(… from Trout Quest by David Scholes, used with permission)
Published on VFFA website June 2025
There is little worse in all this world that anybody could ever wish upon a fisherman than a bad day. These are the most woeful of times, when quite often nothing goes right from the very outset, when you come home thoroughly dissatisfied and completely disgusted, feeling, in point of fact, rather more disgruntled than angry, and probably far more likely simply to glower fiercely at an intimidator rather than lash out and swipe him.
I am not now thinking of that kind of bad day caused by not using the right fly, or being in the wrong place, or going out at the wrong time, or some other more definable trouble. No, terrible that days of this sort undoubtedly are they cannot nearly compare with the heap of adversity that sometimes befalls a man when he claims the attention of whatever hobgoblins they are that dish out bad days.
Days, I mean, when, try as you might, you get hooked up both in front and behind – not just simple hookups, mind you, in some ordinary branch from which extrication is reasonably simple, but times without number veritable snarls in some horrible thorny mass, resulting either in a broken point and a lost fly, or a point so curled up and twisted that its renewal is imperative.
Even to think about such muddles pains me almost as much as it would to experience the real thing. Just consider for a moment, for instance, the trials and difficulties that present themselves in the tying of subsequent blood knots. Many they are and varied, made ten times worse on hot days by those beastly little flies, the ones that insist on walking up and down your nose just at the most awkward and crucial moment when you try poking the last end through the hole. Angrily you beat off the insect, unable any longer to endure its tickling feet, and out pops the end of the cast and your blood knot is finished.
Have you noticed, too, that the further you persevere on such days the worse they become? You might even feel like giving it all up, but more likely you feel compelled to press hopefully onwards. Finally, of course, unless somehow you manage to rally, you end up in an utterly frustrated and dangerous state, no longer in fact resembling to any great extent the man you set out as, so that when at length you land home your patient wife feels much more convinced than ever that fishing does not agree with you.
All in all, these are assuredly black days. Quite frequently the trouble begins, as I say, right at the very start when you step from the car. Out of the car you bounce, all eager to get started, and immediately you discover that your polaroids are still where you left them on your desk at home. Already a little annoyed you begin rigging your rod, when either one of two things happens – or even both! Just as you attempt threading the last ring the line slips from your fingers and slides exasperatingly all the way back to the ground. Should this not occur then almost certainly at precisely the same stage of events you find it impossible to thread the last ring because the line has looped round the reel handle. Pull as you like you can never release it; surrender you must and go down to it, by now decidedly more than a little ruffled but still quite able, provided nothing further goes wrong, of cooling off entirely once the fishing begins.
But such is not to be. You try putting your wrong feet into your waders. Your wet-fly box always comes out of your pocket when it’s your dries you want, or vice versa. You select a fly quite successfully, foiling the wind’s best attempts to blow half of them to glory, only to find you can’t thread it because the eye is blocked up with varnish. Then, even when eventually you do clear it and thread it, there’s no guarantee of success in the tying – an infuriating kink is sure to form in the cast just near the eye, causing the fly to sit all askew.
The tribulations one might expect now before reaching the water are almost limitless. Do you notice, for example, on such days, how clumsy-footed you have become? See how you stumble and flounder, catching your toe on each little root and stone. Every gate you come to is one of those horrors that is both awkward to undo and do up. Every fence you encounter is hard to get over or through.
And woe betide you if you happen to be one of those anglers who carries his net unprotected, for verily it will entangle itself time upon time in obstructions, just tempting and taunting you to wrench it free, thus ripping holes in the mesh. Carry your rod high, I implore you, and watch where you’re heading, or the chances of ramming a tree or a tussock are enormous – and a smashed top is remarkably successful when it comes to raising the blood pressure or otherwise doing you no good.
At last you reach the river and start fishing. Things don’t improve. Where yesterday, when you allowed the fly to drift down almost against some semi-sunk log or snaggy outcrop where a patch of scum has collected and where usually a decent fish might be expected -where yesterday your retrieve came away cleanly and clear — now when you try it the fly almost certainly engages itself irretrievably in the obstruction, no matter how careful you are. Just see, too, how easily your offering becomes waterlogged and disappears – especially when you cover a particularly healthy rise.
And another thing: any slack line you let fall beside you is sure to entwine itself around a root or a stick. Even when wading this happens, the line often sinking in the process, so that you have to reel up and feel down with your hand to unhook it, thereby getting wet up to the elbow and uncomfortable into the bargain.
