North 40 Fly Shop eMagazine December 2015 | Page 40

Oct 24: Darkness
I jumped in Calvin’s truck with Sam and we tore off into
the darkness to meet a dude named Leaf. He’s a local
guide. He knows stuff. His clients for the day were late
showing up. He agreed to take us to some steelhead. We
met him at a clandestine spot and pursued him down
the road to a stealthy pull out. We fumbled around with
gear and then blazed a trail to the chosen run. While
charging through the murk, we got tangled up in a bush
and accosted by barb wire, but we made it. It was still
dark.
I ran through first with a sexy little black and blue number
tied by Keith. I got two plucks on it. Calvin followed me
down with one of his tasty Clearwater Intruders. I heard
him mumble a couple times, so I think he had a couple
licks, but neither of us received a solid grab. For the next
pass, I decided to go bigger, so I tied on a Bald Eagle. I
promptly got crushed and defeated. After the grab there
was no fly on my leader. Maybe the problem was that I’d
lost my 0X in the dark and had settled for 2X. Or maybe
it was because I tied a poor knot in the pale morning
gloom. I should have brought a headlamp. We sell lots
of them at North 40.
Leaf talked to his clients and they were leaning toward a
later start, so he was eager to take us to a new run. With
an hour left and perfect light, we rolled up to a juicy spot
that smelled like steelhead. I told Calvin to go for it and
I wandered up stream, looking for the next choke point.
I did not see anything fishy, so I wandered back down
to follow Calvin though the run. I tied on a giant bead
headed rubber legged nymph before stepping down. I
found a steelhead that liked it. It was a nice wild buck. I
love steelhead. Even though I was fishing a Scandi, Calvin
called me a dirty nympher. That’s funny because it was