McLennan Fly Fishing ~ Jim & Lynda McLennan Alberta ~ McLennan Fly Fishing

An exerpt from Water Marks

A Kid No More

by Jim McLennan
originally published in Fly Fisherman Magazine

Perhaps because she’s an only child, my daughter has been subjected to an excessive amount of urging into a lifestyle of fishing and hunting. When she was born our friends made all the usual jokes, asking when she’d get her first fly rod and what size waders she needed. The friends laughed, but I didn’t, probably because it was closer to the truth than anybody realized. Above my desk is a snapshot of a 5 month-old baby sitting on her mother’s knee. Her mother is wearing waders and a fishing hat, and is sitting in a driftboat. This was not our daughter’s first float trip; it was her first post natal float trip. McLennan Fly Fishing ~ Jim & Lynda McLennan ~ McLennan Fly Fishing

We showed Deanna how to cast with a Snoopy rod and reel in the backyard when she was about four, and shortly thereafter she began reeling in fish that Lynda or I hooked at a small pond near home. Eventually she learned to stop cranking the reel before the rod-tip poked the fish on the forehead. When she was seven or eight she entered the difficult stage when kids want to use a fly rod like their parents, but aren’t yet strong enough to cast with a fly rod. We maneuvered our way through this period by appointing her as our team’s official fish-netter and fish-releaser, which she viewed as important jobs, and which satisfied her, more or less, until she was able to handle a fly rod on her own.

She caught her first fish with a fly rod on a rainy float trip in British Columbia when she was nine years old, and I recall clearly a few years later watching her hook, land, and release a number of westslope cutthroats from a side channel on the Elk River. A couple of years after that she stalked, hooked and landed her first big Bow River rainbow on a dry fly.

Deanna was learning things through these years, but I was too. Most important for me was the realization that it would be very easy to push too hard. Though inside I hoped she’d become the next Joan Wulff, or the first female guide on the Bow River, or at least would marry a guy who fished with dry flies and hunted with pointing dogs, I sensed that I could drive my daughter away from fishing and hunting if I forced them upon her. Quite early I learned that every session of fishing should be accompanied by equal time for rock-throwing or bug-watching, and in some ways that hasn’t changed much.

Last summer, when she was 16, we went on a father-and-daughter fishing trip. For two days we hiked along a brown trout stream that flows through a friend’s land in the western Alberta foothills. Fishing was - well, fishing. There wasn’t much activity except for a brief, but stellar episode with a good-sized brown trout and some pale morning duns. It took place at a shady bend in the stream where we could see the fish in the water. The fish was holding just under the surface beside a fallen spruce tree and was taking every bug that drifted over. On the third cast Deanna’s fly dropped just behind the trout. The fish must have heard the fly land, for it made an immediate pirouette and began to home in, coming right toward us. When the fish opened its mouth to take the fly, it was about 15 feet away, and we could see right down into its white gullet. We landed, photographed, and released the fish, and giggled about the dramatic way it came to the fly.

When we got home Deanna told her mother that we’d had a great time on our trip, that our friend’s cabin on the creek was really neat, and that she really liked watching the beaver and the frog (“What beaver? What frog?” I thought). Then, not quite as an afterthought, but in obvious deference to her father, she added “and the fishing was pretty good too.”

I have a theory about obsession: that its existence can be confirmed by the frequency with which you think about something when you’re not doing it. By this definition, I’m obsessed with hunting and fishing. Deanna is not. She likes them, she is quite skilled at them, but her life doesn’t revolve around them. If she is obsessed, it is with other things, some which might come from her parents – like her love of music and words, for instance – and others, like her passion for dance, which seem to have spontaneously appeared from the air. I have learned not to be disappointed with this. I have accepted the possibility, remote as it seems, that these other things could be as fascinating and rewarding and worthwhile to other people as fishing and hunting are to me.

Through most of her youth Deanna seemed pretty content to hang out with her parents. We probably did an unusual number of activities together, of both a sporting and non-sporting nature. But late last summer when we were planning a family fishing holiday to the Missouri River in Montana, Deanna began to feel life’s pull toward other things. There was discussion about whether she would come with us or stay home and spend time with her friends. In the end we convinced her to come, and the trip was a success, but Lynda and I got the distinct sense that the next decision about her participation in such a trip would not be not be ours to make.

