by Richard Post
[back to G.Loomis Chronicles, Part 1: Factory Tour]
Five hours to Forks, Washington and the next sunrise would be mid-river. We took the coast highway, crossed and followed the mighty Columbia, met the Chehalis, passed through the coastal town of Hoquiam, crossed the Humptulips and passed Lake Quinault. Then on to historic Lake Quinault Lodge, the looming forest and a stop to stand under the world’s largest Sitka spruce, a tree with proportions more relatable to man’s architectural sense than his natural one.
We veered west from our northward course along the lake and over the Quinault River. We met the Queets and took a short detour to look at a favorite swing run from Jay’s past, sadly, one we cannot currently fish. It is a common theme across many of Washington’s steelhead rivers, the area around Forks seemingly the last sanctuary for steelhead and steelhead anglers.
The Pacific Ocean has a presence unlike any other body of water I have encountered. You can sense the immensity of the open Pacific. I grew up on the Atlantic Ocean and she has a power as well, but the Pacific conjures up a feeling that is all together hers. We hit the coastal stretch at dusk, rolled up our blue jeans and baptized our feet in the big ocean. Saltwater wherever I find it reminds me of my youth. The orange ball sizzled into the sea as the last strands of forgotten light faded.
We made it to Forks in time for the kitchen staff at Blakeslees Bar and Grill, but not by much. We unloaded gear and started rigging rods almost immediately. Talk of tips and fly selections, fish caught and lost, hearts broken and won, the seemingly useless banter that fulfills the sole of kindred spirits.
I barely slept. I know I did because I woke up, but my sleep was fitful, filled with hopes and desires for the day. I rose first and kept as quiet as my loud ass can. The crew stirred and made quick movements, readying gear. We left for the Bogachiel, headlights opening a wedge of vision in the void. Our headlamps bobbed through a forest that created darkness. Quiet. Too soft and wet for anything to crunch. The sound of boughs brushing against waders and held-back-branches thwapping to a stop. Water squished under our boots and the soft bank gave way to cobble. I could barely discern the opposite bank and rigged my rod in the red light of my headlamp. A nautical dawn; a couple of high stars pierced the purpling sky in the little halo left open by the fog and mist.
Everyone knew that I was foaming at the mouth to get a fly in there and I felt my way into the current. The opposite bank was a black rampart that split the matte grey dawn and quicksilver sheen of the water. It was too dark to see my D loop, but enough light for the eager. Step down, cast, set up and swing. Pinks and purples reached over us then retreated eastward into the first smoldering oranges of dawn and the black bank emerged from its fog curtain. We swung our flies and watched the water surface copycat the sky: step down, cast, set up and swing.
We fished the Bogy until mid-morning. Jay got a little bump check, not a grab, and not enough to say for certain what happened. We decided to make a move. Forks is aptly named. The Bogachiel, Calawah and Sol Duc all converge to form the Quillayute that carries the combined lot to the Pacific. The Hoh River is just a short drive south. We crossed the Calawah, parked the car and walked down to the Sol Duc, head high ferns and moss adorning anything that would support it. The draperies of moss set upon dead trees gave them the appearance of olive fuzzy skeletons. The light that fought through the canopy glowed out of the spaces between the greens. The Sol Duc had this verdant character too. Non glaciated water gave it a slightly tannic tone and the rocks were slick with moss. We fished and napped. Only z’s were caught, but Zirkle did hang one on the centerpin rig in the middle of the fast water. She danced away as they are apt to do.
We needed something to eat and more beer. A burger joint in Forks supplied the food. No one in the place seemed to mind a few bros in waders, but muddy wading boots were not welcomed according to the sign out front. A few Twilight groupies wandered around as we filled up on gas and Rainiers, then drove to the Hoh for last light. The two-track ended at a forever-long gravel bar run with a couple, “I-bet-you-can’t-cast-this-far boulders,” off to the far side. Absolutely beautiful. We all stepped through the run a few times as the light faded. We ran into a good buddy, Chris Anderson, friend, colleague and true legend. He found a couple that day; he usually does. Where else would I run into a buddy a thousand miles from home, but next to a river? Day one, no fish, no certifiable grabs on the swung fly, but I tell you that it was one of the more enjoyable days I’ve spent on the water.
Our plan for the next day was to float the Lower Bogachiel. The morning unwound like most on these trips. The guide said we need to bring our own lunches. Cool. What time are we meeting? 7 am. What time does the store open? 7 am. Well…
The grocery store in Forks has a cordoned off area for this exact purpose. A door leads out from the coffee shop to a refrigerated wall with not a lot, but just enough. Victuals secured we met our guides, drove to the ramp and shuffled around a little more. By the time we arrived at the first run, my head was spinning sideways with an overzealous need to get my fly in the water. We weren’t late, right-on time in fact, but I could not see that. I wish I could summon perspective when most needed. I guide fishing clients myself for a living. I shuffle around with gear, sometimes purposefully languishing at the ramp sometimes to give it a chance to warm up and offer us the best chance to be in the right place on the river at the right time.
