Casting the first fly: Indoctrination on the Bighorn River

Careful not to slip on the mossy rocks, I stepped into the water of the Bighorn River.

“Dang. This is cold.”

My guide, Jerry Smalley, scoffed as he walked past me, his hands full of fly rods and gear.

“That water ain’t cold,” he said. “That water is pleasant. You’re just used to hot Tennessee water!”

Be that as it may, I stuck to my guns; it was cold.

The calendar read July 17, 2016, and I was in Montana to attend my first conference of the Outdoor Writers Association of America, held this year in Billings. I had arrived the prior Thursday, knowing not a single soul and with little idea of what to expect. Today was Sunday. Over that four-day period, I had made several friends among the friendly contingent of writers and editors, including Jerry, a quick-with-a-joke retired football coach and fishing columnist who lives on the outskirts of Glacier National Park in northwest Montana. During a break between sessions at the Billings Radisson, Jerry had pulled me aside in the hallway.

“How about you and me play hooky and go fishing on the Bighorn this afternoon?” he said with a conspiratorial grin. “Got everything we need in the back of the truck.”

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to accept a few universal truths about life, one of which is: When somebody invites you to go fishing instead of sitting in a hotel meeting room all afternoon, you go.

So there I was, standing in water up to my knees smack dab within one of the great trout fisheries on the planet. But I wasn’t ready to get my feet wet with a fly rod quite yet. I just wasn’t brave enough to make a complete fool out of myself in front of Jerry, who, compared to me, had practically invented fly fishing. I decided, instead, to make only a partial fool of myself by using a spinning rod first. Right here, in the fly-fishing Mecca of the United States, I started the afternoon as a crude bait-chucker.

I have no delusions of grandeur about myself as an angler. Raised on a farm in the rural North Carolina mountains, fishing usually involved driving my dad’s old Army Jeep down to a dirt road that ran alongside the New River (ironically, one of the oldest rivers in the world). Wearing ancient sneakers, t-shirts, and cut-off blue jean shorts, my brother and I would wade the New armed with the utilitarian Zebcos we purchased at the local hardware store. We used Panther Martin and Rooster Tail spinners in search of “red eye” rock bass. Success equaled four or five decent red eyes — which we normally threw back — along with copious amounts of laughter and conversation about squirrel hunting, bluegrass music, and pretty girls. If we weren’t wading the river, we dug worms to catch bluegills and, if we were lucky, largemouth bass off the pier of a farm pond. We were plain ol’ country boys who liked to pretend we were Bill Dance, but never caught anything near that good.

Fly fishermen, however, were something else. They were mysterious and intimidating, “serious” anglers who invested in top-notch equipment, wore expensive waders and vests, traveled to exotic locals to practice their craft, landing beautiful, enormous trout. There were drawings of fly fishermen on the cover of Field & Stream and for some reason, they always appeared to be from the 1950s, which made them even more intimidating. I envisioned them enjoying expensive cigars and sipping bourbon as they traded amazing fly-fishing stories with each other on the deck of some lodge in Maine or Minnesota. (I don’t know why I pictured them in some sort of club meeting; it just seemed appropriate.) I resigned myself that fly fishing itself was simply out of my league.

But now, finally, at the substantial age of 50, I was hobnobbing with a real fly fisherman.

Sure, the grown-up Mark had slightly better credentials. I’d been in the outdoor industry for more than three years as a communications director with a wildlife conservation non-profit in Tennessee. Until my wife surprised me with a fishing kayak for Christmas just this past year, I hadn’t seriously fished since I was 18 — some 32 years ago — but had been quite a bit over the summer. This, I reasoned, qualified me to brazenly go fishing with a real angler on a famous Montana river.

After a few unsuccessful casts with my spinner, I sloshed out of the river and followed Jerry down a brushy trail for a quarter mile or so. He spotted a nice little eddy with decent access, so we walked down to the stones on the river’s edge. Without being pushy, Jerry suggested I try out one of his fly rods. I gulped and agreed.

If Jerry noticed my nervousness, he didn’t acknowledge it. He simply handed me the rod and said, “Throw it upstream and let it float down. Try to keep the line from getting in front of the fly. If the line gets in front of the fly, nothing good will happen. Have fun!” With that, he turned and walked upstream.

Soon, he was doing his own thing about 25 yards away and I stood there by myself, water flowing past my legs, wondering what to do first.

Hmm, I thought to myself.  I know what this is supposed to look like. How damn hard can it be, right? I had, after all, seen the movie, “A River Runs Through It.” I’d seen people fly fish on the Outdoor Channel. I could do this. I could fly fish.

I stripped a little bit of line from the reel and looked around me to see if anyone was watching. They weren’t. So I tried a feeble cast, waving the tip back and forth. The fluorescent green line ended up draped over my head and shoulders, the tiny white fly dangling between my eyes.

Quick look around. Still nobody watching.

I quickly untangled the mess and tried again. This time, the heavier green line began shooting out from the tip of the rod and the leader end doubled back like a bullwhip. I stripped more line like I’ve seen them do. The line went further and I stripped more. Out it went. I let it go and the fly settled softly onto the water’s surface.

I did it! I found myself grinning ear to ear. Act like you’ve been here before, I reminded myself, and quickly took on a contemplative countenance as I fished. I ventured back out into the water, stepping with care through the border of slimy moss.

