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Matthew Rose shows off the first rainbow trout he snagged Wednesday. In order to score points at fly-fishing tournaments, competitors have to get their hooked fish into a net. Photo by Jean Farley

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Learning to fly (fish)

By NATE HUBBARD/Staff

12-year-old Matthew Rose was just like the trout he now loves to catch.
Hooked.
Rose, now 17 and soon to be a senior at Veritas Preparatory Academy in Florida, is set to represent the United States next month in Portugal as a member of the USA Youth Fly Fishing Team during the FIPS-Mouche World Youth Fly Fishing Tournament.
But his fish tale starts in a more humble setting.
First Catch
Back in 2003, Rose was “a chubby little kid with a crew cut,” as his mentor Richard Formato described him.
His grandma, Beth Marcotte, had moved to Wytheville in 2001 and upon his first visit to Southwest Virginia the next summer, Rose got to enjoy hiking and other outdoor activities.
Fun? Sure, even to the extent that Rose accepted Marcotte’s invitation to spend all of summer 2003 in the mountains.
But it still wasn’t fishing
Growing up in Largo, Fla., Rose became a fisher long before he could be called a teenager, let alone a man.
His father, Mike, introduced Rose to the pastime and the pair already had spent countless days in Florida saltwater fishing for bass before the fateful day when Rose was introduced to Formato.
“I’ve fished since I was old enough to hold a fishing rod basically,” Rose said. “But I didn’t start fly fishing until my grandma moved up to Wytheville and we were at this church picnic and I met Mr. Formato.”
Marcotte had accepted an invitation from Mary Ann Gilmer to attend a St. John’s Episcopal Church retreat in Camp.
She brought along Rose and, on a whim, approached Formato when she saw fishing gear in his vehicle.
“I could never have guessed [what it would lead to],” Marcotte said about her request for Formato to fish with her grandson.
Little did Marcotte know that Formato, a Wytheville resident, was more than just a guy who carries a rod and tackle box with him wherever he goes.
Formato is a skilled enough fly-fisherman to be competitive on the adult level nationally. Later this year, he’ll be heading to Oregon to attempt to qualify for the U.S. adult fly fishing team that will compete in 2009 at the world tournament in Scotland.
He also served as an assistant coach for last year’s U.S. youth team.
On that summer day at the church retreat, though, all Formato had to be was the proverbial guy with a rod and a tackle box.
Formato and Rose found a small stream and within a few hours it happened.
“I catch my first trout on a fly rod and basically I was hooked ever since,” Rose said.
Cast Out, Reel In, Repeat
Watch the stereotypical fisherman in “action” and you’ll likely see the beer-can-to-mouth motion far more often than any casting and reeling movements.
With fly fishing, however, action needs no qualifier.
In a demonstration of his techniques Wednesday morning at Dark Horse Hollow, Rose was in near constant motion as he stood in the shallow creek.
“It’s something different,” Rose said in comparing fly fishing to the more common sit-and-wait variety. “You’re constantly doing something too, which is nice instead of just throwing it out, sitting there. You’re always involved with what you’re doing.”
Instead of using a weighted lure, fly-fishermen cast out with only a fly attached to a fly line.
“The fly line is the weight which actually throws everything,” Rose explained as he made his first cast Wednesday.
Once their cast is made, fly-fishermen then steadily tug on the line to pull the fly back toward them in an effort to attract a fish. If the fly is reeled in without a bite, the cast is then made again.
Rose makes his own flies, which he keeps in a zipped pouch across his chest when fishing. For the shallowest water he switched to a floating fly, while in deeper areas he used flies made of less buoyant material.
“I’m looking to see if I can get one to chase me,” he said as he reeled in his neon-green line at a rapid pace and then tried again a little slower. “I just kind of try to change it up. One cast one way, the next cast another.”
Although he almost immediately lost one fly to a quick-nibbling fish and then spent 15 futile minutes without spotting another possible catch, Rose showed no signs of frustration.
“Unfortunately the fish don’t always cooperate,” Rose matter-of-factly said as yet another cast failed to hook a trout.
“And that happens a lot,” he added as his hook snagged in some brush as he reared back for a cast.
Rose eventually moved to a different section of the creek – an area which he said throughout the years has proved to be a reliable spot.
Mere seconds later, a rainbow trout had been flipped off his line and into his waiting net.
“It’s always nice to tie your own fly and catch a fish on something that you made,” Rose said. “That’s fun.”
Portugal Bound
This summer marks the sixth straight year that Rose has spent his time off from school in Wytheville. But just like last year, he’s going to have to cut his visit a little short.