Blind to my hypocrisy, I grabbed my rod, fumed inwardly while the guide removed and re-tied on a new fly, and stole away a few yards to my place in the run. I ripped off far too much line and my first cast was met with a collective, “Is that your line? Reel that sh*t in, I thought you were just stretching your running line!?” I reigned in my line in but not my emotions, and made shorter, more deliberate casts and swings, forcing myself to work the good water in close. Our guide Mark, eased over, assessed my casting, full pass. He watched my swing but that did not make the grade. He offered advice that I needed, but did not want. I could not clear my head and get past my ego, just wanted to be left alone to fish. Mark wanted to see me catch one. He tried to talk me through the process of the steelhead sink tip swing, but I could not process what he was telling me. My frustration grew, but I had yet to point the arrow at the true culprit. We were not communicating well and it was not Mark’s fault. I don’t remember what caused it, but suddenly I realized how hypocritical I was being. I handed the rod to Mark and asked him to show me. Suddenly it all made sense. He handed my rod back and we worked through the next swing together. Mark didn’t say a word except, “good instincts,” when I made a small direction change as my fly approached an inconsistency in the water’s surface. It was a moment completely akin to me watching a good drift from the captain’s chair of my own boat, angler and guide collectively focused.
I don’t remember Mark leaving to check in with the rest of the group. He helped me get over myself and taught me how to swing my sink tip inside of fifteen minutes. I have thought about this morning often, more about the lesson I learned than the fishing. Mind your own ego and remember humility. Listen and don’t miss an opportunity to learn something.
I was fully in the zone at that moment. My casts were leaping out of the rod tip and laying down arrow straight, the butt of the rod kicking up as the running line found the reel. I was swinging flies with confidence through the micro currents with control and anticipation. The run was perfect, a soft river left bend with good speed all the way to the bank, knee-deep about ten feet from the dry rocks, the current picking up speed incrementally as you cast further into the main. I felt like a kid that had just learned to do a wheelie and pedal it out a little. It was early still. The sun hadn’t made it over the trees and a soft golden glow emanated from the spaces between the wide trunks, the Bogy a navy blanket with chards from a dull mirror cast about. I remember a wedge of smooth water that terminated in a pair of submerged rocks, the outside rock a little upstream and the inside rock just down and about fifteen feet off the bank. I moved my rod tip toward the center current to slow my fly’s approach, back to neutral and a gradual tip movement towards the bank. My fly swam out and just as it fluttered towards the hang, I felt it.
Barely holding onto the rod at all, the 13-foot length was balanced by the weight of the reel and held steady by the constant downstream work of the river. I felt the mouth open and close, not a vicious suck and turn with the fly, but a coy and curious sampling. I watched the reel make one slow turn, then a second as I kept the rod pointed in the direction of the swing, shouting, “GOT ONE!” feeling the weight and tension. I waited for the fish to take off on the current expressway and leave me to chase, but she didn’t. She ran me around the river, but never burned the reel. I wrestled her towards my bank and had her just off the tip of the rod before any of us were ready. She bulldogged me around some more and I got her within range of Mark and the net again, but she wouldn’t have it. She did not run away as much as she ran around, and the sink tip was inside the tip top the whole time. I did not know how I was supposed to fight this fish, and this would be my undoing. The short, tethered bulldog fight continued, the whole group gathered around, net man at the ready. A third attempt near the net was thwarted and I vividly remember her being a few feet downstream of Mark as I watched her roll on the surface and turn inside as the hook came free. I got to see her several times inside of ten feet from me. I got the eat and didn’t screw it up. I got to watch that handle turn and hear Mark’s words in my head, “let them eat it.” I was patient. I was given a chance to be connected to one of these unicorns and have the question posed at the end of my line answered by the reply from a steelhead’s jaw. The only thing I didn’t get to do was hold that fish.
I have been in this spot before. Standing there holding up a once electric rod, now limp and lifeless. The fish you have worked for and poured all your energies into swimming away, like the finish line retreating from you as you close with your last wind. The memories of the ones that got away take precedence in your mind for some unknown and unfair reason. This one didn’t hurt, a heartache for a love experienced, but not a love lost.
