Thursday, December 26, 2013

Hope Dangling on a String



Alone with my thoughts and five hours of open road, I told myself that this trip was going to be different. Different in a sense that I was going to focus more on my swing and presentation of the fly, rather than my casting, distance, and loops.


Tuesday, December 10, 2013

One Request


My sister's birthday came around and as usual I waited until the last moment to think about what to get her. Due to my lack of creativity when it comes to gift giving, I simply asked her what she wanted. To my surprise, she only had one request, "TAKE ME FISHING!". Needless to say, but I was willing to oblige. For someone that only fly fishes once a year, she is a pretty fishy individual and likes to remind me that she caught a bonefish on fly before I did. This sole fact, according to her, makes her a better fisherman than me. Typically, I have no response for her boasts and shake my head whenever I account that moment in time. Nonetheless, we planned on an early Sunday outing before family festivities took over. 

 In typical fashion, we overslept and arrived on the water with only two hours of fishing time. Despite a few risers here and there, I gave her an indicator rig armed with some meat (san juan worm) for those greedy fish looking for a meal. I dropped off a midge on 7x, for the more pressured and picky wild browns. Both flies scored in the cold weather. The picture above reveals my sister's joy at catching a colorful rainbow on the san juan. We were laughing, because of her three second delay from when I said, "set", to when she actually raised her rod to set the hook. The rainbow went for a rollar coaster ride and my sister dropped the fish a few times into the ghost net before settling on her patented "death grip". Despite the picture looking as if the rainbow is about to explode, the fish was fine and swam off with authority.

We ended the day in reverse situations, as she guided me to a large brown trout sipping midges from atop a bridge. I took my time to get in position while my sister told me the whereabouts of the trout. On my first good drift, the brown rose and ate my size 26 midge. My hook set pinged off the bridge and the fly never found flesh, karma for laughing at her inability to hold the rainbow. I gave the brown a break and tried a few more times. I dropped off a subsurface midge and had my sister watching the fish's subsurface feeding habits to let me know when to set the hook. This time, the midge found it's home but after a few head shakes, it was thrown. Defeated, I knew that it wasn't meant to be. I should have let my sister have that shot. With her luck and skill, she could have been the one to catch that wild brown on her birthday. 

Next time.