From Mayflies to Horseflies

SIDE BY SIDE, we fished the spring baetis hatch on Minnesota’s Whitewater River, one of the great Midwest trout streams. Not liking something, Eddie paused to check his tippet. He clipped off a fly and shortened the line, then opened a fly box. He had caught six trout. I had caught none. I looked over his shoulder the way a man, waiting for a haircut, reads another man’s newspaper. Carefully.

In his box were ten tiny bluewing olives, tied with number 24 hooks. I had nothing close to that small. The flies were exquisite, without evidence of glue or knot, and wound tightly with impossibly thin green thread. A bit of gold enhanced the body. Tiny feathers, perfectly trimmed, curved from the tails. Like golf, there’s such a thing as the “yips” in flytying. I knew I couldn’t tie those. My hands shook