Wet Sleeves and Soggy Hugs

     Wet Sleeves and Soggy Hugs

By: Steve Taggart

November 10th, 2023

I am in western New York on a steelhead fishing trip with some good friends. It is my fourth trip out to this region, and I always seem to be on the back foot. It usually starts with a lack of sleep from the firehouse, driving six hours through the night to be on the water at first light, or some other factors…but it’s usually sleep…a lack of it at the core. Maybe you’re supposed to “suffer” a bit when you fish for steelhead.

It is the middle of the night, and my heart is beating along very quickly, and my mind is running with it. I’ve been on Prednisone for a few days for a bad poison-ivy rash and sleep has been scarce. The long travel day, the excitement of a few hours of fishing this afternoon, watching Brian land a beautiful fish, and the scotch used to celebrate probably haven’t helped the cause. So, I let my mind ramble…Why do I love this so much?

Steelhead fishing is a special pursuit. I started seeking fish with a fly rod over thirty years ago, and first stepped into a steelhead river twenty years ago in British Columbia. Dry fly fishing for wild trout will always be at my core, but there is something about steelhead that is magical. Sure, I have a pull to their anadromous cousin, the Atlantic salmon. I’ve read countless books on the subject, tied hundreds of salmon flies, and traveled to Canada a treble of times in search of “The Leaper.” I’ve been lucky to land salmon on each of my trips…and nice ones! But for some reason, If I had to pick one, it would be steelhead.

In the early 2000s I co-owned a fly shop in New Jersey, Tight Lines Fly Fishing. We both had some success Atlantic salmon fishing, and he had done some steelhead fishing in the Great Lakes. We tried to build a shop around the finer points of fly fishing, and salmon and steelhead were near the top of the list. I got pulled into the history, allure, and mystique of these stream-born, ocean-going fish, and their eastern lake-run offspring,too. I became knowledgeable in the vast world of exotic tying materials, classic and modern fly patterns, and became proficient at tying them. It all heightened my interest in pursuing these majestic fish, but there were two things that kicked off my lifelong obsession with steelhead, Trey Combs’ book, who many consider the bible on the subject, Steelhead Fly Fishing, and Joe Saverino.

Like a good deal of my closest fishing friends, I met Joe through Captain Jeff Becker from Long Island. Joe was, and still is, a world traveler. He is the first person I had met that fished pretty much everywhere, at least all of the places I dreamed of fishing. The list of wild salmon and steelhead rivers he has fished would make anyone jealous, and I was lucky enough to join him on a few destination trips in later years. Joe gave slide-show presentations on British Columbia, and places like Scotland at the shop. He would also tie some traditional Spey flies for us, like the Lady Caroline. He also introduced us to Spey casting. On the banks of the Delaware River, in Hankins NY, I cast my first Spey rod. The rest, as they say, was history…I was addicted!

That was the summer of 2002. Soon after that casting lesson our shop was full of different length rods and lines. We were both obsessed! Having my trout guiding base a few feet from a giant West Coast like riffle on the Delaware help fuel my passion, I was casting every spare moment. In those early days it was all traditional long and “short” belly lines, certainly much longer than the Scandi and Skagit lines we would adapt later. Two more things influenced my first steelhead trip, they were Lani Waller’s Trophy Steelhead video, and a gentlemen named Paul Morrisey. My friends and I watched Lani’s video hundreds of times and were mesmerized.  Meeting Paul at the Somerset fishing show in New Jersey was the final piece. He told me all about the Bulkley River in northern BC, skating dry flies for steelhead, and gave me a brochure for his friend’s rental cabin on the banks of the river. I would walk to his table as often as I could to hear his tales. He would tow his camper from Connecticut and fish his way across America, then up the coast of BC. He said we would meet us up there the first week of September, and we would skate some flies (fishing only dries was a no compromise condition of river companionship)…the trip was booked.

Fishing British Columbia was a highlight of my life. Out of all of the trips I have taken, and I’ve been lucky to do some traveling, it is my favorite. It was magical, mystical, exhilarating, and certainly stimulating. I got to fish eight full days, and a frantic hour on the ninth morning before heading to the airport. I didn’t land a single steelhead, and it is still my favorite. I did loose two heavy fish that took on the dangle. They both moved slowly into the current and just sat on the bottom before the hook pulled out. The highlight was on the evening of the seventh day when a 6-8 pound steelhead took my skated dry fly and spit the hook after a couple of jumps in the fading light. The last hour of my trip I skated a fly in the run in front of our cabin where my friend Mike landed a beautiful 12 pound hen the day before, on a dry. A fish in hand for me wasn’t to be, and thus started a twenty year obsession pursuing steelhead with a low yield.

