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 When my wife asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I went outside to my “Man Cave” and did an inventory. I’m guessing that a lot of folks don’t have the luck to have some 500 square feet to store their outdoor gear, but I was fortunate enough to somehow get the dedicated space. And a quick cataloging of my gear really made me appreciate how really lucky I am.
In pretty quick order I ran though my collection of fishing rods, some bought, some gifts, and many inherited, and found I have more “sticks” than I can possibly use in my lifetime. I’ve got stuff big enough for tuna and marlin, and small enough for bluegills and bait shad—spinning rods, bait casters, and fly rods of every weight from two to 10, in graphite, fiberglass and bamboo. I’ve fished maybe 60 percent, and try to work all but the collector items into my rotation.
Reels are in equal abundance. I usually buy a few spinning reels every year. I can’t figure out how to maintain them well, and don’t have the heart to throw out those that grind a little after having their innards filled with sand, dirt and bait slime. My storage closets won’t hold all of them so some are kept on the rods displayed on walls all over the room. A couple of dozen older ones are in frames backed by old-time pictures of fishermen of a bygone era. (I’m rapidly becoming one of them.)
I have bins full of line, drawers full of lures, boxes crammed with flies, and so many little packets of hooks and swivels that I can’t find what I have, and I buy new ones on every trip to the sporting goods stores. My big closets have tops full of folded-up waders, and bottoms full of wading boots, with the center crammed with rain jackets and vests of most every description. Most of the vests are crammed with stuff that probably should have been put back in drawers.
It was tough to admit, but I had to tell my beloved and long-suffering spouse that I really had everything that I could use in my foreseeable future, and with the exception of bait and gas money, I was pretty well stocked.
Looking for a Gillie
But what I could really use is a little help! From my recent reading, one vestige of the ancient fishermen that could really come in helpful is a gillie. These “fishing assistants” came in two models. Some were grizzled old veterans of the fishing wars with loads of experience and full of stories and tips for better fishing success. They read the waters, made suggestions about baits, lures, flies and presentation techniques, and generally were helpful and instructive.
I’m way beyond that kind of help. I’ve heard (and probably given) most all the fishing tips I can possibly handle. I get all kinds of suggestions rained on me by my fishing pals and other anglers I run into at streamside. As one of my buddies recently pronounced, “When it comes to advice, I’m full of it!”
The second kind of gillie, one I could really use, is someone young and agile to help haul and carry my gear. Over the years, fishing techniques on my favorite streams have changed quite a bit. All of them work, but none work all the time. Some days, you need to fish bait deep, with a weight hauling down your gear and a sensitive rod to help you discern between a bite and a rock. Other times, a bobber rig, a bit hard to put together, but requiring a long limber rod, tempts the fish. Some days you need a good spinning outfit to work a spinner or lure through the drift. Finally, since I’ve taken up fly fishing, I need to haul along an appropriate fly rod and reel to work waters when the fish are really hitting and the water levels are just right.
Heavy Equipment
Today, most anglers I meet on the stream carry at least two rods, some even three. You can imagine all the stuff you have to pack in your vest to grace the business end of all those poles. I cram all the pockets with rigging, sinkers, spinners, spoons and flies, clippers and knives, a good fish whacker (the English call them “priests”), handles for stringing up my catch and bags to keep them clean.
My buddy Milford, pushing well into his seventh decade of angling, wears a fully loaded vest that is at least a third his weight. His tracks go so deep into the mud and sand that he often gets himself stuck! My vest isn’t much lighter and, after a few hours of angling, I barely have the strength to haul my old body and my gear up the bank. Sometimes I have to make a couple of trips if I’m dumb enough to actually keep a fish or two.
So I could really use someone strong and young who would haul my rods, reels and vest down to the river. It would also help if they could give me a hand wading across the river, and really be super if the “gillie” would help net my fish, and maybe clean them as well. So I asked my sweet wife if something of that nature could be booked for the upcoming year?
“I gave them to you,” she answered tersely. “You had two, but you sent them off to college and now they are out on their own!” It took me a couple of minutes, but I finally figured out that she was talking about my sons. If I would have known that I’d ever get this feeble, I would have been nicer and kept them around. But if memory serves, we never could afford them!
Bob Ellsberg’s column, Fishin’, appears monthly in RV Life and at rvlife.com.
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Your mention of the Gilly brought to mind a book I've had for a couple of decades and never got to use as intended, The Gilly, a Flyfisher's Guide to British Columbia, by Alfred G. Davy. It's a compilation of advice and experience, proffered by a dozen well-heeled but non-professional anglers. The fact that I haven't been back to B.C. since I got the book is entirely my fault, but its content is nonetheless useful and entertaining.
I can't say I have as much gear as you describe, Bob, but some of my 50+ year-old stuff is indeed organized about as well in several boxes, not opened in a decade, and stashed beneath kid's and grandkid's sporting gear (also unused for quite awile) in some under-the-stairs backwater. Last year, my brother, 12 years my senior, gave me boxes of his old fishing gear, as he rarely fishes anymore. Lot of good that did, since I buy a license every year, and have only gone fishing once myself in the last three years.
At the rate I'm going, that larder of lures and gear won't see the river again until long after I'm gone and some guy picks them up for a song at one of my kids' garage sale. Hey, but at least I'm determined to get my Pioneer License in two years, and thumb my nose at the State after so many years of paying fees and not fishing; whether I ever use the free lifetime permit or not is another story. But at least I will have earned (and inadvertantly paid for) the darned thing!
Unfortunately, only my stepson's son and my stepdaughter's daughter show much inclination toward the sport of fishing, and they each have only been fishing with me twice each in their 20-some years. The rest of my progeny never caught the bug, like I did from my father and brother-in-law in the 1950's. Today's generation seems too housebound and techy, with little of the patience or love of the outdoors needed for fishing, much less for the more challenging endeavor of flyfishing.
So I reckon before I depart for better waters, I will have to put in more time as those two's "Gilly", as opportunity allows; perhaps more effort should be made on my part to create those opportunities, despite some geographic and monetary obstacles. I need to work on the other kids too, if I can get them away from their school and work for a day or two. And two gradeschool-age great grandsons live in Hawaii, and as yet remain aloof to the joys of fishing.
They might make great caddies, huh? And with luck they'll turn out to be Gillys some day themselves.
Joel