Truths, Half-Truths And Damned Lies!

By Jerry A. Stercho

Truths, Half-Truths And Damned Lies! is a collection of stories about fly-fishing and the people who fly-fish written by master storyteller Jerry Stercho. The twenty-six stories run the gamut from the poignant Billy and Angler’s Monologue to the hilarious Old Man and the She and Two Deadheads Fishing. Over fifty years of fly fishing experience has enabled Jerry to bring these stories to life. This is a book that will be enjoyed by any fly-fisher, or—for that matter—by anyone who just enjoys a good yarn.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jerry A. Stercho
• Release date: Mar 5, 2012
• ISBN: 9781465902290

Jerry A. Stercho

A fly-fisherman for over 50 years, Jerry Stercho was born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and is a 1974 graduate of Cornell University’s Wildlife Department. For six years he worked as a fisheries biologist and for nineteen years he was co-founder and co-publisher/editor of Mid Atlantic Fly Fishing Guide magazine. He is now retired and living in upstate New York with his wife Mary Ann. His son, Jonathan, works in fisheries and his daughter, Amy, is a Montessori teacher.

Book preview

Truths, Half-Truths

And Damned Lies!

Jerry Stercho

For Twelve Years, Jerry Stercho Wrote Tale Waters

for the Mid Atlantic Fly Fishing Guide magazine.

Here are some of the best.

Truths, Half-Truths And Damned Lies!

©February 15, 2012 by Jerry Stercho

SMASHWORDS EDITION

FIRST EDITION

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or means, print or electronic, without the written permission of the author, except in cases of brief quotations.

Some of these stories are works of fiction. If so, names, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locations is entirely coincidental. Other stories may be based upon truth. These may contain the names of real people and places.

Cover art by Joan M. Siglin-Scott

Cover design by Joe Perrone Jr.

Back cover photo by Jonathan Stercho

For Mary Ann, Amy and Jonathan

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I want to thank Joe Perrone Jr. for his help and encouragement in organizing this book for publication. Thanks to Roger Connelly and Don Henderson who were both instrumental in getting me started in fly-fishing and fly tying and who shared many adventures astream. Special thanks to my son, Jonathan, my favorite fishing partner, and my daughter, Amy, who shares my love for the outdoors. And to my wife Mary Ann, thank you for putting up with all the time I spent on the water.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Billy

Brookies, Opening Day

Bonefish Mary

How Terribly Strange to be Seventeen

On a Salmon Pool

Full Circle

Brannigan’s Stand

Eddie and the Junk Fly Man

Reflections

Certain Fish

Riders, Comin’ Hard

Old Evil Eye

The Hundred-Foot Cast

Witchcraft

Man of the Year

The Woodcock’s Gift

An Angler’s Monologue

Old Sam Hess

Harry’s Salmon

The Old Man and the She

High Wind on the Margaree

The Sudden Demise of Mr. Big

Uncle Bert’s Pond

Two Deadheads Fishing…1969

When You See the Southern Cross for the First Time

Tomboy

Billy

Billy was there when I caught my first trout on a fly. The small brookie took a poorly tied stonefly nymph and made lifelong fly fishers of both of us. Billy was always better than me.

We were about twelve then, just about the age my boy is now. Fly-fishing took hold of us and became an obsession. We tied flies, not well at first, but gradually better until by age fifteen we were able to barter flies for needed materials at the local fly shop.

In those years, we wore out everyone’s patience begging rides to Factory Brook. We had absolutely no pride with our begging, and relatives and friends began to avoid us when we had our fly rods. Factory Brook was thirty minutes away. Billy was always a better beggar than me.

Finally, Billy turned sixteen and got his driver’s license and use of the family station wagon. We were in heaven! Friends no longer avoided us, and just about every night after school, and all day Saturday and Sunday, found us casting to trout. If it rained, we tied flies for the next trip. Billy was the better tier.

Factory Brook was our favorite haunt and had a clear, cold flow all summer. Our favorite tactic was to fish alternating pools upstream with dry flies. It was almost as much fun watching Billy cast as to fish. He was a lefty and had an unusual jerky casting motion, which delivered the fly delicately just where he aimed it. I was the better caster!

About our senior year in high school, Billy made two discoveries, girls, and my morbid fear of snakes. Pretty young things became standard tackle on our excursions, and used to adorn rocks and logs at streamside and compliment Billy’s every cast. They would almost swoon when he caught a fish. Billy thought it was great. I was just jealous!

He took every opportunity to harass me with snakes, much to the delight of his female admirers. Here I’d be, up to my waist in some creek, concentrating on casting a Light Cahill to a riser under the far bank, when all of a sudden, splash, an evil tempered water snake he had thrown, would land near me and I’d jump almost out of my skin. Billy would hoot, the girl would giggle, and I wouldn’t be able to cast for another ten minutes!

Once Billy had a large garter snake, and began chasing me around with it. In desperation, I grabbed a club-sized stick and swung at his head. I missed but he got the idea and that stopped the snake thing. The girls missed the excitement ever after.

