Well now...

This is my (our) first effort at an instructional video--which friends have been urging me to do for years.  My significant other, Suzanne Garnier, shot the video using an I-phone 5 and our roommate, John Shevlen did the sound and some basic editing.

We'll see how this one is received but look for more travel videos and especially instructional videos eventually --as I gradually divulge some of my secret fly patterns, techniques, ex girlfriends phone numbers, revealing photos, pancake recipes-- and whatever else!

The back story?  I have been fly fishing since the age of 10 or 11; teaching fly fishing and fly tying for almost 30 years; and even made a few feeble efforts at guiding.  Many of my techniques and patterns were only shared with students and friends as I truly believed some were deadly effective (which may or may not be true).  That being the case, I only wanted to share them with a select group that showed they wanted to learn--and more importantly, cared deeply about the resource.

I now have some health issues that will definitely change the types of water I can fish going forward; and will probably shorten the amount of time I have to fish. At a minimum, I will NOT be wading quite so aggressively, scrambling over boulders and crossing rivers with impunity.

A long winded way of saying there may not be much point in keeping secrets, either.   ;-)

About the knot featured in this video:  It is often called a dropper loop--although there may be other names.  I first learned it tying rockfish, smelt and perch rigs as a youngster in Southern California.  We also used it to quickly splice lines together.  Somewhere along the way, I realized that it was also a quick and easy way to tie a tippet on a fly line instead of using a blood knot.  It is every bit as strong as a blood knot!  Using this particular knot to build custom leaders makes what can be a laborious (tedious) process a snap!  I routinely fish very long leaders to minimize "lining" spooky fish and building my own leaders lets me turn over almost any fly with leaders as long as 22 feet.  Just as importantly, I can control how I want a fly to turn over.  For example, on some of thebigger and more technical spring creeks, I may want my leader to puddle up a little as this will buy me a few seconds to regain control of my drift and make whatever mends are needed.  This can be critical if you are fishing a weedy stream where microdrag or microcurrents are a factor.  I'm just scratching the surface as we are straying into some pretty advanced dry fly technique but...  I also use this knot to fish multiple flies (to tie a true dropper) as I feel tying a second fly into the bend of your hook can sometimes act like a weed guard--with the trout (possibly) bumping into the line of the trailing fly if it goes after the first fly.

Teaching the knot has always been a challenge as it resembles a game of Cat's Cradle at times but once you learn it, you will be tying on fresh tippet in seconds and building or rebuilding leaders in minutes!  Hopefully this video will help!  The basic technique involves forming a loop, keeping tension with BOTH hands on what de facto is your running line while twisting one side 5 to 6 times and then opening it up to pass the loop through...  Sounds easy enough, right?

The fly tying experiments continue...

Heading south--hopefully--to fish Belize.  I'm stocking up my fly boxes with old standbys and more importantly, with slight variations of those time tested favorites.  I am convinced that as fishing pressure increases in an area or a watershed, fish will learn to avoid those patterns or lures that they have seen too often.  As anglers, too many of us have convinced ourselves that fish have pea sized brains--which may be true.   However ,they are capable of rudimentary learning--or "conditioning" if

 you'd rather call it that.  Like Pavlov's dog, they learn to avoid the sting of the hook in those situations where there is a lot of angling pressure.  They can, under extreme circumstances, become habituated to human presence even...  One only need visit the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco to see the hand fed Koi if you remain skeptical.

Rather than try to re-invent the wheel, though, more often than not all we have to do is come up with slight variations of these old favorites.  A minor change in color or use a different material.

 In a perfect world, we would also know what "the trigger" is.  What is it about a fly--or a lure or even the insect (or shrimp or anchovy or whatever) that convinces (or triggers) that pea sized fish brain to hit it?  Is it flash--or movement?  A lifelike shape?  Color?  All of these can come into play although it's rare that we'd need to incorporate all these elements into a single fly--because, after all, fish do have small brains...

 Here are various experiments with epoxies, mylar braid, Edgebright and Ice Dub.  We'll have to see how well they work...

Chasing Chrome...

A few photos from a road trip in search of the elusive winter run steelhead...

Stockmarket (an almost sordid tale of fishing--and fishermen)

Stockmarket was the dark horse. He didn't quite fit. Other than that, he was probably the luckiest person I ever knew. Maybe even the most successful but in retrospect, success can't always be measured in just dollars and cents. His real name was Carter and he wasn't yet 40 and already retired. Granted, he wasn't obscenely wealthy. He drove an old Toyota van and shopped the sale racks at JC Penneys but he no longer had to work. We had nicknamed him Stockmarket because whatever he touched turned to gold. I think he could have stepped in a turd, convinced someone else to scrape it off his shoe and then sell it and the shoe for a tidy profit--not that that is an especially admirable quality. Carter had been a carpenter. Maybe he had a few dollars to begin with. I don't know. I had met him later in life. What I do know is that he had gotten married, bought a house, remodeled it and promptly got divorced. Amazing how many divorces are caused by remodels. Anyways, he apparently was better at remodeling than he was at relationships because he sold the house, somehow paid off his ex and managed to walk away with a mountain of cash.

At which point, he bought another house, remodeled that and once again sold it for another mountain of cash. You could say he had a knack for real estate although he insisted it was all about understanding women. He was convinced every woman on the planet needed closets and kitchens. Lots of closets --and a kitchen that stretched from one side of the house to the other. Somehow I think women are far more complex than that but he was the one making all the money so what do I know? Of course, the ultimate irony was that he never seemed to stay married very long.