Formato had encouraged Rose to give the youth national team tryouts a shot last summer, especially as Pennsylvania was hosting the world tournament – meaning the U.S. would field two teams at the event.
Rose made it on to one of the teams and finished 27th out of 55 competitors from 10 countries at the 2007 youth world championships.
After qualifying again this May for the 2008 event in Portugal – this time on only a single five-member team (two alternates will also make the trip) – Rose has his sights set on moving up the world rankings.
“Top 10 would be awesome,” he said. “Top 20 would be great, too. I mean I placed 27th last year, so I felt that was really good for my first year. Finishing in the middle last year was great and if I can do a little better this year…
“I’m excited just to be there and see everything, see the culture. And heck, it’s even better, we get to fish too.”
Formato, though, has even higher goals for his apprentice.
Well, former apprentice may be a better term.
“He’s teaching me now almost as much as I’m teaching him,” Formato said. “I think he’s got a real shot a medaling.”
Medals only are awarded to the top three individual finishers. Rose will also have a shot at earning a team medal as the top three national teams receive group honors.
At the event, the competitors fish in five three-hour sessions. Fish must be at least 17 centimeters to qualify, but additional length earns bonus points for the youth anglers.
Rose said, however, that his strategy is to catch as many fish as possible – regardless of size – as the extra points earned from a long struggle with a big trout isn’t worth the wasted time that could have been spent racking up points from multiple smaller catches.
Once a fish is hooked, the competitors have to successfully place it in a net for the catch to qualify as an official score.
“Just getting it on isn’t quite good enough,” Rose said.
A Fisherman Who Avoids Fish
In training for the looming international competition, Rose fishes with a different mindset than your everyday angler.
Instead of finding a nice spot where the fish are biting, Rose intentionally tries to put himself in difficult situations to hone his skills.
“Now at this time I’m trying to pick the hardest water I can possibly find,” he said.
And fishing in actual water is only part of Rose’s training.
He said he’ll often spend hours in his grandma’s backyard practicing accurate casts, trying to land his fly in a hula-hoop or on top of a pizza box.
All Rose’s hard work has paid off, Formato said.
“He’s probably one of the top 50 anglers in the U.S. right now,” Formato said. “Those kids [on the youth national team] are that good.”
Marcotte said Rose’s fly-fishing obsession occasionally can be a bit dangerous – like when he nearly burnt down her kitchen about three weeks ago.
As Marcotte tells it, Rose was attempting to tighten a wire coil to use with his fishing gear by wrapping it around a wooden spoon in boiling water. While Rose had his back turned to the stovetop – intently typing away in an online fly-fishing forum – flames started to leap from the burner.
“All of a sudden I heard this ‘Fire,’” Marcotte recalled with a chuckle, laughing now as the blaze didn’t cause any lasting damage. “I’m still trying to recover from the shock…the flames were a little exciting.”
Despite a nearly torched kitchen and countless dollars spent on fly-fishing gear (Rose admits to having eight different rods), Marcotte said she’s never regretted her decision to introduce Rose and Formato.
“I got to see lots of beautiful places in this county,” Marcotte said, as although she doesn’t fish herself, she drove Rose around to creeks and lakes all over the area before he got his driver’s license. “I’m proud of him.”
The only quibble Marcotte has with Rose’s hobby is that catch-and-release is far more common than catch-and-bring-home-for-dinner.
“A catfish would be nice now and then,” she said with another laugh. “I’m not opposed to bluegill.”
Adopted Home
While Rose will be leaving for practices in Pennsylvania and then on to Portugal in a few weeks, he said he plans to return to Wytheville for as many more summers as he can even after he moves from high school to college.
On his Web site, he calls the streams of Wythe County his “home waters.”
Next summer, he said he wants to work as guide, teaching others in the area the basics of fly-fishing.
“Since I’ve been taught by some of these awesome teachers, I’d like to teach that to some other people,” he said.
Formato said that his initially shy little pupil would now make an excellent guide.
“He’s like a son to me,” Formato said. “He’s come so far.”
But like any competitive sport, coming so far in fly-fishing means you’ve still got so far to go.
“The thing about competition fishing is you’re always looking for something better,” Rose said. “It’s never good enough. You’re always trying to find a better way to do something.”
Rose plans to keep working, keep training and keep learning.
And from a base in Wythe County is where he wants to do it all.
“I was like ‘What? What is there going to be to do here?’” Rose said as he recalled hearing for the first time about his grandma’s new home in a small mountain town. “And then after I got up here I was like ‘Wow. I definitely want to stay all summer.’”
Nate Hubbard can be reached at 228-6611 or .