Rippin’ Lip
A uniquely intimate experience with fly fishing.
Fly fishing: it connects you to the river. It’s pure. It’s fluid. It’s a thrilling game of cat-and-mouse. It’s also really, really hard. Still, nothing a little YouTube can’t remedy—or so my 12-year-old self thought, before our family’s Montana fishing trip from the Midwest. I’d watched a few videos to learn the basics: roll casting, mending, a few knots. I was ready for the river.
While the rest of the family was happy hanging out along the Gallatin, I was on a mission. I was in Montana to catch a fish on the fly, just like I’d seen on TV. Don’t get me wrong, I’d already made some accomplishments in the world of fishing—multi-pound bass, crappies the size of dinner plates, and catfish that fed the whole family—but they were all caught on spin rods in Midwestern lakes. And the coveted trout still eluded me. Little did I know, I was about to hook the biggest catch of my life—even to this day.
I managed to get the fly further and further out, until… Wham! Something was hooked, right in the lip. But it wasn’t a fish.
I was up bright and early, evading Mom’s attempts to make me eat breakfast. No time for that, I had an important meeting with the river. Once I reached the bank, my online studies slowly trickled back. In hindsight, I don’t recall watching a single video about reading water, stalking, or actually finding fish. The stretch I’d chosen was possibly fishless to begin with. No matter—ignorance is bliss, and I was determined to find my bliss, which consisted of nothing more than catching a trout.
However, my focused flicks and attempted rolls quickly devolved into frustration and frantic waving of the rod in every direction. “It’s not working like it did in the video!” I cried out. “They make it look so easy!” Well, there was still one more thing to try—a true overhead cast, just like in the movies. Despite the online tutorials’ recommendations against beginners attempting this technique, I had no choice. “After all,” I thought, “there’s no way I’m going to catch a fish unless I can get my fly clear across to the far bank.”
So there I was, jerking my fly up out of the water and whipping it back and forth, resembling an inflatable tube-man at the car dealership. The fly was zinging by, about head high, a few feet out to my side. Forward, backward, forward, backward. Slowly, I dialed in the timing until I started getting some force behind it. Letting out more and more line, watching my back-cast to avoid the brush, I managed to get the fly further and further out, until… Wham! Something was hooked, right in the lip. But it wasn’t a fish. The hook was lodged deep in my own face—in my lower lip to be exact. I pulled on it, but the barb held fast. Panicked, I ran back to the family cabin with the line, rod, and reel still attached to my mouth.
As Mom assessed the situation, her face was a combination of concern and a fight to hold back laughter. We decided to go to the place that got us into this mess to begin with—the fly shop that sold us the intricate piercing kit. A shop employee took one look and yelled to the back, “Billy, we got another one!” A few moments later, Billy himself emerged from the back, through a beaded doorway curtain, a tackle box labeled “Med Kit” in hand.
The hook didn’t budge. Surprised and sympathetic, Billy looked at me and said, “I can’t remember the last time that didn’t work. Wanna give it another try?”
Though skeptical of Billy’s medical qualifications, I was in no position to object. Billy took a look and muttered unreassuringly, “Shit, that’s really in there.” But he insisted that he had a near-100-percent success rate with these sorts of incidents. His method entailed stringing some line around the exposed fly in a particular way, counting down from five, and giving a hearty yank on two, when I wasn’t expecting it. The hook didn’t budge. Surprised and sympathetic, Billy looked at me and said, “I can’t remember the last time that didn’t work. Wanna give it another try?” With a couple of quiet tears running down my face, I respectfully declined the offer.
Mom and I loaded back up in the car and headed for the nearest genuine medical facility. With the help of an anesthetic injection, the doctor was finally able to remove the fly from my face. I didn’t end up keeping the fly, but what I did hang onto was a deeper understanding of fishing, and a closer connection with the piscine inhabitants of the river. Having felt the pain of a fly, I learned a little about what the fish are feeling when hooked in the lips—and that’s something that can’t be taught in a YouTube video.