Carter--or if you prefer to call him Stockmarket continued to buy and sell houses but the novelty had worn off a long time ago. He took it for granted that he was going to make a few dollars so he began dabbling in the stock market. You wouldn't be too far off the mark if you described him as a compulsive risk taker and a gambler but he managed to make money in the stock market as well. ...and he continued to play in the real estate market but only half heartedly. That would be about the time we met. His days mostly consisted of managing investments and then finding something else to do for the rest of the day. He struck me as rudderless with no real direction other than making money but he had taken up fly fishing. Now rudderless isn't always a bad thing and anybody who fly fishes is probably okay so I assumed it was safe to go fishing with him. I guess I ignored more than a few warning signs but he was always willing to drive.

Our first trip road trip together should have been my first clue. I can't say I remember where we fished. I remember all the places we didn't fish though, and one incredibly attractive bartender--and I remember breakfast. We had, however, set out with the best of intentions. We were on our way to the Fall River to fish the celebrated Hexagenia hatch. The Hexagenia--or hex as some fly fishermen like to call it is the B-52 of the aquatic insect world. It is a huge bug as far as bugs go and it drives trout to madness when it begins hatching. Hatching is a funny and misleading term, though. The insect is there year round, spending most of it's life looking like some alien creature and burrowing in the mud of a lake or slow moving river. At some point it swims to the surface of the water, sheds what the entomologists call an exoskeleton and gracefully sits on the surface of the water until it's wings can dry--or a trout eats it. That's the part any self respecting fly fisherman lives and dies for. We dream of being on the water at that exact moment when that beautiful and delicate insect is turned into dinner. We can only hope that we have a fly that, if one squints hard enough or stares into the sun long enough-- that somehow it will match. At least we think, we tell ourselves, and we want to believe it does; and that some trout will attempt to inhale our fly. Hope springs eternal. It sustains us in the face of incredible odds and all this anguish for a fish most of us will probably release.

Okay. That is just a really long winded way of saying Fall River can be really really tough to fish and there is never a guarantee that anything will hatch on any given day...or evening. It's just a minor detail but the hex comes off right at dusk and hatches well into the evening. Stockmarket and I had arrived early in the afternoon so naturally we talked ourselves into heading to the local bar to kill time. He was buying. This would have been a mistake no matter who was buying. Yes...it was "local" but the owner of said establishment catered to a generally well to do crowd from the Bay Area and it was rumored that it was always snowing inside the bar. Snow--as in cocaine. The easy way out would have been to blame Stockmarket for everything but I was curious as to just how wild the place was. It was often said that the owner could provide women of ill repute. It was also said that he counted the sheets of toilet paper the guests used and charged them accordingly--along with drinks they hadn't actually ordered. It's hard to keep secrets in small towns.

I'm not sure what I expected. It was after all a bar in the middle of nowhere and it was late afternoon at precisely the wrong time of year--unless you were there for the Hex hatch. In other words, it was dead, except for the buxom redhead behind the bar. She knew she was stunning and we were her only customers at that point so she worked it. Stockmarket was a pro at this sort of this thing as well. He sat opposite the bar sink where she was washing the few dirty glasses leftover from the prior evening. She didn't just wash the glasses, though. She lingered over that sink, bending low in a revealing top and caressing every glass. We were hypnotized. I, being one of only a few available straight men in San Francisco, had seen plenty of breasts but I had never seen glassware so lovingly cleaned. She did have truly magnificent melon colored breasts though and Stockmarket was transfixed--glued to the bar. Somehow, I knew we wouldn't make it to the river that night...

I suppose it could have been the alcohol but I have no idea where we spent the night. This much is certain: It was not with the redhead. What I do remember is breakfast the next day, though. Stockmarket was married again at that time to a woman who could have been a supermodel in a previous life. I have no idea what she was like except to say that they fought almost constantly. I only bring any of this up because Stockmarket was at the moment, making a pass at a waitress that was the antithesis of "supermodel". She in another life might have changed truck tires but she had a cherubic face and a personality to match. ...and she epitomized everything that we believe to be good about life in a small town. ...and she seemed interested in Stockmarket. He was not a bad looking man, by the way, and he was quick with a smile...

All of which had me wondering: Do mates stray because a spouses behavior is so toxic or is it the philandering that brings the venom to the surface and the bared fangs? However, it is not my place to sit in judgment or decide a persons moral code unless fish are involved so when Stockmarket pleaded with me to stop him, I shrugged and said "You are on your own this time". I was still miffed about missing the evening rise as it was. In retrospect, it was Stockmarket who was the thorn in the side of any relationship. He was a thoroughbred, wound far too tight and running in circles. Type A Overachiever. Amazingly enough and against my better judgment, though, I continued to fish with him.

It was all driven home one winter when Stockmarket called me, pleading to go fishing.

"Dave, I gotta go fishing" "Carter, the weather is dicey. There's a chance it will rain, it's cold and the season is closed except for steelhead" I said. "Let's go fishing for steelhead" "You've got to be kidding" "No. I gotta get out of town". "What do you mean 'you gotta get out of town'?" "I gotta get out of town. I'm taking a beating in the stock market".

I have no idea how getting out of town would improve someone's financial returns but I grudgingly agreed to throw my gear together and meet him in Santa Rosa. I was living in a small town on the Russian River at the time so we'd have to pick up groceries and whatever provisions we needed on the road. We met, piled my gear into the old Toyota and headed north. I don't think we'd made it as far north as Ukiah when he insisted on stopping. "I need a drink, Dave". "Come on, Carter. We have another 3 hours of driving to do." "I need a drink. I can stop at a liquor store and get something." "Jesus. Okay." "Well, I'm all worked up."

That was an understatement. Stockmarket found a liquor store, jumps out of the van, and is back in minutes with a half gallon of Captain Morgan and a six pack of Coke.

