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A few years ago, I was teaching a flyfishing lakes course through a lodge in central British Columbia. The day started out fairly typical. We started out with equipment, knots, flies, and moved on to casting and finally lake strategy. It wasn’t long before we had our six angling students spread out along the edge of a large productive weed bed fishing a chironomid hatch. Now fishing midges under a strike indicator is mostly waiting until your little bobber goes down. Occasionally, someone would hook a nice fish and everyone would get excited again waiting for their turn at success.

Now I should tell you that it seems like every time you put a group together in the outdoors, you get a lot of personalities, and someone is going to come up with their own agenda, their own "program".

I will be the first to admit it was my fault, but I was trying to hurry six guys into their waders, and float tubes. I was hoping we would not miss yesterdays’ great chironomid action I ran into the day before the class arrived. Have you ever tried to hurry six people to do anything? Anyway, As I was leading my little fledging group across the lake, I failed to notice that only five anglers were with me. As the rest of us all paddled down the lake and to the left , Mike went down and to the right. The lake is large by flyfishing standards, approximately seven miles in length. This water is built for flyfishing with a myriad of shoals and bays and shoals with large cruising Kamloops rainbows.

My strategy in this three-day outing was to fish to waters close to camp on day one. Day two and three is spent fishing in our top water we call the "aquarium". The aquarium is a shallow weedy bay that is next to the lake outlet stream. This creek is located where the largest fish in the lake congregate to head down the outlet stream to spawn. These rainbows recondition quickly in this shallow weedy food factory. Virtually every kind of bug lives here and the fish just gorge themselves. Many are reluctant to leave. The crystalline waters are spring fed and give the appearance of fishing in a five-acre fish bowl. Hence, the name aquarium.

After our initial days fishing our little group headed back to camp. After dinner we were sitting around the fire reminiscing the antics of the day and in walks Mike. It wasn’t until now did I realize he was even gone. By the look on his face, he was tired, happy and definitely had a story to tell.

His story goes something like this. Apparently, as our group was geared and paddling across the lake Mike was lagging behind, due to a right flipper that kept slipping. He figured that if the group was heading off to parts unknown anyway, the lake is the lake right? Mike decided to wander just down around the corner to the right. I immediately thought, "The aquarium." You could tell Mike was enjoying his audience. He was definitely savoring the moment around the campfire.

Mike proceeded to tell how he managed to float tube his way down around the corner when he realized the water became fairly shallow and incredibly clear. He looked over at me like, " You have been down there?" I just nodded. Mike, still in his waders, stands (so nobody is going to miss this next part) and says," All of a sudden I see huge trout"! His arm gesture was wide enough to be a Chinook salmon. "Anyway, It was big." He went on to say he saw another trout and then another. "Man, like I am surrounded by big fish!" So he pulls out his flybox for a fly for BIG fish when he sees this moth pop onto the surface. A second later this monster fish comes up and sucks it down. Mike illustrates this move with a hand gesture. I then realized he has stumbled onto the elusive Traveling Sedge hatch. You do not see it often but the trout can just go stupid, gorging themselves on this big aquatic insect, when it happens.

He tells how the surface of the lake is soon filled with these big bugs skittering all over and the rainbows are chasing in hot pursuit. Mike says he looks in his flybox of flies that I have made up for each angler and pulls out one of four muddler minnows from the box and ties it on. "Man, my hands were just shaking," he said as he paused to poke the fire. "So what happened?" Jim asked. Everyone was into the story now. Mike was loving it.

"Well, so I am sitting there listening to all this slurping and gulping in my little tube - my hands are shaking - and I am trying to remember how to tie on this stupid fly!" "I finally get it on the leader, and I just kinda chuck it onto the water where a fish had just jumped." A second later this submarine comes up and takes it down. I jerk the rod back and this fish takes off like a bat out of hell!"

" Now the largest fish of my life is getting away so I did the only I could do. I grabbed the reel handle but the rod tip just slaps down and pop! he is gone." I reeled the line in and sure enough, the fly and a good hunk of the leader is gone too." The fish are jumping all around me like I am not even there, and I tie on another fly. I am determined I am definitely landing the next one. I cast out again and almost before the fly lands I swear another really big fish grabs the fly". Hand gesture was a little smaller than the Chinook salmon this time.

"So I set the hook, but this time I figure I would wrestle him in before he has a chance to go nuts, but no way, he makes one major leap then snap! and he is gone". Now I only have two flies left so I figure I need another plan. I tie on the third fly and by now my leader is getting pretty short and fat but I figure, what the heck?" Mike looks around the group for approval, everybody nods.

So I cast out again and sure enough this really nice fish comes up and takes it down. This time I just kind of lean back and this trout just takes off. I mean way out across this bay. All my flyline is gone and he is on only by the string on the reel. "Backing, Mike." "It is called Backing."

"Anyway, I figure I would do like the commercial fisherman do with those harpooned whales - you know shoot 'em and let them run off until they stop. So I let this big fish run off and I don’t touch anything until the reel stops, only he is way out there!" " But he stops and I start cranking. He takes off again but not too far, and every time he stops I reel. I am going,"This is how you do it!" Before long I have got my flyline back and pretty soon I have got this great big trout right next to my belly boat". As Mike finishes this statement I cringe, I can imagine what happens next.

"Now I don’t have a net only that silly little wool glove Dennis gave me." He pauses and looks at me like, " You poor silly man".

"So what did you do, Mike?" Someone inquired.

"I did the only thing I could do. I put on my glove, grabbed the leader, and tried to haul him in over the side of the tube. Mike got real quiet. "He didn’t come though" he said in a small voice. "The line broke". All was quiet around the campfire.

"You had another fly, right?" John consoled. As if rejuvenated, Mike lifted his head and said, "Yes, I did!" and got ready to tell the rest of the story. I thought to myself, This guy can really tell a story.

"Now it is getting kind of dark, but I realize my leader is so short and fat I cannot put on this last fly. But we were given an extra leader, all I had to do was tie on the new leader and I am in business, right?" So I fumble through my pockets with my hands just shaking and find this new leader. I want to get this right so I paddle back by shore where I can stand up next to shore and take the leader out of the packet and tie on my last fly. I get ready to cast (Mike goes into a casting motion) when I realize, I haven’t put the new leader on the flyline yet. So I drop the fly down, put the leader end in my mouth, and reach for the flyline to attach the leader." (Mike is gesturing like he has the leader in his mouth).

"All of a sudden, I here this "glump". "As I look down I realize a fish has just eaten my last fly! And the other end of the leader is in my mouth!" " So I bit down on the leader as hard as I could, dropped my pole, and tried to grab the leader, but I couldn’t find it with my hand, in the dark. Meanwhile, the rainbow is thrashing all over the place and finally gets away when I start laughing so hard I lost my leader out of my mouth."

Eventually, everyone stopped laughing and we all went off to bed. I made a mental note to watch Mike really close the next day.