My phobia was snakes; Billy’s was shad. He couldn’t catch them. We’d journey to the Delaware every weekend when the shad were in the river. Billy could hook them but managed to lose them in every way imaginable. Some broke off, some threw the fly, and others just came off at the net. I loved it and delighted in fishing alongside him, loudly proclaiming victory with every shad I landed. The girls thought I was a clod.

Through our college years, things remained much the same, except we only had time to fish weekends. Billy’s casting improved and the girls got prettier. Even so, Billy had a more difficult time paying attention to them. He was becoming more obsessed with his fly-fishing, and when I stole away one of the prettier girls and married her, Billy was our best man.

I became involved in married life, raising a family and generally fishing less. Billy became a confirmed bachelor, writer, and trout bum. He traveled extensively to fish better waters and more famous hatches, and moved to a cabin in the Catskills.

As the years went by, Billy was a frequent visitor at our home, and my son learned to love and worship him. Jonathan loved fishing, and, when Billy came, the two of them would talk about it for hours. I mostly listened.

Last winter, Billy asked permission to teach Jonathan fly-casting. They were both lefties, and it would be easy for the boy to learn from him. Of course, it was fine with me, and Billy cam every Sunday and they went to the park for lessons.

As spring approached, we made plans for Jonathan and I to spend the opening weekend of trout season at Billy’s cabin. Trips were made to tackle stores to get him outfitted, and his excitement reached fever pitch. Billy said he reminded him of myself at age eleven. He reminded me of Billy.

Finally, early in March, Billy announced that Jonathan’s casting was ready for the Beaverkill trout, and he stopped his weekly visits. Less than a month remained until opening weekend. I hadn’t been this excited about fishing for years.

Three weeks passed and I didn’t hear a word from Billy. I called often, but he was never home. I thought maybe he was on a trip, but he always told me before he went. I noticed he had dropped a few pounds lately, and decided he was probably chasing a woman and was most likely shacked up somewhere. Still, it wasn’t like Billy not to call.

Two nights before trout season I still couldn’t get Billy on the phone, so I called his sister in Syracuse. Billy was in the hospital. When I asked if it was serious, she broke down and said he hadn’t wanted to worry Jonathan and me. She suggested I go see him, soon!

The next morning when I walked into his room, I hardly recognized the man who had been my best friend for almost forty years. He was thin and gaunt and obviously quite ill. Tubes were connected to seemingly every part of his body.

I touched his shoulder and he woke. His voice was weak. In a few short minutes he described his illness. Last fall he was diagnosed with a rare blood disorder, it would be fatal, and, when I asked how long, he said it would be only a matter of days.

I had to leave the room to compose myself, and when I came back, I pulled a chair near his bed. We talked long into the afternoon, me doing most of the talking. I told all the old stories we loved to tell: stories of certain girls, certain trout, and rowdy fishing trips to the Delaware with waders full of clinking beer bottles.

By supper, Billy was obviously tiring, and I decided I had better go. He began to talk then, and spoke briefly about his illness and impending death. He didn’t want Jonathan to see him in this condition, and made me promise not to bring him in. He asked me to go to the dresser and open the top drawer. In it were the keys to his cabin and the deed transferred to Jonathan’s and my name. I was to take the boy there tomorrow as planned.

As I prepared to leave, a flash of the old Billy returned. He claimed his only regret about dying at the age forty-two was the way it was happening. He had always planned to live to eighty and be shot by the jealous husband of a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader.

I stood close to his bed and tears ran down both of our cheeks as we said our goodbyes. He reached over to his bed stand and handed me a box of dry flies he had tied for Jonathan. As usual, they were beautiful like the man who tied them.

The next morning the drive to Billy’s cabin was in silence. I had told Jonathan about Billy’s illness and he had accepted it very well for a boy his age. We arrived before noon and opened the cabin, but I had no desire to fish.

Later, we sat on the porch and watched as quill gordons began to appear on the run near the tail of the pool. Trout began to rise to them and I still just watched. Finally, Jonathan broke the silence. He suggested that Billy wouldn’t want us to miss the action on his account, and he was right.

With little enthusiasm, I rigged my rod and watched Jonathan rig his. We waded out into the run, but I held back and let the boy move into casting position.

He stripped some line from the reel and began to cast. I saw that jerky, left -handed casting motion and it was just like Billy thirty years ago. Jonathan caught a trout on his third cast and I began to feel a little better. Billy, or part of him, would always be around as long as Jonathan was.

As I watched, two more trout were landed, and more and more of Billy was evident in Jonathan’s casting and intensity. I was proud of him and Billy, and was thankful to have had both of them in my life.

In the ephemeral world of the fly fisherman, only the rivers and hatches continue forever. Men come, sample a small segment of it, and then pass on. Billy, my friend, when you get to heaven, I hope you find it full of jealous husbands, all lined up to get a shot at you.

Back to Table of Contents

Brookies, Opening Day

Dan turned off the highway and as the truck’s headlights illuminated the dirt road, a startled cottontail jumped three feet straight up before taking off into the woods. Ten minutes later he shifted into low as he crossed the iron bridge over Clear Shade Creek. Headlights flashed briefly from a pull-off along the creek and Dan stopped alongside a battered VW. Hey, was his only greeting from its occupant. A mustachioed giant curled out of the old car and reached back