"I'm going to make myself a rum and coke. You want one?" "No!" I testily replied. He made the drink and gulped it down. He then promptly filled a pipe with some pot and lit the pipe. "Carter, you know the sheriffs office is on the next block?" "Yeah. I'll be cool."

I will never be a candidate for sainthood but I'm pretty sure sitting in a parking lot in a little redneck town with an open bottle of rum on the front seat of your vehicle and clouds of pot smoke fogging up the windows doesn't qualify as cool--at least not in those days. I was never so happy to be back on the road--even if he did have a little bit of a buzz. Stockmarket was at the wheel and thank goodness we were in the middle of nowhere on a deserted highway because he was soon steering with his knee and making himself another drink. "Carter, how about letting me drive?" "No, I'm good." "Carter, I'm fresh. I can drive. You take a break." "No, I'm okay." Okay lasted about 20 minutes before he filled the pipe again.

Now I was really uncomfortable. Stockmarket had refilled the pipe one more time and I was beginning to wonder how sober he was. We were on Highway 101 winding our way through the redwoods. It had, sure enough, begun to rain. That road was tough enough in the daylight. At night and in the rain, it's dangerous and if you are smart, you slow down. The fog and mist blanket the road, hiding the next curve or the rock that tumbled onto the blacktop... Deer will spring out in front of your vehicle. It's not the kind of thing I want to do while intoxicated--pardon me-- with an intoxicated driver, but Stockmarket insisted on driving. The universe or some higher power must have been looking out for one or both of us because Stockmarket finally pulled over. "I can't drive anymore, Dave." I think we had passed Piercy which is a town in name only, about a half hour earlier. There are three or four rundown buildings there and unless some are hidden in the woods, not much else, so finding a room was not an option. I volunteered to take the wheel. "No. We can stay here, sleep in the van." I was done. Arguing with him or trying to convince him of anything at that point seemed pointless so I said "Sure..."

We woke up the next morning up to the rumble of a passing logging truck, which, when you consider the alternatives or last nights driving, wasn't so bad. He had found a decent sized pull out, big enough to be safe, and overlooking a sweeping bend on the Eel River. At that point, Stockmarket was on my short list for asshole of the year--until I looked down at the river. The river had gouged out a sweet hole at the base of the cliff opposite us and it was filled with bright salmon! I was already excitedly unloading my rod and my waders when Stockmarket suddenly blurted out "I can't fish here." I was speechless. Dumbfounded. I was probably contemplating crushing his skull and then trying to make it look like an accident and all I could do was to stutter "Wwwhat?" "I can't fish here. The water is dirty." "Carter, you are kidding, right?" The rain had indeed colored up the river a little but it was still very fishable with just a hint of brown to it. "No. Let's go downstream. The water will be cleaner." Of course, if you have even the most rudimentary grasp of hydrology and erosion, you will realize that won't ever happen. You will have a better chance of picking back to back winning lottery tickets. Hell will freeze over and the IRS will apologize for ever having bothered you and refund every tax you ever paid before a river runs clearer as it flows downstream. Quite the opposite. It is warming and picking up more sediment and more muck... Unfortunately, it was his van and the State of California frowns on crushing anybody's skull no matter how annoying they are so we were once again back in the van and heading north...and downstream. I can't gloat--not about being right on something like that but soon the Eel was a sea of mud and getting worse the further north we went.

It is at this point that one begins to wonder if either the friendship or the fishing trip can be salvaged. I suppose Stockmarket had enough redeeming qualities that I suggested we continue even further north to Highway 299 and follow it as it winds along the Trinity River. The Trinity is a very different watershed, more rock, decomposing granites and less prone to erosion. Nor had it been rapaciously logged like the Eel. Hydraulic mining had decimated the lower reaches of the Trinity at the turn of the 19th century but the upper reaches were intact. Redwoods only grow so far inland as well so it had been spared the worst of the loggers unquenchable appetite. There was a chance that it would be running clear enough to fish. Stockmarket knew he had blown it so he sheepishly agreed to the plan.

Truly great fishermen don't actually plan, though. They seize the opportunity and deal with the hand they are dealt. One cannot predict a hatch. You might be able to narrow it down to a certain time of year and certain weather conditions. One cannot predict the upstream migration of salmon or steelhead to a day, unless the run is so incredible that the entire river is filled with fish for months on end. We can however narrow the window in which we think these things will happen and rule out those that cannot happen. That being the case, and perhaps it was more intuitive than anything else, I suggested we detour and at least take a look at the Mad River. We were going to be driving right past the turn off and the best sections were not that far off the highway. It made sense...

This too is the story of Stockmarket. The man bought a few acres in Wyoming which at the time made absolutely no sense to me. Obviously, I know nothing about real estate or Wyoming because a year later he had divided it and sold half of it for what he had paid for the entire parcel. He had turned his back on a pool filled with salmon so fresh that they looked chrome plated in search of clean water and hit the kind of pay dirt that other anglers only dream of. The Mad River was filled with steelhead! Filled. The tide had turned and the rain had brought the water levels up, which on a short coastal river is enough to bring the fish in. In fact, steelhead were pouring into the river in droves. Stockmarket was still relatively new to fly fishing and even newer to steelheading but even he managed to hook a few steelhead. I was hooking an obscene number of fish. Hooking was the operative word as a big steelhead fresh from the salt and well fed is more than a worthy opponent. A fish hooked is not always a fish landed, especially on a fly rod. How epic was the fishing that day? Well, the steelhead is sometimes referred to as the fish of a thousand casts and some anglers will go years before they catch their first one. Even the most skilled anglers might go a year between fish, especially if they are chasing the big winter runs. However, the Mad River has what is known as a hatchery run so it is not unusual to find fish--along with crowds there. The incredible numbers we were seeing and hooking that day, though, were a once in a lifetime experience. The usual mob of anglers were absent as well and we had some runs all to ourselves.

