This month’s Sunday Short is a story selected from Wisdom River: Meditations on Fly Fishing and Life Midstream (Durvile & UpRoute Books). Greg Allard’s “How Are You Fellas Making Out?” is a yarn that will make anglers long for the riverbank and their next cast.

How Are You Fellas Making Out?

It’s Rich; he’s calling me to confirm the details of tomorrow’s trip. “The guy’s name is Dave. Pick him up at the Alma at nine.”

“Okay, sounds good,” I reply.

“And bring all the gear. He didn’t bring his rod or anything,” Rich adds.

“You know that’s a late start. We’re going to miss the early morning Stonefly fishing. We should be on the water by six a.m.,” I say.

“Yeah, I know, but he’s flying in late, and that’s when he’ll be ready to go.”

I sigh in frustration and say, “Yeah, okay, whatever.”

Rich is my guiding partner. He’s a retired Air Force jet mechanic who spent twenty-five years keeping Canada’s fleet of F-18s combat-ready and a couple of years flying around with the Canadian Forces Snowbirds, the 431 Flying Demonstration Squadron. Rich is a no nonsense, “get er’ done” kind of guy, with a big heart and a great sense of humor. Most of his season is spent guiding fly-in clients for an all-inclusive week of fly fishing. They spend four days drifting on the Bow River and a couple of days fishing the Mountain streams for cutthroat trout. I take care of the rest of the clients: the single-day float trips, walk-and-wade outings, and evening dry fly hunts.

The Alma is a contemporary, Euro-styled hotel located on the University of Calgary campus. Some of the visiting professors, lecturers, and researchers are offered a recreational day, compliments of the University. They can choose a sightseeing bus tour to Banff, birdwatching in Fish Creek Provincial Park, concerts, or a guided fly-fishing walk-and-wade outing on the lower Bow River. That’s where I come in.

Rich prefers clients who are hardcore fly fishers looking to land a trophy trout of a lifetime, and he will work his butt off for a week straight to make it happen. He usually succeeds in that regard. The “brainiacs,” as he might refer to them, well, he would rather that I deal with them, or anyone from the liberal arts crowd for that matter.

We finish our brief chat and hang up. I check the weather forecast for tomorrow. Sunny, high of 28 C (82 F), Wind SW 40 km/hr gusting to 60 km/hr (25 to 40 mph) late in the morning. Good grief, I think. It’s going to be a tough day on the water. I hope the client can cast well.

It’s 8:45 a.m. when I roll up to the lobby doors. Dave is already waiting. I get out of my car to greet and welcome him to Calgary. “It looks like it’s going to be a great day,” I lie. He seems nice, in his early seventies, relaxed and easy-going. “UCLA,” he tells me on the drive to the river. Dave is a neurosurgeon and researcher who grew up fishing the streams of the San Gabriel Mountains of California. He loves fishing dry flies but hates fishing nymphs and bobbers. With six decades of fly-fishing experience, he’s caught plenty of trout and doesn’t care much about numbers anymore. It’s mid-July and the Calgary Stampede is bringing in 100,000 tourists a day, so the river will be busy.

I need to find a spot away from the walk-and-wade traffic in the city and the sometimes-endless stream of drift boats. I drive south to the edge of the city limits. Most of the boats that launched early at Fish Creek will have passed by hours ago, so we should have some peace and quiet. Hopefully, the wind stays reasonable for the rest of the morning. Fingers crossed. Dave and I talk about fly fishing on the drive to the river. He mentions having some mobility issues, so he can’t walk too far. I explain that the Bow River can be a difficult river to fish at times, and changing conditions can quickly put the fish down.

I pull over next to the “No Parking” sign at the bridge on Highway 2, which puts us as close to the water as I can get. After a short walk, we reach the first pool, and apart from the faint background rumble of highway traffic, we are out of the urban jungle and have the bank to ourselves. I quickly rig up a fly and hand the rod to Dave.

“We’re going to try fishing with a large foam Stonefly pattern,” I explain. “The female golden stoneflies are egg-laying through the night and early morning at this time of the season and maybe we can still find some trout to come up for the large dry fly,” I lie again. I know that we are probably too late for the Stonefly action and it’s just too bright and sunny for the trout to commit to an eat on the surface this late in the morning without a major hatch to entice them. But maybe we’ll get lucky, and there’s still plenty of day left to be optimistic. So here we are, fishing on a sunny, warm July morning on the Bow River. So far so good.

