A FIGMENT OF THE RIVER

For just over a year, now, I’ve been fishing for a figment. A figment of rivers large and mysterious. A dragon, in aquatic form, full of sharp teeth and angst. A figment feet long but easily hidden and sparingly seen; vicious, but only occasional moved to feed. 

Photo by Matt Reilly.

    In a year’s time I’ve only managed to be on the river searching for this figment a week of days. Another half dozen I’ve spent rowing others down the river, hoping they too will assign reality to the figment, and keep me company in desperation. But in a year’s time I’ve tied a few dozen flies, read a mountain of articles and scientific papers, and talked to anyone that would listen—including you, reader, who may have read my fanatical, poorly organized words about the almighty musky, the object of my obsession.

    Most of the non-angling folk are unaware of the musky’s existence so close to their safe, warm beds. 

    “That lives in the river?” they gasp, incredulously. 

    Indeed they do. I’ve seen a few dozen, but it occurs to me that if it weren’t for the historical success of anglers like me and the hands of scientists physically on the flanks of the creature, I’d have little reason to believe my sanity not drowned in the river. An appropriately shaped log, or even a shadow of the right dimension, after all, when paired with the rippling surface of the river, can fabricate a lot of things.

    But I’ve written all that off, for this figment has been realized. 

    My story is not an uncommon one. Nicknamed the fish of 10,000 casts, the musky often demands days, sometimes weeks, occasionally more than a month (in one friend’s case) on the water in order to grace an angler with its presence. They are a fish of low odds and probability. The more time spent on the water, the more likely a fish in the boat becomes, and the more tools you earn to put the odds ever more in your favor. 

    My seventh day came on a cold, blustering, mid-December day, fishing alone on one of my home waters. The mid-morning sun pushed the mercury over the freezing mark, and the wind beat it back down, shoving my raft around the river and my casts out of form in the air. The water was exceptionally clear and the sun was shining bright. I was swimming a few new flies, hoping they’d push my odds into the black. As both captain and angler, I worked slowly down the river, analyzing cover to anchor in strategic positions, and then trading oars for a fly rod in the bow. 

    The wind roared through the height of the day. Early afternoon brought a slight respite. I worked through it, stoically searching for the figment of the river.

    Cast. Strip. Pause. Strip. Pause. Repeat. 

    My eyes drifted to my watch as the sun began its decent into the mountains, and the musky sunk deeper into the river, retreating again from reality. And when the light faded to the harsh pre-dusk hue that makes the river’s surface a mirror and turns the fishing into a mindless salute to the expiring day, the world turned upside down. 

    Halfway through my retrieve I stripped my fly into something solid. But this time the flexed butt of the rod told the story not of a rock or log, but of a living thing. 

    A well-matched tussle ensued. A tug-of-war between man and beast unseen. I made my way frantically to the middle of the boat, as my net, massive in circumference, was stored in the back. My rod very literally doubled in my rod hand, I used my left hand to extend the net. After a handful of tense minutes, leverage trumped raw power, and the figment broke the surface tension and succumbed to the net bag. 

    I celebrated briefly, still in shock. Then, a working man with a job to finish, I dropped back into the rower’s seat, secured the net handle so that the fish was safely and securely in the water, pulled the anchor, and rowed to shore to tape and admire the fish. 

    The tape measured 40 inches of musky, on the dot, and I thanked my lucky stars as I beheld them and preserved them in film for perpetuity.

    Despite the hours of dedicated work invested in the fish in hand, the moment was fleeting. I lowered it back to the water and saw it off. Lazily, it slid below the mirrors surface and waved a languid goodbye, and the finned memorial to my sanity returned to the river.□

*Originally published in The Rural Virginian

MUSKY FISHING

The air was cold as we stood by the put-in on the upper James River at sunrise, rafts unloaded and tied off. Ten-weight fly rods rigged with sinking lines; leaders of 80-pound fluorocarbon; and foot-long, triple-articulated bucktail flies were strung and loaded, along with fly boxes, dry bags, and a net as wide as the boat. Smiles and adrenaline-induced trembles were all around.

Photo by Matt Reilly

    We hadn’t seen a fish in a full day of fishing, but there was another new day ahead of us. Maybe we would see a fish. Maybe we’d have one show interest in one of our flies. Maybe we’d catch one. Maybe we wouldn’t. That’s musky fishing.

