God Save the King?
Fishermen are creatures of habit. We all have our trusted rituals, nagging superstitions, and borderline insane beliefs. Whether its making an odd number of loops in clinch knot, never letting your one friend ride in the back of the canoe, or carrying a literal hare’s ear around in your tackle box, every angler has their own special statutes that govern the way they fish. One of my childhood heroes, River Monsters Jeremy Wade, taught me this at an early age: if you’re not catching fish, visit the shaman or call upon the spirits for guidance. If someone were to ask me if I was an overly superstitious person, my gut instinct would be to say “no, not really”. If their follow up question was “Why are you wearing a facemask on the top of your head and standing in the corner of the room?”, I would respond with “the Boston Celtics apparently can only score when I’m over here doing this - you’re welcome!". It’s nice to feel like you are somehow cosmically involved in a situation that is seemingly out of your control. When I’m fishing tirelessly and all of my logical and scientific adjustments don’t seem to be making a difference, the only remaining possibilities drift off into the illogical.
Last week, as I was checking the 10-day weather forecast, I noticed that the nicest day of the week happened to coincide with my day off - a good omen indeed. I had been nymphing up a storm during the last few weeks so I was looking forward to the possibility of encountering a late march mayfly hatch and breaking out the dry fly box. Since the water around here is still quite cold, the clear skies didn’t concern me as the warming sun would hopefully rile up some hungry trout. I arrived at the stream around mid-day and hiked in to where I knew I would have the place to myself. I began the day nymphing, ADHDrifting pool after pool, and I made sure to keep my eyes peeled for activity on the water surface and listen for any splashes, gurgles or gulps. Drifting seams provided the best action, and I picked off a few juvenile brown trout here and there. About three hours into my fishing exertion, I stumbled upon a localized hatch and saw hearty trout slurping down mayflies up and down a midsized pool like they were candy. I tied on an Adams dry, got into position, and launched a near perfect cast into the strike zone. It only took a second before I saw my fly vacuumed from the surface. But in that moment I froze.
Let me explain. When I was learning how to fly fish, I often gave way to the excitement of it all and set the hook too quickly on a surface take, essentially ripping the fly out of the fishes mouth before it had fully committed. To remedy this, I had learned to say a quick cadence after the offering disappeared under the surface, effectively delaying the hook set and preventing an early reaction and a lost fish. My mantra, which I believe is not uncommon among fly fisherman, is “God save the Queen”. Every time I see a dry fly gulped down, I quickly say “God save the Queen” and then engage the take. Here I was, in this moment, seconds away from hooking a wild brown trout on a dry fly, and as I watched it disappear, I opened my mouth and whispered “God save the… King?”. I haven’t the slightest idea how my brain had available space in that second for details about the current state of the Royal Family, but nevertheless, it dawned on me. There was no longer a Queen, but a King instead in her place - would this make a difference?
Anyone with a first grade level education would laugh at me and say, “Declan, relax - King and Queen have the same number of syllables, so it shouldn’t be an issue. No matter which one you say, the same amount of time should elapse”. But the issue was not the length of time, but the deviation from tradition. “God save the Queen” had become second nature to say, and here I was changing it when it mattered most - I would certainly lose the fish now. By the grace of the gods, the hook nestled its way into the upper lip of the trout and I landed it after a tense but fun fight. Although I netted the fish, I knew that I was never going to tempt fate like that again. Over the next hour, I caught 10 more fish on the dry, but each time I prepared to set the hook, I didn’t stutter. King or not - never mess with superstitions.
-Declan
