Routines and Superstition

We're a superstitious crew.  Talk of steelhead mojo is often based in routine and for us, that's 100% true.

Leaving Spokane at Dark O' Thirty in the morning, we arrive in Lewiston usually around sunrise. With hungry stomachs, we started stopping at a particular McDonalds for a little breakfast fuel before we hit the first run on either rivers we are headed to for the day

We get the same thing every time.  Every.  Time.

One time we eschewed pattern and tradition and had a terrible day.  No fish, no bumps, no nibbles.

On the way home that day, you have to try an assign blame to the fruitlessness of the fishing.

Ah HA!  No McDonalds.  That's it

We havent missed a Bacon Egg and Cheese Biscut Meal and Sausage, Egg and Cheese Meal since.

Dont mess with steelhead mojo.  Ever.

Fishing Superstitions.....The Hawk

Remember what the first rule of Fight Club was....?

You dont talk about Fight Club....

Like or hate the movie, it leads me into my key fishing superstition. 

The first rule of fishing, fly fishing that is,  you dont talk about "The Hawk"

See, The Hawk is The Wind.  Death to a good cast, killer of good dry fly fishing, derth to rowing.

I hate the wind.  Over time, I've learned to deal with it, to manage it, to coexist with it. 

But to use a crappy pun....wind blows.

As I began to fish with the crew that I spend most of my time on the water with now, I was lamenting on how much that day's wind was killing my fun.  Promptly I was informed that we never talk about wind because if you do the faster and more severly it comes on.  Fishing in 10 mph wind, say the word "wind" and watch the gusts hit 40.  Dont believe me, I suggest you try it.

The only way I will talk about wind while on the river is in code. We've given the atmospheric unbalance that is wind it's own special name......The Hawk. 

Phrases like, "The Hawk is sure flying today"  are ok to say.  "Wow, it's windy"  might get you punched in the face. 

So there my friends is my #1 fishing superstition.  I have others, I was a baseball player in a former life for gosh sakes and we exist on superstitions.  I do my best to limit them but they are always there.

Send me your superstitions, we'd love to hear the other crazy stories and routines you go through in your effort to catch fish.  I'll re-post the best ones here where we can take solace in our collective craziness.