Jordan McNally
Job: Software Sales
Primary Outdoor Sport: Fly Fishing
Favorite Beverage: Lagunitas Hoppy Refresher
Sunrise or Sunset: Sunrise
Non-Outdoor Hobby: Drawing and Digital Art
Guilty Pleasure: True Crime Documentaries and Podcasts
Post-Trip Meal: Chili
Book Recommendation: Focus on the Good Stuff
Three Words to Describe Yourself: Hot, Humble, and Humorous
“All my best friends that I grew up with got out of college and immediately started their careers. I was like, ‘Well, I want to go learn how to fly fish.’ I’d fished my entire life and I was like, ‘Oh, I’m gonna move out West and learn how to fly fish.’ And, that’s exactly what I did.
I was visiting one of my good friends growing up. We went out partying and had a rough night. The next day, I’m like, ‘Dude, I’m not drinking tonight.’ But, if I hadn’t had a night of partying and I was drinking the next night, I wouldn’t have met this dude that told me about this program that I applied to the next day. A month later, I got the job. And three months after that, I moved to Montana. It’s like when it comes to fishing everything happens for a reason. If that dude wasn’t in that spot this morning, I wouldn’t have hooked into that fish. Like if I didn’t have that rough night, I wouldn’t have met this dude, moved to Montana, and found my way to Central Oregon.”
“I remember going camping as a little kid. Obviously in Ohio, it's not what it is out here. But, I remember my dad had a camper and we used to go out in it. My Dad was in the Army. I think that was how we got into camping because he had to go camp in the Army. I remember setting up a tent in my family room when I was a little kid actually. I haven’t thought about that in a long time. We had indoor camping nights and stuff. So I guess my dad, his stuff translated over to me. I’m glad that he helped me find this outdoor passion.”
“We used to hunt and stuff as a kid. I remember fishing as a kid too in ponds and lakes and all that. I got into fishing more whenever I got my license. Figured I’d drive to the lakes around town and just catch fish with my buddies. I’ve always enjoyed fishing.”
“Fishing is how I go and reset., whether I’m really tired or feeling down or stressed out from work or whatever it is. Even if the weather sucks, I go out there and I know that I’m gonna completely forget about whatever is bringing me down and do literally the most fun thing for me.”
“It sounds corny, but just feeling the natural environment around you and not really worrying about parents or school or work or whatever it is. The only thing that’s at your disposal is mother nature and whatever it wants to do that day. If it’s gonna snow, if it’s gonna sleet, if it’s gonna rain, if it’s gonna be windy, you have to adapt and figure out how to be comfortable when something is completely outside of your control. That’s the only thing that matters in those moments of crazy weather. Whether it be snowing or pissing rain and you're fishing, you’re still doing what you want to do and you have to adapt to continue to do the things you want to do.”
“It’s funny. I went fishing with some buddies on the Mackenzie River last summer and the first five casts, I caught a fish each time. My buddy, he’s like ‘Dude, I think you’re on pace for 1,000 fish today.’ Then, after he said that I didn’t catch a single fish for the rest of the day. It has its days when its incredible. It has its days when you don’t catch a single fish, but it’s still a great day.”
“You get into almost a meditative state whenever you’re casting, where it’s so rhythmic and just relaxing. There’s obviously times, I swear 9 times out of 10, if I look away that’s usually when a fish bites my line. When I start to actually think about other stuff and I’m not focussing on it is when fish tend to bite your line the most. So it does keep you in the moment. Nice, calm, and relaxed until you get a fucking freight train on the line.”
839 days, calendar days, it took to catch a steelhead for the first time.
At first, all you want to do is catch fish. Next thing, you want to catch a bunch of fish. After you catch a bunch of fish, you want to start catching big fish. Once you start catching big fish, you want to catch a bunch of big fish. And once you catch a bunch of big fish, you want to figure out how to catch fish in a different way.
