A Belated Birthday Gift

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 Fly-fishing is the most therapeutic hobby in the world. Whether just standing in the middle of a river in awe of the beautiful scenery surrounding you, or in the midst of a fight with a trout, fly-fishing is soothing. It’s an escape from traffic, pollution, school, work or anything that could possibly stress you out. On the river nothing else matters, it’s just you, the fly and the fish. The only problems running through your mind are problems with yourself like “Why can’t I pick the right fly?”; or “How am I going to get a good drift past that back eddy?” Everything else is pushed aside, and left to worry about another time. Unfortunately, I didn’t remember a word of this as I prepared to float The Box Canyon section of the Henry’s Fork for my 21st birthday.

A relaxing day on the river sounded like an impossibility with all the huge fish waiting to eat my fly. No, today wasn’t about taking in the scenery and enjoying the boat ride; rather it was a day on which I envisioned landing a 21-inch fish in commemoration of my birthday.

When I hear people talk about landing a 21-inch fish I’m always amazed. Not that I haven’t seen a fish that big—I have—but I hear it with such regularity now that I become trout-conscious about my fish. I’m forced to wonder if the 18-inch trout I was catching were sick, or hadn’t been feeding properly. And it was this type of trout-consciousness that had me salivating about landing a fish better than 20-inches.

Fishing the Madison river I always know I have the opportunity to hook a big fish, but without a boat I often times realize that even if I do hook a fish of a lifetime, the odds of me landing it are very slim. So when my buddy Curtis offered to float me down the Box for my 21st, I quickly obliged, especially since the river owed me.

I wouldn’t usually ever say a river owed me anything, but when it comes to this section of the Henry’s Fork, it is true. I recall floating down The Box five times, and I only remember landing one fish in those five floats. The one fish I recall was from a trip down about 10 days ago, but after catching the fish and preparing for a picture I realized that my battery pack was conveniently plugged into an outlet at Curtis’s cabin. Catching that beautiful fish without a camera left me aching for more, so as I prepared for my birthday float I made sure I put my camera, and battery, in the boat right away. I was ready to kill em’; it was my birthday and the river owed me; nothing could go wrong.

Only nobody told the river that it owed me anything, or that since it was my birthday I was supposed to catch a 20-inch fish. In fact, the river didn’t even know I was supposed to catch one fish. I got skunked, caught a grand total of zero trout. It was a day in which I fished for more than eight straight hours, where I hit every run with precision, switched between every fly in my box but I still couldn’t get one measly fish. I was disappointed, discouraged, and completely deflated, and that’s what my problem was.

 

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