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I frequently tell people that one learns to write by writing and by reading, and that some of what you read should be about writing. So, step one, read a book. This book: On Writing Well, by William Zinsser. It covers all the important stuff and is written so well that you’ll enjoy reading it while you’re underlining and folding pages. (I don’t know how you do that with the ebook version, but knock yourself out.)

One of the things frequently mentioned about writing (perhaps mostly by non-writers) is “writer’s block.” I’ve never experienced it and you don’t have to either. The solution to not knowing what to write initially is to lower your standards temporarily. Don’t worry about writing something that’s brilliant, or even good. Just start writing something, anything that’s somewhat related to your topic. It doesn’t have to come out great, it just has to come out. You’ll make it great later, which is the real work. Writing is about 20% writing and 80% revising and re-writing. And unless you already have a lead (the opening sentence or paragraph) in mind, don’t worry about writing it first. At some point you might find it hiding further into the piece, in which case you’ve written the lead without trying to. Perfect.

Perhaps the best thing you can do once a draft is done is to get the broom out and remove the clutter. Any word that doesn’t do a job has to go. For example, you might write something like this: “I’ve come to believe that for me fishing is really a lot of fun.” Here are the unnecessary words: come, to, that, for, me, really. Ditch them and the sentence becomes “I believe that fishing is a lot of fun.” It’s shorter and better. You could cut even further and come up with “Fishing is a lot of fun.” It’s obviously your opinion and you believe it, so you don’t have to tell the reader that.

Once you’ve worked through a draft, cutting unnecessary words, making everything as clear as possible, and coming up with a good beginning and a good ending, the final steps are to use a dictionary and a thesaurus. Check the dictionary for any words you might possibly have used incorrectly. I’m surprised how often a word means something a little different from what I’ve assumed my whole life.

Then use the thesaurus – probably the one on your computer – to find the best words, especially descriptive words like adjectives. This will also accomplish another important objective which is to avoid cliches. If you’ve described the evening sky as beautiful, awesome, or ominous, you can do better. How about arresting, sublime or portentous? Just don’t overdo it. If you’re like me you know that your vocabulary isn’t as strong as you’d like it to be and even if you know the right word, you might not be able to call it up from memory when you need it. Use the thesaurus to find the word choices and then to find the perfect (or consummate or quintessential) word.

It’s important to read your own work critically. You can be proud of it later. The most important step in making a passage right is recognizing that you don’t have it right yet. It’s sometimes helpful to read your work aloud, for the ears absorb it differently than the eyes. I do this when I think I’m done, and quite often find a section that makes me slow down as if I’m approaching a stretch of rough road in my truck. If this happens every time I read this passage it’s a sure sign that something is wrong. As much as I want to be finished, I’m not. If this happens to you, check for unnecessary words and find the clearest phrasing you can come up with. If nothing you try helps, consider removing the passage altogether. If you can do that without losing any meaning or emotion, get rid of it.

One final thought is to accept the fact that that every time you read something you’ve written, you’ll want to change it – to remove or add a comma, change a word, add a quote. This never stops. You must realize that you never get finished, you just get stopped – sometimes by a deadline, sometimes simply by weariness.

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Regarding this question, fly fishers seem to fall into one of two categories—those who change flies more often than they need to, and those who don’t change flies as often as they should.

In some ways a fly change is an over-rated and over-used response to rejection from creatures with tiny brains: I’m not gettin’ any bites; must be using the wrong fly. If I was cynical (which of course I’m not) I might suggest that assuming the fly is the problem is a way of off-loading responsibility—a piscatorial version of the clumsy worker blaming his tools. But as I said, I’m not cynical.

Of course the fly could be the problem, but before you change it you should be as sure as you can be that that is indeed the case. For there are lots of other things that can be wrong and if one of them is wrong, there isn’t a fly anywhere that can fix it.

