Challenge accepted, and completed!
One-on-one time is element not to be overlooked in Oklahoma's 15x15 Challenge
The 15x15 is nearly done for 2022. The awards ceremony is set for Thursday. I have a few columns to write on the subject.
Family first.
“The 15x15” is shorthand for the Fourth Annual All Fish All Oklahoma Fly Fishing Challenge. I’ll let my big brother Rick do the explaining for those who don’t know what double-digit multiplication could possibly have to do with a fly fishing contest.
The tone is important for his description, so, put yourself in his shoes.
He left his home in Edmond at 4 a.m. to meet me pre-dawn at Tulsa’s Gathering Place. I led him out into the Arkansas River by the light of my headlamp and with trust that I wouldn’t tell him to step into water that was over his head.
He did comment at one spot, “the current feels like it will lift you off your feet right there.” That, while I stood upstream of him to block the current.
Three hours on the river saw him log catches of white bass, his first striped bass and what likely was a yellow bass. From there we drove to an Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation public-access pond in Osage County that—usually—offers up an easy largemouth of the 10-13-inch category.
The clock rolled toward noon and the temperature climbed past 90 degrees before he finally, finally caught his first largemouth bass on a fly rod, a respectable 2-plus pounder, and a very nice bass for that particular pond, just shy of 15 inches.
All signs of fatigue melted away.
A consultant in geothermal systems, he told me how he talked about the tournament on the phone weekly with people all over the country.
“I tell them I’m in this fishing challenge where you have to catch 15 different fish in less than 15 weeks on a fly rod.
“And they say, ‘Oh, neat.’
“And then I tell them it’s not just 15 fish but 15 different species.
“And they say, ‘Oh, that sounds interesting.’
“And then I tell them we have to catch them all in public fishing areas.
“And they say, ‘Oh! Wow.’
“And then I tell them that all have to be caught in Oklahoma.
“And they say, ‘Holy crap!’”
That might not be a perfectly accurate quote, but it’s pretty close.
After catching that bass he just had to marvel at how far he’d come. Starting the contest, he thought he would be happy to catch three different species.
“I caught four different species of bass, just today!” he said. “How many people even know there are four species of bass in Oklahoma?”
The tourney runs Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day, and as it wrapped up Rick had more than 15 species to his credit, just not all the right ones, thanks to the hybridization of various species.
All he needed was one stinking hybrid striped bass and one more spotted bass. He gave it all he could, but as in any fishing derby a little bit of luck, or lack thereof, can make all the difference.
He caught what we thought was a spotted bass on the next-to-last day of the tournament, but turned out it was a meanmouth hybrid. We ran out of time to chase spots.
The whole deal started back in May, shortly after my 60th birthday. I was signing up for the local Trout Unlimited chapter’s 4th Annual All Fish All Oklahoma Fly Fishing Tournament as I have each year.
Full disclosure, I’m on the local TU board.
I recalled that both my two eldest brothers, Rick and Jim, were present for my 15th birthday. It was not typical because both were adults and left home when I was just a little stinker. Rick was in college and served two years in Vietnam/Korea, was married to Linda, and made me an uncle by the time I was 6.
For whatever reason, it struck me that I was hitting 15 while Rick was 30.
I proclaimed, “Wow, you’re twice my age!”
For some reason, he didn’t think it was as funny or remarkable as I did.
I’ve always enjoyed the humor in an honest, spontaneous zinger.
I don’t know why it came to mind, perhaps because I was now hitting a mark at twice the age Rick was at that time.
Rick celebrated his 76th in August. We were a long way from trolling Worden’s Triple Teazers behind a canoe at Cottage Lake, near Seattle for my first rainbow trout. That’s where my brother Brett and I stayed with Rick and Linda—and their children Marc and Andrea—for a summer when I was 12 and Brett was 14.
We were far from the last time I’d watched my brother toss a fly for more than a day trip, near Lake Clark in southwest Alaska, in the 1990s.
It was past time we shared another adventure. I talked Rick into signing up for the individual challenge15x15, and for our team, dubbed “Team B Team,” along with Shane Bevel and Joshua Brazeal.
Rick didn’t really know it at the time, but doing the individual challenge and the team challenge basically meant he would be trying to catch 15 species, almost twice.
He almost did.
Not bad at all for a guy who has done some fly-fishing but is essentially a novice.
Most of the warm-water species he caught were first-time species catches with techniques most trout-stream anglers haven’t experienced.
See, a four-person team has to get all 15 species as a team, but each member must contribute at least three unique species to the total, not just three species. Plenty of duplications happen on the way to the total.
“The team finishing is all that matters to me,” Rick kept saying.
But I always kept a mental note of what we really needed for the team.
“Put that one down for your individual challenge,” I kept saying. “Whatever you catch, take a selfie.”
Another column is coming on the whole selfie and fish ID challenges. The rules state you must take an identifiable photo of the fish with an official card or as a selfie. It’s not as easy as you might think. I do believe this year’s tournament caused a donation of at least one iPhone to the drink.
Rick contributed seven different species to our team effort: Bluegill, spotted bass, striped bass, channel cat, drum, rainbow trout, and green sunfish. He doubled on most of those for his individual challenge, which also included, redear sunfish, longear sunfish, largemouth bass, crappie, smallmouth bass, and a required “wildcard” for which he targeted a type of hybrid sunfish that is stocked in select ponds by the Wildlife Department. The hybrid sunfish outing is when he caught his second and third largemouths.
Never fails: If you’re fishing for a particular species, others will volunteer.
Sunday we wrapped up the experience at the spillway below Skiatook Dam, where I finally managed to catch the hybrid striped bass for our team. I had hoped Rick would be the one to catch it, or we both would tussle with a big hybrid, but Rick found only catfish.
“The team was the main thing and this has been great,” he said. “I never would have thought I would catch that many species.”
As he prepared to hop back into his car and once again head back to Edmond, he actually thanked me for dragging him down this road.
He repeated what many say about the tournament and fly-fishing in general.
“What an experience! People were so nice, so friendly, really helpful, basically, strangers saying, ‘here, use this fly,’ or ‘try fishing here or you should try there, take this fly I just tied.’ It makes me see why you do what you do.”
Of course, too, he said, “and we got to spend some time together we normally wouldn’t.”
Yes, indeed, brother, we’re just getting started on this adventure.
Sometimes and rarely as people know I am without words. The right words