The best trip report… EVER

17 September 2002, Rogue River at Touvelle State Park

I went out to the little side channel of the Rogue at Touvelle yesterday morning. You know, the one many of us just trudge through to get to the “real” river and the nice riffle on the other side. It’s maybe 25 feet wide or so, one to two feet deep.

At 7am, the weather was brisk the sky doppled with high wispy ice crystals forming the cirrus couds. There had been sprinkles the evening before, but the water was still flowing mostly clear as it had been lately. With the steelhead running like they have been on the Rogue, you might ask yourself what I was doing wasting my time in that small side creek. Well, here’s the report.

Eleven years ago, on September 17th, 1991, I became a mushball. No, really. Dad’s know what I learned and became that day. Ever since then I’ve tried to be a good Dad, and not force my own desires (aside from good character, manners, integrity and the like) on my son. I love to fish, but have never forced it on my kids, and he being the eldest was first in line if anyone ever was. Sure, I’ve gotten him a nice little five weight and supported any interest he’s had, but I’ve never not given him some other option when it came to fishing. It’s always been that we could ride bikes, or skateboard, etc. instead, as it was just spending the time that was important.

Back to the trip report. He’s expressed interest lately. Lots of it. Even if it’s just to get my approval, it’s there. So Monday night I asked him if he’d like to “go fly fishing for real”, and was prepared for a “naaah, let’s play nintendo.” What I got was a “Yeah! Can we get up at 5:12 when I was born to leave!?” I was thinking of taking his birthday off. That sealed the deal.

So we get up at 6:30 Tuesday morning (5:12 is inhumane when the sun isn’t coming up ’till nearly seven), hit the Chevron for some coffee and juice and we’re off. We pull in to the park, and his new felt sole hippers are in the trunk, and he can’t believe he gets to actually wade.

The first lesson. Wading. Remember the first time you stepped in and didn’t get wet? How cool was that!?!? Stay sideways, small steps, and plant your foot before you move the other one… Then comes the “looking at the water for places a fish might like” talk. Seams, undercuts, riffles and rocks are all there, and we get close, looking at why a fish might want to live here or there, talking alot about the moving buffet.

We tie an Adams on and grease it up well so he can see the fly float. Casting quarter upstream, small mend (make your rod tip move upstream like it’s jumping quickly over a turtle…) and he gets the hang of it. He’s casting better than we ever had in the backyard, and it’s more at a near 45 degree angle rather than up and down parallel to his body. Nice, tight loops. I’m proud of them and tell him about it. I also realized I wasn’t fishing, but just watching him.

After about an hour of this and working our way up through about half of the channel, he looks upstream at a small pool behind a rock and some overhanging brush and says “I think if I were a fish I’d like it there. I’m going to cast there, OK, Dad?” I’d been pointing out likely lies and coaching…

I’m thinking I should get ready to retrieve a fly from the bushes, and he sidearms a single false cast and right in to the head of the pool. Couldn’t have done it better myself, I think, and then, well, you know what happens. A small, saint of a ‘bow takes the fly with surprising fury and turns back to the pool, and he’s caught his first moving water fish – on a dry fly – by himself. The look on his face is something I’ll take to my grave and cherish for years to come. He played it for about 30 seconds, stripped it in nicely, and slid his hand under it like an old pro. I nearly did an aquatic faceplant trying to get to him. Nothing short of magical. We thanked the fish, turned it loose and gratefully watched it scurry in to the shadows of the pool.

(this was a few weeks later…)

So that was the only fish of the morning, as we had to get home for the birthday breakfast.

It was the best birthday I’ve ever had and it wasn’t even my own.

So ends my trip report. Hopefully one of many, as it was also the first time he has asked if we could go back, to anywhere we’ve fished. Life is really good.

(…this is a few years later…)