Author: Scott Kitayama

We may never master fly fishing -it tends to master us- but the club member who may come closest is Elaine Cook. The length of her membership alone -more than 36 years- is a testament to her patience, perseverance, and love for the art and science of this beautiful sport, and a healthy dose of all three for her fellow club members.

Elaine started fishing with her dad as a five-year-old, in the streams and waterways of the Eastern Sierra. Until she left home at age 17, Elaine fished the Sierra and the Pacific Ocean with her father, acquiring a deep love of the outdoors and the rich memories she treasures today. Three of her father’s bamboo rods arc gracefully across a wall in the cozy Aptos home she and her husband and fellow club member John have shared since 1972.

Among other prized artifacts are her dad’s well-loved wicker creel and fishing licenses from the ’40’s, and the 30’s-era green fishing vest that belonged to her mother, also an accomplished fisherman and enthusiastic fly-tyer who nevertheless didn’t teach her daughter the first thing about tying flies, Elaine said. Across the room from her father’s bamboo rods, in a corner flooded with natural light, is the spacious desk where Elaine ties favorite flies and masters the new ones she’s preparing to teach, like clockwork, on the second Wednesday of every month.

For the past 20 years, Elaine has been a poised, patient, meticulously-prepared fly tying mentor to members and non-members alike; the near- and far-sighted, the hesitant and the old hands, the know-it- alls and the know-nothings who come together to listen quietly as she demonstrates each painstaking step in tying the fly of the month, perfectly timed for the next excursion or upcoming hatch, or an all- purpose archetype that’s a must-have in every fly box. Beginners know; she is never disparaging; always warm and encouraging. “This is a complicated fly, so good for you for getting it done. I’ll bet your next one will turn out great.”

Elaine has been an integral part of the club in every way possible. Before taking over the fly tying classes she served from 1988 to 2022 as the editor of the newsletter. She’s been membership chairman, sponsored countless fishouts, and is even a cartoonist, like her father, whose work was nationally syndicated.

Elaine recounts that her pastime became a passion while in her 40’s. With their three kids grown, she and John were on a summer trip through the west in their Volkswagen bus, checking out streams, fishing here and there, “and having absolutely no success at all,” Elaine said. During a one-night stop at a KOA campground to do laundry, she saw a sign for free group casting lessons and private lessons, for a price, in casting or fly tying. “I literally ran back to the car and said to John, ‘Give me some money!'”

Elaine’s fascination with the art of fly-tying was immediate. John ordered fly-tying magazines for her, and on her first visit to Ernie’s Casting Pond, Ernie -who spent his 90th birthday at our meeting this month- told her to ‘pick out a fly in this book and I’ll teach you how to tie it.’ Elaine was equipped at home with her mother’s vise and a few of her tools. “Ernie told me, ‘Come back in a week and we’ll do another one.’ He’s the one who told me about the club.”
It was tough balancing her budding hobby with her job as an RN, running a hospital’s busy maternity department. “But I really wanted to get into it,” she said. At her first club meeting she was welcomed very warmly, she recalls, and being the only woman there hardly registered.

“I was so excited when I came home from that meeting. I told John I was going to go back every single month.” She jumped in, soon a fixture at board meetings long before she joined the board. “It was great. People were giving classes, teaching casting, knots, fly tying, having outings…I was participating in everything. I couldn’t get enough.”
John wasn’t interested in fly fishing then, “but he would take me on the outings and come to the club meetings and somehow got encouraged to be the president, not even a fisherman!” she said. By following Elaine on their trips John learned how to read a stream, and from talking to others he picked up the lingo. Then came the trip when he turned to Elaine and said, “give me that rod,” she said, and he was hooked.

Asked to share a favorite fishing experience, Elaine doesn’t hesitate. “It’s a lake in Wyoming that we go to in the Spring when the damsels are hatching. It’s a medium-sized lake, so I get in my float tube and it takes me 20 or 30 minutes to paddle to the far end. The rainbow in that lake average about 16 to 18 inches, and at the far end there are reeds and brush, and they love to be down in there. You can see the fish feeding. You put a fly out in an adult damsel pattern and wait for them to come around. It’s tricky to get a fly in to them. It’s very exciting. I’ve been there many times.”
Not surprisingly, she doesn’t share the location. “Oh, I never disclose that,” she said with a smile. “It isn’t easy to get to, way out on BLM land, dirt roads, gravel roads, a dry camp, no running water…” So how the heck did she find it? “A librarian friend found it on a map in the library.”

Elaine is energetic and admirably fit, and until a year ago nothing slowed her down. But last fall she sustained a serious foot injury (“I was doing some very aggressive fishing”) which has been frustratingly slow to heal and remains painful. This summer, to their great disappointment, John and Elaine had to scrub their annual 3-month swing through the western states to fish and well….pretty much to fish.

She rejects the suggestion by some that she’s the best fisherman in the club. “I am not. I am skilled and I do very well. I am persistent. I will put in more time. And because I have joined a club with so many outings; ocean, river, stream, pond, high in the mountains, in the desert, in the San Joaquin Valley….I’ve learned a lot of varied skills. Most tend to focus on one or two kinds of fishing. I will fish for anything that swims.”

At 82, Elaine still personifies that spirit.

“Next year, in my head, I want to do exactly what I had planned for this year, which involved largemouth bass fishing in northern California, and up into Oregon for largemouth and trout fishing, and then into Montana, Yellowstone, into Wyoming, then south into Utah. From there if we’re tired or it’s smoky we may meander back, maybe around August. So the plans right now are up for grabs.”

Posted on November 18th, 2024