The first time I stuck my arm under a submerged boulder was a maneuver of fiscal efficiency. You see, as a teenager every fly mattered. Two dollars here and there added up quickly on a budget of what was essentially zero. Hooking a fly in a tree meant climbing up the trunk and leaning out onto a branch in waders. Dropping a fly into the streamside vegetation entailed slowly canvassing every square inch in a three-foot radius. Flies had the remote potential to catch fish. They had the actual dollar value of one quarter of a mown lawn or fifteen minutes of babysitting a neighbor kid.

Thus, losing a fish was a one-two, jab-hook of disappointments. Fish: gone. Fly: gone. You lose and you lose. It is a normal part of fishing.

But that time I wasn’t having any of it. That fish had my fly. He stole from me. I fully accepted the fact that I was trying to trick the poor creature for my own entertainment. Thievery, however, is not the proper response to deception. I was bothered by the snapped tippet. I fumed at the missing nymph.

Tippet, of course, was equally valuable. Knotless tapered leaders ran about six bucks a piece. Spools of tippet were around four dollars each. And one needed four or five of them. Monofilament added up quick. Every inch had a cost. Knots were tied with the greatest economy my fingers could muster. Tangles and twists and snarls got my full attention and the utmost care to rectify. It might take twenty minutes (of lost fishing) to unwind a bird’s nest of a poorly cast multi-fly rig, but the moment it all hung free was a victory rivalling a moderate-sized trout.

Seven inches of snapped tippet were unredeemable, however. The fly, though. That fly, I just knew it, was hooked securely in the corner of that fish’s jaw. And that fish was right under that boulder. If I could just get to the fish I could get the fly. All would be made right. My fly box would be whole again.

I had watched people noodle catfish on TV. They’d hop out of their johnboat in their cutoffs, lay their Marlboro on the gunwale,  and dive into the muddy water. The bubbles conspicuously stopped coming to the surface. It was on television; they certainly weren’t being dismembered by a snapping turtle or fatally punctured by a beaver. Still the pause was often prolonged. Next, their head would slowly emerge from the water with an expression I can only describe as “the contractions are about six minutes apart.” With a triumphant thrust, they’d hoist  a catfish skyward. It was impressive any way you grabbed it.

So why couldn’t I do the same thing with this little trout? I saw it go under that boulder. Trout don’t have teeth or spines. The chance of there being anything up under that rock that could take a finger or gnaw into an artery were relatively low. I wasn’t smoking a Marlboro, but had I been it would have already been resting safely on the gunwale.

The positive reinforcement of the whole thing is what gets me. It was easy. The arm went in, the fingers felt the fish, the fish came out with hardly a flop. I dropped it in the net, plucked out my hare’s ear, and flipped it back into the water. For it’s part, it went right back under the boulder. So there you go.

I’ve done it since. I’d say my success rate is slightly higher than fifty percent. For the last decade or so, the perceived cost of getting wet  supersedes the dollars and cents of a lost fly. And truth be told, I haven’t considered the ethical aspect of the whole enterprise. Trout aren’t catfish… but they’re also not in some higher caste, either. Maybe this will be one of those things I’ll tell my kids about and then tag on a “but it probably wasn’t the best idea.”

So my trout noodling days are likely in the rearview. And I have more flies than I’ll ever use. But old mantras die hard. If you see a grown man in waders, high up in a tree craning for a parachute Adams, you’ll know its because I live by the motto: No fly left behind.