Steelheading with a spey rod is not for the faint of heart. With Steelhead, I think of coastal rivers that are super green and lush with ferns. Pissing rain. Sometimes you’re waiting for days for the rain to stop because that water drop, that’s when it’s best to fish for winter steelhead.
With fly fishing, it took me 30 days before I even caught a fish. It was like 5 inches big and I was thrilled. I was so stoked I finally did it. Figuring out how to do something myself, I think it made it more impactful.
Quickly fly fishing became an obsession. Looking up magazines and books, you see these massive fish. I’m like, ‘Oh, I want to catch one of those.’
I think the journey started obviously when I got a spey rod. I remember it was three years ago when the smoke was really bad in Bend. The first day I ever went out steelhead fishing, peak covid time, peak smoke time, I was thinking I’d get out of the smoke down on the lower Deschutes. But, it was even hazier down there. So I had an N95 mask and two buffs over my face, smacking trees left and right.
Within the first 6 months, I was fishing on the coast in the winter. I’d never fished this river before. Driving there, there was a gate that was open, and I kept driving. I drove as far as I could because I noticed that the water was kinda brown closer to the ocean. So I just kept driving like, ‘Oh, I’ll go this way.’ And, I get to the river and I can either go left or right to fish and I’m like ‘Oh, I’ll go left.’ Don’t know what made me want to go left. 5 casts in I hook into a three foot long winter steelhead and fight it for 10 minutes. I’m trying to grab it, but with the spey rod it’s really hard to do anything without a net or someone with a net. And, I lost that fish. Touched it. All the people at the fly shop say it counts, but I never actually held it. I didn’t count it. That was all it took, to see this ginormous silver fish on the end of my line that was in the ocean the day before.
I think the patience part of steelheading is the roughest part because you don’t set the hook. You have all this patience waiting for a bite, but then everything you’ve learned in fishing, ever, is to set the hook. But, you gotta let these fish take it. So I probably had 10 fish on my line before I landed one. Probably had more to be honest, but I didn’t know what I was doing at the time. It’s wild. A lot of time on the water. They call it the fish of 1,000 casts, but I say that’s a lie. It was either the fish of 5 casts or the fish of 50,000 casts based off of my recent experiences.
You can learn, you can read, you can watch videos, but unless you’re on the water and unless the fish are where you are on the water, you’re not going to catch anything. To actually figure out where these things are takes a lot of time because like anything with fishing, people don't give out their secrets very easily.
A lot of people asked me. ‘Hey, did you catch a steelhead yet?’ And, I had this pressure that I brought on myself. Waking up at 3am to drive 3 hours to fish and you don’t catch anything. It makes you feel a little crazy sometimes. You’re just like’ ‘What the hell am I doing/” And, you start to take it serious. I’m not the most serious person. I enjoy humor and laughter and going with the flow more than being serious all the time.
It was February 21st, 2023. Who is counting? The day I caught the fish I was supposed to wake up at 4 or 5 am to go fishing. But, I ended up binge watching something on Netflix that I couldn’t turn off with my girlfriend. We ended up waking up 5 hours after we planned on waking up. I got a call from my buddy and I’m like, ‘We were gonna go fish, but I don’t think we're gonna go anymore.’ Like 20 minutes into deciding that we weren’t going to go fish, I was like, ‘We should go fish.’ Just kinda went with the flow, didn’t take it so serious. I got down to the water. Luckily nobody was in the water in the spot that I wanted to fish. 5 minutes later I hooked a giant steelhead and for whatever reason the day I didn’t take it so serious was the day that I caught the fish.
“Different things matter to different people. Whatever is important to you, you should do. Whether it is working, going fishing, or rock climbing. Just make sure you give yourself time to do the things you want to do and not what society thinks you should do. I think everybody has a different path, different journey. If you want to move across the country and fish for the rest of your life, do it. If you want to work at an office, do it. If you want to work at an office and go fishing on the weekends, like I do now, do it.”
