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I didn't start out to be a fish hobo is just happened. It took years of life's ups and down to create the fly angler I am today. When people think of hobo's they instantly picture a rail bum who's been riding the train for weeks, needs a shave and eats his dinner out of a can. Hollywood has ingrained into the public an image of a hobo as a dirty old man walking down the tracks with all his belongings hanging from the end of a stick which he carries across his shoulders. We know from the past that hobos hung out at places like Hobo Jungles. In my home town we had a place on the beach where the trains used to slow down called "Hobo Junction". As a boy I used to camp out there while fishing for surf perch and watch how the hobo live their lives. 
During my lifetime of fly fishing I have had the opportunity to fish many rivers and streams throughout the West. Some of these waters are famous trout rivers and streams of the Northwest while others are little known or known only to local fly anglers. I have some special rivers I like to fish that are outstanding rivers and grow huge trout, and I fish quite a few little creeks that I think are the best of the best. I fortunately have the benefit of being able to travel the Northwest much of the fishing season and feel fortunate to fish many rivers and streams, each one uniquely different and rewarding. One thing all these fishing hot spots have in common is the presence of other anglers, crowded boat ramps and full campgrounds. However negative that may sound, most often it's worth it to have the opportunity to catch beautiful native trout. For me it was the beginning of a fly fishing quest.
Eighteen years ago I started my quest for a body of water where no human had ever cast a fly to, where the fish were wild and had never seen a human much less a wading boot. Most of my fly fishing friends thought I was crazy, saying those places just don't exist anymore. I figured that living in Idaho I could probably find that little creek within a few years. Well a few years came and went and I had given up looking for something that I no longer believed existed. It just sunk in that there just isn't any trout water in the lower 48 that just isn't getting fished.
I think in the back recesses of my mind, somewhere among the cobwebs and empty spaces, I still thought that someday I might be fortunate to discover some little creek untouched by the dry fly. Occasionally I would spend a couple of hours at a time looking over all my maps and day dreaming about some of the little blue lines I saw coming out of those topographical mountains. Sometimes I even made a trip to some of those mystery creeks I spied on the map only to see anglers, signs of anglers or a parking lot full of cars before me.
Just when I think I've forgotten about my little virgin stream I pick up a magazine and read an article about some lost forgotten river somewhere on our earth or I'll pick up a book written by some well known fly fishing author and read about their adventures on some little stream they say must remain "unknown". Now I understand the reason for keeping their little "unknown" a secret but these authors have a knack for describing streams, fly fishing and trout with such clarity that leaves me with my tongue hanging down which is probably why they do it for a living.
As far back as I can remember I've heard the phrase, "Never say never" and nowhere is that more accurate than in the world of fly fishing. How many times have you caught yourself saying, "I'd never do this "or "You should never do that". I sometimes catch myself doing that while teaching fly fishing to a new student and then have to explain that there are exceptions to every rule. The look I get back can range from somewhere between confusion to ineptitude.
I sometimes wonder why I have this insatiable appetite to visit fly shops when I really have no need to visit. I usually don't need any new equipment and I have too much fly tying stuff now as it is. I'm like a child who has tons of toys but still loves to go to the toy store to look at all the toys he wishes he had. I can deduce that my passion for fly fishing might have something to do with it. What can I say; I'm like a gear head for fly fishing stuff. It may be hereditary, my mother used to shop at the knitting store and go down every isle looking at everything on the shelf. Hmm, that's where I get it from.
I know I must an easy mark because when I walk in it's "Hey have you seen our new wading boots over in the corner?" or "Where you going this weekend?" No matter how many times I go into a fly shop there are always something for a gear head like me to drool over. And just when you think it's time to go, you can't help but stop and look what the fish are biting on up on the white board. It doesn't matter that I may need absolutely nothing in the way of fly fishing gear or supplies, I always seen to buy something.
I live in Boise, Idaho and as long as I've lived here there has always been a fly shop or two around. Even before that anglers can always remember there being a fly shop in town. Aside from selling fly fishing goodies, fly shops are a wealth of information. Stay in one long enough and you are bound to pick up some tip or a secret hole some other angler gives you with the threat of death if you reveal his secret to anyone. I also find that I'm not the only fly fishing freak in town; there are others like me living amongst the normal citizens of my community.
Over the years I've often overheard in fly fishing conversations the use of the term Fly Fishing Master. I never really put too much thought into it other than the guy must be a pretty good angler. But recently I've notice the term being bantered about loosely in several books and magazine articles. Whether the term is "The greatest fly fisherman of my generation" or "So and so has mastered his craft" or simply "Became a master" it all boils down to an angler reaching the plateau of being Master of the sport.
The subject of mastery is not a new revelation in fly fishing. It's more like the idea of mastery has quietly grown over the years and embedded itself in the world of fly fishing. It's like suddenly waking up one day and while combing your hair you see your first gray hair. I never saw it there before, it just somehow showed up. With the increasing popularity of fly fishing in the last thirty or so years there has also been an explosion of fly fishing media which has opened the door to the sport to almost everyone. The quantity of books, magazines, television shows, and the web has brought to the angler unimaginable amounts of information and entertainment. New flies, techniques, and destinations are easily assimilated by the angler. The byproduct of this assimilation leads to a better understanding of the sport and the people who make up the voice of the sport. Because of the easy access to information on fly fishing the term "Master" has slowly started to float to the surface.
When I first started fly fishing I had a hard enough time just learning what a dry fly was let alone what an emerger is. Back in the day it was all about floating an Adams or bouncing a Hare's Ear along the bottom. There wasn't a lot written about a streams ecosystem or entomology in the sixties. What most fly anglers learned, including myself was from time spent on the water and our own little network of fly anglers. I have always been an avid reader of all fly fishing literature and it wasn't too long before I stumbled upon the phenomenon of emerging insects in some book or magazine. I didn't understand at the time how important emergers are to a fly fisherman but I at least became exposed to the occurrence.
It really wasn't until I started becoming interested in stream born entomology that the emerger phenomenon really started to make sence. That there was a whole stage in the life cycle of a Mayfly that keyed a trout's feeding behavior into a feeding frenzy was exciting and I needed to study it more. The problem was as a young fly angler raised in a town of bait fishermen I had little or no input on the subject from other fly anglers. To read about something as important and interesting as emerging stream born insects and not be able to talk about it with other fly anglers was frustrating to say the least. About the only picture I could get in my mind was a fantasy of what effect an emerger must have on a hungry trout.
How many times have you been out fishing and ran into another fly fisherman and was asked "How's the fishing"? Or just the opposite you asked them "How's the fishing"? It's an interesting questions and the response is almost always a mystery. The answer can sometimes be as difficult to interpret as Einstein's theory of relativity. It makes perfect since to a physicist but draws a blank stare from your average Joe. Now I realize that I'm overcomplicating the question but none the less it can be quite compelling in some instances.
For me a good day on the river was five fish caught and released and for you on the same river twenty fish caught and released was a good day. Do you start to see confusion? In my home town news paper there is a fishing section with a fish report. In this report are all the rivers and stream the local folks like to fish and next to the names of the rivers are little fish that represent how good the fishing is at that river. The more fish (up to five) by the river the better the fishing is. So we're back to square one. Did the reporter who writes that column catch one fish or twenty? Did the guy he got the information from catch one or twenty? What makes a four fish river better than a three fish river? How many fishermen did he interview to come to his conclusions? Well the math can be overwhelming and you probably start to get my drift by now.
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Merlin's Trout Shop 
