Those "Special" Fish - by Jay Forrest

If you have been fishing for very long, you will have caught several “special” fish. If you are a beginner, take heart, you WILL catch a special fish, too.

During our July skills outing I caught a “special” fish. Not very special – just a six inch long bass. I had cast to an area where the minnows had just erupted and the first twitch was met with a small, but smashing strike and swirl. After a brief dive for cover he erupted in a head shaking double jump followed by more bulldogging. Clay yelled encouragement after the jump thinking I had a much bigger fish. A third jump rounded out the battle and I gladly released this fighter hoping it will spawn many hard-fighting offspring. It’s not often that you catch a six inch bass that makes you smile!

Thinking of that fish and having to write an article, led me to think back to my first special fish. It was BIG! Well, at least to a six year old. A 12 inch channel cat, caught in a small pond on my sixth birthday. It was easily the biggest fish of the day and the only channel cat. I still remember my mother taking it out of the fridge the next morning and its cleaned carcass only being seven inches long. I protested and asked what happened to it. “It was this long yesterday!” I protested as I held my hands about two feet apart. Reality is not always kind to special fish!

Fish are sometimes special because they are big. Sometimes, because of where they were caught, or who you were fishing with, or because it took a great cast, or like the little bass – because they show spunk and fire. There is no magic formula, but over time we all collect these fish – in vivid memories and these fish reward us and nurture us, making fishing rewarding whether we catch a fish or not.

Many of the big fish are special. They earned it by living to be unique. And they are often more difficult and as a sight fisherman, I admire that. But size alone doesn’t make a fish special – he has to do something to deserve it. Fight extra hard like the little bass. Scream across a flat so fast your reel feels like it is about to explode. Leap like the water was fire. Or sometimes simply sip your fly as though it was the perfect meal (the perfect take).

Writing that paragraph brought back a flood of memories: The sad, round, dark, puppy-dog eyes of my first permit. My first self-guided bonefish. A 15 inch male brookie in full spawn. My first winter steelhead. Fred (a notorious five pound Deschutes rainbow at Frog Camp). A much smaller three pound female rainbow that took a stonefly cast one foot from shore and ten feet back from branches hanging only six inches above the water (one of my two or three greatest casts). The eighteen inch brown taken from under overhanging brush over an inside bend cut bank in a small, shallow stream only fifteen feet wide. The list seems endless.

Each has a place in my heart. Thirty-five years of fly fishing have given me a wealth of special fish to remember. Special fish. Special days. Special places. Special friends. They blur together to make fishing more than a pastime – more of a way of life, a tonic for the soul.

There is more to fishing than special fish and friends and places… There are the ones that got away. The ones that haunt us. And that is a whole ‘nother story!