“A lot of people want to be rich, they just don’t want to put the work in to get there. “
-forgot where I heard it

Great fishermen don’t spend a lot of time fishing stretches of water dominated by hatchery fish.  They don’t stand on the same rock, or even in the same run all day.  They’re always moving, covering as much water as possible, only slowing down when they’re into fish.  While experience gives them an idea of which flies they’ll need for the day, they don’t actually know which ones they’ll be using until they’re on the water.  And if that fly isn’t working, they don’t stick with it cause they caught a really big fish five years ago in this spot with it.  They will go through fly- after fly after fly after fly- until they find the one that does.  When fly changes don’t work, they’re adjusting leader and tippet diameter, or leader length, or the distance between their indicator and the fly, or the amount of split shot on the leader, or their drift, or anything else they have control over.  And if they don’t have control of something like the weather, they adapt to it.  Speaking of the weather…while good fishermen will try and catch the weather on the nightly news, they don’t let it determine if they’re going out or not.  If it is going to be 103°F and humid, or 6°F and windy, they still fish.

They’re constantly thinking.  While you’re admiring the beautiful sunset, they’re anticipating where the fish will hold after it gets dark, as well as which fly and what size tippet to go to. Good fishermen fish a lot.  They fish for as long as they can, whenever they can.  There is no such thing as not having time to fish.  There is only making time to fish.  And don’t go accusing them of being bachelors with no idea of the responsibilities that a family man has.  They have jobs and families too, its just that instead of sitting on the couch for an hour when they get home from work, or after dinner, they’re spending that time on the water or at the fly tying bench.

Its not that they love it more than you, its just that they work harder.

I love brook trout. Always have, always will.

I don’t know about you, but I get a bad taste in my mouth when I hear people say our eastern brook trout isn’t technically a trout.  You know the line I’m talking about as we’ve heard it spoken in conversation 100 times.

“You know, a brook trout isn’t technically a trout.  They’re a char.”

The first time I heard it, I took it as sort of a fun fact.  As my infatuation with brook trout grew, it began to irritate me.  Not quite fighting words, but on the same level as someone putting down your dog.  Don’t knock my dog, and don’t belittle my trout.

Even wikipeida was on the brook trout disparagement bandwagon.

Though commonly called a trout, the brook trout is actually a char

Last Summer, my grandma gave me a box of books that belonged to my grandfather.  They’re mostly old field guides, but one is called The Life Story of the Fish by Brian Curtis, published in 1961.  I’m not sure if Mr. Curtis is still with us or not, but the back of the book says he was formerly the Supervising Fisheries Biologist with the California State Division of Fish and Game.  First published in 1938, it brought unanimous acclaim from the nation’s critics for its clarity, its accuracy, and its sheer readability.

From the rear cover-

“Much more is known about the behavior of the fish than most of us realize.   In fact, a majority of the idle questions we have all asked ourselves at one time or another (Do fish sleep?  Can they distinguish color?  Can they hear?) have been answered by modern scientists.  Yet the answers to these and hundreds of other questions were buried in technical journals and consequently unavailable to most of us until Brian Curtis wrote this remarkable book, a comprehensive survey of practically everything worth knowing about fish.”

Being a student of the game, I dug right in and despite the book’s age, I got a lot out of it.  Which leads me back to brook trout.

“The classification of the trouts is a puzzle which I have no intention of inflicting on the reader, but a general idea of their interrelationships can be had without suffering.  The two best-known groups are the genus Salvelinus, to which belong the eastern brook trout and the Dolly Varden, and the genus Salmo, to which belong not only all the trouts of the rainbow and cutthroat series, but also the Atlantic Salmon and the brown trout.  The lake trout is isolated in the genus Cristivomer.

The distinction which anglers make between the Loch Leven and the brown trout has no support among scientists, who now look upon the former as merely a variation of the latter.  And the word “char,” current in England, is little used in the United States.  The English maintain, usually with a note of implied disparagement, that our eastern brook trout is not a trout at all but a char.  Webster’s International Dictionary tells us that a char is “any trout of the genus Salvelinus.”   According to this definition, “char” is a particular word describing one form of a group called by the more general word, “trout.”  A char is a trout although a trout is not always a char.  The brown is a trout but not a char; our eastern brook trout and our Dolly Varden are both chars and trouts.”

I hopped on the interwebs and went to Merriam-Webster, and sure enough, the definition still stands.

TAKE THAT, all you “did you know a brook trout is not a trout” spewers of misinformation!

So, the next time you’re talking about fly fishing for brook trout, and some know-it-all bastage chimes in on the brookie actually being a char and not a trout, do me a favor and speak up for the best trout of all, the brookie.

Its mousin’ season, people.   So take a little nap after work, shorten those leaders up, and kiss the sun goodbye.

But you’ve gotta pack your own food…

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I can’t believe that it is merely a coincidence that the following words all begin with the letter F

Fly

Fishing

Fun

I’ve been pretty busy lately.  It turns out that this blogging thing has helped open a few doors for me.  (No, I haven’t been invited to go fish at fancy schmancy tropical fly fishing lodges like some other fly fishing bloggers.  And while on that subject, I know they’ve taken a little heat for it.  While under most circumstances I’d be one of the first to bust their balls about it, I can’t this time as I would have happily sold my soul for bonefish. )  If any ribs need to be poked, it would have to be those of Tom Chandler, writer of the trout underground.  It turns out that while I’ve been away, he has taken his zeal for John Gierach to a whole new level.

If Tom takes his obsession admiration any further, one of the chapters in Gierach’s next book might be about the guy from Cali who he had to get a restraining order against.

See you in the police blotter…

They’re taking poppers…