Once it becomes clear that the fish aren’t going to eat what you’re throwing, it’s time to change something. In fact the question of when to change flies is really just that: a question of when to change something. The worst thing you can do when you’re not catching fish is to keep doing what isn’t working. Yet people do it all the time, hoping I suppose, that the fish will eventually feel pity. 

The first thing to consider is whether the fly is going to the right place. Make it easy for the fish to eat your fly. Don’t ask a fish to move a few feet to eat if you can ask it to move just a few inches. This of course, rests with your casting.

Once you’ve made a perfect cast you have to get perfect behaviour from the fly. If it’s a dry fly it has to drift without drag while it’s in the fish’s view. If it’s a nymph it has to get close to the bottom and then drift without drag. If it’s a streamer it has to behave like a baitfish when it’s in the fish’s view. 

Meeting these objectives might require changes in casting position or terminal tackle. It doesn’t matter how many casts it takes, you shouldn’t consider changing the fly until you know you’ve made perfect shots several times. (And by several I mean maybe 5 or 10 times, not 250 times.)

A critical factor that’s not given enough consideration is the leader. It should be long enough to prevent the fish from being alarmed by the fly line landing nearby, and the tippet should be the right diameter for the fly (for trout fishing divide the hook size by four to get the “X” diameter of tippet you need).

The sport’s quintessential confrontation comes when a fly fisher encounters a trout rising steadily and frequently in moving water. You know where the fish is; you know that it’s feeding. This should mean you can catch it. So you try to determine which stage of which insect it’s eating, then stand in a place where it’s easy or at least possible to get an accurate cast followed by a perfectly drag-free drift right over the fish (not three or four feet off to the side of the fish). Sometimes a steadily rising trout will stop rising for the few seconds it takes for your fly to drift over it, but gets back to business as soon as your fly is out of the way. While this kind of behaviour drives me crazy I also kind of admire it. It’s a sure sign that the trout is looking but not buying, and that’s a sure sign it’s time to change something. You might try a longer leader or finer tippet—or a different fly. You could switch to a slightly different imitation of the insect the fish is eating, or to an emerger or spinner. As long as the fish continues to feed, you’re still in the game.

But if the fish stops rising altogether, stop casting immediately and watch awhile to see if it resumes. If it does, carry on casting to it. If it doesn’t, you’ve probably spooked that fish. Make a couple of Hail Mary casts and then move on.

When we see trout rising we possess extremely valuable information, and this is our preferred scenario. In these situations fly changes can come fairly quickly because the fish’s response will be readily apparent. But more often we’re “fishing blind” and it’s a little harder to be sure we’ve put the fly in exactly the right spot, so fly changes will come a little more slowly.

When you’re fishing unsuccessfully in a good spot there’s a decision to be made. You can stay there, crank the determination-knob up to 10 and persevere in the belief that the fish are there and you’ll eventually get ‘em if you try enough flies and methods. But another response that qualifies as “changing something” is changing location. Sometimes moving a couple of steps one way or the other will allow you to get a better drift. Or you could move to the next pool, or to a different type of water. As a last resort you can get in your vehicle and drive to a different stream. 

But if you do that you’re admitting defeat. As long as you’re okay with that…

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Why would I want to try fly fishing?

Why would I want to try fly fishing? I catch plenty of fish with gear, bait, and spinning tackle. Isn’t fly fishing expensive to get into? Isn’t it hard to do? And it seems so – so trendy. I’d have to get the right kind of fancy waders and learn all the fancy jargon and up my social media skills so I could post photos on line. What’s the point of all this?

That’s a lot of questions, but they’re good ones, ones that probably occur to just about everyone who considers taking up fly fishing.

Let’s get something straight at the outset. There is nothing “better” about fly fishing as opposed to fishing with spinning tackle, gear or bait. (Although regarding bait, if catch-and-release regulations are in effect, all other types of tackle are better for the fish than bait. A fish that’s caught on a baited hook is not as likely to survive as one caught on any un-baited hook, which is why bait is generally not allowed in places with catch-and-release regulations.)

