On trout pictures and a few other things

From time-to-time I receive requests to post trout photos on this blog. Once in a while, if I catch a really good trout and my camera is handy and it occurs to me to snap a quick photo of trout in net, I'll take a photo. This isn't very often. I rarely kill trout and my first consideration is releasing the trout in good shape. I use barbless hooks and if I can use my forceps to do a quick release without even touching a trout, I will. I don't much feel the need to record pictures of the trout I catch, and I don't have anything to prove to anyone.

For a long time, I didn't take a camera on-stream with me at all. I found it got in the way and was really just a distraction. These days I do often carry a camera, usually a small inexpensive digital one, because I like to record the landscape around me. What did the day look like? How high was the vegetation. It was cloudy, wasn't it? Look at that, the trilliums are in bloom. So once in a while I'll take a photo of a pretty trout, but it won't be so often. When I do, though, I'll post it for you.

I'm sure there are folks out there who catch more and bigger and prettier and smarter and tougher trout than I do using swankier, not to mention smaller flies, from more difficult pools. Let there be no doubt that there are loads of fly fishermen who cast better than I do (although I can cast equally poorly with either hand, and there's something to be said for that).

When I was growing up, we were mostly bait plonkers. I did a little fly fishing but not very seriously. At that time we fished for trout, migratory rainbows, walleye, bass, pike, whatever. We killed and ate most of what we caught and we took loads of pictures of dead fish. I'm reminded of the story of a trip my father and older brother took many years ago. They hiked in a legendary distance to a legendary secret spot they had been looking for like it was the Holy Grail. When they found it, they caught many large brook trout, all of which they killed and packed out. Back at the car, they laid this mess of legendary trout on the hood of the old station wagon so they could get the required picture of the dead fish. I think I still have a copy of that picture somewhere or other. Well, when they took the trout off the hood of the car, they discovered that the oils from the fish left a permanent stain on the hood for each of the trout. Talk about keeping a good record of your catch!

Eventually, I became bored with fishing the way we were doing it, and I started exploring fly fishing. I started fly tying as well, and when I actually caught some trout on my awkwardly tied out of proportion first efforts, you can imagine how thrilled I was. As I learned to slow down and pay attention to my surroundings, the game became richer and richer.

Sometimes I think fly fishing is more about paying attention than catching trout. For me, it's also about quieting myself to a rhythm that beats in synch with my surroundings. Catching trout is kind of an affirmation that you're paying attention pretty well. When I started visiting Silver Creek in Idaho, I think it was two or three visits before I caught any trout. I remember the first time, I stood in the middle of a blizzard hatch with trout rising all around me and I couldn't catch one. The guys at the local fly shops all said you need long fine leaders and umpteen X tippet and tiny flies. What I learned though, was that I needed to learn to slow down, way way down.

PS The photo in this post is courtesy of Tuffy P.