Coming back solo, and what counts as a good day
Okay. This is the last lesson in the last module, which means it's the one where I stop being in the boat with you, so to speak, and send you off to go do this on your own.
I've been thinking about how to end it, and I keep coming back to the same thing. The whole class has been building toward one afternoon where you drive up the canyon by yourself, or down to the Provo, park the car, string up a rod with nobody standing next to you telling you what to fix, and just go fish. That's the actual finish line. Not a certificate, not a fish count. You, alone, capable of starting and finishing a session without me.
So let's talk about how that day should go, and then let's talk about what "good" even means once I'm not there to say it.
Before you go, a short checklist
Do this the night before, not the morning of, because mornings are rushed and you'll forget something.
- Rod, reel, leader, tippet, flies, nippers, forceps, floatant. Lay it all out on the kitchen table and touch each thing. I still do this. It takes four minutes and saves you a wasted drive.
- Check your leader for wind knots from last time. If you see one, cut it out now, at home, with good light, not streamside with cold hands.
- Pinch your barbs down again if you added new flies. Every fly, every time. No exceptions from me here, I've said it all class and I'm not stopping now.
- Tell somebody where you're going. Not because fly fishing is dangerous exactly, but because you'll be alone and near moving water and it costs you nothing to say "I'll be at the boat ramp stretch till two."
Once you're there
Give yourself permission to just stand and read the water for five minutes before you cast anything. This is the opinion I've hammered all class and I'll say it one more time because it matters most when you're solo and nobody's coaching you: reading water beats fancy gear every single time. A guy with a cheap rod who knows where the fish are sitting will out-fish a guy with an expensive setup casting into dead water. You know how to spot a seam now. Use it before you use your arm.
Tie your knot. Test it with a good hard tug. Fish it for a while. If it's not working, don't panic and start changing three things at once, that's how you end up more confused than when you started. Change one thing. Give it ten more casts. Then change the next thing if you need to.
And talk to yourself if you want. Hum if you want. I hum through everything, my wife Tricia will confirm this is not a new habit for me and it hasn't scared off the fish yet. The idea that you have to be silent and reverent out there to catch anything is, in my opinion, mostly people psyching themselves out. Laugh at your own bad cast. Nobody's grading you.
The knot thing, one more time
I want to tell you about my friend Pamela, because this is the last lesson and it's still bugging me a little, in a good way.
I taught her the clinch knot back when we did this in the module on rigging, and she got it clean on maybe her third try. Cleaner than I did, if I'm honest, and it took me a long time to get honest about that. I told her so right there on the bank, and then I noticed I was a little competitive about it for about a week afterward, which is a silly thing for a grown man to feel about a knot, but there it is. I'm telling you this so you know: the knot really is the thing. Pamela didn't out-fish me that day because of her cast. She out-fished me because her knot held and mine, on one particular fish, did not. Learn it cold. Practice it at your kitchen table with your eyes half closed until your hands do it without you thinking. That's not me being dramatic, that's just where the fish actually get lost.
So what counts as a good day
Here's the thing. I want to lower the bar for you on purpose, because I think a lot of people quit this hobby in the first year by setting the bar too high.
A good day is one where you rigged up by yourself and it worked. A good day is one where you read a seam correctly even if nothing bit. A good day is standing in the river for twenty minutes doing absolutely nothing but watching the light hit the water, because I've done that myself, up the canyon, just stopped fishing and watched, and it was one of the better mornings I've had out there. That counts. Write that down somewhere if you need to. You do not need a fish to have earned the day.
A last few cautions, stated plainly, because I won't be there to catch you
Cold water and slick rocks don't care how many lessons you've taken. Wet-wade in old shoes if you're not ready for waders, that's genuinely fine, I'd rather you fish from the bank safely than go in over your head, literally, because you felt like you should. Watch your footing more than you watch your fly. And if you're alone, err toward familiar, easy stretches for a while before you go explore something new and remote.
Before next time
There isn't a next time, this is the last lesson, so instead: go. Pick a morning this week, tell someone where you'll be, and go stand in some water by yourself. That's the whole assignment, and it's the only one that's mattered the entire class.