turn! Slowly, sticking close to bank, I stalked closer, dropping a few prospecting casts on the lower portions of the run before judging myself in range.
This was still early in my angling days. I would get very nervous, anxious about spooking the fish or making some easily preventable mistake. My cast was a lot less controlled and I wasn’t confident with my targeting abilities. But it all came together on this one. I dropped the fly about 6 inches off the bank, just a few feet upstream of the grass overhang. Kept the line tension, watched that yarn drift smoothly a few inches below the surface – then WHAM! Fish ON. Fish on MY FLY!
It wasn’t by any measurement a monster – on the shorter side of your Typical Driftless Brown (TDB). But in those days, for me, any catch at all was a big deal!
Confidence boosted, I moved to the next pool. Once again, prospecting the lower portions of the run brought no reaction. Once again, a cast to the top of the current tongue did the trick. A longer drift this time, carrying the fly over a steeper drop-off, drew the strike. The trout rocketed off the bottom, smacked the fly and turned hard for the safety of deeper water. After stopping another escape run aimed at getting under the bank, I had another TDB in the net. AWWW YEAH!
If I recall correctly, I caught a few more fish as I moved upstream, but the day’s tally wasn’t the point. It was a watershed moment in my angling. It is the first time I remember that not only was I having fun fishing tenkara, I was feeling comfortable fishing tenkara!
After some time, I suspect this memory will fade back into obscurity. But the experience will always be there. The events that make up our journey as anglers, as people, shape and guide us whether they are seen rising to the surface or not.
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Do you still fish the Utah Killer Bug at all? I know that the Pass Lake gets most of your casts.
I try to keep some on hand becuase they are such a strong performer, but you’re right, I do fish Pass Lakes and hackled wets far more than nymph patterns.
Great Matt, thanks. And that’s the essence of what we’re doing in tenkara, isn’t it? – creating good memories. Creating good memories by living in the moment, with something we love.