Fly Rod & Reel

• Travel
• Gear
• Flies
• Accommodation/Communication
• Bugs and Disease
• Season/Weather

Refreshed after a long, ice-covered rest, British Columbia’s interior lakes wake as the light shifts from a cold blue of winter to warmer spring hues. Improving weather trends are fairly consistent, but it’s possible to experience a sampling of four seasons in a single day. If you are a fisherman and a hockey fan, it’s even possible to experience five seasons in a day, those being spring, summer, fall, winter, and the NHL playoffs. The downside of the fifth season is you may lose focus on priorities. For example, a night of hockey and merriment could result in a poorly executed angling plan, especially if you’re scheduled to be on the water a few hours after your celebration ends. We all know that a lack of clarity leads to precarious situations, and that’s exactly what happened to me.

For a half-hour my guide, Balacho, had been pointing and smiling at threatening black clouds that formed over the Brazilian border. With each lightning strike, he laughed demonically and shouted, “Bueno, bueno!” What was he thinking? Was he crazy?

My perfect bluebird afternoon was succumbing to a jungle storm of diluvial proportions. Balacho, who was now singing and looked as if he had won the Bolivian lottery, cheerfully paddled the dugout canoe to the beach in preparation for the pending storm. Adding to my misery, we landed across from what looked to be the perfect payara pool.

Sink your toes in the sand or in the snow?

Risk sunburn or frostbite?

Cast for half-frozen trout or full-bore saltwater speedsters?

Our crack angling team makes a case for each.

Black drum get no respect. And I really don’t know why: THEY TAIL while feeding on the flats, you can sight-cast to them in shallow water, they are plentiful, they grow to more than 100 pounds (that’s not a typo), they can fight hard and they are not easy. If you haven’t cast to a big, tailing black drum, I recommend you give it a try. You may become a better angler for it. I have always thought that when you go after a new species, you can’t help but learn more about the fish’s environment and the different foods in their habitat, while improving your casting accuracy, fly manipulation and fish-fighting.

The weather report was fantastic, with the news coming from no less than a sea captain on the rugged Atlantic Coast: Mary Gavin-Hughes sent blessings about incredible spring temperatures (global warming, anyone?) on the West Coast of Ireland. Yes, Mary Gavin, as in the one and only woman runner of the sea in this region of the Emerald Isle. Blue skies and hot, an early summer, no talk of rain, is what Mary said. The more Mary and I corresponded by e-mail last spring, the more I thought about bringing a 9-weight to try for ocean fish, such as mackerel and sharks and who knows what—sea bass, maybe?

Hold on—I was to visit the Great Fishing Houses of Ireland, inland, to fish tidal rivers and lakes. This was to be about Atlantic salmon. But I’ve always been drawn to the rebellious types. And along came Mary.

We all have one: A list of places we just have to fish sometime. Some we’ve never been to, some deserve a return visit. They’re the places that occupy our daydreams, when we’re stuck in a meeting and wish we were somewhere else, when we’re shoveling the drive after yet another dumping of snow… These are places where the weather’s always good, the tides are in our favor and the fish are on the feed (in those daydreams, anyway). Our lists include familiar waters (perhaps because there’s a certain comfort in that familiarity, but also because the fishing can be terrific) mixed with plenty of exotic locations we may never get to. But we can dream, can’t we?

Whether flying domestic and dealing with TSA, or abroad dealing with whomever you encounter, follow the rules, and try to fit a common profile. The last place you want to land is in the mini plywood cubicle.

Valente Lucero captains the panga La Venadita, “the little deer,” off the shores of Punta Arena, an hour by car south of La Paz, Baja California Sur. Valente is known amongst family and friends as Venado, a nickname earned at a younger age when the seductions of local tequila often inspired him to hop about the pueblo of Agua Amarga like a deer and, on more than one occasion, climb into the arms of a cardón cactus and leap, like a frightened doe, to the desert floor below.