“The Checklist”

Every well-armed fisherman has a checklist so he can take everything needed for Salmon and Steelhead fishing

Timothy Kusherets

Every well-armed fisherman has a checklist so they can take everything they need for Salmon and Steelhead fishing. The list of many tiny things can make or break a fishing trip. All too often, anglers head on out the door ready to take on the wilderness and then forget something but don’t notice it until they need it. Make the checklist and you’ll never have to find out how tiny things can adversely effect an awesome day of fishing, so don’t underestimate anything that applies to fishing no matter how small it is.
“Dude, I think I forgot my scissors.”
“So what?”
“I don’t know; I’ve never been fishing without them.”
“Hey man, it’s not like it’s the end of the world. I go fishing all the time without them and I do alright.”
“I can’t figure out why I’m in such a panic, and I don’t know how such a little thing could affect me, but my gut is telling me to just go home.”
“You really want to do that? We came a long way, and I’ve never gone home for such a petty reason.”
“You’re right. Let’s hit the water and get slabs on the hook.”
“Now you’re talking!”
Mike and I got to the river about three o’clock in the morning. Any fishermen who has made his way down a meandering trail knows that is equates into several miles as the crow fly’s on flat pavement, so leaving for the water that early was essential. By the time we geared up and got to the river the sun was just coming up over some hills.
“You got everything setup like I told you?”
“Come on Timothy, I’ve been fishing long enough to know what gear to bring.”
“I’m just saying that we don’t want to be fumbling around for leaders and swivels when the bite goes on.”
All of our leaders were made well in advance of the fishing trip and the other gear had been carefully laid out, so the more I thought about it the more it bothered me that I could have misplaced my scissors.
Shaking it off, we hit the water. Right away there was a problem. The very first drift I hit a solid snag. I tried to get it loose for a few minutes and finally had to break off. I lost the entire leader, the terminal gear, and about two feet of the mainline. I wasn’t that worried since I had about sixty-leaders, but guess what? Though I had changed the direction of the cast, I again found another snag. It was as tough, and unforgiving, as the first one. I had to break off and all the gear went with it. It must have been a log or something because there wasn’t any give in it the way other fishing line or branches would have.
Years ago, I had formed a superstition about losing gear that fast.
“If you lose all your terminal gear more than five times within the first ten casts, you might as well go home”
It’s an irrational thought but there is was. So, as I lost the fifth leader on the fifth cast you can bet that the prognosis for the outcome of the day didn’t look good for me. I had been on the water for about twenty-minutes and spent all that time either breaking off or retying, and that’s how it went for the first few hours.
“Hey, how’s the fishing going?”
“It’s been about four hours, and I’m just about out of leaders. It doesn’t matter where I cast, I get snagged, and the other fishermen are getting fish all the time. This might be one of the most frustrating day’s I’ve ever had!”
“I know just how you feel. Don’t worry about it. You always know what to do.”
“Mike, I’m sorry to ask this, but do you have a pair of scissors?”
“Nice try. You know I use my teeth.”
“What do you do about yarn?”
“Never use the stuff…at least, not most of the time.”
“What are the other guys using?”
“The same stuff you got, I guess. I could see that they were using yarn, but the color of the corky and eggs weren’t the same. You know how fishermen feel about getting too close when the fishing is good. They don’t want to share the information or the hole.”
It was when I lost the last leader that I realized why the panic had set in about the scissors. Daring to head upstream, where the other anglers were, I was bound and determined to see what was getting all the strikes. From a polite distance I asked a fisherman what he was using. I didn’t get a chance to ask. The good guy beat me to the punch.
“You can take a look if you want.”
“Say, I’ve been losing setups the entire morning with almost the exact same thing.”
“Oh, that’s because you’ve been fishing the grocery store.”
“The what?”
“The grocery store. That’s what the residentials around hear call that area. See, there’s a snag in there about two-hundred feet long. No matter where you cast, you’ll hit that snag. It’s a huge tree with all kinds of jutting branches. You noticed that you were the only one down there right?”
“Yeah, but if the area is so famous for snags why didn’t anyone tell me about it?”
“You didn’t ask, and besides that, when the river runs low the residents come on down hear and strip the tree clean...like…a…grocery…store.”
“Ha, ha, ha, well ain’t that funny? Hey, thanks for the good information. I’ll stay away from that from now on. Good fishing.”
“Good fishing to you too.”
There is was in a nutshell. There was no way I “wasn’t” going to lose gear so long as I fished the “Grocery store”. It would have been nice to know in advance, but it was a pretty funny way for backwoods fishermen to shop for fishing gear.
Heading upstream with some sound fishing advice, Mike and I prepared to start over, but first we had to make leaders.
“NO!”
“What’s up Timothy?”
“That’s why I was so panicky about the scissors! I don’t have anything to cut the yarn with, and using my ‘teeth’ is out of the question. The yarn has to be cut straight just above the bend of the hook, and I have to keep on trimming it the wetter it gets because it stretches.”
“What about pliers or clippers?”
“While those are great for things like weights and toothpicks, but they can’t cut fabric.”
Steelhead and Salmon will almost always strike from below the hook. With the yarn at the very end of the bend, an angler can be sure that, at the very least, the teeth of fish will stay tangled long enough to give fishermen enough time to set the hook. In many cases the tangled teeth amount to about two extra seconds, seasoned fishermen will tell you that it’s a world of time.
“So, what do you think we ought to do? We could stay and try out luck and see what happens.”
“Mike, you just convinced me that we should head on home. I missed out when I forgot my scissors and that’s that. There’s no sense in staying any longer, that is, unless you want to continue fishing.”
“No, you’re right; we might as well head on back. Today hasn’t been good to me either, though maybe you’re onto something with that list. After all, most of the fish caught today did bite into hooks that had yarn on the end of them.”
“I suppose what bothers me the most is that before today, I always had a checklist. Having the checklist is the exact reason for days like this one. There is a lot of gear to take to the water, not always, but sometimes, and if you forget one tiny thing it can mean the difference between getting fish on the hook and going home empty-handed. I won’t forget the checklist again.”