Now, to be a great walk-and-wade fishing guide, it’s important to remember to keep your mouth shut, especially when the client first starts fishing. They have come from afar to fish the blue-ribbon Bow and the last thing they want to hear is some guide criticizing their every cast. I simply let them get into the Zen of the moment, to enjoy the smell of summer on the fresh morning breeze, to listen to the sound of the river, the birds singing, time to let the mind wander, for the river to cast its spell and the magic to happen. Be quiet!

I take a minute to assess the conditions around me. There aren’t many insects floating in the drift yet, and no golden stones to be seen. A small flock of gulls are sitting on a gravel bar, many pruning themselves and one appears to be sleeping. I spot a pair of Mallard hens with a large brood of ducklings huddled in a slack-water pool along the shoreline. The younger, first-year hens often share motherhood with an older hen and combine their broods. However, sometimes, the young hen will abandon the family, leaving the older hen to raise all the ducklings on her own. The drakes usually gather and stay away from the hens once the hens start incubating their eggs, and play no role in rearing. Some people are a lot like Mallards.

The wind is moderate, from the southeast, blowing upstream and slightly off our bank. I expect it to turn to the southwest when it picks up, as the forecast said it would, and soon. I’m worried that it will be a tough day for dry fly fishing.

Dave strips line off the reel and starts to present his fly along the edges of the current seam and works slowly and methodically upriver, through the long pool. His casting is decent, and he’s focused, but not rushed. The first hour sneaks by uneventfully. I suggest a fly change to Dave, something with a little extra flash on it to get the fish’s attention through the broken water of the riffles. He likes the concept, and I remind him to stay hydrated as it is getting very warm, and the sun’s glare off the water is intense. He is in good spirits and seems to be enjoying his adventure.

Dave turns back to the water with the new fly and renewed hope. “What are those? Pelicans?” Dave asks in amazement. Two adult American White Pelicans come drifting down the river. “Yes indeed,” I reply. “They come for the summer to breed and rear their young. In September, they will fly back to the Gulf of Mexico in Texas to spend the winter,” I explain. “I didn’t know that they came this far north, all the way up to Canada,” Dave says. “Well, the pelicans only showed up in Alberta and on the Bow River in 1974, a year after Calgary’s Sam Livingston Fish Hatchery started a lake-stocking program,” I explain. “With stocked fingerling trout in almost every pothole lake in southern Alberta, word traveled quickly through the migratory bird kingdom and now, thirty-five years later, here they are. Every single one of those large adult pelicans eats four pounds of my Bow River fish, every day. That’s about five hundred pounds total, each season,” I protest.

I always try to point out the local wildlife that we may encounter to my guests. What might seem like a normal, common wildlife sighting to me may be a once-in-a-lifetime moment for a visiting angler from another country or continent. Southern Alberta is a land of wild, natural abundance. The Bow River is home to bald eagles, ospreys, peregrine falcons, red-tailed hawks, ducks, pheasants, Canada geese, great horned owls, great gray owls, mink, beavers, kingfishers, black bears, bobcats, coyotes, and occasionally, but rarely seen, cougars.

Recently, a large cougar went on a killing spree at a farm near the Bow River and killed six alpacas and two sheep in one night. That old tomcat weighed over two hundred pounds and was eventually shot by a neighbor after a few days of chaos. A young cougar was even spotted in Fish Creek Park last summer, right in the city and was hissing at the passing bird watchers and families out for a nature walk, while it devoured a young deer it had taken down.

Some naive and well-meaning people like to feed the deer in the park, leaving them apples and mixed birdseed. These well-fed, docile deer attract black bears and cougars. Concerned Conservation Officers closed the park to the public and attempted to live trap the cougar for a couple of days without success. With public pressure mounting, they brought in professionals with a pack of hounds. Remarkably, they had the young cat treed in less than an hour and safely relocated it.