These are the kinds of experiences that become burned into our memory and the root of all legend. Left out though is the "how?" How could a trip that had all the makings of a disaster and the potential for great bodily harm end on such an upbeat note? Stockmarket knew almost nothing about steelheading or the area. I suppose I knew more but chasing steelhead is hardly an exact science and is at best an educated guess combined with a reading of the tarot and a hint of vodoo. I guess he was just one very fortunate individual. Lucky, you might say.

I finally stopped fishing with Stockmarket, though. He continued to make more money. Everything he touched turned to gold but he was also becoming more mean spirited and avaricious; and obsessing over money. It --or he hit bottom a few years later on a trip to the Klamath River. A group of us had met up there to chase half pounders. Most of us were trout bums, passionate about the sport to the exclusion of all else--and near penniless. ...and most of us drank whatever beer was on sale. Stockmarket on the other hand, drank some pricey imports, not that any of us really cared. Steve had asked him for a beer --only because Stockmarkets ice chest was closer. Something in Stockmarket snapped though and he locked himself in his van, telling Steve that he had to drink cheap beer if he couldn't afford a good beer. It was an ugly awkward scene, Stockmarket locked in the van and furiously puffing away on his pipe. I think that we all realized at that exact moment that the one thing that hadn't turned to gold was Stockmarket's heart

A Proper Dive...

Guiding is a funny business.  It can be incredibly rewarding and it can be incredibly frustrating.  It can be backbreaking rowing a boat and it's a long hard day even on the tamest rivers.   If you aren't rowing, you are still up early; prepping  and organizing.  Maybe you need to put together a box lunch for your clients--even if it is just running out to the nearest deli and buying something.  Maybe you need to grab some strike indicators or tie a handful of flies--just in case.  Check the oars.  Do the trailer tires need air?   ...and just one minute:  You forgot the ice for the ice chest.  Granted, you get to do it in some of the most beautiful places on the planet.

The hardest part of the day just might be your clients, though, especially if you are new to the business.  As a seasoned veteran, one can discreetly pick and choose who you want to spend your day with.  Sometimes it's the little white lie:  "I'm pretty well booked up for that week.  I just can't fit you in."   I suppose you can tell the client whatever you want. Chances are that if they made your day miserable, they probably weren't enjoying themselves either and won't be back.  As a newcomer struggling to make ends meet and pay for that expensive drift boat, you pretty much have to book whomever and whenever you can, however.

...and in all fairness, I know most clients aren't out there to make the guides day difficult.  More often than not, it's just a comedy of errors or a little miscommunication.  Beginners will put their reels on backwards or don't tighten the reel seat properly only to have the reel fall off while fighting the biggest fish of the day.  Knot tying can be a nightmare and yet there is always that one person who insists on doing their own rigging.  Knot after knot fails and they want to blame the tippet.  Maybe it's too old--or defective, they'd say, or the  rod is too stiff--although in some cases, that was true!  I was also guilty of all too often putting clients on water that was beyond their skill set, especially when I first started out.  I mistakenly assumed that if someone was willing to pay for a day on the river, they knew one end of the rod from the other; could cast a mile; and had a working knowledge of entomology.  More often than not, though, many were beginners or intermediate level anglers and they wanted learn.  That is a good thing but just the same, it rarely makes a day any shorter or less exhausting.

Then there are the truly difficult clients.  Everything is automatically the guides fault, despite the fact that they can't cast 17 feet and have a moth eaten selection of flies that look like they found them in a close out bin at a crafts workshop for the visually impaired.  You will end up spending as many as 12 hours in a small cramped space listening to a litany of tasteless jokes and offensive remarks, secretly hoping--praying actually that they will slip and drown in a rapid--although that is always bad for one's reputation.  ...and if the Fish and Game rules require a barbless hook, they will be continually trying to put on a barbed hook and arguing with you about that as well. They will insist on using a rod that is far too heavy or one that is far too light--because it's theirs.  Some of them will drink too much...and it will be a miracle if no one is impaled with a hook or a rod broken.

Funny stuff--this guiding business.  One of the sweetest older gentlemen I ever had the pleasure of guiding was also one of the most difficult.  He was a wonderful human being--even if he wasn't actually interested in  fly fishing.  It seems that he had recently retired and after years at a job that owned him, he was at a loss as to what to do with himself.  His wife however made no bones about it.  She did not want him underfoot and moping around the house so she bought him a rod and reel--and lessons; and then when he failed to take the hint, she hired me to guide him.  He and I bonded almost immediately. We shared a few laughs and we found some rising fish.  In fact, we found a lot of rising fish. I put him on a pretty spectacular bite.  He couldn't cast--and he didn't care.  He was having fun.  He couldn't see all that well either so he wasn't hooking a lot of fish but it was one of those days where the brain dead could catch a fish as long as they had a nervous tic.  The fish weren't going to hook themselves!  It turned out though that he was so arthritic that he would tip over on his back cast.  I spent the better part of my day trying to catch him every time he cast.  I lived in dread fear he would  slip or lose his balance.  I'm proud to say that he made it home safely and intact.  I however was exhausted.  You just cannot send clients home damaged. 

Now after a long day, it seems an unusually high number of the guides and river rats that I knew, myself included, would self medicate--usually at a local dive; and it seemed every river worth fishing had a proper dive within a few miles.  This "proper dive" concept is important.  You've been rowing all day.  Maybe you broke a sweat and you are in your ratty Levis so you'd probably stick out like a tuna rod in a float tube in a more upscale establishment.  More importantly, you need a place just sketchy enough that you won't get shot but that difficult client won't want to join you either.  ...and just as importantly, one needs to be able to afford at least a few rounds on the odd chance that you run into someone who has something to say.  Cheap is good--unless we are talking about gin or talk.  There is no evil or so foul on this earth as a cheap gin but that is another topic.  As for cheap talk, well, some anglers are renowned for their ability to, shall we say, "enhance a story" and add fish and inches to the days tally...  Personally I avoid them--and cheap gin.

