ON YOUR KNEES
BY MICHAEL M. OWSLEY
It was the second missed strike by my fishing partner, and it would clearly be my Turn to get the rod. I wasn’t taking advantage of DeWitt for being only ten years old, but rules are rules.
On the Woody Creek we have small water, smaller fish (and many of them), and not a lot of space in which to flail around. The Woody Creek is overgrown with willows, sometimes, arching completely over the river. The sun filters through, shadows are deep, and the fish love the cover. But you can’t really get to them
Fly-fishing is a solitary endeavor. Casting of the fly back and forth guarantees snagged ears, possibly an eyeball. So the distance between fishermen on any water is at least the length of a cast, or more.
RULE # 1. YOU HAVE TO FISH ON YOUR KNEES.
There just isn’t enough room. We use knee pads and stalk gently ·up the stream. Trout have the habit of always looking up-stream. So coming up behind them gives us the ability to get close enough for a very small, gentle cast. Knee pads are easier on an older back than staying crouched over in the willows. The kid is short anyway. Evens things out.
Now you’re waist deep on your knees, or hunched on the rocky bank. keeping your rod low and placing the line quietly into the water. Long, elegant casts just aren’t possible. Sometimes it’s a matter of letting out enough line and dropping it into a hole.
RULE #2. TWO STRKES AND YOU MUST HAND THE ROD TO THE NEXT FISHERMAN.
A strike is when the fish surfaces. and you fail to hook it. Because the object is to spend the day together, only one person can fish at a time on this creek. Only one rod is used, and there has to be some mandatory reason for a fisherman to give up his rod. Fishing is like gambling: just the next cast could be the one for the big score, and it’s painful to hand over your rod.
When someone else is intent on hooking into the fish you’ve already primed, it’s perfectly fair to try to psych him out. With quiet patter, like an announcer on a golf course, you may describe the lay of the river, the difficulty the fisherman will face, the particular wiliness of these trout. Talking to divert your buddy’s attention is just a part of the game: after all, he should be concentrating and you should have that rod.
RULE #3: ANY HANG-UPS, YOU MUST HAND OVER THE ROD.
Getting your fly hung up in the river, or losing your fly to a bush or a trout, means turning over your rod. You can’t leave your position on the river to dislodge your fly because it will ruin the fishing for your buddy by scattering those wild trout. If you can gently manipulate your line to liberate it, within a reasonable amount of time, you may continue to fish.
A useful technique is to pull in your line. get your rod tip right up to the fly, and try lifting the hook off the snag. Most techniques are. in fact, completely worthless. A hang-up is almost a certain turnover.
RULE #4: FAILURE TO HOLD, HAND OVER THE ROD.
If you manage to hook the trout, but he slips away before you have him in hand. it fully counts against you. Woody Creek trout may seem small, but they present a terrific challenge. They don’t want to be hooked and landed, so the smallest among them will rush for the bank and the cover, where the tree roots may snap the line.
SCORING: HOW YOU WIN.
Twenty years ago, when The Rules began, there were lots of brookies. In fact, you couldn’t avoid catching them. Brookies scored only one point. Rainbows scored only two points. Browns were the least common and scored three points. All three of these fish were not native to the Woody Creek, but had been introduced over time. The native fish was probably a small cutthroat, which I’ve never seen lately in the creek.
Lately, the hierarchy is turned upside down, with browns the most prevalent trout in the Woody Creek, and brookies the least. The rainbows are still pretty much in the middle. A few theories have been tossed around as to why this has happened. One is that brown trout are very aggressive predators, and may have displaced the brookie population.
Brookies are extremely sensitive to poor water quality and maybe the quality of the Woody Creek has gone down. Runoff from septic systems could be to blame, or the old mines in Lenado may be leaching minerals into the creek.
Another possible culprit could be that there are man-made ponds near Lenado, built to contain exotic trout. These ponds are often medicated. Medication for farm-raised fish may be appropriate, but when those medications enter the creek, it is only dangerous to the wild trout.
Looking back over the years, it’s clear that the creek didn’t care about The Rules. Every summer, after every runoff, all the familiar holes from the previous year would have changed. Shallow pools by the side may have become deep ones; traditionally great holes might have been scoured away.
When The Rules began, cattle and horses were still being pastured right next to the river, the livestock breaking the banks and eating the willow and grasses. Annual run-off stripped the sides, leaving many parts of the Woody Creek covered in bare gravel. Slowly, as traditional agriculture stopped, the creek could heal itself. The willows got another foot hold.
Essentially, the only real rule is that the Woody Creek heals itself, changes itself you just have to be there to watch it. The Woody Creek Rules helped us to hold still and do just that. When we made them up we thought it was all about fishing. We didn’t know until now that it was all about seeing. We thought it was about social order, so a kid could fish with an adult, but really it’s about seeing the steam.
Author’s Note: I would like to acknowledge “The Curtis Creek Manifesto” by Sheridan Anderson. DeWitt and I borrowed liberally from his rules when creating our own. His Eleventh Commandment is: “Thou shall love the waters and all things that nourish therefrom: and thou shalt cherish and protect them as thine own — For all nature is thy home and all living thing’s are thy kin.”
