Fishing Friends: Masa
I watched Dr. Masa Mukaida for nine days, from first light to last, six days one year, three days the next, more than a thousand casts, but still no winter steelhead in the hand. But the surgeon from Kyoto, Japan, labored on, full of mischief and filled with joy. Doom and gloom were simply not part of his character.
Two years earlier, Tomo Higashi, our mutual friend and Masa’s fly fishing mentor, had come over to explore and write about the wild rainforest rivers found along Washington’s west coast and those within the borders of the Quinault Indian Nation. Jack Mitchell, owner of The Evening Hatch, had custom-tailored an itinerary that included rivers from the Satsop to the Queets. The resulting article helped set in motion Jack’s “swing only” winter fly fishing program. Masa was in Tomo’s first group from Japan.
Masa could cast and mend with the best, but I thought that sometimes a fatal flaw crept into his fishing. He would drop a loop of fly line and leave it untended. When a steelhead grabbed his fly, there was no resistance until the line hit the reel. Regardless of how quick Masa reacted, the steelhead was gone. I’d see the loop dangling like a hangman’s noose and point to Masa’s “lazy” hand and urge him to give it a full-time job.
We’d been fishing the Quinault River, reservation water in the Quinault Indian Nation. When the fishing became dismal, we switched to the neighboring Queets. Nets had been removed, and Tomo’s “Gang of Four” found ocean-bright steelhead, semi-transparent “black and whites,” racing upriver on the tide all day long. Only Masa still waited for the fishing gods to bless his fly and for the happy surgeon to feel his spirit soar.
Masa believed whatever flies a friend had in his fly box held far more promise than any fly he possessed, especially if the fly was the one he was currently fishing. I took most kindly to his prejudice because he was on to something fundamental in steelhead fly fishing; more than 50 years ago Frank Amato told me that faith in the fly you were fishing was everything. For Masa, this thinking was necessary if he was to make a thousand casts and believe that on the very next cast a steelhead would raise to his fly. If a friend hooked a steelhead, Masa wanted to touch both the fish and the fly at once and animate the magical powers they possessed. I thought back to when I first fly-fished for steelhead in the late 1960s. I’d found that most any “old-timer” had a secret fly that carried such lethal powers that its discovery and widespread use would decimate steelhead populations. Passing on the dressing details was granted only to family and best friends. Thus, when he came to me for a fly, I’d give him one and remind myself that part of his email address was “looping tail.”
Sometimes his cast would open up—a looping tail—and find a tree branch that kept the fly for keeps. After such a loss, we’d sit in the boat and with mock solemnity I’d say, “Masa, birds live in the trees; steelhead do not live in the trees.” I’d put my hand in the river for emphasis. “Steelhead,” I’d add. He loved these exchanges and acted as if I’d just described an alternate universe. When he returned for another fly, I’d try another tactic. “Masa, I’ll trade you 20 flies for a back surgery.” He would frown at me and make mock-cleaver motions. “Chop, chop, chop,” he’d exclaim.
“Oh, my poor back.” I’d hold my back and offer him a fly and try to keep from laughing. “No trees,” I’d call out. “Steelhead are only in the river.”
In the world of orthopedic back surgeons, Masa was a rock star. He wore his hair long, almost ponytail-length, and had a red scarf around his neck. He was handsome, brilliant, and his nurses must have adored him.
While my friends cast their flies, I’d walk down the long Queets run, water I’d come to call “Masa’s Pool,” and then pick my way back upriver. That undresses a river, and I could see that a steelhead could only navigate to the far-right slot of holding water. Of course, the steelhead might not stop. But I thought one or two might park there for a few hours at night.
That evening I made a bold pronouncement. “Tomorrow, Masa will get his steelhead. We must depart a half-hour early and be on the Queets before dawn. We want Masa to be fishing before the water is disturbed, even by a passing boat.”
We reached the little pocket of holding water at first light. Crazy with apprehension, I handed Masa a hot pink SteelFlash with a flame head. A steelhead looking up would see a meteor moving across its sky and then take it down. As he tied on the fly, the “Gang” took up seats on the riverbank.
Masa was professional-grade. He barely waded in so he wouldn’t panic a steelhead from the shallows. He cast and mended and held the fly line.
Tomo and his friends talked excitedly as Masa’s steelhead took the fly on the hangdown and raced out into the main flow. The fish got close to submerged branches, but Masa expertly kept it clear. When the guide netted the fish, the screams of joy from the spectators traveled a mile downriver before being lost in the thunder of Pacific surf. We were all so jubilant. Masa couldn’t improve upon his skills if he caught a hundred more steelhead.
Masa wasn’t done. By midmorning he’d exhausted the dawn run, and the guide ferried him across the river to a long stretch of traveling water. He began casting a purple/blue SteelFlash, a good choice for a gin-clear Queets on this sun-filled winter day. He suddenly called across the river, “Hey Trey!” A fresh steelhead with the river behind it was cutting a “V” in the surface and heading for the tailout 300 feet below. I guessed over 10 pounds, easy, when it jumped. The initial run was so long and deep into Masa’s backing I thought it might be lost, but this was his day. When the buck had been netted and safely released, Masa raised his clenched fist in victory. Now he was a winter steelhead fly fisherman. He could walk the walk and talk the talk. I’d seen legends built on less.
Masa had been such fun to guide and entertain that a few months after I’d returned home from the Queets trip, I tied a few of the flies that Masa especially liked and mounted them in a display with the flies appearing above a picture of Masa and me kneeling as he held up his first steelhead. Several weeks after shipping the display to Masa, I hadn’t heard from him and contacted Tomo Higashi, his close friend and my longtime buddy from our days taking striped marlin on a fly on one of my early long-range fly fishing charters out of San Diego. Tomo quickly answered my email and explained that Masa was dying from an extremely fast-moving cancer. His wife then told Tomo that a few days before he died, he asked her to take down the little fly display hung on the wall and give it to him. It was beside him when he died.
When I meet Masa again, we’ll fish down the run that now bears his name, and I’ll remind him that steelhead don’t live in the trees, and we’ll laugh over that. In the meantime, I’ll miss this dear man, a fine fly fisherman who brought joy and laughter to every day we searched for a winter steelhead.
Trey Combs