Thinking about what books have influenced my fishing education has me thinking of my first time fly fishing and how I prepared for a new fishing experience.
In my 20’s I was working at an Eddie Bauer Store in Kansas City, MO as a shipping and receiving clerk. I made the acquaintance of a man named Fritz who came to manage one of the last Eddie Bauer Sport Shops in the chain. This was a section of the store, separate from the puffy down parkas and flannel shirts, which sold a limited selection of very high-end sporting equipment: Filson oil-skin coats, Sage fly rods and reels, Swarovski Optiks, Benelli shotguns, you get the picture; more than just clothes and comforters.
Fritz came to the store from Oklahoma, where he was a guide and former state President of the Oklahoma Chapter of the FFF, Federation of Fly Fishers. He was putting together a trip for four to the Little Red River, Heber Springs, Arkansas, and asked if I was interested in going. Of course, I was.
I had none of the required equipment. Not a stitch of neoprene, not a fly, and had never used a fly rod. One day after work I went by Fritz place and walked into a bachelor’s wonderland of everything Fly. The living room had a couch, recliner, television, coffee table, and along one wall a huge tying bench with shelving and tying materiel stored in boxes and hanging on the wall. Another room stored an unfathomable amount of waders, boots, rods, reels, and fly boxes. From his selection, he loaned me waders and boots, a vest, and the appropriate rod, line and reel for the trip.
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by Joseph Petralia ISBN-13: 978-0960589098 |
I had several weeks before the planned excursion and I went to one of the few fly shops in Kansas City where I found a beginner’s book on using a fly rod, Joseph Petralia’s Flyfishing: First Cast to First Fish, (ISBN: 978-0960589098). I was pleasantly surprised that the instructions in the book were easy to understand and implement and in just a few hours I was at a pond near my house catching little bass and thousands of willing bluegill with foam poppers. Everything I needed to know about types of casting, line drift, retrievals, knots, fish handling, and types of flies to use were right at my fingertips in this handy book that I still treasure.
The time came for the trip over a long weekend and four friends set out for fishy waters, I being the only novice. We caught a lot of fish; as I remember most were caught on egg patterns which were tied by Fritz in the hotel room. The waters were smooth on the Little Red River below the Greer’s Ferry dam for many miles, and we waded knee to hip deep in moderate flows and cast to the many pools beneath giant oak and cottonwood trees, whose shading produced actively feeding fish even during the brightest sunshine.
One of my favorite memories was meeting a man at our motel. We had put on our waders that morning in the hotel rooms and stopped by the lobby for coffee and donuts, (apparently this was normal in this fly fishing destination as there were several others there who also were already wearing wading gear.) An older man came in and introduced himself. I don’t remember his name, but at that time he held the world record for a brown trout, that he caught in the Little Red, on a fly. He related the story of his catch- casting a streamer from his drifting john boat, next to a big log along a steep bank, and fighting a 30+ pound brown trout. He told about bringing the fish to a local marina and calling for a warden to verify the weight. His eyes even watered as he talked about how he tried to keep the fish alive while waiting longer than expected, as he wanted to have the fish verified and released back into the river. The brownie did not survive, however, and because of that experience he visited the local motels and river parking lots each day to hand out Trophy Survival Kits.
This is a tip for anyone and an easy to prepare kit. The local fly fishing club that this record holder was a member of started a project to encourage catch-and-release of trophy trout from the Little Red River. The pocket size kit, no bigger than a business card holder, contained a little golfer’s pencil, a folding tape measure similar to what a tailor would use, and a card to fill in the information about the fish; length, girth, species, location. On the back of the card was an address and phone number for a local shop where the angler would send the card and pictures of the fish. The club would pay the difference between a skin mount and a fiberglass replica for catch-and-release trophies from the river.
Last I heard, Fritz now manages the White River Fly Shop at the Bass Pro Outdoor World in Branson, MO. If you happen to stop there, please tell Fritz “Hi” for me, and also “Thank You!” I’ll never forget that trip.
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