North Wyoming’s mountains reached a maximum temperature of 70 levels in late August.
I had lost my hip-waders a long time ago in one of my many cross-country techniques and was wearing cotton and knee-high dirt boots, an exciting choice of attire for wading through the Wood River. However, I thought it better to be hot than frozen in sandals and shorts.
I was seated next to my coach, Fred, and a plan friend, Heather, a lady of a different generation but open and eager to share this process with me.
Following a number of facilities held throughout the spring, we were at this point. Initially, we learned to tie flies in the front region of a local shop, North Fork Anglers, with the clothes accessories pushed inward to hold our three columns.
Ten of us gathered around the white plastic folding chairs that had been set up and watched as our teachers explained the steps involved in tying a “woolly rascal” from beginning to end.
We met once more outside of the group library a month after, and we were given instruction on how to properly cast a line by our mentors. We practiced the repetitive motion in the grassy area next to a nearby water until it felt natural, the moon shining as an overhead shower in the day.
Through the Wyoming Section of the First Hunt Foundation, this procedure was a part of the First Fish on A Fly center. There was an app selection method from which ten people were chosen out of the thirty that submitted.
This was a new book, a voyage I was taking on my own and grieving the end of a four-year relationship, injuring my too-young heart-horse, building a new community of friends, and embarking on a new career. I had just recently moved to Wyoming.
I made the decision to accept these changes and do them somewhere along the way. A longtime vegetarian, I had ultimately decided to take a courageous step and immerse myself in a new experience. I had long been fascinated by hunting and fishing, and I had made the moral promise to myself that if I ever started eating meat again, I did learn how to pick it up.
Fish appeared to be the less challenging of these two efforts, so I began researching flyfishing programs between Wyoming and Montana for the spring and summer of 2023. Cost was a factor when I discovered the First Hunt Foundation’s fully funded First Fish on A Fly course, and as a semi-feested horse mom making it her own for the first time in four years, I took it and applied.
As I carefully placed each step on the rocky bottom and waded my way across and upstream to a nice hole where my mentor assured we would find trout, that series of events ultimately led me to where I stood, denim soaked through my thighs and muck boots sucking in river water with the familiar squelching sound.
Before I could feel a sharp tug on my fly as it floated through the water, Fred calmly guided me through the motions of properly casting my line over and over in ceremonious repetition. He advised me to “flip your rod up and create tension on that line” when I sensed the pressure, and I patiently waited for several tries to get the motion right.
More than anything, patience and repetition drew me to this discipline, and catching my first fish taught me both. When I finally jerked the line at exactly the right moment and felt the satisfying tug of tension that I had actually caught my first trout, Fred grabbed his net and guided me through reeling it in as he prepared to demonstrate how to properly hold and release it.
These little movements, I realized, were second nature to a seasoned fisherman but strange territory to a woman unfamiliar with the craft of flyfishing. As I marveled at the colorfully speckled body of the Yellowstone Cutthroat that writhed between my fingers, I was grateful to be able to witness these intimacies, revel in the artistry of the discipline. As I held this small life within my own two hands, Fred gently reminded me of the strength of my own two hands, and he guided me through its release into the river where it came as he made sure I supported it against the current until it regained the energy it needed to begin swimming once more.
In as many small moments as it took for me to decide to learn to fish, apply to this program, tie my first fly, stand squarely in this river, reel in my first trout, and emerge once more into the shadow of the silted brown river rock and blue-grey rushing water.
Grayson Highfield
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