Fishing with Bill - A Lifetime of Fishing with my Father

There are vagaries surrounding our earliest memories, as family lore and photos can unwittingly conspire to reverse engineer experiences we easily mistake for memories. But if pressed on my first wholly authentic memory, I will tell you it was fishing with Bill. 

I was likely three years old and I followed him off the dark splintery porch of the old family cabin, down past the bonfire circle and water pump to the edge of Wright’s Lake in the central Sierra Nevadas. My great grandfather had built a tiny cabin there in the 1930’s with a steep-pitched roof to shed snow, which could beat 20 feet on a hard winter. 

My father Bill learned to fish on this lake and surrounding streams, as I later would. There was always a Grumman canoe at the landing, as well as a little green wooden rowboat no larger than a small pram. He climbed onto the lateral rowing bench, his tanned knees jutting up above the low gunnels, and I took my place on the rear perpendicular bench. Once we cleared the shallow grassy flats where the damsel fly nymphs flourished and entered the meandering steep-banked lake channel, Bill stripped 50 feet of line off his old Hardy, handed me the economical cane rod so I could troll and then proceeded to pull hard on the little oars. The boat jumped with each stroke and l leaned forward for fear of falling backwards over the transom.

And that was how it all began. 

Over the next 15 summers at the cabin, we would often rush dinner to row or paddle out on the lake for the “evening rise”. As the pale gray granite peaks of Desolation Wilderness flushed pink with alpenglow, the lake would turn to peach-colored glass and the rise-forms of rainbow, brook, and brown trout would ripple out around us, glowing brightly and radiating ever larger for what seemed an eternity.

Invariably our results were modest. We always assumed the fish were feeding on caddis, as in the 70’s we knew next to nothing about midges. 

Despite my father, my grandfather, and me all being born into a passionate fly fishing family, until my early twenties many of my father’s and my fishing adventures were met with modest success.  We could hike, wade, cast, and tie, but many of the finer points eluded us. We fished hard but we didn’t necessarily fish smart. We were rarely guided and the “hot” tips we received from others rarely exceeded something like “try a Zug Bug.” So, we strapped the canoe to the top of the Chrysler, ventured forth, and learned what we could together the hard way. 

We fished the Hat Creek, the Fall and Pitt rivers, the McCloud and the Upper Sac. We canoed the Russian River in winter for steelhead and the Klamath in the Fall. We dappled with the North Umpqua and the Deschutes and dropped a line in every promising pond that time allowed for. It was our strongest bond and a space in which we were fully aligned, as both of us wanted time on water together as much as the other. 

When we got near the water, my old man was strictly business. No matter if I was eight or 18, once we got to a river I was largely on my own. Except for in my earliest years, Bill was not really my mentor, he was my fishing partner and I was his. We fished until dark or later, we always forgot the flashlight, rarely packed food, and more often than not, once we found each other and the car, the restaurants were closed by the time we reached them. 

My father lived for adventures, no matter their size. We learned over time that the less we planned for them, the larger they became, and that was fine by us. By age eight I was able to move beyond simply catching frogs and snakes to actually fly fishing, and for 51 honest years we did that together as buddies. 

With so many outings both near and far, we created a library of stories, a few involving great catches and glory, but the best in my book were always the mishaps. They were the ones worth sharing and the ones we sometimes learned from.

The following are some of my favorites:

Window Weights

When I was 12, I had the opportunity to head to the Federation of Fly Fishermen’s annual conclave in West Yellowstone, Montana to compete in a youth tying and casting competition. My dad decided we would drive from California, with our canoe lashed to the roof, and mom would come along as well despite having no interest in fishing. He and I fished every day for a week and one day even splurged on a guide to float the Box Canyon of the Henry’s Fork. We did poorly with the guide but liked the water and decided we would do the trip again by ourselves, in the canoe, and bring mom along. While being guided, we learned that many of the guides used a unique anchor dragging technique to slow the boat in the rapid flows of the canyon. To do so safely, they replaced their hard anchors with a tire innertube filled with sand. It was a soft heavy blob, an old-school oversized Bouncy Betty if you will, that worked brilliantly and likely chummed up a bunch of bugs in the process. 

We of course didn’t have a drift boat, but rather an 80-pound fiberglass covered-deck whitewater canoe, with small kneeling holes in the bow and stern and a larger opening in the center for gear, or in this case, my mother. We piled our stuff in and set out for an afternoon trip, hoping to reach our takeout by dark. 

