Dad’s favorite fly fishing story.

This story takes place during the time when I started getting pretty serious about fly fishing. I had been working at a fly shop. I was finding myself typically grabbing a fly rod on all fishing outings, and I was getting pretty dialed in on how to catch stocked rainbow trout in that part of the world. It’s funny to look back at it now knowing that I really thought I was getting pretty good at the time. What a sweet summer child I was.

Dad and I had decided to go fly fishing on the Norfork River. Dad was a beginner, and I hadn’t really been doing it seriously for very long at the time. As I recall it was a weekend day in early spring, and I’m nearly certain of the fact based on how cold I got on that day, and how many people were around. The game was weightless white wooly buggers with a red collar. I’m sure it wasn’t nearly the only way to do it, but it was the way that was killing them for me at the time. Extensive research was done with multiple streamer rigs, and weightless white woolies seemed to be the food of choice for our beloved stocked rainbows.  

“Well, we started out up at the dam. We rigged up some rods in the parking lot at the campground and Kalyn explained to me how we were going to fish the fly. I don’t think we were very long into fishing, and Kalyn was off trying to get into position on some rocks and fell into the river. I mean, he took a full dive off of the rocks, filled up his waders, and was going to be cold quickly. I always have a towel with me, and we got him dried off in the parking lot. He said that we had to get some dry clothes, and suggested we stop by a thrift store that was in the tiny town of Norfork right down the river. We were in luck, because not only was the thrift store open, but it was half off day. So, he got a 50-cent pair of shorts and a 50-cent t-shirt and was ready to get back at it. Now something that you have to remember is that in this part of the country on this particular river, you are going to find those guys that really spend some money on fly fishing. The Norfork is the usually wadeable little brother of the White, so we get fisherman from far and wide fishing down there. Kalyn is wearing a goofy t-shirt and shorts, and beyond that he has a pair of those Tom’s shoes on. He looks a lot closer to homeless than an Orvis catalog. This all comes into play later.”

“Well Kalyn takes us to a section of the river that is close to the thrift shop. The Handicapped access on the Norfork River was packed. At first, we didn’t even know if we were going to be able to park, and Kalyn immediately said, ‘I don’t know if we are going to be able to get a spot on the water.’ As soon as I put the truck in park, he was out and looking at all of the people on the water. I mean every 60 feet or so there was a person standing in the river. He comes back to the car and says, ‘we are good to go.’ So, we rigged up and headed out to the water. There was this section right in the middle of all of the people that no one was fishing. It was a really shallow shoal, and the people were right on the edges of it up and down stream, but we had about a 200-foot section of it all to ourselves.”

“I should have known things were going to get crazy when he was pulling line off as we crossed the river, a fish picked up the fly, and he caught one before we even got started. He was laughing pulling the fish in, and said, “this is going to work.” So, we crossed the rest of the way across the river, and he said that there was going to be a little cut on the far bank that holds fish. About the time we got over there he said, ‘I see em.’ Apparently, the fish were stacked up in this little cut on the edge of the shoal, and it didn’t look like anyone else knew to look there. On his first cast he said, ‘here they come,’ and set the hook on a nice rainbow. Now if you remember, Kalyn doesn’t have a net, a bag, a vest, nothing, just a fly rod, which is why he needed to borrow my net on the first couple of fish.”

“Now Kalyn catching fish isn’t a crazy thing. When he was two years old, he had figured out a way to use a section of monofilament, a hook, a piece of shrimp, and was catching fish at the beach for me to use as bait. He’s a fishy guy. What was weird on this day was how hard everyone was looking at us. It seemed very apparent that all of these people around us had not been catching fish. He has caught his fourth or fifth fish, I haven’t caught a single one by the way, and now he is wearing my net on his head flipped backwards so he didn’t have to keep handing it back to me. It was a sight to behold. He was down low to the water sending this fly to the bank and calling out the chasers. Damn near every cast he was catching a fish. At this point people really started to get close to us. Now instead of the neat line of people that we had seen walking in, they were crunched in around us on both sides, and he just kept catching them one after another.”

“After 45 minutes of mayhem Kalyn looks over to me and says, ‘the water is coming up, you need to get out of the river.’ I look around and everyone is quickly wading over to the bank. I look back at Kalyn, and he says, ‘I’m going to fish the come up. I’ll just swim out.’ This is a dam fed water system; at any time, they could release water out of the dam and the flows can go from pleasant to wade to an absolutely powerful river. So, I wade across the river and get out to watch him. He had climbed up onto a boulder, and was casting toward that same bank, and the water was coming up rapidly. He did catch a fish, but it wasn’t long before he had to quit fishing and make his way out. He jumped off of the boulder and waded out soaking wet. He still had the net on his head, thrift store clothes soaking wet, and stopped to get gravel out of his slip-on shoes”

“This is when things got to be pretty hilarious. As I had mentioned earlier, this parking lot was full, and not just any cars were parked there. It was Land Rovers, Mercedes SUV’s, Suburbans, and every type of high-end SUV you could imagine. These guys have rod racks, high dollar rods and reels, matching waders, boots, and fishing vests, and are smoking cigars on fancy lawn chairs in the parking lot. Well here comes Kalyn, he didn’t make it very far before they started hounding him. What were you throwing? How were you fishing that? Who are you? He told them all but gave me that look. He’s always had that look. One that says, “I really showed them huh Dad?” We finally got things wrapped up and got into the truck. He said, ‘I don’t think they caught any fish today.’ I said, no son, based on how they reacted, I don’t think they caught many fish at all.”

I love this story. Not because I let them know that I could do that. Hell, I was fishing way more hours a day than anyone in that parking lot, but it speaks to the fact that you don’t need to be a fancy boy to catch fish. All that really matters is that you learn to cast, you learn the water, the fish, and how to give them what they want.