The Rod of Destiny

Strap in for one of the best fish tales ever, only without the fish!

Last winter, Complete Fly Fisher guide Max Lewis received a text from a client he had fished with the previous summer. The client, Ken, was relatively new to fly fishing but, according to Max, was a fast learner and quickly became proficient enough to put the fly where he needed to. Their group enjoyed a run of stellar fishing on the Big Hole River, and Ken was in the thick of the action. So it wasn’t all that surprising to Max that Ken reached out.

“One of the things I enjoy most about guiding is getting to see those moments when people become hooked on the sport,” says Max. “I had a hunch it might not be the last time I heard from Ken.”

Ken sought Max’s guidance on fishing gear to purchase before his next trip to the lodge the following summer. Max recommended a few brands of fly rods and reels, and advised Ken to acquire the primary workhorse of Montana fly fishers: a 9-foot, 6-weight fly rod.

Ken arrived for the return trip eager to get back on the water, but empty-handed. He’s a busy man, life got in the way, these things happen, right? He picked up right where he left off, fishing-wise (CFF has a wide selection of premium gear for client use), and their group once again experienced the kind of action the Big Hole is renowned for, the kind that leaves weary arms and wide grins in its wake.

But there’s one cast among the hundreds (thousands?) of others on that trip that won’t soon be forgotten, by Max, Ken, or Ken’s boatmate Hayden, who captured video of the event about to unfold. Ken was hunting for a big brown trout, throwing a streamer to the riverbanks in the hopes of triggering a predatory ambush, when he set the hook on an inert resistance that felt like some version of one of fly fishing’s primary annoyances: the stick-fish.

But when Ken’s fly broke the surface towing what Max immediately recognized as a fly line, he instructed his client as if it was the fish of a lifetime: “Keep the line tight! No slack!” Then from the depths of the Big Hole emerged the rod the line had been paired with, now hooked by Ken’s fly. Ken skillfully landed this most unlikely of catches, and the pristine condition of the gear only added to the absurdity of the whole thing.

So now Ken has that personal setup he was wishing for – naturally, it’s a 9-foot, 6-weight. And Max has a story he’ll tell until the end of his days: that time when a client caught his first flyrod!