Fly fishing is not dangerous.
The trendy push to nudge it into the extreme sports category is amusing, because fly fishing is closer to the cliché of being the peaceful, pastoral, quiet sport than being saddled up at the next X-Games. But to the uninitiated, the risk of drowning while wading through deep and swift current seems to be a concern . . . especially in the dark.
“Aren’t you worried that you’ll fall in and drown at night?”
Nope. Every year I fall in a few times, and I always do the same thing . . . I get back up.
READ: Troutbitten | Fishing With Kids — If You Fall, Get Up
I guess there are some hazards to the activity, like flying hooks embedding into soft skin, or broken limbs from a spill on slick boulders.
I once jumped from a dry, midstream rock to another, over a three foot wide chute. Not a wide gap by any means, and I should have easily made it to the other side. Instead I slipped, and the impact of landing on my lower back physically stunned me. Dizzy, tingling and nearly unconscious, I was washed into the deep chute. Immediately up to my neck in cold water, I remember trying to cut through my hazy thoughts with one imperative command — Pull yourself up on that rock. I somehow climbed out of the water, onto the small platform and sat for a very long time. I was dripping, dazed and numb, trying to keep myself from passing out and falling back into the drink.
That one day is as close as I’ve ever come to real danger while fishing. Every other day . . . meh, not so much.
But there’s one more possibility that I think is a little dangerous out there — being bowled over by random things in the current. In higher flows I’ve learned to keep an eye upstream for floating logs washed into the river, because I’ve been hit by a few heavy tree parts. Once, I looked upstream just in time to dodge half of a wooden walking bridge rolling down the river in my lane.
Actually, the drifting icebergs in frigid, winter flows could push a man under and hold him there. Just sayin’ . . .
So I was startled, but not surprised, when something heavy hit my legs in the dark around midnight. Fishing to the banks upstream while standing in the swift middle current, the hefty thump happened so fast that it was past me and downstream before I could move.
That was too soft to be a log, I thought.
I flipped on my headlamp and looked downstream to see a porcupine returning my wide-eyed gaze. His head turned, and he glared back, as if the hit-and-run was somehow my fault. I almost expected him to flash a middle finger, but I guess he needed both paws for swimming.
Fishing — it’s anything at any time out there.
Fish hard, friends.
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Enjoy the day.
Domenick Swentosky
T R O U T B I T T E N
domenick@troutbitten.com
Nice encounter. Fishing the Lake Fork of the Gunnison last week at dusk/dark the bats were hot and heavy. A bat hit my son’s fly on the water. We even caught a couple of 14-15″ers too.
Keep up the good work!
This is so true. I need to put down on paper what happened to me a few weeks ago. Landed a few nice browns and also one decent-sized dog. And no, not on the back cast or anything like that. The weirdest stuff happens out there…
Biggest critter I ever hooked was a beaver. I pointed the rod at him until he swam off and the hook pulled out; it came back to me with a little tuft of dubbing. That was followed by a lot of tail-slapping that ended my evening’s fishing in that pool.
Yeah I was hit twice while night fishing in my home stream. Once a beaver rammed me (I’ve been slapped at many times) and another must have been a large trout!
Reading the comments and finding out my beaver encounter wasn’t so unique. When I felt the bump in swift current i turned to find a monster rodent nosing the back of my legs. I slapped the water with my rod in fear, just as he tail slapped and soaked me. I guess we were both a little surprised!
I recall a story I heard years ago at a talk on fly fishing the surf in California. The speaker was out about knee deep, at dusk, fishing the incoming tide. At one point, he felt something heavy brush across the back of his legs and look down to see a shark’s dorsal moving away from him. He said that reminded him that, in the salt, man is not at the top of the food chain!
Great story. Thanks for the laugh. Sure, you have to put serious time in on the water to get those Namers…but even more time to get broad-sided by a porcupine! What are the odds? You’ll tell your grandkids that story some day. Of course the quill-count will have been embellished by then :-).
I was fishing on a slow Virginia River with my lab who would occasionally let himself drift into the back of my legs for a breather if he was swimming. I felt him do just that and continued fishing downstream enjoying the symbiosis. I looked across to the other bank and there was Sam on shore. I looked back and down at this big ass beaver right up against me who swirled away leaving me with my heart in my throat. That’s when I realized the huge splash that had my rapt attention had been a tail slap rather than a 10 lb bass.
Great story
one spring day out on the water I had three separate bull snakes swim into me trying to swim across the river. Startling, but in no way dangerous. In my area though, rattlesnakes are very common and I have to take extreme care with my dog and which rocks I decide to hang out on to re rig. We’ve also had some predatory mountain lion/human interactions in my area, so its often in the back of my head and I am sure to keep an eye out for prints. In all reality, my scariest moments have come when working through the brush to a stream and finding there’s a moose between myself and where I want to go. Only one has ever let me know it was unhappy about my being there, but I’m amazed by how close I’ve accidentally gotten before noticing them.
I have 6 screws in a rebuilt foot from jumping onto a rock years ago. I also slipped on a rock hitting my right hip so bad my entire right leg turned BLACK!
Fly fishing is a high contact, combat sport!
It’s dangerous out there, brother!