Fly fishing doesn’t make you a more ethical angler, a more virtuous person, or more likely to be nominated as citizen of the year. However, the one thing about fly fishing that is “better” is this: It’s more fun. Fishing is an endeavour of entertainment, and most people who fish with fly tackle feel that they get more enjoyment (read: entertainment) by fishing that way.

What’s the difference between fighting a fish with fly tackle and fighting one with spinning tackle? 

 Everybody likes to feel a fish fighting at the end of a line, so what’s the difference between fighting a fish with fly tackle and fighting one with spinning tackle? 

Very little. The difference comes from what leads up to the fight. Fly fishing has some inherent limitations that may actually make it harder to catch fish, but which also by their nature make it a more interesting (read: entertaining) way to catch fish.

When you fish with bait, you cast it out into the water where it wiggles about, looking, smelling, feeling, and tasting like real fish food, because it is. When Mr. or Mrs. fish eats it – surprise, surprise, there’s a metal pokey thing hidden inside. You’re mostly a happy, innocent observer in the process, most of the work having been done by the bait.

When you fish with spinning tackle, you cast something out into the water that’s shaped to move a certain way when you retrieve it. The lure shucks and jives through the water, appealing to the fish’s predatory nature and provoking it to strike. You remain mainly a happy, innocent observer, most of the work having been done by the lure.

These are over-simplifications for sure. But when you take up fly fishing, you’re agreeing to play a game with a different set of rules. The premise of fly fishing is imitation: choosing and using a fly that imitates something the fish are accustomed to eating at the moment you’re on the water. That thought provokes questions: What are the fish eating right here, right now? What does that food item look like? Where in the water does that food item live? How does that food item behave? The answers to these can be found through your own observation, through wise counsel of a fly-fishing friend, or through books, videos, Youtube, fly shops, guides and instructors. But the point is, when you’re fly fishing, most of the work is being done by you. You believe you know what the fish are eating and what fly will imitate that food. You decide where to cast. You make the fly behave like the real food item. When it all works out and you do find yourself fighting a fish at the end of the line, it’s confirmation of your understanding of what’s going on down there in the water. And that feels good. In short you feel smart, rather than lucky. Most of us prefer smart. The value of fly fishing isn’t just in the catching of fish, but in knowing and understanding why you caught them.

This is the kind of thought that fly fishing fosters. Though our detective work doesn’t always pan out and there are many occasions when we feel more like Inspector Clouseau than Sherlock Holmes, when it does it’s especially satisfying. And the unsuccessful days send you back to the drawing board with increased determination to do better next time.

Here’s something I present to a number of new fly fishers each summer: You’ve read in a book that a certain trout stream provides good fishing with grasshopper imitations. Great, you’ll fish hoppers. Where do you cast them? Out in the middle of the stream? No, the fish there don’t see many hoppers. You fish them near the banks where the hoppers live. What time of year do you fish with hoppers? Spring? No. You fish hopper imitations when the real hoppers are active and the fish are used to eating them, which is late summer and early autumn. Does the weather matter? Yes. Warm, breezy days are best because that’s when the real hoppers are most active and can be blown into the water. Wind direction? A wind that blows from the land to the water. 

After this the skeptic in the group might say something like this: “This is all fine, but I don’t see why you’d go to all the trouble of using fly tackle to catch these fish. Why wouldn’t you just grab a real grasshopper and stick it on a hook? Wouldn’t that work just as well?” The answer is yes, but I follow up with a little analogy from another sport. “Do you play golf?” I ask. “A little” is a common answer. “Well I don’t,” I say. “But it seems to me that golfers go to a lot of trouble to get the little white ball into the hole in the grass. All those sticks, all those rules, all those funny clothes. Why don’t you just pick up the ball, walk over to the hole and drop it in?” “Because that’s not how you play golf!” he says.

“Bingo,” I say. A different set of rules, remember?

Is fly fishing hard to learn? 

Is fly fishing hard to learn? 

