Seasonable Angler: Finding Fly Fishing in War-Torn Iraq

Finding peace on a phantom river: A Marine chaplain's refuge from war.

April 16, 2025 By Jamie Stall-Ryan

This article was originally published in the December 2008 issue of Fly Fisherman.

As I write this, I am sitting in a war-torn four-story building, trying my best to stay warm. I am in downtown Ramadi, Iraq, with the 1st Battalion 6th Marines.

I have been in Iraq for four months and will be here for ﬁve more. My life here is much different than the one back home. There is little running water; I eat a lukewarm meal in the evening; and the ones I love are far, far away.

The Marines here endure radically awful living conditions, and daily threats to their health and safety. As a chaplain, I consider it an honor to serve these young courageous Marines. However, at times, I deeply long for the peace and safety of home.

While God gives me the strength to be here, sometimes I have to leave. So, with a musical tribute to Greg Brown playing through my laptop speakers and a warm cup of coffee, I set the stage for one of my many daydreaming ﬁshing trips that take me away from this dark place.

In my favorite dream, I head to an area in southwest Wisconsin where there is a seldom-ﬁshed little trout stream. I remember finding it on a map, and thinking, “This could be good.”

It is an elegant spring day, about 48 degrees F. I have spent the night at a wonderful little campground where many of my ﬂy-ﬁshing friends spend their weekends.

The dew on the grass makes my feet cold, but I know they will soon be in warm socks inside my waders, and the temperature will rise about 10 degrees by late morning.

As I leave the campground, my old car makes its way down a road that follows the contours of this hilly section of Wisconsin. It is a bit of a drive, but I swear my car knows every turn and bump so well it could get there without me.

I pull in and park on some cut grass. The noise of the nearby stream brings my heart rate up a little, and I know it is going to be a great day.

I eagerly make my way to the river and I quickly tie on a ﬂy and cast—excited to get the ﬁrst ﬁsh out of the way. After a couple of 7-inch browns, I settle into a relaxing rhythm of casting and catching trout, and allow my mind to wander to this evening’s campﬁre where I will sit contentedly with my friends and compare ﬁshing notes.

After a time, the river calls me from upstream with promises of more and bigger fish, and I cannot resist. The upstream pull of the river is far stronger than the downhill push of the current.

I take inventory once more and make sure everything is in place. I use the same leader and tippet combination but tie on my Macaroni and Cheese Dish—a fly I named in honor of Matthau and Lemmon—get rid of the split-shot, and hope for the best. Since this may be my last trip here for a long time, I run through my checklist again.

My fly lands a few yards north of the tree trunk and quickly rides down to the deep water where I hope my white whale waits for his midday snack. I know my fly has reached its destination when the strike indicator slows to match the quieter water near the bank. I watch closely, hoping for a slight twitch, and then strike instinctively— maybe even before the fish telegraphs its take.

The tension on the line has me running another checklist in my mind: rod tip up, keep it tight but not too tight. . . ﬁsh off. It didn’t last long, but for a while it seemed things were going my way.

There’s little chance the trout will strike again, so I quickly move upriver to a pool I hope will restore some of my self-esteem.

The sun is starting its downward journey and the air is beginning to cool. The decreasing light stirs the insects to activity, and swallows take to the air to find them. The trout also notice the change, and begin following the bottom-dwelling insects toward the surface.

I arrive at a flatwater pool about the size of a baseball diamond and see the head-and-tail rises that tell me today will end on a good note. With a simple size 16 tan Elk-hair Caddis, I bring enough fish to hand to remind me I am superior to these wonderful pea-brained creations.

A bit tired and with an aching back, I stroll to my car, enjoying the evening air. I have a moment of sadness knowing it will be a while before I come back to this stream that has given me so much.

I finish my day around the fire with a cold Boston beer and a free-range steak. I share the fire with a friend and local fishing legend, a retired schoolteacher who now runs a guide service out of his trailer. Before the fire dies, I receive orders to move, so I must quit dreaming for now.

