RIGHT Bob Stewart ties great flies and catches great fish with them. He tagged this drooling brown trout on the Colorado River downstream of Glenwood Springs on a warm overcast spring day—the type of day when you can find aggressive fish jump-starting their metabolism after a long winter. Photo: Copi Vojta Vince was just the guy to own a boat in this condi-tion. He not only enjoys this kind of work but he also has the required skill as well as the kind of untroubled ego that lets him sniff out people who know more than he does for advice and then to take it. For instance, when he called the builder to ask about a replacement piece of mahogany for the fly deck, the man told him to just go to Home Depot and pick out a nice piece of birch plywood, which he did. For months, every time I stopped at Vince’s house, he’d take me to the garage to show me what he’d re-cently done to the boat, or what he was planning to do next. Vince is no stranger to boats, but this was his first wooden one and by then he was reeling off the arcane nomenclature—inside chine log, swivel block, stem cap, sheer rail—and he was getting pretty attached to the craft. It was a bigger job than he’d anticipated, but wood is warm, friendly stuff to work with and all that fitting, sanding, gluing, brushing and rubbing on of oil is like stroking a large, docile animal—it engenders intimacy and affection and incidentally lowers blood pressure. Naturally Vince took the oars that first day on the water. I automatically stood up in the bow with a streamer rod, but sat back down when I saw we’d be putting the boat through its paces. Vince rowed across the river and then back the other way, he draw-stroked first left and then right, tracked quietly in the main current for a minute—chopping the oars delicately— then spun the boat in mid-river and pulled smartly back upstream in a moderate current, the whole time wearing the discerning expression of a wine critic. “It’s nice,” he said. “It handles nice; real light and responsive. In fact, it handles better than my old [fill in the blank with a well-known maker of fiberglass drift boats].” Then he said, “OK,” and I stood back up and began working out line as we approached casting distance of the right bank. 048 SHAKEDOWN CRUISE
The Flyfish Journal Volume Eight, Issue Two: Page 48
