By John O’ Bryan

There are times when I’m fishing, and the moment is exactly right, that I find myself holding my breath… but it has nothing to do with fishing.  Watching a big fish rise to my fly when the water is dancing with sparkles and with a caddis hatch is magical, and I do stand in awe when it happens, but this never causes me to hold my breath.  I only hold my breath when I lose my footing and plunge chest first into the frigid waters.  This is never pleasant, but I seem to find myself holding my breath more and more often.  Either “global warming” is making the rocks more slimy and unstable – or I’m getting more slimy and unstable.  It’s so hard to tell sometimes.

My latest excursion into the icy river happened last week as I was fishing Kelly Creek.  I stepped on a boulder, in what looked like a shallow pool between two rocks, and quickly realized it was much deeper than I expected.  I put my emergency landing gear down and plunged chest first into four-foot-deep water.

I was never in any real danger of hurting anything other than my pride, but the brief journey into the frigid water had me gasping for two reasons. Firstly, the water was cold, very cold, and a lot of it had rushed down the front of my bibs. When water finds its way inside the top of your waders there is a cascade of frigidity that surges over your belly, past Australia (the bits down under) and down the legs where it settles nicely into your neoprene booties where it sloshes around until you can make it back to camp to change.  Your entire body is cold, your clothes are wet, and there is nothing to do for it other than to shiver uncontrollably until your body warms the water as you keep fishing. The second reason I gasped was that I had my good camera tucked “safely” inside the bib of my Gore-Tex waders. 

I am a photographer by training and my cameras (yes, I have many) are near and dear to me. I always have one with me, as well as my cell phone, at all times, but especially when fly fishing.  I tend to take way too many photos because I never know when one of the “too many” may just be that ONE photograph that makes me famous, or at least get others to say “Hey, nice photo.”  I kinda live for those moments.  So, I take photos of everything: my fish, the fish of my friends, the sun on the water, the mountains, clouds, insects… anything that I find interesting.   

I take a lot of pictures with my phone too, since it is constantly with me, and the image quality has become so good that it’s almost tempting to never bring anything else.  Almost, but not quite.  When people ask me which camera to buy, I always tell them not to purchase a camera, but to buy the best cell phone they can afford.  The best camera is the one you have with you, and no one is ever without their phone.  However, using my phone for pictures has become an issue for me when I fish since it doesn’t have a strap, doesn’t work when I have gloves on, is slippery when wet and is light enough to get washed away in the current.  

Ask me how I know this.

Fly fishing is a relatively expensive passion, but doubly so when you ruin perfectly good pieces of electronic equipment every time you fish. I buy Silica Gel by the case because of all the equipment I have to dry out at the end of the day.  I’ve gotten so used to emptying my cell phones, cameras, walkie talkies and gps devices into the box of desiccant that it’s become routine.  

The issue I have is that something that is waterproof should be waterproof both inside and out.  If I put my phone in a pocket inside a waterproof coat or waders, I expect it to be protected, but the problem with this line of thinking is that waders and wading jackets are only waterproof from the outside.  They do an amazing job of keeping water out, unless you fall in the river or wade up to your chest in the jacket that has mesh inner pockets that seal only from the outside.  I have ruined multiple phones and a host of other electronic equipment by wading too deep and letting water get on the inside of what was supposed to keep water on the outside.

As I was trying to get to my feet from the fall I took last week, water cascading off my back, arms and head, my first thought was, “Here we go again.”  Okay, maybe it was my second thought. My first thought being to take inventory of my body to see if I was all in one piece, but my second thought was to take inventory of all the electronic stuff I had on my body.  I immediately yanked the camera  out of my waders by the strap, water flowing off it as I did.  I blew as much water off it as I could and turned it on. I do know you’re not supposed to do this since it can ruin perfectly good electronic circuits, but I did it anyway.  I shouldn’t have.  I heard a slight zap and it was done.   I took the SD card out of the camera, put it in a waterproof fly box and kept fishing.

When I got home I put the camera in the desiccant, but I knew it wouldn’t help, and it didn’t.  I placed it for sale on Ebay “as is” “for parts only” with the rest of the ones I have on there, opened an adult beverage and sat in my favorite chair to search for another camera.  I may have bought more fly fishing stuff too.  Don’t tell Dream Crusher.

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