The fly drifted down toward a pool where trout were surfacing to nip insects. Suddenly, a wave of panic swept over me. What do I do if one bites?? I had absolutely no idea how to set the hook or land a fish with this contraption. I snapped the line back into the air again. The process of casting back and forth gave me time to formulate a plan. None came, so I decided to make it up as I went. Again, I managed to propel the little white fly onto the river’s surface at a respectable distance. It drifted down and was ignored by the trout.

This went on for some thirty minutes, and I felt that I was getting the hang of the mechanics, though nothing was accepting my offering.

I couldn’t really blame them. I pictured the trout in a little group, pointing their fins at me and snickering, “Who does this Tennessee hick think he is, trying to catch us with a fly rod like that?!”

As if sensing my trepidation, Jerry shouted words of encouragement. “Keep at it! There’s always a dumb one.”

It seemed like encouragement, anyway. A boat containing a young man and woman approached us, drifting with the current. The woman called out, “Those guys upstream said to tell you that there’s a bear on the trail behind you. Just wanted to let you know. Have a good day!”

In that moment, I forgot anything I’d learned about fly fishing. Now I had bears to contend with! There were never any bears on the New River!

I was about a dozen feet out into the water. I peered back toward the bank and could only see tall brush. The marauding bear, certainly a grizzly, could be just on the other side, ready to charge.

I hissed at Jerry, “What do we do?”

“Nothing!” he replied casually, whipping his fly exactly where he wanted it to go. “That bear has known we were here for the past hour. He doesn’t care about us. Keep fishing!”

So we did, but now I stood slightly sideways so I could use my right eye to watch the river bank and my left eye to fish, like Marty Feldman from “Young Frankenstein,” probably would have.

The trout, even the dumb ones, continued to ignore my fly. Jerry waded down to me at one point and handed me a box of flies. “Try a black one,” he advised. “They’re hitting black flies.”

“How the hell do I get it on there?”

“Just tie it with a normal fishing knot.” He sloshed back to his spot and continued to fish.

Fly fishing now offered yet another challenge: eyesight. For 20 minutes, I stood there desperately trying to guide the tiny line through the tiny loop of the tiny fly. Paint peeled, barns weathered, and children matured into adults as I stood there trying to tie that damn fly onto the line with my squinting left eye, my useless right one devoted to spotting bears.

Finally, I seemed to get it tied.

I strode back into the water with new confidence. Zing! went the line out into the river. It floated into the feeding pod of arrogant trout perfectly. I held my breath, hands clenching the rod, left eye bulging as it stared at the black dot.

It happened. A trout swelled beneath the black fly, sucking it in. In a millisecond, I pictured my face on the cover of Field & Stream, smiling at the camera with a giant brown trout in hand, fly rod tucked under my arm. “Tennessee Hick Masters Fly Rod in One Afternoon” read the headline. I jerked the rod tip and for a glorious moment, felt it quiver beneath the power of the fish.

Pop! It was over.

I reeled the line in. The fly was gone. I can only assume my knot had been faulty.

Crushed, I sloshed back to the bank, uttering obscenities and momentarily forgetting about the crushing jaws of death crouched behind the weeds. The heck with that, I thought to myself as I stared down at the box of flies Jerry had loaned me. I set the fly rod down in the brush, picked up my spinning rig, and returned to my spot in the water. I casted the white Rooster Tail — the sworn enemy of all those red eyes in the New River back in North Carolina — into the trout hole. A quick jerk of the rod tip got the blade rotating and I brought the spinner toward me near the top of the water.

BLAM! A brownie hit the lure with the force of a Ali jab and the fight was on. “Fish!” I yelled at Jerry. I was amazed at the brute fighting strength of the animal. I retrieved it to within about 10 feet when the trout exploded out of the water, shook its head, and threw the hook.

Nonplussed, I prepared to cast again. I knew I was on to something.

Right back into the same spot flew my lure. BLAM! Another brownie was on, pulling against the drag of my open-face spinning reel. I kept the tension on this guy, determined not to give him the same possibility of escape. As I landed him, Jerry approached with a huge smile.

“Got him with the spinner, eh? Good work!”

“I’d like to have gotten him with the fly rod, but who am I kidding?” I responded. “I’ll take what I can get.”

Jerry used my iPhone to take a few photos, the first of which documented the beautiful,

Sometimes, timing is everything. Jerry inadvertently caught the best pic of the trip. (Jerry Smalley)

10-inch brown squiggling out of my grasp and falling into the moss. I managed to grab him for another, more traditional picture that most likely won’t appear on the cover of Outdoor Life.

Dark storm clouds were gathering in the west with occasional lightning branching down to the prairie floor. It was time to go. Jerry and I bushwhacked back to the trail, making enough noise to alert the bear had it been hibernating or perhaps even dead. My only thought was, You don’t have to be faster than the bear; only faster than Jerry.

I kept that thought to myself and we reached the truck unscathed.

We drove back to Billings watching the distant thunderstorms, counting pronghorn antelope, and trading one war story after another. As Jerry dropped me off at the hotel, I realized that now that I’d encountered real fly-fishermen and even tried it for myself, I could dispel my long-held notion of that genre as intimidating. Whether with a fly rod, a spinning rig, or an old cane pole with a bobber and worm, fishing is fishing and people are people. Unselfish generosity, a dose of good humor, and the cold, clear water of a Montana — or North Carolina — river will break the ice every time.