In waders

I am going to tell you the story of how I became an in-wader.

Understand me, I’ve not invaded anything. I’ve only been in waders, a kind of high waterproof boots or pants worn for walking or standing in deep water, specially when fishing.

It was one summer in the Benasque valley (Huesca) where I decided to try fly-fishing.

Yeah, fly fishing, an interesting sport for old people, like me. Quiet, in contact with nature, relaxing...

So, I hired a professional fisherman, Chema, who runs a rural hotel called La Casa del Río (lacasadelrio.com) for a day of lessons.

The theory of fly fishing goes like this: at a certain time of the day, given the apropriate meteorological conditions, flying insects go to the river to drink.

Perhaps you never thought of it but cows do it, birds do it and, as the song goes, “even educated fleas do it”.

A fly floating freely on the current is, for a trout swimming below, like an appetizer fallen directly from heaven.

With a mighty leap, the trout snaps the fly literally in the blink of an eye.

As the trout are predators to the flies, the naked ape, that is, ourselves, are predators to the trouts, which we like to eat fried, for instance, with ham (called “a la navarra”).

So, in its ingenuity, the naked ape has invented the artificial fly made of feathers, fur and other materials tied into a hook, to catch the hungry trout.

So, there we went, Chema and I, to the the river Ésera with all the appropriate equipment. We were the fishermen, the anglers. And we were in-waders.

People say that anglers "do it standing up", but, the first thing I discovered was how difficult was to stand up in a river full of boulders and with a strong current.

The fishing rod is very short and the line is composed of two materials, a kind of plastic strip which floats with the fly at the end and the rest of the line which is made of ordinary nylon.

This combined line has some special characteristic: it tangles very easily with anything, with itself, with branches, with rocks, with everything.

So, there I was, trying to keep my equilibrium in the riverbed boulders with my long boots, my rod, and my walking cane, prepared to throw the line for the first time.

To throw the line properly is about 90 % of the success, but believe me, is not a movement with which you get familiar with easily, like, for instance signing a cheque. It requires a quick wrist movement like this...

So we tried that first. My wrist movements were poor. “No, it’s not like that, swift but gentle, too short, too long, etc...”

Then, you realise that you don’t see the fly floating on the water, at all. If you don’t see the fly floating, you don’t see the trout snapping the bait, if it happens.

Supposing you cast the line with the right wrist movement, that the line does not entangle and that the fly falls in the appropriate place, and that you see it floating. Then, you realise how fast the fly goes past you. Yes, because, you know, the water is flowing.

When the fly goes past you, you have to lift it out of the water quickly, and with another deft wrist movement, cast it up stream again.

So it’s is a game of cast and retrieve, cast and retrieve. Tangle and disentangle. All this, standing up and being careful not to fall into the river, because a wave of cold water into your pants will ruin the expedition.

The flies are supposed to be dry. Because flies go to the river to drink, BUT THEY DON’T GO TO TAKE A BATH. So you are not expected to foul a trout with a wet fly, do you?

So you have to check your fly often, and dry it with a special powder for it to float properly. A task that my instructor did.

The hours passed and I didn’t catch any trout. Then, suddenly, a trout bit the hook and I rised it in triunph. When I thought we were going to prepare it “a la navarra” in the evening, my instructor told me that, this was a catch and release area and I had to return the trout back to the river.

Everyone knows that fishermen lie about the size or their catch. Mine was, well like this… Well, like this… Well, the size doesn’t matter. What was big was my smile after having caught the first trout in my life.

All I can tell you is that if all my dinner for the day would have been that trout, I would have been very hungry…

So that is the story of how I became in waders.