We got out and fished in several locations, and I managed to catch a fat 17-inch rainbow high-sticking a stonefly nymph. At times I fished from the bow as Bill navigated. As darkness drew near and my father had not yet gotten a good fish, he recalled the anchor dragging technique and assumed that if he threw our makeshift anchor out, which was comprised of two large iron window weights, he too could fish and likely get a big one.

Except for getting a big one, his plan worked for a brief period. We both fished the middle of the river as the boat erratically paused and bounced its way downstream with the force of the current racing past us. And then there was a jarring pause. We all lurched forward. My mother, who is anything but an alarmist, suddenly put down her romance novel. I glanced back at Bill. He was on high alert. The canoe surfed slightly side to side in the heavy current. The window weights had wedged hard into the riverbed’s irregular rocks. The canoe surfed back and forth a moment longer and in one smooth silent motion was subducted, stern first into the depths. Instantly we were all swimming, intermittently bouncing off the bottom and trying to grab our belongings. I don’t recall life jackets being among them. Then the boat miraculously broke free, and drifted subsurface towards us in the chest-deep water. We grabbed it and with great effort, drug it like drowned elk towards the river left bank. 

Emotions were mixed. Because we had launched late in the day, there were certainly no boats behind us had we needed help. So, we were happy to be alive, we were happy to have our boat and most of our belongings, but in general, we were not very happy. It was getting dark. Bill and I emptied the canoe and our waders, as we had done multiple times in our past, reeled in our lines, put our flies in their hook-keepers, loaded our soaked gear and ourselves into the canoe, and paddled an hour shivering in silent darkness until we saw the lights of the riverside bar where we took out.

The bar patrons looked at us with a combination of amusement and pity. They were right of course, as we were three waterlogged, semi-hypothermic, imbeciles from California who had gotten luckier than they would ever know.

A Broken Line

My family has always been big on Christmas. It wasn’t until I was married and gained a broader perspective on families that I realized that having 10 to 15 guests for a somewhat fancy sit-down dinner three nights in a row wasn’t how most folks rolled. For Bill and my mother Eva-Marie, Christmas was all about tradition. On all the three big entertaining nights, we would always serve the same dishes. Crab the night before the savior’s birth, roasted goose the night of, and a roast the night after. On Christmas Eve we would dress up as best we could, and torture one another with our rag-tag voices as we attempted to sing Christmas carols.

I could make the argument that Christmas at the Morrish household actually began in mid-November. No family I ever met hunted Christmas trees earlier. In the old days, meaning like the 60s, when Bill and his friends were established in their careers, they would hunt Christmas trees, namely silver-tip firs, in the subalpine Sierras.

They would go in November in hope of beating the first heavy snow. Mostly that worked, but there were nearly tragic stories of when it didn’t. That tradition followed them with their move to Ashland in 2001. Then they would always want to have an exact plan as to when we were going to “get” a tree. Going early wasn’t a bad idea because where we hunted was at 5,500 feet. Bill was known to secretly scout the areas well into his 80s, to make sure he had a bead on the happiest hunting grounds for the big day.

We would always find several fine trees, take them home, and make sure they drank water from a pail until it was time to set them up in our respective living rooms. As mentioned, Christmas was a highly structured three-day affair with aunts, uncles, nephews, grandkids, and typically some local stragglers. The menu was firmly set, we drank the same flaming-hot, mulled wine on Christmas Eve and we did for the most part the same readings from various books. A few might be from scripture, but mostly they were more colorful pieces. Some were about miracles, some were about the fantastical mysteries and the beauty of nature and some, including my favorites, were from Dylan Thomas’s, A Child’s Christmas in Whales.

After the three days of Christmas, my father, my cousin Kris, and I instilled a tradition of our own. As soon as the festivities were over, we would go fishing on the coast for the earliest winter steelhead. It was a crapshoot in terms of conditions and as to how many early fish had arrived, but it was always an adventure and sometimes met with success. One year, a smaller coastal system I was fond of was looking perfect. We drove five or six miles inland from the coast to a run that had a decent track record. There, a steep green V-shaped canyon tributary flowed into the main stem and created a lovely pool with a strong center current. As we rigged our rods by the truck, I noticed my father’s fly line as he threaded it carefully up through the guides. Like Bill, but significantly more beaten up, his line was cracked, sun damaged, and old. I looked at Bill and said, “Dad, if you hook a steelhead with that line it’s gonna snap it in half and you will likely be very unhappy”. He looked at me with his classic furrowed brow and said, “nonsense Ken, that line is fine”. I shrugged my shoulders, as I was accustomed to, and we proceeded with our rigging and headed down towards the river.