We have reached the point where my ability to stir a passion within my daughter for hunting and fishing (and likely for anything else) has ceased. If it isn’t in there now, it’s too late to put it in. Her future interest in and pursuit of these things are beyond my control. A friend wise in these matters once told me that all we can do is introduce our kids to fishing and shooting when they’re young, and then let them live their lives. We shouldn’t be surprised if they leave these sports behind while they’re focused on schooling, careers, and spouses. But if they were introduced to field sports early, they are likely to come back to them someday, and they might bring our grandchildren with them when they do.

This fall we arranged for Deanna to skip an afternoon of school so she could go bird hunting with me. She missed a great chance at a cock pheasant because she forgot to take the safety off, and on the way back to the car we startled a huge mule deer buck at close range. On the drive home, after I’d teased her sufficiently about missing the pheasant, she said, “There’s always interesting stuff going on out here, isn’t there?”

I think she’ll be all right.

Soft Spots

by Jim McLennan
originally published in Gray's Sporting Journal

       He went through his mental checklist, finishing with a glance at the rod rack to make sure the security bar was in place. Then he set the alarm inside the shop and went through the door to lock it from the outside. Turning the key, he saw the reflection of a Ford
Explorer pulling a drift boat into the parking lot and heading toward the fly shop. "He wants a license and three flies, no doubt," Steve thought, as he got into his pickup without looking up.

       He drove slowly through the parking lot. In his mirror he watched the guy get out of the Explorer, try the locked door, look at his watch and then climb back in and drive away. Steve felt a little guilty about avoiding him. Maybe he'd have bought a rod or an outfit.
Now he'll probably go to the competitor's first thing the next morning. But more likely he was fly fishing's version of what a friend in another segment of retail calls the "closing time goof:" "Gee, thanks for staying open for me. I don't really need anything except a fishing license, but I've never been here before and would like to look around your shop a bit
and get some information if that's ok. What color are your pmds up here? Where can I put my boat in the river? Can I camp on the islands? Do you have any free maps?

       Steve steered the pickup through the warm, summer night, joining a stream of vehicles booming through the streets with windows turned down and bass turned up. The weekend had started and everybody was ready to unwind. Steve could never understand people who looked to the heart of the city for their escape, because he'd always had something better.
Lately, though, it seemed harder to differentiate between what caused the stress and what relieved it.

       He made his way toward the east end of downtown and his mood softened as he began to anticipate seeing Derek again. He parked behind a long line of mean-looking motorcycles outside the Willy. The hotel's real name was the Prince William, but it was more bar than hotel and was now known as, or tried hard to be known as "The Willy, Home of the Blues."

       Steve went to the side door, the one that would have been marked "Ladies and Escorts" in a former life. He pulled open the door and the sounds of the bar spilled out briefly onto the thirsty streets. He paid the cover charge and squinted to find a seat in the smoke. The ceiling was low and the dirty yellow walls were chipped and stained. The owners of the motorcycles were identifiable and abundant and he made a mental note not to use the men's room. The band was into the first set, and Derek was taking a solo in a slow, rolling Robert Johnson tune. Steve saw that Derek was still playing the '68 Strat he'd bought while in university. Its sunburst finish was checked and faded, and the maple fretboard, once a clean, pale blonde, was now deeply stained from 20 years of work in the Willys of the world.

       In his youth Derek had played with a style that generally crammed as many loud notes into as few measures as possible. But what Steve heard this night was mature and spare, drawing more from B.B. King than Eddie Van Halen. In Derek's hands, tonight, the old Fender was both scalpel and salve, and Steve couldn't tell if it was pain or joy that drove it.

       Derek had called when he got to town and it surprised Steve, for they had been out of touch for many years. They'd met in second year university and discovered some common interests - first music, then outdoor stuff. They cut classes to chase ducks together on the sloughs east of town, to hunt pheasants in the irrigation country, and to fly fish the big river. They'd played in a garage band together too, and Steve remembered the way
Derek would show up at a rehearsal with a sly smile and some freshly-stolen Clapton or Jeff Beck licks to spring on the rest of the band.