 The Sac is a world class trout fishery that I guided on for a few years, going through a boat and a raft in the process.   Access is limited so most anglers end up floating it and it can be wildly unpredictable.  There were those days where every second or third cast resulted in a hook up.  Fish would be rising every 5 feet in a riffle that was the size of a football field.  Then there were those days that drove strong men to drink or at least seek the comfort and solace of other guides --who might also have a tidbit of useful information.  The bite would shut off so completely that you were convinced the river had been poisoned by a chemical spill--which did happen in the upper reaches; or the fish would move, which wasn't unusual.  Most of the trout were the progeny of steelhead that just stopped heading downstream once Shasta Dam began filling the river with cold water.  These fish would move into a slot to feed and then just as quickly drop back downstream, sometimes one hundred yards or more.  It was a guessing game as to where they would be on any given day, much less what they would be taking--and it could be incredibly frustrating.  It seemed natural that a person might want to wallow in self pity in front of a cold pint or at least talk to the other guides to get an idea of where the trout were and what they were on. I thought I had found such a place on the lower Sacramento River... I may have been mistaken.

There is a bar that almost fits the bill near one of the take outs on the river.  It shall for many reasons, remain nameless so let's just call it "the Dock". The beer was cold, the food was almost always edible, almost always hot and the price was almost always right..    What more does a person need?  It was a bonafide dive.  It's just that the "not getting shot" could have been an issue.  The first time I went in there, I thought this was the place!  A burger with fries was all of three dollars and three drinks cost less than what I would pay for one in the Bay area.  Granted it was too close to a trailer park or two and the owners son fancied himself an outlaw biker but those were minor details.  Most of the time, it was quiet, filled with a few folks ekeing out a hard scrabble existence and living paycheck to paycheck.  Weekends could get a little more lively with at least a shouting match or two, some dysfunctional family drama thrown in for effect and maybe even some good old fashioned fisticuffs.  Generally, though, the evenings were dead and the afternoons even quieter.  A few other guides and river rats would stumble in just often enough to keep me coming back.  It did sometimes get weird.  I suppose the people who like these small towns and backwaters might be a little antisocial to begin with.   I'm sure some have a few secrets to hide but an outsider (me) should keep their back to the wall, ears open and mouth shut.

Weird is too kind--too mild a term, actually.  It was a Saturday and I had a break between clients.  I'd spent the morning sorting out my driftboat--organizing and cleaning up the bits of tippet and funk that can collect in the bottom of a boat.  It was a beautiful spring day and a cold beer sounded about right so I headed over to the Dock.   The place was empty with the exception of the bartender and one other customer, a despondent looking character who struck me as an alcoholic.  He was hunched over, elbows on the bar with his head in his hands and half a beer sitting in front of him.    I sat down a few seats to the left of him at the bar and nodded a hello.  He grunted. The beer sat there, getting warm.  Apparently he wasn't much of a conversationalist or was downright unfriendly, not that it mattered.  I'm going to go with "unfriendly" because about a half hour later another customer came in.  The newcomer was in a wheelchair being pushed by a dumpy middle aged woman.  At first, I thought the three of them knew each other. The drunk at the bar looked

over at the man in the wheelchair and said  "Get your ass out of that chair".  The newcomer, however did not know the drunk and looked puzzled.  He replied cautiously "Hey! I was in 'Nam and I got shot up pretty bad."  "So?" replied the drunk.  The newcomer ignored the drunk at that point and his companion wheeled him past me. The woman parked his chair just to the left of me and sat at the bar as well.   They seemed pleasant enough, maybe a little morose after that initial encounter and the ensuing small talk was hushed.

The drunk had ordered another beer and after 10 minutes or so, looked over at the newcomer, staring intently.   He then, very matter of fact, said  "You're a pussy."  What planet was I on, what god forsaken place was I in that someone would pick a bar fight with a paraplegic?  The newcomer, however,  had a pained look on his face--a look that suggested he had once before been accused of being a fraud; of sitting on a street corner with a cardboard sign that said "Disabled vet.  Will work for food".  He stammered, "No man.  I got shot up pretty bad."  The drunk spat back  "You're a pussy.  I was there."  A long drawn out silence ensued.  I wanted no part of that scene so I was the one with head down at that point but I could see the drunk fidgeting.  Suddenly something went flying over my head.  It was a leg, a fucking artificial leg, heavily tattooed.  The drunk had taken off his artificial leg and thrown it at the newcomer in the wheelchair!  Clearly I was on another planet. At any moment Elvis will enter the room. The drunk was screaming "You're a pussy.  You're a pussy!" and suddenly another limb went flying over my head.  Now the drunk is on the ground hopping around on his stump legs, still screaming at the guy in the wheelchair "You're a pussy.  You're a pussy!"  Had they been speaking Italian, this could have been a scene right out of Fellini or worthy of David Lynch.  I was in awe of the heavily tattooed prosthetics.  The entire scene was beyond surreal...

The drunk eventually calmed down. and hopped back up on his bar stool.  I have no idea what happened to the artificial legs.  I think the newcomer offered to buy him a drink and the two began trading war stories.  Meanwhile, I no longer guide but I am still searching for a proper dive to get a beer after a long day on the water --a place where the customers wont be throwing prosthetic limbs at each other.

Midnight

Midnight was the strange one--although living in San Francisco, I'm not sure that he actually was.  He was different and in a town where most everyone paraded their sexuality openly and proudly, he was surprisingly reserved--at least about that particular topic.  Otherwise, he had motormouth--which is how he came to be called "Midnight".

