Taylor Made 5

Bob Taylor was always punctual. When he didn’t show up for an appointment the next day, his friends became alarmed. Gerry Arbeider located a key to Bob’s apartment and found Bob’s body.

He’d suffered a heart attack and passed away. It was the fifth of July, 2006. He was 81. He looked two decades younger. He was so bright and fit, we all expected him to live a century. If he’d known the symptoms of a heart attack and promptly gone to an emergency ward, odds are he would have.

Bob was a skilled fly tier. I’d learned so much about balance and proportion from scrutinizing the pictures of his steelhead flies in Lee Straight’s Fishing Guide. Bob had shown me how to splice loops in fly lines, how to take care of and revive worn ferrules, and how much backing to put on reels and, as a transitional figure from the age of Cunliffe, Brayshaw, and Haig-Brown to the modern age of flyfishing in this province, he’d shared historical anecdotes. In hindsight, I wish I’d sat down with him with a pen in my hand, or a tape recorder running and had him talk about all the trips he and Lee took to what were then little known steelhead streams, and the many trips he and Gerry Wintle made to rivers in Washington State.

After Bob’s passing, I acquired a couple of his reels: an old St. George and an old three and five-eighths model Perfect, both polished around their handles by Bob’s thumb, but otherwise in immaculate condition. The reels were made in Hardy’s Brass Age. I slid them into reel seats of bamboo rods, one built by Bob’s good friend, Ron Grantham, and another by my good friend, Bob Clay. They are treasured possessions as are the few meticulously tied flies I bummed from Bob over the years, and, of course, my Taylor Made wading staff was irreplaceable and even more precious now that its maker was gone.

For three years Bob’s staff went with me on every fishing trip. When I returned to the truck, the first order of business was unclipping the lanyard and stowing the staff in the box.

On a summer evening this last August, I decided to look for steelhead on the Zymoetz. One of the best places to find newcomers at that time of year is below the Bridge in the run we call Channel Three. I went there, parking on the dike just upstream of the bridge.

On my way along the top of the berm I spotted a pair of fishermen casting lures.

Hi Mr. Brown, one called up to me as I approached the end of the dike.

From the greeting I knew it had to have been uttered by a former student.

It’s Harold Armstrong, he called out.

By God, it was. I asked after his family. I was saddened to learn that his mother had passed away. She was much to young.

What are you up to these days? I asked.

He told me he was working for a travel agency and still singing in a band in Abu Dhabi.

Hot there, I guess, I said.

You have no idea. It’s a real problem, he replied. When I left it was 53 degrees.

I tried unsuccessfully to imagine what temperatures like that must be like as I waded out up to my waist and began pushing my fly line into the cold wind that blows across the Copper River Flats every summer evening.

I made a lot of casts, double hauling the line to gain the advantage over the wind. Nothing came to my fly. By the time I was ready to make my way back, it was getting dark. Harold and his companion had packed up long ago.

There was almost no light left when I reached the truck. I put my staff and my rod atop the canopy then fumbled around inside my waders for the keys so that I would be able to unlock the window of the canopy. Some creature made a sound in the bush. The dog barked at it. Distracted momentarily, I got back to the task at hand, packed up my gear and my dog then drove over the bumpy road to the highway and drove toward home.

At Thornhill, I began wondering if I’d put my staff in the back of the truck. I recalled reaching up for the rod and taking it down, but not the staff. I pulled over onto the access road, clambered out, lifted the back window and lowered the tailgate. It took a minute to satisfy myself that the staff wasn’t there. I hopped back in the truck and raced back.

It must have bounced off on the uneven dike road, I said to myself. I’ll find it...I hope....no, I’ll find it.

Continued.

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