    What’s not to love about a fish with the potential to reach lengths of over 50 inches; that sports a shovel maw of razor sharp teeth; and that chases down and eats full-grown sunfish, chubs, and suckers, best imitated by massive streamers?

    Perhaps their sheer elusiveness, their fickle stomachs, and their habit of following flies to the boat without eating. For Ben Rogers, in the raft with friend and Albemarle Angler guide, Spotswood Payne, it’s been five full days of hard fishing since he’s seen a musky. Not caught but seen. Almost 50 hours of casting heavy gear in cold, winter weather without seeing anything more than empty river. But that’s musky fishing, and that’s what makes the sport so infuriatingly addicting.

    “The fish of 10,000 casts,” they call the mighty musky, and though it’s maybe a slight exaggeration, the sentiment is effective. As I row downriver through the thawing December morning, both rower and fisherman in each raft is devoted to the bank and to his fly, to teasing mystery from the darkest, deepest corners of the river, in hopes that it shows itself as a fish. Every cast, every pass on a piece of structure, every day spent on the water is another attempt at striking the low odds.

    We dropped into a long flat of slow, deep water around 10 AM. My fly struck bottom and lodged on a rock. As we rowed closer to retrieve it, the long, wavering form of a musky backed off from the rock where the fly was stuck, back into the abyss. We were on the board. To get a follow—to have a fish take interest in your fly—that’s success in the game of musky fishing.

    In the tail of the same flat, Spotswood had a follow on his fly—had the fish to the boat, but not hooked. So we backed off and rowed back upstream, and hit the same bank with both boats in succession. It’s perceived that musky sometimes need a wakeup call. The second boat in the string, more often than not, gets the fish to eat. So second passes are necessary over fish that have been seen, though nothing came of that one. Two more sightings came in the tail, as we prepared to shoot the rapids to the next hole.

    After noon, we dropped into yet another flat, this one deeper, darker, and more promising, as the streamflow on the James is less-than-ideal. Low and exceptionally clear doesn’t leave much room for mystery and sulking musky.

    David Gregory, who rode in the bow of my 14-foot raft, had hooked a 46-inch musky on his first float on that very same flat. It’s been 12 trips for him, and one year, since that fish, and he hasn’t boated another. But that’s musky fishing.

    We worked both banks through the flat diligently, twice. David yelled “musky!” as I was figure-eighting, pointing to a fish from the rower’s seat that was deep beneath my fly. Because musky are ambush predators, they can often be triggered to strike by a side-profile of prey, which they can t-bone with their shovel mouths. For this reason, we strip our flies to a few feet from the rod tip, stick it several feet under the water, and stir the river in a figure-eight pattern after every retrieve. Evidently a fish gave my fly a look as I was doing this, but I didn’t see it in time to react, and the fish moved on. A chance missed. That’s musky fishing.

    We neared the takeout as the sun was retreating and the chill of winter night was reborn. I had another musky come out from underneath the boat and take a look at my fly, but moved on without consequence.

    Eight hours of fishing with six fish sighted and four follows was counted as a success, though no fish were boated. As we rowed the final stretch to the takeout in the dim evening, there was joking and light spirits, and plans of sticking it to the fish tomorrow, hopeful that then cast number 10,000 would come. That’s musky fishing.□

*Originally published in The Rural Virginian

BIG FLIES FOR BIG FISH

It's been a slow couple of days.  After working hard at my ongoing article for Eastern Fly Fishing through the morning and afternoon, and at a relative standstill on my Fly Tyer profile article on Chuck Kraft until I get the chance to interview Mossy Creek Fly Fishing's Colby Trow, I granted myself a break to tie flies again.  It's a somewhat mindless (when you know what you're doing) endeavor and one that invests in tomorrow's fishing, and something that to me is extremely relaxing.

    Digging out my collection of ultra-suede CK tails from Eastern Trophies Fly Fishing, I took a leap at the biggest of the bunch--large Musky Worm Tails.  What resulted from the next few minutes of concentration was my best shot at emulating a CK Musky Critter Dog in firetiger and black, as William Heresniak of Eastern Trophies Fly Fishing ties them.  The Musky Critter Dog is, in itself, a synthetic fly that emulates the all-popular Bull Dawg soft plastic lure used by conventional musky fishermen.

Photo and fly by Matt Reilly

    As materials were married together, I could almost feel the fever slip in.  I've got a good idea of where I'd like to go in the next few weeks to do some nymphal dragon hunting.  If I get the chance, you will read about it here.□