  We were all fly fishermen, and in most cases, relatively new to the sport and we bonded over that, no matter how different we were.   We frequented the few fly fishing shops that were in town, drooling over the latest and greatest gadgetry, the new reels and the latest breakthroughs in graphite technology.  Sometimes we even bought things, although more often than not, it was just a magazine with the latest 4 color glossy fish porn or $3 worth of fly tying materials.  None of us actually had any money except for maybe Carter who would eventually come to be known as "Stockmarket".  At best, half the group were trout bums, a fourth wished they were-- and the remaining fourth knew better.

Midnight had a few dollars.  He was even gainfully employed as a graphic designer which meant he had this really cool loft, at least in our eyes, south of Market-- and reliable transportation.  Cool, however, is a relative term.  In those days, bodies were still being disposed of in alleys south of Market.  It wasn't an everyday occurrence but it happened often enough that one didn't wander around late at night...  Otherwise --all things considered,--he was almost respectable.  It's just that he would show up at whatever fly shop was our new favorite haunt five minutes before closing and manage to talk for at least 45 minutes past closing.  Of course, if you were the one who had just spent 8 grueling frustrating hours behind the cash register, it seemed like he was going to talk until well past midnight when all you wanted to do was go home.  The shopkeepers put up with it, though, because invariably he would buy an expensive piece of equipment.  He probably kept a few fly shops in business by himself.

...and so it was that he became known as "Midnight".

I liked him.  Other than the occasional bout of motormouth, he was engaging and intelligent.  He didn't smell bad. He didn't steal and he had gas money.  Remember, we are talking about trout bums here...   Four or five hours in a car on your way to whatever Blue Ribbon trout stream that was featured in last months fish porn centerfold, you really get to know a person--or you don't.  These things are important.  It can end up being four hours of very awkward and generally pointless small talk as you debate important things-- like tippet diameter and using polar bear fur substitutes to tie obscure patterns that no one in their right mind would actually fish.

...or you can talk about life, love and death.  We did. Midnight and I usually talked about weighty subjects, waxed poetic and saved the earth at least three or four times in the course of a road trip.  The one exception--the topic that was never really broached, though--was his apparently nonexistent love life.  This is not to say that Midnight didn't get teased.  Someone in the group, concerned about his lack of a love life or a sex life, decided that an anatomically correct sheep might be an appropriate birthday gift.  I'm not sure I had any part in that but then again, my memory is blurry.  Maybe deliberately so because as I recall, Midnight gleefully shared that he popped said anatomically correct sheep.  I realized then that I really didn't need any further details...

Midnight and I fished together whenever we could, partly because it was some sort of personal challenge to him to to outfish me.  I suppose I knew more about the sport and could lay claim to having actually guided once upon a time but being outfished or caring about being outfished was not high on my list of concerns.  Regardless, our outings were different but enjoyable.

Different may not actually be the right way to describe most of our adventures...  Bizarre, perhaps?

We had been fishing the Trinity River on the Special Regulations section and both of us had done exceptionally well.  In fact, towards the end of the day, I had hooked a spectacular specimen--a late run steelhead.   Trinity fish pale in comparison to the huge winter run steelhead that haunt the North Coast.  Just the same, this was a very nice fish and it had risen to a small Pale Evening Dun, making it that much more special.  I was doing everything in my power to land that fish, plowing into the river in my best re-enactment of  the scene from "A River Runs Through It"  where the protagonist is swept over the rapids.  It was dark by the time I landed that fish--too dark for the requisite hero shot and Midnight was far downstream so it became a matter of faith.  No witnesses.  No photographs--only my excited retelling of the epic struggle--which as most anglers know--will often border on pure fantasy.  It is a well known fact that most anglers will add at least three inches to any fish they have landed if there are no witnesses and a full six inches to the length of any fish they have lost. I'd like to think I am above that but sometimes in the adrenalin rush, inches do get added.

It didn't matter.  We were both tired and it was time for a drink so we headed to the Old Lewiston Hotel.  Colorful would be an understatement but back in the day, it served a stiff drink and one of the best prime ribs I have ever had.  It's changed hands a few times since then.  The food isn't quite the same and the patrons aren't quite as colorful but that particular day will always be remembered.   We walked into the bar in the middle of another fisherman breathlessly telling a story about an enormous steelhead someone had caught that afternoon.  He was hopping excitedly from foot to foot with his hands outstretched  over his head and saying "The fish was this big!"   He turned, and seeing Midnight and I walking into the room, pointed at me and said "...and that's the guy who caught it!" 

Yes, I had an ear to ear grin but that wasn't the part that was so memorable.  It was the mountain women...

They were sitting at the bar.  Midnight was exhausted and a few drinks later, he was

close to passed out--not that he wanted anything to do with them to begin with. I understood completely.  The kindest thing that I can say about these two women is that they were not especially attractive nor would you ever describe them as fit and athletic. Some men will, if stranded on a desert island, begin to view a coconut as worthy of their attention and even sexually appealing.  I was not and have never been that sort of man.  I have some standards.   It was however, our usual watering hole and there is no point in being rude so there was a certain amount of polite if strained small talk.  I guess I just wasn't disinterested enough and Midnight not intoxicated enough to dissuade them from deciding that they were going to take us back to their camp.  I only vaguely remember that part of the conversation--something about them needing our genetic material.  It  was also at that point that Midnight more or less woke up and in all probability, saved us from what may have been a threat to public health or at the very least a very awkward situation. 

