Testing an old adage

In life, there are good days and bad days. Wednesday was a bad one and I should have seen it coming. I

wanted to check one last time for the salmon run in the western U.P. tributaries. A fisheries biologist had emailed Monday to tell me that the run was over, but I just didn’t believe him. Besides, even if he was right, I had the feeling that heavy rain on Monday might push more fish into the rivers.

The trip to the river was filled with Sunday drivers who apparently had mistaken Wednesday for that day. To make matters worse, I was followed by an officer for 60 miles of the trip, meaning I couldn’t pass without risking a ticket whose cost might surpass the price of my last fly rod.

I finally got to the river and headed straight for the falls that blocks any upstream migration of fish. The river I was on is essentially a steep canyon from its mouth to the falls and navigating the sometimes rocky, sometimes clay-covered, always root-filled cliffs was difficult at best and deadly at worst. One slip meant a fall to rocks 30 feet below or a raging river now flowing at 500 cubic feet per second higher than it had been two days earlier.

There were two anglers holding fly rods at the falls’ base and I skidded my way down to see them. The spawn-sack-soaking pair was quick to provide what I wanted to hear … the run had started late last week and was definitely on. One of the gentlemen reported catching three kype-jawed brown trout and one silvery coho. He also shared that he had seen several porpoising Chinooks and I was starting to feel that all my scouting would finally pay off. I wished the pair luck and headed downstream to find a spot to fish.

The first spot I chose, a large back eddy, was an obvious location to fish as it had the remnants of a warming fire, a broken spinner and an empty Rapala box strewn about. My indicator bounced in the current the first two casts and, on the third one, it disappeared. I set the hook hard and in a split second turned my favorite nine-foot, eight weight into an eight-foot six inch model. The rod was no match for the bedrock which had taken my fly.

I recovered the top half of the rod thanks to the indicator still on the line – the flies remain attached to Mother Earth – and walked back to my truck to get a new rod. As I rigged my back-up, I realized that my wife had been wrong every time I came home with a new fly rod. You truly can never have enough rods.

Back on the river, I looked for a new spot and I chose poorly. Again I should have seen it coming. The path to the Spartan shore had everything required to create a disaster ... jagged rocks, wet clay and slippery tree roots. I remember thinking, “I know I can get down there, but I hope I can get out.” Sure enough the trip down went off without a hitch and soon I was nymphing and casting flies into a narrow stretch of water that just had to hold fish. (If it did, the fish weren’t at all cooperative or appreciative of my efforts. I never had a grab.) After losing a few flies to the rocks, I re-rigged and started to climb out. About half-way up the 30-foot slope, my  foot slipped and I tumbled back down to the water’s edge stopping, miraculously inches shy of the raging torrent. My rod had not broken but my right ring finger was already swelling and turning that deep purple color indicative of a broken bone.

I fished another hour, soaking my finger every few minutes in the ice-cold water, before climbing back out of the gorge and calling it a day. A few cold beers, a cheap cigar and a hot sauna on the shores of Lake Superior helped me forget the day but left me wondering if that old adage, “a bad day of fishing is better than a good day at work,” is actually true. On Wednesday, it sure wasn’t.