       After graduating Steve continued in the "fishin' musician" mode for awhile by guiding fly fishermen on the river in the summers and playing piano in lounges in the winters. It didn't add up to much of a living, though, and it had been fifteen years now since a casual fishing friend came to him with the idea of opening a fly shop. There wasn't one in town then, and the river's reputation was growing. It was, as his friend had said, a business opportunity that shouldn't be ignored.

       Derek had more musical talent and it took him away from home and onto the road with several bands, some moderately successful, some less than that. In the late '80s it took him to San Francisco, where he more or less settled, getting some work as a session musician, occasionally playing on records, but more often working on commercial jingles and muzak. He still had to travel to make ends meet and he continued to work a circuit of clubs, arranging his dates to coincide with bird-hunting seasons, steelhead runs, and important fly hatches. Which was what brought him to town now - the trip he called the "Pale Morning Dun Tour."

       When the set was finished, Steve waved through the gray haze and beer scent til Derek saw him and started over toward his table. Steve watched him come through the crowded bar, saw him stop to accept a high-five from a biker in leather, and smiled at what had changed and what hadn't. The hair was a little gray - still pony-tailed - and the beard hadn't gotten any better in 20 years of trying. But Steve thought he noticed a weariness in Derek's walk that didn't used to be there. The thought also struck him that Derek's face seemed to
match the Stratocaster's - weathered and faded, lines gleaned honestly from decades of late nights, smoke, beer, and noise. The proceeds of the blues.

       "You haven't stopped practicing," Steve said, as they shook hands.

       "I can't afford to. How's the fishing?" Derek asked.

       "It's fine, I guess," Steve said. "How long have these guys been with you?"

       "Oh they're from here. I pick them up for this gig whenever I can. Can we fish before I leave town?"

       "Well, sure, I guess," Steve replied. After these years of teaching fly fishing schools, guiding and taking out important customers, fishing for fun was almost a foreign idea, and one Steve might not have come up with on his own. "Yeah, I'm off tomorrow. We could go out for the afternoon I guess, and I could bring you back here in time to play tomorrow night."

       Steve listened to one more set, nursing a couple of beers, and slipped out the door during the final tune. A thunderstorm had blown through while he was in the bar and with his first step outside he could taste ozone and electricity and expansive relief from the closeness of the club.

       At three o'clock the next day Steve picked Derek up and drove south out of town toward the Pearson Ranch. Steve had had river access at Pearson's for several years, but hadn't fished there since the previous fall. He parked the truck in the shade of some cottonwoods and they sat on the tailgate to string the rods. Thunderheads were churning in the west and caddisflies were beginning to dance above the grass. Derek was clearly excited and did most of the talking. Steve noticed he was still using the Fenwick graphite rod he'd bought used in the early '80s. Steve was almost embarrassed to uncase the newish Winston and Abel reel, but buying your tackle at wholesale was one of the perks of being in the
business.

       The clouds grew and the light diminished till a definite gloom owned the valley. The first drops of rain on the tailgate made Derek put his camera back in its case. The next drops were faster and closer together and made both of them dive for the cab of the truck to wait out the shower. Steve took the thermos from under the seat and poured some coffee for each of them.

       "Damn, I wanted to get a picture of one of those big rainbows. It's been too long since I've caught one. I couldn't sleep last night, knowing I'd be fishing this river today," Derek said as he slumped back in the seat. A small smudge of fog grew on the front window above the thermos cup.

       After awhile Steve said, "I've gotta tell you, your playing blew me away last night. And I don't think I'm saying that because we're friends."

       "Well, thanks," Derek said, "I'm glad my bad attitude isn't showing yet."

       "Bad attitude?"

       "I'm having a hard time staying enthusiastic."

       "About music? How can say that and still play that way?"

       "I don't know. It's just become such a - well, such a business."

       Steve was quiet for a moment, stirring his coffee and looking out through the side window that was cracked open.