It seems the mountain women had brought their small dog, a chihuahua in the bar with them.  It was running around underneath the bar stools when Midnight spotted it and in his alcoholic haze he began shouting "It's a rat.  It's a rat!"   "No, Midnight, it's a chihuahua".  "Oh..." and then he calmed down except that he was staring intently at the dog.  You know there is no way this can turn out well and sure enough, Midnight lunged at the dog.  "It's eyes!  Look at the way they are bulging. They're coming out!  I need to fix them" which normally would have been hysterically funny to me except that he was dead serious.  This was a godsend.  I turned to the two exceptionally unattractive mountain women and with as straight a face as was humanly possible, said  "I'd love to go back to your camp and fuck all night but I think I really need to get him home."   One of the women did make a feeble attempt to block the door but we managed to make good our escape.

Midnight and I continued to fish together until I finally moved out of San Francisco  a few years later.  He detested my taste in women as a rule and I didn't pry into his love life so it worked.  It was on one of our last fishing trips together, however, that I realized how little I actually knew about Midnight.  We were on our way to Hat Creek which can only be described as an oasis in the middle of a volcanic wasteland.  The surrounding countryside is sun baked and rocky with the exception of the lush meadows and fields that depend on water stolen from the creek.  The creek can only be diverted so many times before it runs dry in places only to be renewed by the springs that dot it's length.

I digress...  We were on a back road, a narrow twisting two lane black top and the windows were down because of the heat.  One of the greatest things about sharing a ride with Midnight was that the phrase "speed limit" was not actually in his vocabulary but this time it wasn't working out so well.  I was white knuckling it, finger nails digging into the upholstery as we flew through the turns.  Suddenly, Midnight began screaming and slapping at his crotch.  This was not good.  He was wearing a pair of shorts that made him look way too much like a male prostitute--although men routinely dressed badly in those days; and all I could think of  was this is not how I want to die--not with a man of dubious sexual interests who has  (or had) an anatomically correct sheep and is now slapping at his crotch at 90 miles an hour.

I guess I am not as open minded as I thought.  It seems a yellow jacket had blown in the open window, managed to work it's way up his shorts and stung him on the most sensitive part of his inner thigh.

 

Shark Fishing

I think every small boy dreams of catching a big fish.  I did.  It was too many days spent on the harbor breakwater watching others catch fish and the mandatory high school readings of Hemingway, Zane Grey and Steinbeck that drove me to that precipice.  I lived and breathed fish throughout my puberty, interrupted only by the infrequent romance, the even rarer girlfriend and subsequent break up, complete with resulting heartbreak--which was then naturally healed by more fishing. I dreamed of marlin and sailfish and epic struggles in the hot sun as braided line peeled off a reel the size of a blender.

Of course, it helps if one has a codependent or enabler and I had many.  I'm also pretty sure that I fished because my father didn't.  His dysfunction, his struggles with mental illness and the abuse that was heaped upon us at home must have shown on my face because the woodshop teacher at the high school reached out to me.  He reached out to pretty much every at risk child he met--and he was a fisherman.  More importantly, he surrounded himself with other fishermen.  I'm sure there is some sort of Biblical inference one could make but none of these fishers of men were even remotely saintly.  At best, they stayed out of jail and students thrived on their pranks and escapades.  Interoffice memos were all too often used to send soiled panties in sizes that could be measured in feet instead of inches to another unsuspecting but hardly innocent teacher.  Naturally, we adored them.

Taylor was part of that crew although he wasn't a teacher.  In fact, he was an accountant for the county.  That's not exactly the kind of occupation most of the group dreamed of but Taylor juggled his schedule and had enough seniority that he could work 4 days a week and fish three, leaving just about zero time for relationships.  That suited Taylor just fine.  Relationships--unless they were with other fishermen--interfered with one's God given right to fish.

In retrospect Taylor was socially awkward, more than a bit stiff and an introvert--which meant he was the stuff legends were made of; and Taylor fished for sharks.  Taylor fished for really big sharks--Threshers and Great Whites and the infrequent Mako or Hammerhead.  ...and Taylor had numerous records for big sharks.  He had one extraordinarily ugly ass wooden skiff that the students in the woodshop class had built for him.  It floated.  That was about it but he was happy with it.  The rest of us, however, referred to it as "the submarine".  It was a dull battleship gray--probably because gray was on sale somewhere and more often than not, had a generous coating of guts of one sort or another and the usual seagull droppings.

 Now being single was a plus in Taylor's world.  He would stop at nothing if it meant a shot at catching a world record shark.  He would routinely fill his refrigerator with  bait--not any old bait, though.  Mackeral and bonito the size that most people would have been happy to catch spilled out of the refrigerator.   The freezer was usually filled with 5 gallon buckets of  blood and gore that he picked up from a local butcher to later use for a chum line, the slowly melting block of offal leaving a distinctive trail behind the submarine.  It was the kind of thing that horrified a date, not that he ever had any -- and sent the sharks into a frenzy.

I suppose shark fishing is a lot like catfishing.  The more disgusting the bait or the chum line, the better it seemed to work.  Accordingly, one of Taylors favorite baits was road kill--although in Southern California that, more often than not, was somebody's missing pet.   He traveled everywhere with a pair of rubber gloves, plastic bags and a pile of old newspapers on the odd chance that he would find some good road kill...which is how I first heard about Taylor.  It seems he had been driving down an alley in town when he saw a dog sprawled out in the road.  He, according to most versions of the story, slammed on the brakes of his old  Chevy Blazer, jumped out, slipped on the gloves and proceeded to roll the dog up in the newspaper.  Most of us might even view this as a public service but Taylor hadn't noticed that the dog wasn't dead--not until it bit him.  It seems it wasn't hurt--or anything else-- just one lazy dog laying out in the sun. I never did figure out why he needed newspaper, though.  I suppose it was less of a shock to open the freezer and see last weeks LA Times instead of the neighbors cat?