In a show of respect for our elders, Kris and I placed Bill above the bucket, and I gave him detailed directions as to how to fish the pool. He did so perfectly and on his fifth cast, he grew tight to a bright fish. The fish made a short, hard run downstream, leapt three feet in the air, and upon landing, snapped Bill’s crusty fly line clean in half.

It broke where many do, at the back of the head, where the high-angle loading and friction of the head’s hangover concentrate. He was stunned by the event and froze up stiffly. Fortunately, I was downstream of him and saw his floating head racing downstream towards the tailout. I ran out in the stream and grabbed it, while at the same time urgently ushering him to run towards me for reunification. When he reached me, I grabbed his now useless rod, and he took hold of the remainder of his line. Immediately the fish surged, jumped again and headed towards the tailout. 

I will never forget Bill’s face as he paid out the last five feet of his line through his grasp as the fish entered the rapids. He was out of options. He put a death grip on the last foot of line and the water around the fish erupted briefly before the fish broke off. There was a long pregnant pause. I’d like to believe I didn’t say, “I told you so”, but I probably did. The three of us headed downstream laughing together. There were more bright fish down there, I was certain.

All in all, this had been another pretty good Christmas.

Timing is Everything

Bill and I made at least seven or eight fall trips to BC together over the years and many more on our own individually. When he was in his early to mid-eighties, we dialed-in a trip with a traveling team that suited us all. My younger cousin Kris and my old college buddy Landis completed our group. Our favorite trip was one offered through Derek Botchford and solo guided by his right-hand man and master guide Stevie Morrow. 

When we first met Steve, it was an early morning in late September in the parking lot of the Stork’s Nest Motel in Smithers. The Fall colors were popping and the river was in great shape; we couldn’t have been more excited to get on the water. 

Steve, however, was in a different space. He was sicker than a dog; he could barely speak and every time he coughed we all felt his pain. For our safety he was 100% unwilling to shake our hands. Had there been another backup guide who knew the water and camping program even half as well as Stevie, Derek would have sent him, but that was not the case. 

That first trip with Stevie worked out pretty well. None of us got sick, he got a good deal better, and we all got into a respectable number of good fish. Even when sick, Steve was all about putting us on fish and a big part of that was getting first water on one or two key runs before his competition, namely Bob Hull, showed up. To this end he pitched us on his morning routine: we would wake up at O’dark 30, head to the boat before first light or coffee, stake out a key run, and while we’re were fishing it, he would pull out the camp stove and whip up some breakfast sandwiches and coffee; two things all of us loved almost as much as steelhead. 

It was a perfect plan, except that after we finished the first run, there were no sandwiches and instead we raced to a second run and fished it hard. Midway through the second run I remember looking over my shoulder to see if there might be a sign of steam or the wafting smell of bacon or butter browning over a Coleman burner. No such luck. 

Halfway through the third run, I was lightheaded and hangry as hell. We had been up for five hours without so much as a sip of water. I turned to Stevie and said, “hey man, you said you would cook us breakfast at the first run and now it’s 11:15am. If you don’t get some food in us quick, bad things could happen.” I left it up to him to figure out what those might be. He looked at me surprised and embarrassed. “I’m so sorry guys, I was so into the fishing I totally forgot about breakfast. It won’t happen again.” The next day the exact same thing happened again, but we got breakfast by 10. We were getting first water, some great fish, and at the same time becoming increasingly fond of Stevie. 

One year while staying at Twin Camp we stayed up later than necessary and then the four of us retired to our wall tent. At 3:30am I was awakened by something. It was Bill. In the dark I could hear him rustling around in his Dopp kit. This could only mean one thing: he couldn’t sleep and he wasn’t happy about it. Without his glasses on and no headlamp, he had no idea of the actual hour. I heard the light pebbly rattle of Ambien in the plastic bottle and then the opening of the cap. I should have spoken up, but without his hearing aids in there wasn’t much use. I heard him swallow the little pill dry. Water bottles were for the weak. The deed was done and all along I knew Stevie would be waking us in less than two hours. 

It was not entirely dark when we woke, but it was close. Bill managed to find his glasses and hearing aids and got dressed. Maybe, I thought, this might work out. I headed over to the drying tent, passing Kris outside in the dim light brushing his teeth. I informed him of the situation and encouraged him to keep an eye out. 