No, but it is different from other kinds of fishing, both in the tackle and its use. The physical part is casting, which is a very learnable skill. And while it can be learned from watching instructional videos, the best way to learn is under the tutelage of an experienced instructor. The difference is that with a video you can watch great casters cast, but they can’t watch you.

How about the cost?

How about the cost? It seems that fly fishing is kind of a snobby, uppity game where people seem proud of how expensive their gear is. 

Like everything else, fly tackle is available at a great range of prices. Perhaps the sport’s most significant development in the last 20 years is the improvement in the quality of moderately priced equipment. You can get started with good gear for costs comparable to or significantly less than what’s required to take up golf or skiing. And the big difference in expenditure comes when you use the equipment. Golf and skiing require significant outlay each time you go. Fly fishing usually requires just a fishing licence and there’s no limit on how many times you can use it .

I’ve gotten this far without mentioning the “fresh air and exercise in the great outdoors” business. That’s because you get those benefits from all types of fishing. But because fly fishing requires so much thought it’s very good at taking your mind off other things. Fly fishing doesn’t give you time to worry; you’re too busy thinking. 

I believe that from time to time it’s beneficial to direct all your attention toward something that isn’t very important in the big picture of life. For a lot of folks that something is fly fishing.

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Introduction

First things first. By western prairies I mean western North America: Alberta, Montana, Saskatchewan, North Dakota et al. The great plains of these states and provinces have been celebrated by the hunting press for decades, the bulk of the ink devoted to waterfowl and ringneck pheasants, which are the main reasons for shortages of rooms in small-town motels every autumn. Though there is no bird hunting I don’t enjoy, I’m not talking about waterfowl here and I’m not talking about pheasants. I’m talking about Hungarian (gray) partridge and sharp-tailed grouse.

Gray Partridge: The Quintessential Hun Hunt

Through the West the pheasant is King, with Huns and sharptails relegated to consolation status, not-very-important bonuses to hunters chasing bigger, gaudier birds. I’m one of a few renegades out there; happy enough to shoot a rooster that gets in the way or commits avian suicide (and I would never refer to one as a ditch parrot), but I don’t go out of my way to hunt them. When the day is over I might even forget that I’ve shot a pheasant if the Hun or sharptail hunting was particularly good.

Gray partridge were successfully introduced to the West from their native Europe via a 1908 planting in Alberta, and quickly expanded their range to Saskatchewan, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and the Dakotas, where they thrive today. They are a covey bird and do well on land that has been broken for agriculture, particularly large areas of grain crops. They prefer lighter cover than pheasants and in autumn are often found in or around cut grain (stubble) fields that have taller cover nearby – grassy edges, willows, overgrown draws and coulees, ragged fence lines, and shelter belts. If there’s a quintessential Hun spot, it’s an abandoned homestead where overgrown grass and weeds meet grain stubble. Much Hun hunting today is on private farm land where permission to hunt must be obtained.

The Sporting Challenges of Hungarian Partridge

These are small game birds, between quail and ruffed grouse in size, and while not flashy to look at (they’re called gray partridge for a reason) their subdued tones project a modest beauty. Actually they’re downright cute, a fact that’s occasionally an impediment when asking a farmer for permission to hunt: “You want to shoot those pretty little birds that live in the yard and peck at the seeds in my garden?” “Uh, well, no ma’am, not those birds but others like them out in your lower field.” Oh, never mind.

Some of Huns’ habits make them harder to hunt; some make them easier. I like them for both. Their unison covey-flush is sudden and startling, creating far more discombobulation for a hunter than eight or ten little birds should be capable of. (It seems that one of them must count “one, two, three, go!”) The good news is they often don’t fly more than a few hundred yards, which makes following up the first flush for a second encounter a genuine possibility. They do run, but theirs is a nervous skulk-and-sneak, rather than the full-out sprint pheasants are famous for and seem to enjoy.

