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.
