I’ve been coming here for close on fifteen years, first to
compete in the US One Fly but more recently just for fun. What makes it
worth 16 hours in a plane? Yes, the fishing is good, but you won’t catch
much more or bigger that you might on an average chalkstream day. The
techniques are a bit more fluid – upstream, downstream, across stream or
whatever as your drift boat covers maybe as much as 20 miles of river in a
day. Most people like foam, huge buoyant flies that imitate grasshoppers
and their like or ugly, luminescent streamers that would work well on any a
British reservoir. But equally a size twenty Parachute Adams will do the
business as you beach your boat to prospect nervous water, back eddies and
side channels.
But most of all it is the big sky that draws me here. The
immensity of the landscape in which you fish. A geology carved millions of
years ago. Elk, moose, bears and bald eagles as your regular companions.
And the fact that how totally dialled into fly fishing everyone here is,
whether they fish or not. New Zealand is the only other place in the world
I have ever found this. Even in my adopted home of Stockbridge, arguably
the world capital of fly fishing, we fluff chuckers still arouse a certain
curiosity as we go about our business.
The guides here tend to be very much younger than a British
counterpart; the vast majority are in the 25-45 range, fishing guides in
the summer and skiing guides in the winter. Neither of these are
professions kind on the body; rowing is hard, and the days are long. I
asked one guide what he was doing that evening. “What I do every night May
to September,” he replied, “eat something and sleep.” Really, I questioned,
imagining beer nights in the Victor Keg House as closer to the truth. “Oh,”
he conceded, “sometimes I tie a few flies.”
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