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As long as I can remember I have always been
fishing somewhere, somehow. My very first
angling memory is at an unknown farm pond,
my father helping me to throw a red and white
spoon that was attacked by a bluegill who was
literally no bigger than the spoon. I was
impressed.
Then there was the old covered fishing barge
at Lake Benbrook west of Fort Worth. They had
some huge flatheads in a tank by the cash
register. All those arcane fishing items and
fishing paraphernalia in the glass case. Did
anyone ever buy any of it? I suspect that if
the old bait shop is still there, that those
gee-gaws might yet be waiting on a buyer.
Smells are a major part of the fishing experience.
Some have become so familiar over the years. Beef
jerky, minnows, blood bait, anise, and lake water.
The floors on that old barge creaked in a soothing,
comforting way. Heaters in the winter. Life of Riley
stuff.
And remember those Eagle Claw snelled hooks in
the long skinny packages, the ones with the
picture of the guy in the funky fishing hat?
Eagle Claw still uses that exact same packaging.
I take comfort in that fact even though I have
not used any Eagle Claw snelled hooks in quite
some while.
That trip to the barge I was catching bluegills
like crazy until I dropped the old Zebco 202 in
the drink. Bummer! Trip over. Back to the realities
of the first grade and life's drudgery.
My family used to go out to the lake on weekends to
picnic and fish. Momma and daddy would set up the bait
casting rigs with dough bait, Wheaties and other carp
baits. Carp were the thing with their great runs, they
were tremendous fighters. I used to love to hear my
father tell about the carp that tore the reel off of
his rod during a carp tournament. What a beast I
imagined it to be! The Coleman lantern burned brightly
on the beach and we sat and waited and I dreamed of fish.
More memories: a trip on Eagle Mountain Lake on a
bright, sunny day, in a fourteen foot aluminum
semi-V boat. That old boat had ages of layers of
paint that told its long life story. That trip was
where I first saw the sand bass schooling. What an
incredible sight for a boy, it looked like acres and
acres of boiling water! I tossed my Hellbender in the
midst and was rewarded with a huge, smashing strike
and a fight with a sand bass. The Hellbender was my
favorite lure forever after. There were late nights
in my uncle's boat out on Eagle mountain. We sat with
the Coleman lantern suspended over the side and clouds
of baitfish rolled up to the lights. We caught fish
after fish. My uncle schooled me in the art of slow
jigging a minnow. There was the time I woke up in a
boat on Lake Benbrook and saw a tornado funnel on its
way, that was one fast trip to the marina, let me
tell you!
At some point early on in there I started subscribing
to Outdoor Life, Field and Stream and Sports
Afield. I was a voracious reader, devouring every
piece of literature I could lay hands on. Living
vicariously through all those great old stories, Jack
O'Connor hunting big game out west. . .and the fly
fishing! Now, I had never even seen a fly rod or a
fly fisherman much less done any fly fishing. No one
in my family fly fished, we knew no one who did. But
the Zebco 202 was a known quantity on known territory
and these guys were off in far away places catching
exotic fish like trout, salmon, and grayling. I just
had to have a piece of that! (I also needed a hunting
falcon, a blow gun, a ferret, a 7X57 Mauser and a mini
bike but those are different stories.)
As it was approaching Christmas the call went out that
what I wanted was a fly rod. The Santa illusion was
already gone, this was practicality at work. The rod
that I got on that twelfth Christmas so many years ago
(was 1968 really all that long ago?) I have to this day
and still use. The reel is still here but stays in its
box missing several crucial little machine screws. The
sinking line? I tossed that a few years back, it was
beyond salvage and there was no room in my designs for
it.
OK, so what does an eleven-year-old kid in Ft. Worth,
Texas do with a fly rod? We went to East Texas to camp
in the Davy Crockett National Forest. One fine early
morning I arose before the rest and proceeded down the
shoreline with fly rod in hand. My explorations reached
an inlet filled with lily pads. Just like the pictures
in the magazines. I tied on a Miss Prissy out of the
little round blue plastic dispenser, flailed in what
must have been an amazing display of uneducated,
uncoached casting and proceeded to catch bluegill
after bluegill, bass after bass. No one was more
surprised than me! I had not even brought along a
stringer (this had been a tentative outing, my very
first with the fly rod so I was not at all certain
what would happen) so could only release them back
into the lake. I was catching and releasing simply
because there was no other choice. Back at camp I
was thrilled! I was jabbering a mile a minute about
all the fish I had caught. Then the man whose family
we were camping with asked, "so where are all these
fish?" and gave me an incredulous stare. I pretty much
stopped fishing after that, nothing like being told
you're a liar when you aren't. But that brilliant
little morning on a small East Texas lake had planted
a seed that would grow over the years, sometimes slowly,
sometimes not.
My next trip was to Red River New Mexico. Trout! The
marvelous wonderful trout! The sainted land and its
holy fish! I was finally going to live the dream that
I had read about so often in those miles of piles of
outdoor magazines and in barber shops. But it was not
quite the experience I had dreamed of. I wish I could
tell you about all the trout I landed but it just didn't
happen. What I did get was my first coaching on casting.
A woman took pity on me and my felonious line flogging,
stepped in and told me to "stop, wait, let it straighten
out behind you." At least now I was not endangering
innocent lives. I can't tell you what fly I had tied on.
I can tell you that I got to fish for trout.
There were many other trips and experiences, fishing
all night on the banks of the Brazos below Granbury
Dam. Wading out chest deep into Aransas Bay at Goose
Island State Park in Rockport TX, a boat pulling up
next to us and showing off the shark and gar that
they'd caught on the trotline right nearby. Stacking
oil cans in the bait shop to earn dead fish for crabbing
bait. Floating down the Brazos in a float tube back in
1976 when float tubes weren't yet quite "hip," catching
all kinds of fish.
It was years later, after a life that went in a
direction that did not have room for fishing or
outdoors that I finally decided that it was time
to return to the fold. I have taken tying back up,
can cast without anyone calling the police and in
general am having a great old time with this art.
I hesitate to call it a hobby. I feel that demeans
fly angling as a practice. Its art, it's a practice,
it's a way of life. It's also about meeting some of
the nicest people I have ever run into. I can only
liken it to church and the closeness that one develops
with the rest of the congregation. The congregation
of fly anglers is one that I am proud to be a member of.
~ Robin Rhyne
© Copyright 2003
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