The life of a Pass Lake

Several years ago Wolfgang drove down to meet Jeff M. and myself at
the Elkmont campground in the Smokies to hike and fish a while. The
evening he rolled in he gave me a Pass Lake to fish, and I caught the
best fish of my trip on that fly.

When I got back home I tied a bunch of them and tried them in
various situations with nominal success. All the while I kept
Wolfgang's fly in my box. It made trips with me to Canada, where it
caught fish. It went back to the Smokies, where it caught fish
again. It made trips to Mexico, where it never made it out of my
flybox.

The day before yesterday, I tied it to my leader on a little stream
called Lynx Creek in Alberta, Canada. The water was much too high for
dry fly fishing, as due to a much higher than normal snowpack plus a
rainy and cold spring, runoff was still in progress.

Yet I wanted to cast the fly, because it had been effective
wherever I had tried it, and it is amazingly easy to track, even in
very high flows. I found a perfect looking spot; below a logjam which
slowed the current slightly and created a nice little seam where I
figured I'd have a chance to tempt a fish.

Shaking off the rust of almost a year without flyfishing, I
eventually got the fly where I wanted it and got a couple of decent
drifts. In my effort to get the fly a little closer to the other
bank, I got careless on my backcast, and my Pass Lake got hopelessly
lodged in the boughs of a pine tree.

So, the fly has found a new home. To reach her, go to the
Crowsnest Pass, take the Adanac road in E. Hillcrest, take a right on
Lynx Creek Road and continue for about 2 miles until you pass the big
horseshoe. Look to your left for the big logjam, and hike down to the
rock ledge just below. She's in the 60' pine just to your left. Wish
her well for me.


Chuck Vance (so no, this wasn't a story about catching fish,
sorry)