Answering the Call of Water

When I mentioned to the owner of the fly shop I lived in Missouri he asked if I ever fished Bennett Springs State Park. I told him I occasionally went there as it’s close to home and a great place to go when I felt the need to bend a rod.

“That’s where they line up to fish, or do whatever this is,” he said as spun his computer screen in my direction to show me a picture of Missouri’s version of combat fishing. Anglers of every kind, standing shoulder to shoulder with barely enough room to maneuver let alone catch and net a fish. The opening morning of the catch and keep trout season at a popular trout park.

I smiled and said, “Yep, that’s the place.”

I was a little put off by the comment. The shop owner was a little snooty in a stereo typical way often assigned to certain members of the trout fishing crowd. Yet, I got the message. He didn’t approve, and I felt he was missing the point.

Yeah, it ain’t a Montana trout stream. On March 1 of each year a couple thousand anglers line up in the dark along the bank and dam with spinning gear and fly rods for a chance to catch a mess of trout. At 6:30 a.m. a VIP guest pulls the trigger on a starter pistol and a siren blares throughout the park and the season begins! Most importantly, though, is the tradition. A moment in time when friends, families, young, old, men, women, and children converge on this beautiful little park to fish. They range from meat hunters to the clueless but they are all there for the same reason – to experience the power of water and fish and be part of the tribe.

In the interest of full disclosure, I don’t go to the opener. I’m crowd-averse and I track a little closer to the mindset of the fly shop owner. But by early April I feel the calling. Once the chaos of the opening days pass, the pre-summer days at Bennett Springs are mostly quiet and tranquil. If the weather is nice, there will be a steady but slow stream of visitors, mostly trout anglers with a few others mixed in who are simply there to enjoy the day, the water, trail walks, bike rides, and the peacefulness. If the weather is marginal there’s a good chance you’ll get much of the park to yourself, including most of the water and the fishing.

When I arrived late morning to my favorite stretch of water on a recent visit, I was surprised to see a few more anglers than normal. Working from the tailgate of my truck I glanced to my right and I saw a fisherman approaching quickly in my direction. He smiled large and I studied his face long thinking I must know him.

“Good morning, how you doing?” he called out.

“I’m doing well, how about you? I replied. “It’s a great morning.”

“Yes it is,” he said enthusiastically.

His truck parked next to mine, he was a friendly stranger and maybe thought I was someone else. Either way, his smile and kind demeanor was welcoming. As we visited briefly he told me he was part of group of men, Flyfishers at The Crossing, who gathered together on occasion to fish different places. Later I would search for the group and learned from their website they are a not-for-profit, charitable organization: “The Flyfishers at The Crossing (FATC) is a fellowship for men with a passion for fly fishing, helping them grow in their faith through community service, charity and brotherhood.”

An organization boasting over 200 members, there seemed to be at least a dozen members present at Bennett Springs on this April day, living up to their motto “It isn’t just about the fly fishing.”

We talked a few minutes more and I asked if anything was working particularly well this morning. He showed me a fly, a flashy little nymph he called the House-of-Payne. He explained how a friend developed this fly with one of its components being his wife’s hair! You gotta love the imagination of people who create fishing flies.

“Yeah, whenever she gets her haircut he asks that she save some so he can use it later,” he explained.

Now my mind was going a couple different directions on this topic but I figured a five-minute friendship was not enough time for me to reveal my sense of humor so we laughed it off and went our separate ways.

A little sleuthing afterwards helped me discover that a Missouri business, the Wooly Bugger Fly Fishing Company, sells the mysterious House-of-Payne, a fly developed by a man named Scott Payne and advertised as “This fly is so hot it can’t have its picture taken.” No picture of the fly is available on the Wooly Bugger website but having seen it in the wild, I ordered a few, size 16.

The remainder of the day was about as good as it gets. Fishing was great, catching was reasonable. Surrounding anglers politely stood in the green-blue water in various stages of meditation as a breeze gently pushed downstream. And as I reflected on the day’s achievements, I considered the inexplicable call of water and fish and their role as my own weight forward lifeline.

In short order between roll casts I recalled what was likely my earliest introduction to fishing. Going to a park with fishing poles sneaked out from someone’s basement or garage; worms picked from puddles and lawns after an evening rain. Standing on the bank of a park lagoon, trying not to get leather school shoes wet or muddy, being somewhere I shouldn’t have been, catching bluegills with friends.

During my second decade I would ride a bicycle to the harbor pier where people lined the edge, dangling minnows hoping to catch a bucket of yellow perch, or stand on an old narrow wooden dock, a Zebco rod and reel in hand watching a red and white bobber for signs of hungry fish. With saved birthday money I would graduate to spinning gear and learn to cast standing on the giant shoreline rocks pitching spoons and spinners into a great lake hoping for the silver of a rainbow or coho. After dark to I’d watch men drinking beer, eating hard salami, dropping and lifting big nets under Coleman lanterns, helping to scoop smelt during the run. Then watching blurry-eyed neighbors sitting on buckets in the driveway, gutting the silvery fish, keeping a few for the freezer, Swedish hooks inserted, later to be dropped into a bait buckets during ice fishing season as pike candy.

During my third decade there was the adventure of sliding out of the harbor into a dense fog, the CB radio chatter warning of a freighter somewhere between here and there. Two young men with coho fever, out too late the night before yet undeterred. Or squeezing between cabins along a narrow easement to access the water on a small lake with just enough room to cast spinners for bass along weed beds. Or slipping down through an industrial area to access the Mighty Mississippi to catch drum as barges and house boats cruised by. Then fishing another great river from the bank behind a cemetery where no one else would come but large pike could be found. And walking along a rural road in deep south Mississippi scouting new water among mostly black faces catching bream.

And so it went and so it goes. Countless other lakes and rivers with names like Taneycomo, Manitou, Namekagon, Binder, Little Piney, Brule, Timber Coulee, and on and on and more. Places I have been, will go to again, and hope to see one more time.

And my conclusion, after this deep piscatorial contemplation, while watching a few trout rise under fishing tackle dangling in the trees above? Even with the scales tipped, advantage to the angler, whether or not a boat or other fancy gear is used, whether standing shoulder to shoulder waiting for a siren to wail or alone and remote, the fish still makes the decision and the only constant is hope. Everything else is deception.

Opening Day picture courtesy of Missouri State Parks.