First Fish

I believe that every angler has three stories that are integral to their existence as fisherman. The big fish story, the infamous “one that got away”, and of course, the first fish. The genesis of the hobby, pastime, or obsession that grips with ever tightening fingers around ones heart. Often glorious, and always sentimental, these are my favorite fish stories.



I think part of what draws me to these stories is the fact that I can’t remember my own. I know that it was a Kenai King Salmon that weighed 48 pounds. I know my dad had to hold me in the boat while I cranked the reel, and I know that I talked my dad’s ear off about it for the remainder of the day. While this is obviously a grandiose and magical premise, the whole affair is tragically marred by the fact that I was not yet 4 years of age and can’t remember a thing about it.

While I deeply regret the loss of my first fish story, I think that is what originally drew me to fly fishing. My entry into the highest form of the angling sport didn’t come at the hands of a friend, or a guide, or a book. It came one evening in Sitka Alaska. I was organizing the garage that belonged to the charter company I worked for when I found a rod tube. It was a fly rod. I knew about flyfishing, but this was only the second or third fly rod I had seen. When I asked the boss about it I was told that it was his seldom used rod that was bought on a whim, and that I was welcome to explore with it as long as I was in Sitka.

That was the start of a journey. The rest of the summer, every single moment I wasn’t working I had that six weight strung up on some creek or lake or estuary in the Sitka area. When I look back on that summer one thing sticks out. I didn’t have a freaking clue what I was doing. I was like a preteen boy on his first naked excursion with the opposite sex. Only I didn’t have boyhood friends to wonder and debate about flyfishing, so my strategy was to poke around and hope something took my fly.

I had two months of utterly fishless days. I had no idea how to flyfish, I picked up how to cast from a TV show. Kind of. Lets just say that 90 foot loops where not my strong point. I didn’t know what I was doing as far as presentation goes. I didn’t even know how to swing. Had it not been for an intervention from a charter client, I would have went home without a fish on a fly.

Luckily for me, a man named Roger showed me some kindness. He was from Seattle, and was an experienced flyfisherman. He took me to the estuary of Starrigaven Creek, and showed me the wet fly swing. I hooked a fat three pound pink salmon at dusk. It was to dark for pictures but the image of the silvery fish that I had once considered the retard in the corner of the salmon family. It was ironic, it was belated, it was mediocre, and it was beautiful, it was the start of an obsession that grabbed me that day and has refused to let go.

It was my first fish.