       Derek began again. "Hearing good music still gives me a sensation as real as good food. And playing it is still a rush at times. But in a place like the Willy, it doesn't matter what I play. The drunk bikers think we're great, even if we stink. Most nights I feel like we're doing guest spots for the juke box. I still love the music, but if you play it for the wrong reasons long enough you can feel your soul starting to rot."

       The rain let up and Derek was first out of the cab and first into his waders. He started down the trail to the river. Steve noticed that Derek's stride was quick and light with no sign of the fatigue he'd seen the night before. They walked beneath dripping cottonwoods to the river and turned upstream. They came to a section of broken water. The current deflected slightly off the bank, creating a gentle hesitation, a small soft spot amongst the turmoil. It was a pretty good place to fish a nymph and Steve offered it to Derek.

       Derek added a strike indicator and one small shot to his leader and began working a Prince Nymph upstream into the pocket. Steve sat down to watch and noticed that, unlike his guitar playing, Derek's fishing style was pretty much like he remembered it. A couple of times he almost made suggestions, but thought better of it and didn't.

       Derek caught a 14-inch brown trout that seemed to please him. When Steve stood up afterwards and said, "Let's go find a real fish," he immediately knew he'd chosen the wrong words.

       The two of them continued up the river. It had turned into a pleasant e vening. The wind had died, the air felt scrubbed, but something was still wrong. The thundershower had driven the caddisflies back to the willows. The surface of the water was too clean. Derek caught a couple of more small fish on nymphs. Each time Derek fished, Steve sat on the bank and watched, as had become his habit lately.

        In another slower deflection upstream, Steve saw a fish rise. It was the slow, head, dorsal and tail-waving rise of a big fish in shallow water. He called Derek up and pointed out the spot. In a minute the fish did it again. Derek said "Oh boy" like a little kid and started to fumble with his leader to remove the nymph, indicator and shot.

       Steve suggested a size 18 Elk Hair, and gave one to Derek when he couldn't find one in his own box. Derek got quietly into position downstream of the fish and waited for him to rise again so he could pinpoint the fish's location. They waited several minutes, and then several more. The fish didn't rise again.

       They continued upstream and discovered that the first fish had started a trend. Several times they saw fish rise once or twice; a couple of times they made a few casts, but none of the fish were serious about it and none rose more than a couple of times.

       Later Derek caught one more small brown, this time on a dry fly, and then they ran out of time. They hiked back to the truck, taking the shortcut through the pasture. They packed up tackle and poured more coffee before heading for the city.

       "Another memorable day on the river," Steve said with sarcasm, as he started the truck.

       "Well, we've had better," Derek said, "but it beats playing music for drunks."

       They rode on in silence until they hit the south end of the city when Derek spoke again: "You know, I think I've figured out the problem."

       "What problem?" Steve asked.

       "The problem with life."

       "Oh yeah?" Steve said.

       "Yeah. The problem is you don't know when you're living in the good old days."

       "Oh yeah?" Steve said again. "Are you talking music or fishing here?"

       "Yes. Both. If we could travel back to one of those days we had 20 years ago - fishing or hunting pheasants - we'd just be wishing for the good old days our Dads told us about. And if they could go back, they'd be wishing for their Dads' good old days." He took a drink. "Then there's the duck hunters. You know, the guys that wait all fall for the 'big northern' ducks to come down from somewhere. Did you ever read that Charley Waterman story where he said that even in Alaska the duck hunters wait for the big northerns to come down? It's like the present is never good enough."

       "Are you telling me the good old days are always here? That this is them?" Steve asked.

       "I don't know. Maybe I am." They made their way through downtown, and turned onto the street where lived the Willy. "I see my fan club is here," Derek said, nodding at the line of Harleys. Steve parked and got out while Derek grabbed his tackle from the back of the truck. "Thanks for this," Derek said. "You don't know how lucky you are to live this
close to a great river. Someday I'm going to move back here. I didn't now how much I'd miss it."

       Steve said goodbye to his friend, closed the tailgate, got in the truck and headed west from downtown. He stopped at a red light and saw in his mirror the fireworks from the summer carnival light up the sky above the stadium.

(With apologies and thanks to Amos Garrett)

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