Do you want the wire worm?
Knowing what you like, and sticking with it.
CFState residents (or transients): Last week we went back to school with George Daniel. Back to basics. Now it's time for the best fly fishing season: Fall.
Fall is great for so many reasons. Every day matters. Time is running out on trout season. Fish are putting on weight for the winter, and at their most voracious. And before the rain and cold come, steelhead fishing is red hot.
We continue to burn the candle however we can. My summer came to a close in an exceptional way: With friends and family, in places I love, with plenty of fishing and river time. It all felt very lucky, and a couple cool coincidences made it a bit surreal. Better than I deserved, even.
Coincidence the first: I got to fish with an old pal who's become a mega-competent angler.
Zac yanked the ripcord on his corporate creative day job a few years ago and became a guide. He guides on the Madison, and had a rare day off after a late cancellation as I happened to be passing through. So we got to fish together, something we'd been contriving for some years. Spending a few days bearing witness to him thriving in his new occupation, in the last best place, whoah. Even breathing that adjacent oxygen was inspiring.
Zac and I floated Storey to Eight Mile with his dog Dennis, an easy day trip. But early on it felt like this one was more about reconnecting and building our relationship around than kamikaze-hard fishing itself. There were too many tales to trade, books to recommend, common friends to inquire about, life philosophies to unpack, and hot takes to lay out. I heard all about his clients—the great and the goofy—and stories from around town. It was clear early on that this wasn't going to be a routine trip.
One piece of advice if you ever find yourself fishing with a guide on their day off. (Which, minor digression: What did you think a guide does on their day off? Of course they fish.) You've got to be up for the recon. Any fly combination they suggest. Any side-channel or odd slough to push down, no matter if the fly strikes out, you have to push the boat back up the slough, or what. When you guide the same river, day-in and day-out, you fish the same riffles and rocks and tail-outs. Days off are about reconnecting with the mystery, renewing your vows as it were.
Just how I like it. I'd always prefer to explore and try new things than go through the tried-and-tested. That's part of the reason I scowl at casually calling an approach or way of fishing a particular river or lake a "program," as a lot of guides and outfitters do. It's not a computer game. Or a theater performance. Or the Narkina 5 Imperial Prison Complex (what's up, Andor-heads) Every day should be different, no matter if you use a similar style of tackle.
Whether or not you're following a program, there's one overriding inclination on the Madison in August. It's as natural a thing to do as hitting the boardwalk on the Jersey Shore, or jumping in the crick in Michigan: You throw hoppers. Sometimes they're an afternoon thing, sometimes they're in the morning, but they're always a joy to fish: Big, visible grasshopper patterns cast as close to the the bank as you can get them. They are the Everclear in the punch that can set fish scandalously loose, and can lead to big fun.
The configurations vary:
- Solo hopper
- Hopper-Hopper, with the second hopper tied off the first's eye
- Hopper-Chubby (the latter a pseudo-hopper)
As can the colors. In early days, the hoppers were deer hair. Then, foam, and you were lucky to find a green one. Now, multicolored foam, in all hues. Bright pinks. Pastel purples. Fly bins look like candy shops. A team of multicolored foam bits, riding high in tandem down the river, waiting for a hungry trout to zap them.
Zac narrated, gassing me up as we worked together to creep the flies as close to the fishiest water as possible:
Here comes the sluuuurp!
Ooh, that's greasy in there.
Pay the man, dammit!
I caught a few fish. To be honest, I missed a few. The bigger ones. That happens. I was excited. Unable to wait for the two-count on the big dry. You gotta let 'em eat. No excuses. OK, one excuse: I was rusty, and hadn't fished from a boat in a while.
Maybe the ones I missed were the biggest of the day. Maybe they weren't. Either way, it was slower fishing than we would have liked. As the delectable hoppers drifted over increasingly fishy water with fewer greasy diners than we wanted, and I boofed a few good rises, Zac offered me the escape hatch, taunting me:
You want the wire worm?