Thanks for sharing my trip. Soon I will climb into an armored Hummer, and convoy to another place in the city where young Marines are eager to see their chaplain. I tell them that people at home—friends, family, complete strangers—honor and miss them, and God loves them in this life and the next.

Chaplain Jamie Stall-Ryan served with the 1st Battalion 6th Marines in Ramadi, Iraq.

Fly Tier's Bench: Bakko's Phat Azz Hopper

How-To/Techniques

Fly Tier's Bench: Bakko's Phat Azz Hopper

Kyle Bakko is a new Umpqua Feather Merchants signature tier, and his patterns stand out for their practicality and creativity. Bakko's use of multilayered foam bodies and foam cutters, and his eye for accuracy and proportion, make his flies stand out in the increasingly crowded new-fly world. His Phat Azz Hopper has an incredibly creative head, and while designed to suspend heavy droppers, trout also smash it on top. But we could have just as easily run his unusual Big Sky Hopper pattern, which is tied on a jig hook. In fact, we could have blindly chosen any one of his new flies for the Fly Tier's Bench. Bakko does a lot of float fishing, and his usual method includes a dry/dropper rig on rivers like the Stillwater, Shoshone, and Yellowstone. Big droppers like Pat's Rubber Legs or crayfish imitations require a buoyant dry to hold them up, and Bakko was unsatisfied with previous offerings, so he set about to create a magnum foam hopper that would do the job.

Ed Jaworowski's Fly Casting Video Series, Video 3: Critical Angle

The "critical angle" in fly casting, defined by Ed Jaworowski as the angle between the rod and the line at the start of the cast (assuming no slack), is crucial for determining how efficiently the rod loads. Ed talks about how a wider angle, approaching 180 degrees, maximizes mechanical efficiency, loading the rod deeper for greater energy storage and longer casts with less effort, whereas a 90-degree angle is less efficient, loading only the tip, suitable for shorter casts. This is the third in a series of five articles examining the physics and mechanics that determine the outcomes of all casts, based on Ed Jaworowski's nearly 70 years of casting, testing, experimentation, teaching, and consulting with physicists, kinesiologists, and engineers.

How-To/Techniques

Nymphing Is A Drag

How-To/Techniques

Nymphing Is A Drag

Jim Cox believes that sometimes adding movement to your fly is the best way to catch fish. Watch him demonstrate his J-hook nymphing technique to add movement and keep a tight line at all times to detect more strikes.

Fly Tying

Blane Chocklett: fly-tying innovator & guide, reveals new flies & relationship with Lefty and ASGA

Fly Tying

Blane Chocklett: fly-tying innovator & guide, reveals new flies & relationship with Lefty and ASGA

In episode three, editor/publisher Ross Purnell chats with longtime FLY FISHERMAN magazine contributor Blane Chocklett about how he got started in fly fishing, his early influencers Harrison Steeves and Steve Hiner, how he created the Game Changer, new patterns that will be revealed this summer, his new role as a fly-tying entrepreneur, and his decades-long relationship with Lefty Kreh. Blane is also an ambassador for the American Saltwater Guides Association. We dig into their efforts to fund baseline research on false albacore and jack crevalle, and their upcoming Lefty's Tie Fest in Vero Beach, Florida.

News

Jay Nichols

News

Jay Nichols

Jay Nichols has been an editor, publisher, photographer, videographer, and author for more than 25 years and has produced some of the most iconic and influential fly-fishing books, including “Casting with Lefty Kreh” (2008).

How-To/Techniques

Ed Jaworowski, a lifetime of studying the physics of fly casting

How-To/Techniques

Ed Jaworowski, a lifetime of studying the physics of fly casting

Author and fly-casting coach Ed Jaworowski has been teaching and instructing for 45+ years, and before he took up fly casting he was a competitive surf caster. He wrote two seminal books on fly casting: The Cast (2005) and Perfecting the Cast (2021). He is also the author of Troubleshooting the Cast (1999) and co-author with Bob Popovics of the fly-tying masterpiece Pop Fleyes (2014). On today's episode we talk to Ed about his five-part 2025 casting series in Fly Fisherman magazine titled Functional Fly Casting. We also discuss his career as a classics professor at Villanova University, how he approaches his research and his teaching philosophy, and we talk about his long friendship and many collaborations with Lefty Kreh.

