Lord of the Fly

“One cast to rule them all, one cast to find them; one cast to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.”

This is not a tale of heroism, nor is it the tale of an epic journey told in the style of JRR Tolkien. You will not read here of the courageous exploits of heroes like Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee or Aragorn, son of Arathorn. It’s more of a tale like that of Smeagol, also known as Gollum.

Today wasn’t my “one-hundred-and-eleventh birthday”; rather, it was my thirtieth birthday. I was alone on my birthday this year, my wife being in Minnesota for training for her new job and my son staying with his grandparents. In the novels of Tolkien, his infamous character Smeagol is notorious for his murder of his friend Deagol and becoming the haunted creature known as Gollum. He says things like, “It’s my birthday” and “Give it to us,” referring to the one ring. This afternoon, part of me started thinking of Gollum and his obsession with the one ring.

On the way home from school, I stopped and did some quick fishing at Hillsdale Lake. The one place where I have the least luck is below the dam at the lake, and this just happens to be my favorite local spot. I’m not sure what it is; I lose plenty of flies there and I rarely even get a bite from the big fish. I’ve stood there on the bank watching sturgeon, drums, and largemouth swim around and jump and bite at invisible tidbits, and they never even pay any attention to my flies. I have flies that never fail me at other spots--the black wooly bugger, the “carp tease,” and the Clouser’s minnow--and they always go unnoticed by these large fish. The only thing I’ve caught at the Hillsdale Dam are little pumpkinseed bluegill and itty-bitty largemouth.

I thought today would be different. After all, it’s my birthday. “Give it to us,” I said to the waters. The fish should know that it’s my birthday. For once, instead of me standing on the water’s edge catching only a sunburn, I was positive that I’d finally have my lucky day. I was positive that I would at least show up the other anglers with their traditional spinning reels and minnows. I felt entitled to something at least.

Those stupid, filthy fish. They never struck. They never even nibbled. For a while, I was sure that I’d hit a spot where some large bottom-dwelling fish was interested in my fly. I cast my line out about thirty feet. I convinced myself that it was a clean cast, a smooth cast. One that might have been pretty enough to post on YouTube, had it been recorded on video. It just felt right. After all, it’s my birthday. Despite the slight increase in the wind and my lack of practice this summer, I’d had several good casts in a row. I’d never had a good throwing arm. Never played baseball, and in school, my dodgeball game was characterized by a goofy-looking side-arm. I’d developed a similar side-arm roll cast. Nothing textbook, to be honest, but often I’d get the line to unroll in a nice, tight loop. Today saw me hitting several of these casts. I was sure that this was the cast that would set me up for a great afternoon of fishing. It was crisp, there was little extra splashing, and the fly was landing just right.

Down the way, another fisherman had a bite, and I grimaced as I watched him land a nice-sized largemouth. It’s my birthday, give it to us, I thought. I wanted so badly to catch something that I started despising this innocent fellow for his luck.

I’d first tied on my Clouser’s minnow. Nothing. I changed to a #8 black wooly bugger. Nothing. After ten minutes or so with that fly, I pulled it in to check it out. I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t even snagged a little bluegill with it. Taking a closer look, I saw that it had been unraveling. It must have been due to a hard strike, I told myself. What most likely happened was that it was an older fly and it had been snagged and retrieved a few times too many. I snipped it off and tried something different.

Earlier this summer, I snagged a three- or four-pound largemouth on a fly called a “carp tease.” I’d also picked up a nice-size channel catfish on a similar fly. Surely it would bring me luck today. Not quite. It is now snagged on a rock on the bottom about ten feet from the shore. I moved a little further down the way to where the water looked more like a flowing river than the man-made spillway. I tied on an expensive fly that resembled a crayfish. This had also brought me a couple nice catfish, and I still felt lucky. It being a heavier fly, I didn’t have the same finesse with my casting, but I still got it out a good ways. It landed with a plop and the ripples in the water slowly spread out. Once they disappeared, I began pulled it in slowly, trying to mimic the movement of the crayfish. I kept feeling it catch. It didn’t feel like it was snagging on a rock; it felt like something was nibbling at it, taking it in its mouth just enough for me to feel it, but not enough for me to feel like I could effectively set the hook. I held the line tightly in my left hand and jerked up on the rod. It caught, but the line didn’t move like it should have when a fish was hooked. It stayed there, the taut line causing my rod to bend under its weight. I should have known.

In order to retrieve the fly without it breaking off, I walked up and down the shore, pulling with enough pressure to hopefully bring it in but not enough to break the leader. Or so I thought. I didn’t think I was tugging too hard, but before I knew it, the pressure broke and the empty line flew back at me, the fly gone.

I’d lost two best flies, and a third one was now ruined. The optimist in me thought that at least some of the snags were actually trophy fish sampling my flies and teasing me, but I know now that there probably were never any fish at the end of my line.

I was blinded by my eagerness; distracted and deceived into thinking that because it was my birthday I would have success. I began by thinking that the one case--the first cast--would set the precedent for the afternoon. When no fish bit on that first cast, I began thinking that the type of casting (my ugly side-arm roll cast) would be my salvation on the water. Three good flies later, I noticed how my leader was getting shorter and shorter and there were several wind knots that had pulled tight enough that I’d need to snip them off. Had there been any actual bites from fish or were they simply little snags on rocks? I’d like to think that by now I’d know the difference.

On the day that I turned thirty years old (the thirty-third anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death, FYI), I hoped that I would have had a great spell of fishing. When the fish didn’t bite, I couldn’t control myself. Instead of realizing that it was shortly after four o’clock in the afternoon, that it was ninety degrees Fahrenheit out, I probably didn’t have the right flies, and my leader was getting too knotted and too short, I became more and more convinced that I need only keep trying the same things over and over. Who was it that said that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results each time?

Luckily, no one was around to become my Deagol. For an hour and a half, I took on a role more like the ill-fated Smeagol than like the noble and heroic Frodo. For a time I had convinced myself that I would prove to be the Lord of the Fly. After all, I told myself and the waters, today’s my birthday. Give it to us, my precious!