Soon thereafter he witnessed Bill emerge from the bunk tent. He made a wobbly right turn for the skinny trail that traversed the steep hill towards the outhouse. The first half dozen steps went fairly well, but then, at a small kink in the trail, Bill missed his mark and listed off downhill into the air. What Kris witnessed was somewhat remarkable. Bill did a full cartwheel through rough terrain in near darkness and landed like Bruce Lee: fully upright, knees bent, elbows out and palms down, with his fingers flared for extra balance. Instinctively, as though in enemy territory, his head snapped first to the right, then to the left, to see if anyone had witnessed his folly. He was in the clear, or so he thought. He climbed back up to the trail and proceeded towards his engagement at the outhouse.

Ten or so minutes later when I arrived at the river’s edge, the jet boat was idling, Steve was behind the wheel, and Kris and Landis were seated ready to go. Stevie said to me, “Kenny where’s Bill”? To which I respond “I don’t know. I’ll go find out.” I marched back up the hill to the drying tent in the far back of camp. I threw back the canvas flap and there was Bill sitting on the bench with his waders around his ankles. I said to him, “hey Pops, how are you doing?” to which he responded, “fine Ken, but I can’t seem to tell my right foot from my left.” In Bill’s world, that was as much of a cry for help as one might ever hear. I said, “no problem, Pops. We will get you suited up and down to the boat in no time.”  We got his waders up and buckled. I laced and tied his boots, got his raincoat zipped up and we walked slowly down to the boat together. 

It was another perfect morning on the Bulkley. We raced upstream and got first water at the run Steve wanted most. As we approached it, Stevie suggested dropping me on river left and taking the others up and across to the most productive water on river right. I looked at him directly and with great concern. I said I would only do it if he promised to stay right on Bill’s shoulder the entire time. I told him he was still pretty darn high, from his early-morning Ambien dose, and it might be a while before he came around. I said if he didn’t do that, something bad could happen. He nodded and promised me. 

As I fished on the far side of the river, I occasionally glanced upstream and across to see how the others were doing. Steve stuck by Bill for a while but then wandered off to coach the others. It was sort of like when he promised to feed us. He meant well, but he just got distracted by his overwhelming drive to catch fish. Not surprisingly, Bill caught a nice steelhead and afterwards Steve came and picked me up so I could rejoin with the others.

I asked Bill about his fish, but it was as though he couldn’t quite remember the details. He was bleary-eyed and looked exhausted. Stevie made us all breakfast sandwiches. Once he had cleaned up, he looked at Bill and said, “hey what do you think about me taking you back to camp for a nap”? Despite it being 9 AM Bill thought that was the best idea he had ever heard. Steve dropped Kris and Landis on a classic run and I accompanied Bill back to camp, tucked him in and headed back out with Steve. 

We returned several hours later and Bill was back in top shape. Steve said, “hey Bill, what do you say we just head across the river a short distance and fish a bit. I’ve got a secret little spot that might kick one out for you.” Bill’s voice boomed back with great approval. Ten steps into Steve’s secret bucket Bill’s line grew tight. It appeared to be a good one. Eight or 10 minutes later Stevie expertly slid the net under a remarkable 37-inch hen fish. Despite his pre-dawn setback, he was high rod for the day and once again the life of the party around the campfire with his beloved bourbon in hand. 

There are so many other stories about fishing with Bill, but most are sound bites, small incidents, and accomplishments that are too small and disconnected to write about. But let me tell you, Bill is a great angler, a great man, and modest to his core. His distaste for braggarts passed straight through our family. All he caught in his 90 years on the water matters little, but how he rolled while on the water matters a great deal. Despite being only 5 foot nine and 150 pounds, he was one of the most tenacious waders I have ever met. While there could be a bad day of fishing, he never had a bad day of wading. When he was at the top of his waders or slightly over them, he was at his very best. Each and every minor hardship encountered during an adventure he devoured as though they were delicious toppings sprinkled over ice cream. One of his signature moves was that in the final stages of landing a steelhead mid-stream, he would focus on it intently and then begin backing up towards the shore. No less than five times this would lead to him tripping over a rock and crashing backwards into the shallows. Invariably the fish would stay buttoned and invariably upon release he would look up soaking wet and say, in a voice befitting someone much larger, “good fun!” And best of all, he really meant it.