Why I'm Here

I have a very appropriate schedule for a fisherman. I work nights at the Lake Quinault lodge, starting at 10, getting off at 6. On a day free of other entanglements I will wake up around 6 pm, go fishing, go to work, and then fish again after work until 9 or so.

Thursday mornings are my favorite, I typically force myself to stay up all night in order to adjust my sleep schedule, and I usually end up at the water just as the sun was coming up. Today went exactly as planned. I tied flies and dyed feathers until four O’clock, then I loaded up the pick-up and headed out. I drove north on 101, it was cool and foggy, though I knew this afternoon would be blisteringly hot. I stop at the Amanda Park Trading Post to fuel up. I gazed north as the gas was pumping. Quinault or Humptulips? Such decisions seem tough but the fact that there are so many rivers to choose from around here I one of my favorite things about the west peninsula.

I turned back onto the highway still undecided. I slowed down in front of the Fish Hatchery road. I though for a moment, the glacier is often tough when the weather is hot like it has been. Humptulips, I decided and continued north.

I pulled up the big sweeping hill between Amanda Park and Nielton. It has been sunny for a while now, the North Fork could be clear. I took a left on south shore road. I headed up the valley, stopping at the lodge for a bottle of water and some jerky. Just after I pulled into the Park I caught a flash of tan color in the corner of my eye, I slowed and spotted an elk herd, bunked down and skittish as they often are this close to the park boundary. I was encouraged to see a dozen calves with the herd. Elk are such an emblem around here, they where in fact the original motivation for the Olympic National Park. I silently thanked them for the protected waters I was about to fish and I head up the road again.

It was just getting light when I crossed the Upper Quinault Bridge. A heavy canopy of fog covered the river. I read once, I think from something of Doug Rose’s, that the rainforest valleys get as much precipitation in Fog drip every summer as Sequim gets total in two years. Indeed, I had my wipers on despite no rain falling, and it sounded like a regular squall in the trees. I headed up

North Fork Road

, winding and cutting through canyons and huge patches of blow down. I like to imagine that this road is emblematic of how the entire valley once was, with massive scraggly Sitka Spruce towering above cedar groves and alder flats, huge open understory filled with prehistoric sized ferns and blow down patches thick with salal and berry briars.

I passed the Irely Lake Trailhead and for a moment considered detouring to the lake. Backcountry hiking alone is not my style however, and my hiking boots were in my closet at home. I pulled into the North Fork Campground shortly after and parked in the farthest spot. I pulled on my waders and stung my 5 wt before heading down the trail off the backside of the camp site. The trail meandered pleasantly through and alder grove an my thoughts where drawn elsewhere.

I thought of the fly currently tied to the end of my leader. It was a Black Diamond, a little black grease lining fly named after a town on the Green River. “Where Grease Lining, a little black bug is required, especially during summer and fall.” The quote from the late Harry Lemire rang in my head. I found the recipe for Harry’s fly in Trey Comb’s Steelhead Fly Fishing. I planned to grease line this fly in the clear tailouts and glassy boulder pocket’s characteristic of the north fork.

You can imagine my disappointment then, when I came out on a high back on the wrong side of the river to find it running the color of key lime pie. I beat the brush up the bank to find a nearside gravel bar and a more promising run. The high water obscured the runs however, and it was obvious that a waking fly was the more appropriate choice here. I grease lined a little boulder pocket at the head of the run, then begrudgingly tied on a muddler minnow. I did my best waking the fly through the run, but my 5wt rod, while great at delicately drifting a subsurface fly through tight clear water, just doesn’t have the oomph to throw a size 4 wad of deer hair 80 feet. I was soon changed my efforts to identifying good holding water and noting in my journal, and I cursed the low life that stole my 7wt out loud.

After a while my eyes wandered from the river to the tree line. I am constantly in awe of the awesomeness of our glacial rivers, they grow the largest trees in the world, and 10 miles from their source they still have the width and ferocity to warrant a spey rod. Whoever coined the phrase “everything is bigger in Alaska” never fished these rivers.

Before I knew what I was doing I was on the trail back to the parking lot. I pulled back onto the road, my plan to fish the mouth of big creek for an hour or so, and headed back down the winding gravel road. I was detoured at bunch field by a deer, flaming russet in her summer coat, with her wobbly legged fawn in tow. I watched them for several minutes before heading back down the valley. As I sung into big creek turnaround I noticed a flock of geese with several goslings in tow. I didn’t want to bother them, so I called it a day after several minutes of watching them. Geese are very humorous animals, and one reckless gosling was reprimanded several times for venturing too close to the shore where the pick up was parked. It reminded me of my own childhood.

This was, from a fishing standpoint, a wildly unsuccessful day full of indecision and disappointment, but it is one of the better times I’ve had recently. I told this long story about how I set out to catch a fish but hardly fished at all because I have been struck at the overall attitude in the fishing community these days. I believe Doug has termed it “The White Hunter” attitude. It’s these men who approach fishing as a different kind of sport than you and I, where style and tradition and companionship score you no points. Where it’s strictly you against the fish and the only goal is to bring this fish to hand.

For one thing, if you are a fly fisherman with this mentality you mare directly at odds with yourself. Fly fishing is an inherently inefficient way to catch a fish. I can understand if you fish for the meat. I guided bait anglers in what I believe was a sustainable fishery for Chinook and Coho in southeast Alaska. It’s these men who go from place to place and count them as notches in their belt that have me all fired up.

I feel sorry for those guys though. They are so busy buzzing from river to river that they miss they dazzling view of Quinault River in July, only because it’s summer steelhead are few and far between. They fly past the elk and deer and geese and never see the fascinating social constructs of these creatures.

I think I’m going to stop referring to myself as a fisherman. For thing I am pretty sorry when it comes to actually catching fish. I take more pride in my tributes to fly fishing legacy, my connection with the places and fish than the count on my punch card. I expect to catch a handful of summer runs every year, and maybe a winter run every three trips. I think if more people grabbed hold of that mentality there would be a lot more fish to go a round, but to quote John Mayer, everyone believes in how they think it ‘oughta be. I am just an outdoor enthusiast raised to believe fishing is the best form of the field. I’ll continue to swing flies even when something better than right angle nymphing comes out, and when the hatchery fish flood into the Quillayute system, when steven’s creek gives the call for summer runs, when the chambers creek clones return to the Chehalis, you’ll find me on the Upper Quinault, on the Queets above Salmon River, soon the West Fork of the Humptulips.

Hopefully I’ll be in a better mood about things then.