Bugzilla

Opening Day of trout season, southern Oregon, Saturday morning, 1971.

Dad and I were up at dawn, in the old VW truck, and on our way to River "X", which nonchalantly meanders through lush, green farmlands, near the small town of Klamath Falls, Oregon. 

We had our Smoky Spam sandwiches, barbecued potato chips, and a thermos of coffee neatly packed, and carefully stashed alongside our fishing gear, in the back seat of the truck. 

This particular river is a small meadow stream that gently flows through fenced cow pastures, on mostly private land. But access for fishermen is fairly open, (or at least it was in the early 1970's). When we arrived, it was immediately apparent that we would not have the river to ourselves on this day. 

River "X" is known for its large, resident brown and rainbow trout that run up the river from the upper portion of the lake. The water is gin clear, and the plentiful moss beds and deep undercut banks provide the fish an abundant supply of both food and cover. Most of the time, as you walk along the river bank, all one can hear is the sound of Red-Winged Blackbirds, cows crooning in the distance, and occasionally, the rare, indescribable sound of mating Sandhill Cranes. The river is slow-moving, very quiet, and pastoral.

On this particular morning, we had armed ourselves with plenty of large night crawlers, which I had personally selected from our sprinkler-soaked lawn the night before. Dad had also brought along a good supply of Thomas Buoyant lures, and his all-time favorite; the "Gold Phoebe." This lure was Dad's secret weapon. It's a "wobbler" style of lure, designed to imitate an injured minnow. I have watched him catch big fish with a gold Phoebe, when no one else could catch anything. Dad had a way of thinking like a fish. He intuitively knew where a nice trout would be hiding; under a cut bank, behind a rock, or near an over-hanging branch.

At this time I had not yet learned to fly fish, so I was still a "hardware" guy. And on this opening day, even though I did see Dad catch a few nice fish on his gold Phoebe, I was getting skunked using my fresh batch of night crawlers.

As I sat on the bank feeling pretty dejected, I happened to notice a rather crusty old gentleman coming up the bank carrying a fly rod. It was a beautiful bamboo rod, with a Pfleuger Medalist reel attached, loaded with dark brown sinking line. He had a well-seasoned wicker creel hanging off his shoulder. I asked him, "Having any luck?"  He walked over and opened his creel. I gasped. He had three or four big brown trout, and one hefty rainbow trout inside. That creel was packed! I stammered, "What are you using?!" He showed me a jar of Pautzke's Green Label Salmon eggs. He told me he had been drifting a single salmon egg under the cut banks, on a short leader, using a heavily weighted sinking line. He just gave me a friendly smile, said "good luck" and walked off.

I was still sitting on the bank, thinking about those big trout he had in his creel when I was startled by a huge "Splash!" I quickly turned to look upstream to see what had made the commotion, but all I could see were the eccentric rings moving outward, from the rise of a very large trout. Some of us fly fishermen today call this kind of noisy, violent rise made by a big fish a, "Toilet bowl flush." It makes a very loud "Whoosh" kind of sound, and is unmistakable.

I fixed my gaze on the spot where that big fish had risen just a moment before. A minute later, I saw it, "Whoosh!" It was a very nice fish. What the heck was he eating? I had no clue. And then as I scanned the surface of the water, I saw something 'buzzing' on top of the water. It was some kind of large bug, spinning in circles, making a very noticeable flutter on the water. As I watched it drift downstream, out of nowhere, "Whoosh!" That bug was history! 

So I started looking around. I walked along the river looking for more of those big bugs. It didn't take me long to find one drifting close to the bank. After a couple of attempts, made without falling into the river, I grabbed one. It was huge. I had never seen a bug like this. It looked like it had two stingers on the back end. But it didn't sting me. However the legs were pretty spiny. The belly of the bug was light orange and segmented. There were four translucent wings laying flat across the back, which had lots of dark brown veins going through them. At the end of a fairly large head, were two very long antennae. Behind the head was a bright orange band.

After seeing the fish ferociously devour these bugs, I got this big smile on my face and knew in an instant that I had just found my own "Secret Weapon." I was going to catch lots of big trout and show my Dad up for a change. I got out a big number four Eagle Claw worm hook, and tried my best to run just enough of the hook through the back of the bug to keep it attached, but not so much that it would stop the bug from fluttering, as that commotion the bug made on the surface, was what was enticing these big trout to explode on them.

Well, as you can probably guess, I butchered that bug pretty badly the more I tried to get him hooked. The darn thing would not hold still. Once I finally got it rigged up, and found a way to cast the bug out close to where I had seen the fish rising, the bug was no longer fluttering at all. I guess I would not be moving much if someone had impaled me with a huge iron hook either.