Wire worm, Vladi worm, condom worm, whatever you call it, the idea is simple. A hook with some color and texture added. The purists scoff, rightfully so. It's a guide's "last resort" fly, borderline dangerous to fish, to be used when all else fails and the day is going poorly. Sure, folks catch fish, bouncing that huge hook down along the bottom of the river. But only at the cost of nasty hookups that can possibly hurt fish.
L to R: The Slide Inn's Wire Worm, Loren Williams' Vladi Worm, and a Condom Worm from SwittersB
Dry or die,
or dredge for the edge?
The choice is clear. No worms allowed.
I'm no purist. I'll fish junk flies. But that day I was not sacrificing the nonstop vibe of hopper eats in one of the most beautiful places on earth, with everyone including the dog together watching for that joy. Watch a bobber and set the hook every ten seconds, and probably foul hook a fish or two? No thanks. We'll stay on the surface.
Zac and I both knew he was making a half-hearted offer. No way would that wire worm see the water. It was more fun to fish on the top, and laugh off my mistakes. To keep our eyes on the prize, laser-focused. Waiting for faces to materialize through the looking glass, staying calm and patient enough to postpone a hook set when that one baby alligator kype shows itself, and sucks one into the corner of its craw. It'll be in that next riffle, or just off that bank around the corner. Holding on to possibility as long as we could, before we had to wrestle with reality.
HAVE YOU SEEN THIS FISH?
Stay tuned for a special announcement this Wednesday.
We've been selected as one of 34 independent publishers to participate in the Back Indie Media Drive, now through September 30. We're going to find this mystery fish together.
Events
Last call for summer book club
Here's your last chance to RSVP for our next Read By the River virtual book club this Thursday, the 11th at 3:30 Pacific. Find out more on our book selection, and what to expect here:
Nick Parish
Events around Portland
PDXers! Steelhead-curious! It's time.
Mark your calendar for Wednesday, September 17th for a (virtual, or in-person) Clackamas River TU chapter meeting with Josh Linn from Royal Treatment, all about summer steelhead. Looking into my crystal ball I can tell you Josh might say a few things: Get your ass to the Deschutes, like, yesterday, and swing big foam skaters while you still can. (link)
If you're working to fill up your steelhead box, the Native Fish Society is hosting a Tying Night at pFriem in Milwaukie on Thursday, September 25th starting at 7pm, with featured flytier Peter Donahower. (link)
Headed out to any of these events? Got an upcoming event you'd like to share with other readers?
Leaders ➰
Mindset 🧘♂️
"Extinction of experience" is the phrase one UK professor uses to describe the decline in human connection to nature, a multi-input calculation he finds has declined 60% in the last 200 years. Yet another reason to go fishing. (link)
Patrick Barkham
Environment ⛰️
90% of living creatures in the Snake have been eliminated in order to get rid of the invasive quagga mussel in a shocking episode of mis-management. Seeing all the boat-inspection stations in Idaho and Montana rung particularly essential after I learned about Idaho's recent invasive prevention debacle. (link)
Technique 🤺
Here's a little more on choosing and fishing a hopper. I tend to agree with John Juracek—who's probably caught more Madison fish on hoppers than I've had hot dinners—that particular hopper choice doesn't matter much. (link)
Flylab
Conservation 🌲
Take a seat for a Patagonia-sponsored paddleraft fishing trip down the lower Kongakut River in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, an unspoiled area under threat of degradation by oil & gas exploration. (link)
Community 🏘️
How many fly anglers are there in America? Over 8 million, according to this report on fishing participation from the Recreational Boating & Fishing Foundation. A record-high 57.9 million folks in the US went fishing in 2024, up slightly from the previous year. (link)
That's it for this week! Current Flow State is a weekly newsletter from me, Nick Parish.
We can also connect and talk junk flies on Bluesky 🦋, Instagram 📸, YouTube 🎥, and in the Fishcord 💬.
If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend. We all need more fishing buddies. 💌
Read our editorial policy or browse the newsletter archives.
CFS Explorer members support and sustain the site, and our community. Learn more about membership benefits. If you're getting value from this work, consider becoming an Explorer member and giving back.