Standing there in the river, holding the lifeless rod, I smiled. I was literally shaking with adrenaline, my vision cloudy, consumed with the tingles of normal blood trying to fight through the confusion. A flask hit my hand as hands hit my shoulders. My eyes had that bewildered look of a man that had just seen something shocking. I took a knee, splashed some water on my face and eased the flask over for the river, then raised it to my lips and felt the slow earned burn of the whiskey.
We saddled the rafts and continued downstream, stopping at smooth gravel bar runs that seemed to keep getting better. The sun was hung in a brilliant blue sky, and we shed layers, opened beers and ate boiled eggs. I tied on a brighter fly and stepped down a definitively uniform gravel bar run. Dreamy and smooth. Jake found one at the top of the next run below us, a beautiful ying yang hen fresh from the sea, her black back set upon her mirrored flank. Our last run of the float was another gravel run to eternity, a run you could literally spend all day swinging without want. It was ideal depth and speed with a big disturbance in the middle we all assumed was a rock but turned out to be a sunken log that took a fly from each expectant angler as we worked through. Time finally caught us and we had to make moves downriver. The next bend in the river cut sharply into the bank and we watched full grown alders shake and quiver, then slowly topple into the river with the certainty of gravity. The sound of the crashing trees caught us off guard and the river was completely blown out from the its greedy appetite for the bank.
We floated past the Calawah confluence on dirty water wearing the smirks of anglers that knew something. Encountering anglers joining the Bogachiel from the other river, I wondered if they caught any fish today, had any grabs, bumps or other evidence of steelhead. Rafts loaded up, gear unsorted then resorted, the banter that follows a good day of fishing filled the air.
It was just us again and we were left with a choice. Our takeout was at the exact place where we started the day before, a very good run. We could load up the rental car and bust back to Portland, arrive at the hotel at a decent hour, have a good meal, maybe even stir up some trouble. Or we could fish until dark and arrive in Portland at some undetermined ungodly hour of the night. The decision was easy and mine was made before the question was posed.
Zirkle had to take off. Obligations called, and he was the only one of us that drove his own truck. Parker and Jay went into Forks quickly and returned with milkshakes. Red and I went to the run and stepped through once before the milkshakes showed up. On the second pass I stepped in above Jay and Red got in above me. The three of us cast, swung and stepped in unison, led along by the current. Jay got a bump about a third of the way down from the head of the run, but no connection, close to the bank, looked like it was underneath our feet. I approached the water that Jay left, and fished with an added focus, but no takers. Same for Red. We stepped out and walked back to the top of the run for another pass. Red or Jay, I cannot remember which, pointed upstream and claimed they saw a steelhead porpoise. I never saw it, but heard the out of place splash. We took it as a good sign.
Jay led off again and swung with determination to the spot where he got a bump. Nothing. I noticed a sort of relief come over him, the burden of anticipation being less acute, he settled in to savor his last swings. My fervor was at a fever pitch and I cast and swung with the dogged determination of a toddler that has been told he has this many minutes left to play. I stepped down the run behind Jay as dusk crept, feeling a sense of relief knowing that I didn’t waste any minutes of the day, fished all the hours light would allow.
Red shouts, “I’M ON!” I swung my head toward the sound and he’s tight to a steelhead a little more than a rod length upstream of me. We shout, we holler, we hurriedly put our lines on our reels and rush to help. Our net left with Zirkle and the first talk on the bank was, “Rich you’re going to tail this fish right?” I watched Red play the fish, a man who knows what he’s doing. It was a wonderful opportunity to see what I should have done earlier: keep the rod low and bent, walk that fish around like a stubborn dog on a leash. Red played her well and she allowed me to grab her tail on the second try. What a creature to behold, onyx backed, scintillated sides, an alabaster belly with translucent fins and a few sea lice hitchhikers. She gave me the impression that she wasn’t afraid, just surprised. Her first time returning to this place from the ocean, perhaps she thought this was just part of the drill. We took photos and admired her. When Red let her go, she swam off like nothing happened. She didn’t blow up and dart away, didn’t hang there confused, just angled off into the current and continued on her way.
Red hooked that fish on our 8th pass through the run, mighty close to where Jay got a bump earlier. He had on a brighter fly, but I cannot help but wonder, was the fish there the whole time, nonchalant to our proximity? Did she happen to show up and settle the moment Jay and I stepped past? It certainly furthers the argument for swinging good water again, especially when there is just enough light remaining for a few more casts. The drive ahead loomed. The light all but gone, I was told to reel in.
We shed our waders and donned civilian clothes under the humming glow of the grocery store parking lot lights. The rental belched as it swallowed our disheveled bags. It was late when we left Forks, much later still when we lurched into Portland. We took what sleep we could, made the long trip back to Colorado.
[G.Loomis Chronicles, Part 1: Factory Tour]
[G.Loomis fly rod pages]