Miles Marquez has done harder things than learn to Spey cast. He grew up in New York City, rode skateboards semi-professionally, taught himself to cast fly rods for stripers off wind-battered jetties, became a U.S. Army Ranger, served two deployments in Afghanistan, and then started his career as a fly fishing guide on some of the most competitive trout water in the West. He doesn’t shy away from hard things.
And yet, for years he went out of his way to avoid Spey casting. "I think it was just my insecurity of learning something and being bad at it."
Miles had plenty of opportunities to learn. His mentor and boss, Justin Spence, owns Big Sky Anglers in West Yellowstone—a shop that hosts an annual trout Spey event with some of the best casting instructors in the world.
"I'd be sitting there with Justin and Simon Gawesworth while they talked about Spey casting. I had so many opportunities to learn, and I just refused to do it.”
Last fall, Miles’ girlfriend relocated from New York to Oregon. “She asked if I would mind home basing it from Portland, and I’ve never really had a home base. I’ve spent winters in New York, Bozeman, West Yellowstone, three winters guiding in Chile. So I was like ‘Yeah sure. Why not?’ So, I called Justin, told him I was going to spend the winter in Portland, and finally embrace [Spey fishing]. I asked him what setup I needed.”
Miles finished guiding in mid-October, packed his truck, and intentionally left all his single-handed rods behind. He had one thirteen-foot eight-weight, a Skagit head, a reel, and as set of tips. “I was going to force myself to learn.”
Miles stopped at the Lower Deschutes on the way to Portland and hiked three miles in to a run a friend had told him about. He stepped into the river, started casting, and was, by his own account, terrible. And then, he hooked a fish.
"I was like, 'No way, that had to have been bottom.’ But I know what bottom feels like." The rest of the day yielded neither bottom, nor steelhead, but Miles decided to put off driving to Portland a little longer. “I went back to my 4Runner to camp for the night and I was like, ‘All right, I'm going to fish one more day.’ I watched a bunch of Simon Gawesworth casting videos before going to sleep.” Yeah, the same Simon Gawesworth he’d dismissed for years.
Morning broke warm and clear, and Miles returned to the same run. “I didn’t know the Deschutes was so pretty! I also had no idea it was so difficult to wade. The Deschutes is like the Madison with a much bigger volume of water.” Just as he was starting to get a feel for the mechanics and gain a little confidence in his casting, he slipped off one of the Deschutes’ infamous ledges, and found himself bobbing downstream, neck deep.
"I'm frustrated. I can't wade, I can't cast, I miss my girlfriend. I haven’t seen her in months. So, I was like, ‘I'm just going to Portland.’"
But, he didn’t. Instead, he turned his waders inside out, laid everything on the bank, and took a two-hour nap in his underwear while the sun dried his gear. Then he talked himself back into the river. Five or six swings later, he hooked a steelhead.
"I'm fighting this fish and I'm like, ‘I don't know what to do.’ I've never tailed a steelhead. So, I walked it into an eddy and lifted my rod up the same way I would with a single-handed rod.”
Miles went full shepherd staff with his brand new rod. The tip exploded just as he grabbed his very first steelhead by the tail. "I didn't care. I just threw the broken rod up on the grass. I was shaking. I couldn’t believe I caught a steelhead. It was insane."
Grinning, he hiked out and drove straight to Portland. He called Justin Spence on the way to tell the story. “I was like, ‘Overnight me a rod. I need a rod. Tomorrow.’”
Miles spent the winter starting over. New city, new job, new water, new fish, a whole new way of casting—he became a complete newbie in the same sport and industry where he’s also an expert. That’s a different shade of humility. He fished four days a week, worked at a Portland fly shop the other three, and began to decode an entirely foreign river language. Resident trout are always around, but finding migratory fish means making educated guesses about when and where the fish will show up. “I thought I’d never learn weather and flow for all these different rivers, but then you just do.”
He also blanked constantly, which he had expected. What he hadn't expected was how little the blanking bothered him after spending so many years on high-yield trout fisheries.
“People call steelhead fishing a grind. It doesn't feel like a grind to me. You’re working really hard, and you're not seeing immediate results, which is the definition of a grind, but it doesn't feel like that. I really didn't care that much about getting them, because I was finally learning how to Spey fish—snap T, double Spey, snake roll, Perry poke. I wanted to learn all of it and be confident in it. And if I caught fish that way, even sicker."
With the exception of one spawned out coho, he didn’t catch a fish … for three months. His first winter steelhead came in January. He’d been fishing almost every day since October, learning to cast on empty rivers—rivers without any fish in them, but also without any anglers. As the fish trickled in, other people started showing up.
“I'd been fishing the [big river] at first light, and as the sun came up it was starting to get crowded. I was like, ‘[screw] it, I'm just going to do something different and try to explore and think outside the box.’”
He drove to a smaller system, found a run he liked, and had it entirely to himself. “And I got one! A chromed-out twelve-pound hen. It was incredible. I couldn't believe it. I was shaking and screaming and there was no one around.”
Miles is heading back to Montana this summer, back to the Madison, the Gallatin, and the Henry's Fork—a return journey he’s made for more than a decade. But this season, he’s bringing a different perspective.
“It’s very rare that you're new and fresh at something again, especially within your own industry. It’s been an ethereal experience, and it’s made me evolve.”
Miles will incorporate trout Spey into his Montana repertoire and approach certain runs differently, but the most impactful change will be the experience of sucking, again. Guides often forget what fly fishing is like for their clients, who may only spend a handful of days on the water each year. Having just gone through a winter of being a terrible Spey angler, Miles gave himself a new lens on the client experience.
“It's helped me by forcing me to step outside my comfort zone again and be truly new at something, which I've done other times in my fly fishing career, but definitely none more so than this winter. I feel like it’s going to make me a better guide when I go back to Montana.”
Photos courtesy of Ely Phillips.