Bad days are bad throughout, once they set in. Your striking, of course, is all to pot. Then when, by sheer chance, you do hook a trout, like as not he will go to weed, or come off, or break or some such. Do you know I have even seen quite a few decent fish lost after netting! Having been emptied out on the bank before bagging, a fish of this kind can suddenly flap itself back in the water, either unhooked or maybe still hooked, there to escape after snagging the line.
I once lost a positive leviathan of a rainbow in the early days of Eildon Weir, in Victoria, when it broke through the bottom of the net as I lifted. What a predicament! There I was with the net in my left hand, the rod straining perilously in the other, with the line disappearing through the net into the depths. I could do nothing. With a smaller fish I may have managed to back out of the lake and somehow beached or dragged the quarry ashore, but with a still far from done for rainbow of considerable poundage, the safety of my rod seemed paramount. He broke me.
Bad days, once you have survived sufficient of them to acquire the requisite composure, are best accepted as a kind of necessary evil We all have them. None can slip the collar, none reach some sort of standard of excellence or proficiency that affords immunity. There is but one and one way only of lessening their sting and this is the development of a cold restraint and cheerful resignation. You must never, never allow them to outwit you, for, once bettered, you soon wither to a rattled and angry state of hopelessness.
I have seen good anglers so tormented and so upset by mid-morning that they might just as well head homewards. The way things look, unless they can revive, the rest of the day is doomed to failure. And yet, against this, I have known others, who, although undoubtedly and obviously experiencing a truly fearful day, by their passive attitude, manage to overcome their misfortune (to a large extent anyway) and make a reasonable day out of what otherwise would have been chaos.
Next to, yet I suppose necessarily part of, this cheerful resignation is the ability to recognise and even derive some sort of amusement from the humorous side of your calamities. No matter how serious or disastrous they might at first appear there is always a brighter side. Always things could have been worse. When for instance, your fly becomes lodged so annoyingly in the wattle hanging low over the far bank and you pull clear, instead of breaking the cast at the fly you could easily have lost the bottom link entirely, thus necessitating not only a new fly, but also a new point.
Yes, things could always be worse. But once the fact that today is not really your day dawns on you, and you accept it, much of the gloom consistent with a bad day is gone. What little successes befall you are now immensely enjoyed. And how great are the thrills of these minor triumphs!
On other days they would almost be taken for granted, but today even the removal of one of the simplest of fish is counted an achievement. Amid all this sea of uncertainty if only you can locate a rise, cover it cleanly, time the strike correctly, then steer him safely to net, no matter how much trouble comes with the next hour, the pleasure of this welcome break-through lingers sufficiently to outweigh whatever torments present themselves.
But every so often a bad day undoubtedly does us more good than harm. Certainly, we appreciate the good days so very much more because of them, and probably we learn to fish better also, since they promote in us a constant yet almost unconscious alertness and caution, which prepare us continuously for all kinds of knavery and pitfalls.
There is, however, one kind of bad day that is quite intolerable. When weather conditions turn out to be so adverse that there is no opportunity to fish at all, the result can only be described as ghastly. Nothing, surely, can lash one into a state of rage more violently or more thoroughly. Poor weather, especially when time is limited or crucial, is a terrible adversary, difficult to withstand, no matter how composed or patient you endeavour to be. I once went for a ten-day holiday to the lake country, but after eight days of continuous cold showery westerly gales I gave up in defeat, returning home utterly vanquished and sadly disappointed.
Bad days when the mayfly is up are particularly hard to take. The duration of this very special time is really confined to only several weeks of the season. Every passing day, therefore, is precious. To lose even one of them through unfriendly weather is painful enough, but to be under the influence of the bad-day bogies when conditions are good is a fearsome ordeal, sickening even to be contemplated.
Again, to meet with a bad day somewhere just after others have had good ones on the same piece of water is hard on both body and soul. Perhaps these happy fellows have meticulously described the place to you in every smallest detail, so that you feel you know it like the back of your hand and all you need to do is to go there and cast out with your eyes shut to be fast to a whale. But no, you go there alright, chock-full of enthusiasm and hope, only to end up in a disarranged mess. So there it is. No matter who you are, or where you come from, or how old a hand you may be, or how proficient you are, bad days will sometimes attend you. If you resign yourself to this and expect them, enduring them with as even a temper as can reasonably be managed, things like torn waders and broken rod tips will be far less likely to ensue.