The pelicans drift past and Dave returns to his casting. I step back from the water’s edge and follow as he works his way upriver. Ten minutes of fishing pass, and then suddenly there is a brief flash of yellow gold near his fly. The Brown Trout comes up for a look but quickly turns away, mere inches from the fly and disappears down into the watery ether to its dark lair. Dave drifts a couple of dozen more casts over the same spot, hoping for a miracle, but hope can often mislead and keep you stuck in the same place.

My cell phone vibrates. It’s Rich.

“Morning. How are you fella’s making out?” he asks.

I walk away, out of earshot.

“Great, we’re just working the water,” I respond.

Then he teases, “Boy, the fishing was on fire this morning. My guys boated a dozen on big foam Stonefly drys. Two over twenty inches, a big Brown buck that taped twenty-one inches and a nice Rainbow around twenty. It slowed down about an hour ago, so we switched to the nymphs, but the fish have shut down now. You guys should have gotten out bright and early like we did. We launched my drifter at Policeman’s Flats around 4:30 a.m.—”

I bite my tongue and say nothing.

“Hold on. I gotta go. Dave’s just hooked a monster Brown. Wow, it has to be at least twenty-five inches,” I exclaimed excitedly and hung up promptly before Rich could reply. I let out a little chuckle.

Dave pauses and takes a drink from his bottle of water as I walk back over to him. “See any more fish move to the fly?” I enquire.

“Nothing,” he says with a headshake. The wind shifts to the south and intensifies. Well, at least it’s blowing upstream I tell myself. “Maybe we should add a Caddis pupa as a dropper fly,” I suggest. “It’s almost noon so there should be a few Caddis starting to emerge,” I tell him.

“Okay, let’s try that” Dave agrees.

I tie a Caddis pupa on to an 18-inch section of fluro tippet and attach it to the hook bend of the Stonefly. “This should get the job done,” I tell him confidently. “And let it swing out at the end of the drift like a natural emerger would,” I instructed him.

Dave works the two-fly rig through the riffles near the head of the pool. A few casts and then a flash of silver. His leader slices the water as the Rainbow races out to the middle of the river and with a mighty leap and a few head shakes, it spits the dropper fly. Dave turns and looks at me with a grin so wide that his hat almost fell off. Game on!

Now my angler has become a hunter. He resumes fishing, leaning forward into each cast and creeping stealthily like a great blue heron stalking its dinner. Then, I hear it. Faintly, off in the distance, racing through the trees. Oh no, here it comes! Damn. The wind moves in from the southwest, growing louder and louder until it hits the water on the opposite shore, making little whitecaps as it pushes upstream against the current and crosses the river.

Dave stumbles and reaches up to hang onto his hat to keep it from being blown off his head. The air temperature has risen a few degrees in only a matter of minutes. It’s the kind of wind that continually blows and pushes, only to be interrupted by even stronger gusts. It’s tough on every angler. Dave is no exception. He struggles to make each cast and quickly tangles his flies. I suggest that we take a break and have a shore lunch. Maybe the wind will settle down in a while. There was still plenty of day left for optimism, but it was getting blown away, fast.

I had learned a lot about fly fishing and guiding from the late Gord Kennedy who had owned and operated WestWinds Fly Shop in Calgary for many years. I had spent a lot of time leaning on his front counter talking fly fishing with him. Gord taught me that the most important thing to being a successful guide was to try and make sure that the client had a great day. He would say, “The fishing isn’t always going to be fantastic; the client isn’t always going to be a skilled angler and the weather will rarely be perfect. Yes, you needed to know how to read the water, the river conditions, know the hatches and all the fly-fishing methods and tactics but, equally important, is how to read the client.” Words of wisdom.

It was Alberta Badlands hot under the high noon sun, so we moved into the shade of the tree canopy to have our lunch.

“Why the old fishing creel?” Dave inquires.

“It was my dad’s,” I reply. “I’ve been fishing with it since I was nine. He won it in a raffle with a Mitchell 300 spin caster rod and reel at a hardware store in a small town where I grew up. He always let me use it and I never fish without it. It reminds me of the years that I spent fishing with him. I’m a lucky man to have had a father like him, Dave. He took me fishing when I was four years old, and I caught two small brookies. I’ve been hooked ever since.”