There was a gap of a few years after BC where I fished for salmon in Gaspe with Joe before I started chasing the elusive tug of my silver friends in the Great Lakes. Fittingly, my first trip was to the Salmon River with my two-handed mentor, Saverino (I like calling Joe that). I landed my first steelhead on that trip, and Joe was there to tail it for me. I had some good success that year and in the next few. It wasn’t BC, but it was close to home, and the fish, and water were  beautiful. I hooked and landed enough fish the first few years that I thought it was quite easy, at least predictable, to hook a fish or two a day. Then the voluntary beat down came for the last ten years. I landed a few fish, maybe a handful of fish, in eighty plus days of fishing. I had many grabs, split-second hookups, and a few short runs before the hooks came out or the leader broke. One fish ripped up the pool before it put the sword to me. Yet somehow, I never got too frustrated…I love the game.

My good friends Brian, Adam, and Ray introduced me and my friend Woody to the “Catt” in western New York. The Cattaragus is a beautiful river that runs through the stunning Zoar Valley, then winds its way through the Seneca Indian Reservation. The slim results had followed me to this river too, same as in BC and the Salmon River. The grabs were there, but fish in hand were tough to come by. One to be exact, in about a dozen days of fishing over three trips on this river. But it was still magical, beautiful, and I approached every trip with the same butterflies in my stomach. On occasion I have fished by myself for steelhead, but it’s fishing with my friends, my brothers and sister Racheal that makes it so special…sharing our successes and “struggles” together. I always say, “Enjoy the process and comradery, the experience is the prize…the fish a special gift.” Then again, a gift once in a while would be nice…

It's now five am and I am still staring at the walls in the living room listening to the whirl of the ceiling fan. The boys will be getting up soon. It’s time to stop going down memory lane as if I have an audience. I’m tired after the sleepless night, but I am excited, and conditions are perfect. After driving through a muddy farm field, Ray and Brian head up stream. Adam and I head down and cross the river in the dark and get our gear ready. When our rods are strung and flies secured, we separate and turn off our head lamps. As I’m standing in the shallows of the cold river I stare up at the fading stars and a smile comes across my face.

As light slowly breaks the dawn a beautiful landscape is revealed. I strip some line off my reel, sweep my rod to a stop, and send my fly dancing in the current. As I work my way through the run, I am in a trance-like state. It could be the sleepless night, or maybe just the anticipation of a pull. Halfway through the pool I feel tap, tap. I’m instantly brought into the present. Without moving my feet or lengthening my line, I repeat the cast. Three casts to the same spot yields no result. On the next cast, just as the fly swings into the sweet spot, I feel a slow pull…then tight…fish on! After a spirited battle, I slide the beautiful buck into the shallows careful to keep his gills wet. As I kneel in the cold river , holding this beautiful creature (picture above), I am filed with joy. Adam runs up to take a picture. Careful to keep the fish wet, I lay my fleeced forearms low in the water. After a few clicks of the camera, I turn my silver friend’s nose up into the current and say goodbye, with a little bow. I turn to Adam with my wet sleeves and give him a soggy hug.

I’m writing this the morning after getting out of the hospital. I’m still coming down from quite possibly the best fishing trip of my life. I’m also trying to process my second hospital stay in six months. During the peak of my guide season, I ignored some obvious signs in my left arm because fishing was great, and there was work to be done. I pushed through two days of guiding, and almost three knowing something was wrong, very wrong. I spent five days total in the hospital for a staph infection and had surgery, It could’ve been much worse. Ironically, those two days guiding where among the best I’ve ever had, and during this incredible fishing trip, I was ignoring some of the same signs.

This trip turned out to be magical, almost too good to be real. The fish I landed with Adam was my first. Over three and a half days we all hooked and landed many fish, many beautiful fish. We all enjoyed the experience together…it was all about the hang, the fish a bonus, a welcomed one. It tightened our brotherly bond even more. My right arm started to hurt me on Thursday afternoon, and we thought it was a spider bite. We talked about the staph infection, my hospital stay, and surgery I had in May. My arm started to hurt more and swell each day, and I had a good idea what was going on…another staph infection. I started taking antibiotics on Friday night. After fishing on Saturday, I was sure I had one. Instead of fishing Sunday morning, I knew it was time to drive the six hours to the ER near home because I would be staying a few days, and I wanted to be near my family. I drove straight to the hospital with my fishing gear in my truck. It wound up being a four day stay with minor surgery on the last day this time, instead of the first. I type this with a very sore arm, and a bloody bandage. More irony… It was the poison ivy, the reason why I was taking the prednisone that kept me up all night, that was the root cause of the staph infection.

The fairy tale ending would’ve been landing one more steelhead on Sunday, cutting off my fly, and sitting on a log while saying goodbye and thank you to the river and my beautiful friends. But the river owed me nothing, the fish were too generous, and I had ignored the obvious long enough. As I’m sitting here reflecting on my last trip, with a hole in my arm and veins full of antibiotics, what I’m most thankful for were —my wet sleeves and soggy hugs …. Thank You Boys!