My clumsy attempts at casting scared off every fish in the area. There was no "stealth" whatsoever to my approach. I was really bummed out. I had not caught a single fish. My "Secret Weapon" was a flop. It was Opening Day, and I got skunked. 

I finally did catch up with Dad. As expected, he had a nice catch of plump trout, caught on what else? you guessed it—his old faithful Gold Phoebe. I had caught another one of those huge bugs and stuffed it in my creel. When I pulled it out and showed it to Dad, I asked him, "What the heck is this thing?" He said, "Salmon Fly."

We got back to the truck and soaked up the warmth of the afternoon sun, as we ate our chips and sandwiches and gulped down cups of hot coffee. I could not stop thinking of the way those huge trout were coming up and exploding on the big salmon flies! I had to find a way to fish those bugs, in a way that they floated right and still had some motion. I thought about it the whole way home.

The next morning, I remembered some of the flies I had seen at the local sporting goods store. But I didn't know how to tie flies, nor did I have any fly tying gear. So I found a large enough bait hook in my box and asked my mom is she had any orange sewing thread. She did. I then grabbed some scissors and a couple of Pheasant tail feathers that Dad had in his shop and I set off for my hobby room, which was adjacent to the bedroom I shared with my brother. 

Now, I don't know if any of you who are fly tiers have ever tried to tie a fly while holding the hook in your hand, but if you haven't, trust me. It is not an easy feat to accomplish. But I was a twelve year old kid who loved fishing more than anything in life at that time. And I was bound and determined to tie my first fly; namely, my own salmon fly!

I only wish I had saved that first fly. 

But it is long gone. Probably rotting in a land fill somewhere in Klamath Falls. This fly was just plain ugly. Maybe hideous is a better word to describe it. It could rightly be called the Beast. It certainly could be called an atrocity. But from this point forward, I will forever refer to it as "Bugzilla."

As I held the hook firmly between my left thumb and forefinger, I had to cinch the short end of the piece of orange cotton sewing thread between my thumb and fingers. As I began to cover the hook with it, I was surprised at how much tread it takes to build a fly body. For the tail, I used a piece of the stiff tip of a Pheasant tail, shaped to look what I thought a salmon fly tail should look like. Apparently, I had already forgotten that the tail on the real McCoy was a forked tail. But hey, this was my first fly after all.

After securing my crude excuse for a tail, I began to build up the orange body to the size I remembered the bug being out on the river. For legs, or "hackle" I clipped some of the brown hair off my own head, and very crudely fastened that on to try and imitate some sort of legs. For the wings, I took another one of my Dad's Pheasant tails and clipped the end to be the size and shape of the real salmon fly wings. It seemed like it needed some more hackle to aid in flotation, so I snipped off some more Mark-hair and tied that in.

No description I can give you of this Flyenstein Monster can accurately begin to describe the horror that it was. It was huge, gaudy, ill-proportioned, and crude. It was the Cromagnon Man of trout flies. A fly freak show. 

I eventually covered enough of my mistakes with the orange thread to be somewhat satisfied with it, and tied off what amounted to a bulbous head that even Jimmy Durante would be proud of. A couple of messy drops of my Mom's clear fingernail polish on the head sealed the deal, and I had completed my first fly.

Upon showing it to my Dad, his response was, "Uh.... nice. Good first try there, Mark." I think it scared him.

We went back to the river the next weekend, but there were no salmon flies hatching at that time. There were no fish rising for any kind of bugs that day, as I recall. But I still flogged the water with Bugzilla for a couple of hours. I didn't have any dry fly spray then, so, of course, it sunk like a rock. 

Note to self: cotton sewing thread is not a good body material for dry flies. 

It was about this time that my Grand Dad who lived in Redding, California, sent his old fly tying kit to me over in Oregon. It contained an amazing collection of very old, but somewhat usable, feathers, hackles, hooks and supplies. He made the long, flat, wooden box by hand, and wood burned a design onto the lid that he had copied off an old Field and Stream magazine cover, of a mother bear and her two cubs ransacking a fishermen's camp, while they were in the process of trying to land a trout out in the stream. It was really a work of art. He made individual compartments for each kind of feather, hooks, and tools. He even hand-forged his own advanced design, steel fly tying vise, that I still use to this day. He was a true craftsman.

Even though Bugzilla was like a science project gone horribly wrong, it motivated me even more to learn to tie flies that actually catch fish. And it was the start of a wonderful life of learning to fly fish and tie flies proficiently. 

And I have to say, catching a nice trout on an original fly that you designed is a true thrill.

Now, some forty two years later, whenever I see a giant salmon fly fluttering on the quiet surface of a meandering trout stream, it takes me back to that sunny opening day in southern Oregon, where a young boy saw his first salmon fly and heard his first toilet bowl flush rise, from a huge brown trout also searching for Bugzilla...

—At the End of My Line.