{"id":71719,"date":"2021-06-15T22:30:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-16T06:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/i-went-to-the-woods-one-good-fish\/"},"modified":"2021-06-15T22:30:00","modified_gmt":"2021-06-16T06:30:00","slug":"i-went-to-the-woods-one-good-fish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/i-went-to-the-woods-one-good-fish\/","title":{"rendered":"I Went to the Woods: One good fish"},"content":{"rendered":"

I like three.<\/p>\n

Three types. Three colors or three sizes. That provides enough variety I feel like I can handle whatever situation I might encounter. But my rule of three tends to be when I have figured something out. The less I know, the more I wanted to be prepared, but the more overwhelmed I become.<\/p>\n

[I Went to the Woods: The big ‘What If…<\/a>]<\/ins><\/p>\n

In this case, I have 16. Some with two colors, but most with one, so the numbers are off. It’s not that I am obsessive or meticulous, but those neat, tidy multiples of three tend to be the aim and reflect my level of confidence.<\/p>\n

Many anglers knew exactly what I meant by the ninth word of this column — how to prepare for a fishing trip — and also understand what happens when heading to new water when the internet becomes an inadequate replacement for wading-boots-on-ground experience.<\/p>\n

From my five fly boxes I started to pick out salmon and steelhead flies that look like they would be effective on the trip to the Kenai Peninsula with my wife for our honeymoon. I had a few flies in mostly pink and felt woefully under-armed. I was starting to compile a wish list to order from the fly shop in Juneau, when a package arrived shortly after a text message from a friend saying I should open the gift upon arrival. Being that I am typically not good with patience or self-control, I happily complied and found eight fly patterns with between two and four color schemes, totaling 24 total flies, in a brand new fly box. Under that box was another with 24 more.<\/p>\n

Two boxes, 48 flies, which added to my previously assembled arsenal, brought me to 73 total flies in four boxes that will make the trip.<\/p>\n

I have flies with barbell eyes, jig heads, cone heads, bead heads and no heads. I have flies with stinger hooks that trail and long-shanked salmon hooks that don’t. I have red, pink, salmon, fuchsia, cerise, purple, orange, flesh, green, olive, chartreuse, white and black flies made of feathers, chenille, hackle, marabou, flashabou and silicone.<\/p>\n

So, it sure won’t be that I don’t have the correct fly when my wife and I wader-up and lob casts toward king salmon in the Kenai and Kasilof rivers. The problem still is that how a fly is fished, is often more important than what fly is fished. I could give each fly 10 casts and not get so much as a hit if I am not making the right cast at the right depth in the right water. Though there will be plenty of fish around and I probably have the right fly and the right color combination, this alone has never been enough to guarantee a fish.<\/p>\n

In fact, my over-preparedness might even be a detriment. Not that I am ungrateful my buddy, Abe, and his wife, Julie, provided Abby and me with the gift of choice. It’s that I now have even more of an opportunity to second-guess myself.<\/p>\n

How long should I stick with a fly before I switch? If I do decide to switch, will it be the fly or the color? I have been fly fishing for well over a decade and what I have learned is that that question will remain ever-present.<\/p>\n

So the goal will be what it always is whenever I set foot into new water – land just one good fish. There will be inevitable moments of frustration I am sure, but predictability rarely coincides with those truly special moments.<\/p>\n

• Jeff Lund is a freelance writer based in Ketchikan. His book, A Miserable Paradise: Life in Southeast Alaska, is available in local bookstores and at Alpha XR. “I Went to the Woods” appears twice per month in the Sports & Outdoors section of the Juneau Empire.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three is the magic number. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":71720,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":9,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[149,568],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-71719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-news","tag-outdoors","tag-column"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71719"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=71719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}