Dave shares a few details of his life story and fishing experiences with his family down in California. Our conversation flows easily for three quarters of an hour, moving effortlessly from one question to another, from fishing to psychology, which he tells me was the first degree he completed before going into medicine. Not surprising for a typical Alma overachiever. But Dave has zero ego and is more interested in my story, always finding common ground when relating his experiences with mine.

I recall my aunt asking me when I was seven years old what I wanted to be when I grew up and I said, “A brain surgeon” because grown-ups seemed pleased with that answer. I wonder if Dave said that when he was seven? I wonder what Dave really wanted to be when he grew up? I forgot to ask him; I usually ask everyone that. When I was seven, I already knew what I wanted to be—a musician. I already was one at seven. I have been a musician for as long as I can remember. My mother and grandmother were teaching me to sing while I learned to talk and how to play simple nursery rhyme melodies on the piano before I could even read or write. I’m very lucky to have had such a caring mother and grandmother as I did. I don’t remember ever not being a musician in my life … Ever. So that’s what I did when I grew up. And what an adventure that is.

“Well, are you ready to throw some more tailing loops?” I tease with a grin.

“Let’s give it another try,” Dave says with a smile.

The wind remains unrelenting. Dave tries his best side arm cast to get the fly out to the current seam, but the cross wind is ferocious and blows his line back towards the shore. His leader tangles on about every third cast and in frustration, he starts trying to muscle the casting, making things even worse.

After fifteen minutes of struggle, Dave turns to me and with a look of defeat and says, “That’s enough for today.” He looks exhausted. We collect our things and head for refuge from the sun and gale. “I’m feeling a bit of jet lag today and this wind has just finished me off,” he says when we get in the car.

“Yes, these conditions are impossible,” I console. “The afternoon is still young though; would you like a quick tour around Calgary to see the sights?” I ask. “I’m still on the clock,” I add.

“Sure, that sounds great,” he replies.

We drive back into the city and up the hill to the Lookout in Crescent Heights for a spectacular view overlooking downtown Calgary. Dave is impressed with how new, clean, and beautiful Calgary’s downtown office towers look next to the bottle green ribbon of the Bow River. Then I drive over to Kensington to show him its many small sidewalk boutiques, cafés, and restaurants. All of the patios are full of patrons and the festive spirit, smell and sounds of Stampede fills the street.

Dave tells me that Calgary reminds him of Seattle, clean, young, and vibrant. He is amazed at the multicultural diversity here in Canada and how it seems so normal. I offer to take him up to the observation deck of the Calgary Tower for a Panoramic view of the city and the Rocky Mountains, but he declines, with thanks. He’s tired and wants to have a short nap before supper, so we head back to Hotel Alma.

We unload his things at the lobby doors and Dave says, “That was great, Greg. I had a fantastic day, thank you.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his wallet. He hands me his business card and a crisp, new $100 US bill and says, “Let me know if you are ever in California. I’ll take you out and show you all my favorite fishing spots.”

“I would certainly love to take you up on that offer, Dave, thank you. It was a pleasure spending the day with you.” I shake his hand and leave, thinking that if Dave lived in Calgary, we would probably be fishing buddies. I drive a short distance and park to check my phone.

It’s likely that my kids have sent me a dozen messages by now. We are very close; it’s been ten years since their mom passed. I’ve had a very busy life raising our two boys, who are now in their late teens. Some wounds never heal … ever.

My phone vibrates; it’s Rich calling, “Are you fellas still fishing?” he inquires.

“No, Dave had enough for the day. I just dropped him off.”

“Yeah, we quit early too. We packed it in at noon when the wind picked up. Listen, John and Bill from Portland, Maine are back up here fishing with me this week. They’re sitting here in the garage lounge with me having a glass of Scotch. I’m on speaker phone.”

“Hi Greg,” John and Bill say.

“Hi guys, welcome back to Calgary,” I reply.

“So, they want you to take them out for another evening dry fly hunt, like you did last year,” Rich continues.

“Sure, that sounds great, we had a lot of fun,” I tell them. John is a lawyer, originally from New York and Bill is a chartered accountant who grew up in Bangor, Maine.

“Okay then, pick them up here at the house tomorrow evening at 6:00 pm. Oh, by the way, did Dave land that big Brown that he hooked this morning?” Rich asks.

“Of course,” I lie.

—♦—