Sharp-tailed Grouse: The Fierce Game Bird of the Prairies

I’ll go out on a limb and say that Huns are the toughest and therefore sportiest wing-shooting target on the western plains. Their sudden covey-rise is unsettling, even when you know it’s coming, and because they’re usually coming out of light cover, there’s nothing to inhibit acceleration, and they get to top speed right now.

The appeal to Hun hunting is in the pastoral beauty of the farm country, the potential for thrilling dog-work, and the challenging shooting. Regarding the latter, I’ve observed a number of skilled pheasant shooters humbled by Huns, and their misses occasionally produce the aroma of sour grapes: “They’re too small anyway, let’s find us some roosters.”

Exploring the World of Sharp-tailed Grouse

Sharp-tailed grouse are native to western grasslands from Nebraska north and west through Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and farther north yet. There are populations in Alaska and the Yukon, and through much of their range they’re still called “prairie chickens,” a common if technically incorrect reference.

Sharptails don’t rely on grain the way that Huns often do, but neither do they object to its presence, and will eat it if it abuts the native prairie grassland that’s their primary habitat prerequisite. In Saskatchewan, Alberta and Montana, sharptail country is often cattle country – large expanses of prairie pasture punctuated by dry pond bottoms, draws, and patches of willow, wild rose, buffalo-berry and occasional small stands of aspen.

Hunting the Elusive Sharptail Grouse

They are found in singles or small groups. The shooting is not particularly difficult, for they are sizeable birds (just a little shy of a hen pheasant), and usually depart in a staggered manner, often leaving “stragglers” that stay put when the main part of the group flushes.

Sharptails are considered good birds for pointing dogs. The country they live in is huge and in order to find the birds a dog must cover a lot of ground. Early in the hunting season (September or October, depending on location), the birds sit well, allowing dogs and hunters to approach closely. But as the season progresses, the weather cools, the birds gather into larger flocks and become notorious for flushing wild. And unlike Huns, late-season sharptails can fly and fly and fly until you can’t see them anymore.

The Wild Beauty of Sharptail Country

Sharptails are found both on private land and on large tracts of public land often used for grazing cattle. They share the land with Huns and pheasants in areas where the habitat overlaps.

The appeal in hunting sharptails comes from the immensity and fierce wildness of the country they inhabit. I once wrote a piece about them titled “An Ancient Bird in a Lonely Place” – and those words still come as close as any I can come up with. Man’s intrusions into their habitat exist but are less apparent. Sharptails are often distanced from cultivated land, roads, cell towers and the like, sharing their bare and beautiful domain with mule deer, prairie falcons, antelope and coyotes.

The Pointing Dog Enthusiast’s Perspective

You might have noticed that I’ve avoided explaining my lukewarm position on pheasants. Okay, here it is. I’m an insufferable fan of pointing dogs, and quite possibly a snob about it. To my interpretation, pheasants bring out the worst in a pointing dog. The problem is making them stop running and start flying – within shotgun range. The dog catches scent, makes game, searches carefully and points. The pheasant, mildly amused, thumbs his beak and starts running. The dog follows, perhaps eventually committing the crime of flushing a bird it was supposed to point. You may or may not see this happen, as it generally occurs a great distance from you. 

I believe Huns and sharptails bring out the best in a pointing dog. The dog work tends to the dramatic, providing decisive wins or decisive screw-ups, and not much gray area. Your pointer (or setter or Brittany or shorthair) is out there a couple hundred yards, running hard across the breeze in prairie or grain stubble, when it makes a sudden pivot and stop that kicks up a little cloud of dust. The hair stands up on the back of your neck as you approach the dog; you adjust your hat and your glasses, you consider removing your gloves before shooting, you remind yourself to to keep your head down, to swing through, and do all the other things that have time to come to mind on your walk toward the stationery dog. When the birds go, you’re still surprised. 

If fishing and hunting are largely defined by anticipation, this could be the best there is. And if this makes me a snob, I guess I’ll just wear it with pride.

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