Vernon Mansfield Closes the Deal; May 23, 2022
It was a perfect fishing weather forecast for our latest graduate candidate Vernon Mansfield, and eight FATC brothers. As always, we met in Eureka at 6:15 AM to car pool to Montauk State Park. In addition to Vernon, the entourage included Steve Baker, Harold Bates, Sid Aslin, Bob Aslin, Al Blair, Ken Welter, Pete Drochelman, and yours truly, Jim Craig. Where was our eminent instructor, Kenny Klimes, you ask? He was down for the count recovering from a case of COVID he picked up last weekend. So, as a FATC Instructor, it fell to me to put Vernon through the paces on the water to see if he had what it takes to graduate. (Of course he did, we weren’t going to let it turn out any other way. But, don’t tell him.)
Everyone bought their trout tags and met at the Naturalist cabin about 8:30 to gear up and take a group picture. After everyone headed out to their favorite spot on the river, Vernon and I took a little extra time to make sure he was properly geared up for the day.
Vernon was a well-prepared student for his first day on the water. He had done his homework. He knew the four major aquatic insect classes and was even able to identify a mayfly nymph when we turned over some rocks. He later confided in me that he had repeatedly watched the aquatic insect videos on the FATC website. (Great job!). He asked insightful questions about our local stone flies and how we matched our fly fishing flies to the naturals. He knew the key resources to check before heading out to local waters or new waters to learn about current hatches, water conditions, effective techniques, and hot flies.
With the pop quiz behind him, we approached the river at the bolder. To our surprise, we found a huge poplar tree had fallen across the river, shore-to-shore, right on the bolder. It cut the area for fishing around the bolder in half. Fortunately, it was easy to step over so we could head down river to start fishing. We got in lots of practice swinging soft hackles, stripping wooly buggers, and dead drifting midges. Vernon even had a good sense for when and how to mend, so I didn’t get the chance to execute the famous Klimes back-of-the-head slap for repeatedly failing to mend. Unfortunately, it seemed the fish had forgotten to show up for the morning. While Vernon had a couple hits, we couldn’t convert them to hookups. However, just before lunch we moved back up to that fallen tree. Fishing on the down-stream side, we quickly had two solid hookups on a purple zebra midge. Unfortunately, the first fish fought hard and earned its freedom. It happens. The second fish got lucky. The 6x tippet broke during the fight where it had probably been weakened by tangle in the brush just before that cast. Although we had to leave for lunch without a fish in the net, we knew exactly where we were going to start fishing in the afternoon.
Everyone met at the Staggenborg tables for lunch and a little story telling. The fellowship was great but the story telling was a little thin as nearly everyone had a slow morning. However, Al Harper had a great morning throwing a Christmas tinsel streamer (a Staggenborg creation??). Everyone else talked about only catching a couple fish. It was my personal observation that there were relatively few fish in the river. Maybe the park had been fished hard over the weekend. Being the eternal optimists, we were ready to fish again after our lunchtime refueling.
For the afternoon, some guys went to the camp ground in search of active fish. Others went back to the fly fishing only area. Vernon and I went right back to the location of our last battle. This time we were rigged with fresh tippet and another purple zebra midge. The fish were still there. In no time, Vernon had one on the line. After a noble fight, this one made it all the way to the net. In a few minutes, he had another that made it to the net. Yep, our newest FATC graduate was all smiles.
It was now time to head up to the spring to give him a tour of the fly-fishing only area where we spent most of our time. Time seemed to fly in the afternoon. While we didn’t get any more in the net, he had a few more strikes and he practiced his dead drifting and high-sticking techniques.
I would have to stay that, overall, it was a challenging day. Vernon did great given those conditions. The rest of the guys reported that the afternoon was also slow. But, no one could complain about the mild weather and the lack of other fishermen.
We caught fish on a wide variety of flies. They included a Christmas tinsel streamer, a short white streamer, dry flies, purple zebra midges, orange perdigons, red zebra midges, beads, clown eggs, cerise worms, PMDs, green mop flies, P&Ps, House of Paynes, soft hackles, and cracklebacks.
It was great to see so many of our long-time as well as some of our new members on this graduation trip. Everyone had a great time. We ended the evening with a fellowship dinner. Vernon’s pick of Aranda’s Mexican Restaurant in Salem seemed to please everyone. Whether you have been fishing every week this year or haven’t picked up your fly rod for longer than you can remember, I hope you will jump on one of these trips soon. There is always someone ready to help you on the water, if you ask. Don’t let this season find you wishing, let it find you fishing!
