“One more cast.”
Of all the softly spoken magic spells in fly fishing, this one might be the most frequent incantation. Part desperation, part closure; the idea of a final presentation has a certain hopeful romance to it. The fish can’t tell that you’re about to call it a day. But the thought behind the last cast does instill a level of serious focus on the angler. The right fly. The well-executed cast. The intricately mended drift.
It is worth mentioning that the initial last cast may be followed by a half-dozen or so subsequent last casts.
At the very least, the ritual of the last cast ought to be invoked. You say it because you have to say it. There will be a last cast. That is undeniable. But the true last cast rarely pays off.
Rarely, of course, does not mean never.
(Be sure to read the first part of this story here.)
After giving up on the hard-to-cast minnow earlier in the day, I retied it on for my final attempt to catch a trout on the Letort. The spot that I had to pass on my way to the parking lot was a hole in which I had never caught a fish. Never. In all the years of fishing the spring creek multiple times a week. In the diligent process of probing each and every hole, irrespective of how likely it looked, I had never caught a fish in this hole. To the best of my recollection, I had never even moved a fish in this particular hole.
I cast the white minnow twenty feet or so upstream into a little channel between the weeds. The usually gin clear water had a slight milkiness to it from the sudden rainfall. A quick mend was needed to keep the line off the vegetation which protruded from the surface of the water. That specific mend was easy with the short rod. As I was stripping in the slack created by the mend, a flash darted out from under the undulating weed bed and snatched my fly.
The fight was quick. Setting the hook brought the rod perpendicular to the stream. The tight angle from the tip of the 6-foot rod to the water kept the fish from burrowing into the safety of the aquatic greenery. A dip of the net and a foot-long brown trout was in hand.
“That’s a pretty fish.” I looked up to see a young woman standing on the trail behind me. “What kind is it?”
“A brown trout… and thanks,” I replied. She wished me a good day and continued her walk. Nearly twenty years prior, within a few yards of the spot I knelt in the creek, I first ran into Ed Shenk. He passed by with a smile and a “good luck.” I responded with a cursory “you too” before I put things together in my head and realized who I had just bumped into.
It was just right. It was serendipitous. I was looking for a bow, and the Lord tied it up tight with that one little trout. I had used a fly rod that I had waited decades for on a creek I had devoted years to in a place that held significance. By no means was the moment life changing. But it sure was good. The long drive, the time with Frank, the frustrating morning on the water all coalesced with that one fish. It made me happy.
Simply put, that is what makes fly fishing special. It is the fish plus. The plus is the significance of last casts and long drives. The plus is the added benefit of nostalgia and long conversations. The plus is serendipity represented by a little rod on a little creek used to catch a little trout.