WRITING ON THE FLY
By GEORGE LISET
I arrived at my local fly shop as they opened to pick up my new fishing license before Christmas. In the past few years I have tried to get on the river on New Years Day.
Not that I think I might catch anything, but just for the fact that the river is a great place to start off the New Year.
The clerk informed me that I was in luck. New license sales began this morning and I was the first one to get their license. I couldn’t have been more excited if I had been in line to get Taylor Swift tickets. Fortunately, I can afford a new fishing license, I’d have had to sell a bunch of fly rods to afford Taylor Swift tickets.
You occasionally hear people complaining about the price of a New Hampshire fishing license. A resident fishing license is forty-five dollars, which breaks down to twelve cents a day. I spend more on coffee a day. I know there is a relativity to things, for instance, Disney is two hundred dollars a day, to rent a golf cart is fifty dollars a day and a good bottle of wine is fifty to one hundred dollars a bottle. So twelve cents to spend all day on a river with a fly rod in your hand seems like a deal.
Each new year brings with it a wealth of possibilities. This is the year I’m not going to stink up the river. This is the year I’m going to catch the big ones. This is the year I’m going to out-fish my son. This is the year that I will remember all the information I read in the books and magazines all winter and will be able to read the water and conditions and throw out the right fly. That I will remember the lessons I learned last year. Hope springs eternal.
I learned last year that I need to use a new tippet every year. Being a thrifty New Englander, I won’t throw anything away. I had some old tippets that I had gotten a good deal on a few years back. This last year, however, I lost some nice fish because my tippet broke. Not so much from a rock or submerged branch, but just because. I know the experts say that unused tippet should last a few years, but they didn’t lose that big Landlocked Salmon.
Checking your knots is a lesson I seem to forget, especially when the fish are biting. Having a nice fish on the line only to lose it because I wasn’t patient and wanted to get my fly on the water. There is nothing that says “Rookie” more than seeing a pig tail on the end of your tippet.
Another lesson that some fishers forget is fly and technique. I’ll be on the river and another fly fisher will ask me if I am having any luck. If I reply in the affirmative, they will ask what I am using for a fly. I’ll tell them and they’ll thank me and move on. Hardly anyone asks how you are fishing the fly. Are you using a fast retrieve, slow retrieve or just swinging it? Does your fly have a beadhead? Do you have a floating line or a sink tip line? I understand that some fly fishers are not as forthcoming. As a former educator and advocate for the sport, I tend to be unusually loquacious.
I am anxious to get on the water, as I am a bit slowed with a surgically repaired knee, I have a great group of Physical Therapists that probably can’t wait to get me back on the water as well, because you can only hear the same old fishing stories so many times.
George Liset of Dover is an award-winning outdoor writer and avid fly fisherman who shares insights of his time on the water exploring New Hampshire streams and rivers as well of those around New England. George is a graduate of Wheaton College, Illinois, and the University of New Hampshire. His column Writing on the Fly has been honored by the New England Press Association and the New Hampshire Press Association.