with both feet in

Still no waders, but wading didn’t make a huge difference. I did, however, take a big step toward becoming a Washingtonian, or at least fishing like one. When we arrived at the Nooksack last Sunday afternoon, I gazed longingly at what was sure to be the sweetest spot on the whole river. It was just beyond a gravel bar, and the water pooled between two log jams, creating a lovely confluence of fast current and deeper, slower water on top of a rocky shelf. If I were a fish, I’d hang out here: plenty of gentle water in which to rest, a line of faster current dropping off food, a deep shelf under which to hide. I’d had my eye on this spot, in large part because it was just out of reach. But on this afternoon, the river level had dropped enough to make the wade only ankle-deep. So I did it. Barefoot, the better to save my feet some time in wet boots.

The highest compliment paid in the fly fishing world is to say that someone thinks like a fish; knowing one's prey is, after all, the hunter's goal. At this point, I think I have more in common with the insects. Brought into sudden and bracing contact with a world full of strange practices and stranger terminology, I’m often lost. That afternoon, though, was the first time that casting felt, well, somehow right. More often than not, I’m apt to tangle my line around my feet or my rod, but when the movement of my arm came into rhythm with the flexing of the rod, fishing became fun. As is repeated over and over to every beginning fly fisher, “casting isn’t fishing!” (Kendall’s personal variation on this theme is, “None of that River-Runs-though-It crap!”) Like most dour, fun-spoiling axioms, this one is true, but I understand why casting is so captivating. For the layperson, it is the most visible difference between spin fishing and fly fishing, the practice that, until one knows better, defines the sport. It is also hard, so when I felt my line at last sail cleanly out of the end of my rod and watched it arc over the water, it was exhilarating. Excited, I overdid it on my next cast and promptly turned the end of my line into a tangled mass of fly, leader, and tippet. Luckily, untangling knots happens to be the one thing in fly fishing at which I am very, very good. Although I have yet to catch anything larger than a salmon smolt, I felt momentarily like a fly fisherwoman. It only lasted for a few casts, but it was enough for now.