Oregon club spreads the joy of fly fishing

Published 6:05 pm Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Here’s a story by Phil Wright of the East Oregonian on the Blue Mountain Fly Casters

PENDLETON, Ore. — Hey, did you catch anything?

Most anglers might say, “Yes,” ”No,” ”A few,” or even “I limited out.” But those who take the fly rod and cast forth the heavy line with it

s minute imitation insect are more apt to say, “Yes, about 80 today.”

As Pendleton fly fisherman Bob Wolfe puts it: “When we do fishing, we go for a day of fishing.”

And when Wolfe and other fly fishing enthusiasts talk about it, well, they don’t sound quite like other recreational fis

hing folks.

“It’s kind of a passion,” Wolfe said.

Fellow fly fisherman John Dadoly sees it much the same.

“It’s become a bit of a way of life with me,” he said.

Wolfe and Dadoly are both members of Blue Mountain Fly Casters, a local club that spreads the word on fly fishing and teaches classes on how to fly fish and make lures, or “flies” imitations of real insects used to catch fish.

Wolfe is a founding member of the club and retired from the U.S. Forest Service. He always loved to fish and started out using bait. One day as a 15-or-so-year-old on the way to the fish hole, he found a wallet with some fishing flies inside. Wolfe picked up the wallet and went to the hole, but his lures didn’t work even though he could see the fish were biting. He opted to try a new approach.

“I tied a fly on my spin line, bellied up to the water and on my first cast got a hit,” he said.

He was hooked and has spent a lifetime learning about fly fishing.

“Every time I fish, even though I’ve fished for 50 years, I still learn something,” Wolfe said. “You get good, you get where you can outfish your peers, but you never really master it.”

Dadoly is a 47-year-old East Coast native who also has fished all his life. Fly fishing intrigued him since he was 12 or 13, and he dabbled in it until he moved to Oregon in 1994. Then a friend mentored Dadoly on fly fishing, from tying flies to casting. For the past 15 years, he has exclusively fly fished.

“I think fly fishing gives you a chance to learn more about the fish and their environment,” he said.

“When you fly fish, you are exploring,” Wolfe said. “You are trying to trick an animal with an IQ of 6 into hitting your imitation fly.”

Indeed, fly anglers become sharp observers of nature and even amateur entomologists.

Wolfe ties his own flies that is, ties materials to a hook with thread to make a lure. Some anglers aim to make the fly resemble a living insect as much as possible. Wolfe said he aims for more “impressionistic” flies that resemble something “buggy” fish might like.

Fly fisherman, Dadoly said, watch what the fish are eating, they pay attention to when and where species of insects hatch. He and Wolfe each collect samples of insects to study. Dadoly even knows general classification of insects.

“You are observant,” Wolfe said, “because sometimes fish will key on a specific insect. That’s called matching the hatch'” that is, using a fly that best mimics what the fish are eating at that moment.

After tying flies, there’s still the matter of getting the fish to bite.

“The art in it is learning to present that imitation fly in a manner the fish think are alive and real,” Wolfe said.

While fly fishing may seem difficult, Dadoly said just about anyone can do it.

“If you can stand up and have the coordination to throw a ball, we can teach you to fly cast,” he said.

Out of the hundreds of people the Fly Casters have taught, he said, some don’t ever learn to cast very well but still land fish and enjoy themselves.

“If you can cast 30 feet, you can catch fish,” he said.

Wolfe said fly casting is the opposite of casting bait. In bait casting, a heavy lure helps carry light line a long distance. But in fly casting, you have to learn to throw a heavy line with a lure that weighs just a few grams.

“You are casting the line, and the fly goes alone for the ride,” he said.

After enough practice, he said, casting becomes second nature. He said he’s done it long enough he doesn’t think about casting any more, but about the fish he’s trying to catch.

The real challenge, the fishermen said, is managing the line and making sure the fly touches water. If it doesn’t touch water, Dadoly said, it won’t catch anything.

Fly fishing is like any sport or activity, Wolfe said: “If you want to be good at it, you have to work at it.”

The two also dispelled the notion that fly fishing is for the well-do-to. They said beginners can buy entire set ups of good equipment for $60 to $100. Just a decade or so ago, Dadoly said, those would have cost $200 or more.

While fly fishing is more difficult to learn than bait fishing, Wolfe said there’s a big payoff for the effort.

“If you love to catch fish, it’s the way to go because you catch so many more fish,” he said.

Fly fishing allows for easy “catch and release,” he said. When fishing with bait, the fish sucks the hook, sometimes as far back as the gills. That makes it hard to remove a hook without harming the fish. Small fish are particularly hard to release in those cases.

Fly fishing, however, usually hooks fish in the lip, making for easy access. Wolfe also said he pinches down the barbs on hook so they are easier to remove.

He said he tells classes not to fish just to catch a limit, but to fish for a full day. That might mean keeping the state’s legal limit of a couple of trout, while catching and releasing another 50 to 100. That’s a pretty typical amount for a day of fly fishing, Wolfe said.

What’s also typical of the sport is how atypical its practitioners talk about it.

“You get a rhythm going and wading in the stream you feel you’re part of the environment,” Dadoly said.

“It’s called the quiet sport,'” Wolfe said, ” the only sound you have out there is the sound of the stream, the birds. It’s just you and nature.”

Dadoly also has shared fly fishing with his twin daughters, now 20. He started bringing them to rivers and lakes when they were just 5, and they have only known fly fishing.

As children, he said, the girls didn’t always fish, but they would explore the world around them. Now in college, he said his daughters look back on those days and recount what they loved about them. A bit of emotion comes through his voice when he talks about this.

Aside from the bounty of fish, the communing with nature, the sharing, Dadoly hit on perhaps fly fishing’s truer essence.

“You don’t have to give up your childhood fun,” he said.

Fly fishing is grown-up play. Adults can have fun in water all day while in the guise of a quiet, thoughtful, respectable pastime.