A Vernacular
In the flats of Florida there are daisy chains and meatballs, strings and bandits. If you’re lucky you’ll get an eat, maybe even a jump. In the Sacramento Delta there’s always shakers and schoolies. Wait long enough you might even get a toad. In the Catskills they fish with coffin flies. Anywhere it’s a memorable day if you get spooled, a forgettable one if it’s a skunk. Rip, short-strike and refusal. Clinch, surgeons, blood, loop, and the bimini twist. Steeple, double-haul, rodeo, roll and pile.
It’s a sport with a vernacular. Some terms tied to local others floating through the sport. An Angler’s library of terms seems to have become an acceptable measure of one’s competency. Did you hook up? Any Head Shakes?
The north coast was no different. You had to know the lingo if you were gonna step into the lineup. What kind of head were you using? I think I had a rub. Looks like that guy’s a washer.
And then there was The Bucket. It was a Bill Schaadt term made famous in a 1970s article by Bob Nauheim. The idea was simple, on any river, at any time of year, at any given moment, there was always a bucket. One place where you as angler had the greatest concentration of fish, the greatest odds of putting your fly in front of hungry fish. And this is what separated California fly fishing during the 1950s from Oregon and Washington. Unlike the northern states, were a more gentlemanly approach to the sport has always ruled, in California it was a selfish game. Find the bucket, beat everyone else there and don’t leave unless you’re deathly ill.