Anyways, this cemented Taylors stature amongst our little dysfunctional group of anglers and wanna-be anglers, not that his reputation actually needed any further embellishment.  By that time, he had numerous state records and line class records.  He had long ago obtained a commercial fishing license and sold almost everything he caught to subsidize his habit--which meant he routinely put some very big sharks in the submarine to either be weighed or sold. 

...and were you wondering how the submarine came to be called the "submarine"?  I suppose it was designed --if one can call it that--to fish the less than challenging waters of  the Santa Monica Bay.  Surfers got excited if they saw a three foot swell and sailors dreamed of 8 knot winds.  Tame was an understatement--with a few exceptions--so the submarine had maybe 16 inches of freeboard.  If the wind did blow, you were going to get wet and be bailing furiously.  None of this ever stopped Taylor from filling the submarine with shark, though, and on one trip in particular he had landed a Thresher that was a rumored 385 pounds.  That was dangerously close to another state record so in the submarine it went.  Naturally, Taylor continued to fish and hooked and landed another Thresher that later weighed in at 425 pounds.  In the submarine it went, shark sticking out of either end of the skiff and the boat sitting so low in the water that the slightest chop would have sunk it. Taylor couldn't swim either, not that it would have mattered.  You see, he routinely shot the sharks before he put them in the boat.  It made sense.  These sharks were upwards of 14 feet long and the submarine was only 20 feet long so there just wasn't a lot of room for a shark to be flopping around.  The problem was the slick of blood and gore trailing out behind the submarine--and the sharks that smelled the blood.  On a good day, there was a constant posse of sharks tailing the submarine.  On a bad day, there would be even more...

Needless to say, I thought I had died and gone to heaven when I finally got invited to go fishing with Taylor on the submarine.  I was all of 17 and had never caught anything bigger than a red snapper.  The bait was bigger than most of the fish I caught. I was ready to be transported to the world of Hemingway and Zane Grey --except it didn't actually happen quite like that.  The submarine was fitted with a fighting chair but it was a budget model that looked an awful lot like a lawn chair.  Taylor was frugal almost to the point of excess.  In fact, he would sometimes shoot a shark just to get the stainless steel hook back.  Not every shark was headed for the fish market to later be sold as swordfish.  Some just weren't especially edible but Taylor couldn't abide the thought of having to replace a stainless leader and hook either.

Just the same, I was ready for whatever came my way.  I was now part of this cadre of insanely intent fishermen who for the most part, lived and breathed fish.  It was rumored some had gills instead of lungs and only a few were capable of maintaining relationships for any length of time.  The shortest version is that I now wanted to prove that I was worthy and I dutifully hung on every word of instruction that Taylor uttered.  He very carefully showed me how to bait the hook through the nose of the bonito, explaining that there was a reason it was sometimes called a bonehead...  I baited the hook and proceeded to play line out behind the boat.  Within minutes, I had a hook up.  I braced myself and set the hook.  My heart was racing, my feet were braced against the stern and I was praying that that tired fighting chair stayed together for at least one more fish.  Line was beginning to peel off the reel...and then suddenly everything went slack!  The silence was deafening.  Disappointment hung like a tule fog over the submarine and I slowly reeled my line back in.  I'll fast forward: The bait was virtually unscathed with the exception of a few teeth marks.  It seems in my youthful enthusiasm and being somewhat muscle bound in those days, I wanted to show Taylor just how strong and clever I was--and buried the hook so deep in the skull of that bonito that there was some question if the shark had ever even felt the point of the hook.  It had simply held on to the bait until it tired of our little game of tug of war. 

Taylor really didn't need to say much.  The look in his eyes said it all but he was willing to give me another chance although it seemed like an eternity before the next hook up.  This time everything went right though, and once again, I was in the fighting chair, wondering just what was at the other end of that line.  The reels we were using were the old Penn Senators, the size of coffee cans and the 125 pound braided line was peeling off the spool as if it were sewing thread.  For those of you who have never fished big game, these were stout fiberglass rods, the butt sections as thick as the grip on a Louisville Slugger--and it was bent over as if it had all the backbone of an overcooked pasta. 

This was the kind of fishing that adds a whole new meaning to the word "fear".  The submarine, already questionable as far as how seaworthy it really was, was now slowly being towed backwards.  One wake, one swell hitting us just right and we would have been just another snack item, another morsel for the other sharks trailing the submarine...  Needless to say, everything--or almost everything went right and I  lived to finish the story.  I don't know how long I fought that shark.  It wasn't epic by any means and didn't weigh much more than 175 pounds but that was 175 pounds of finely honed fighting muscle and 150 pounds bigger than anything I had ever caught before. Taylor, however was understandably unimpressed.  He had no children so that look of Christmas morning in my eyes--the excitement and sense of accomplishment never registered.  Instead he handed me a shotgun and in as dry and taciturn voice as any human could utter, simply warned me to not miss; not put a hole in the bottom of the boat--and don't hit the leader.  I often wondered if he thought he had to pay for every word he used because he used them so sparingly...

Pride is a funny thing.  I so desperately wanted to be part of this group of seasoned anglers and the last thing I wanted Taylor to know was that I had never even touched, much less fired a shotgun before.  I'd been to a Boy Scout summer camp and fired a few .22 rounds at the gun range there but that was nothing like the kick of a shotgun.  Granted, it was only a 20 gauge but I needed more than anything else to do this right.  Naturally, that meant I did almost everything wrong.  I practically touched the barrel of that shotgun to the head of the shark, closed my eyes and pulled the trigger.  The ocean erupted into a geyser of shark bits and spray; and in a moment that will forever define Taylor --a moment that will always be etched in my memory, he stood there wiping off shark from his glasses and without ever raising his voice, simply said  "I think you got him".