How-To/Techniques

Ed Jaworowski's Functional Fly Casting Part 2: Rotation & Leverage

How-To/Techniques

Ed Jaworowski's Functional Fly Casting Part 2: Rotation & Leverage

In the previous video, I discussed the nature of acceleration. Now I'll build on that by looking at an essential feature of acceleration which, for convenience, I'll simply term "rotation," although we could call it "pivoting," or simply "turning." By using your whole body and rotating at the waist, you use your hips as a fulcrum for better performance. The idea isn't always to cast longer or harder, the goal is to cast smarter. Golfers, tennis players, and baseball players all use their bodies to increase efficiency while using class 3 levers. Good fly casters should do the same. This is the second in a series of five articles examining the physics and mechanics that determine the outcomes of all casts, based on Ed Jaworowski's nearly 70 years of casting, testing, experimentation, teaching, and consulting with physicists, kinesiologists, and engineers.

How-To/Techniques

Fly Tier's Bench: Max's Mess Maker (MMM)

How-To/Techniques

Fly Tier's Bench: Max's Mess Maker (MMM)

Sometimes I get in a slump and get tier's block trying to produce subjects for this column. Picking the fly to write about is the most difficult part, as it must be something that ideally shows some new or unusual technique, is innovative and, most importantly, compelling to me. As usual, I search far and wide, perusing new patterns from all the fly manufacturers, going through my own fly boxes, and asking around in the shop, so it makes me feel particularly dumb to have overlooked Max Beauchene's new Mess Maker pattern, which he came up with a couple of summers ago. Max's Mess Maker is a caddis/attractor with a reverse-ribbed body and forward-facing wing.

News

Lefty: The Greatest of All Time

News

Lefty: The Greatest of All Time

Lefty Kreh wasn't just the greatest fisherman of all time, he was a mentor to generations of experts, he influenced the course of the sport of fly fishing, and most importantly he was a friend to tens of thousands. For many decades he traveled the country, dazzling crowds with his casting and stories of faraway adventures, and he always had time to shake hands, share a joke, or dispense personal instruction. There never was, and never will be, anyone like him.

Gear

DIY Airbrushing on Popper Heads

Gear

DIY Airbrushing on Popper Heads

Master fly tier Charlie Craven shows how to use compressed air and markers to do custom paint jobs on popper flies. All these tricks can be put to use on poppers or sliders for anything with fins, from panfish to billfish.

Gear

Trailer: The Kids Are Alright

Gear

Trailer: The Kids Are Alright

Members of the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone tribes, Costa Sunglasses, and others are working with the non-profit organization Indifly to find a contemporary means of living off the land–by creating sustainable livelihoods that utilize ecotourism to create jobs, industries, and a new paradigm of hope, particularly in the next generation. Check out this trailer for an upcoming short film on their impacts in a remote and impoverished part of Wyoming.

Gear

Fly Tier's Bench: How to Tie Craven's Lil Bit Nymph

Gear

Fly Tier's Bench: How to Tie Craven's Lil Bit Nymph

Sometimes the hardest part of perfecting a new fly is knowing when to stop tinkering and call it good. One of Craven's favorite mentors, John Barr, epitomizes this trait and there is nary a material in any of his flies that doesn't have a good reason to be there. The same goes for Pat Dorsey and Lance Egan. Their flies are minimalistic in materials, simple to tie, and mimic naturals without any unnecessary window dressing. His latest offering, dubbed the ᾽Lil Bit, does not feature complicated tying tricks or unusual materials, but is a simple and easy-to-tie nymph that catches trout like crazy.