Friday, June 24, 2011

Not According To Plan...



By now, you are all familiar with my plan to get my roommate addicted to fly fishing. It worked brilliantly and he is out and in it as much as he can. The variable in the equation was his girlfriend, who after living with, and experiencing my weekly fishing habits, did not want her man falling into the fly fishing abyss. I started everything off slow, and it took half a year before Derek actually went fishing with me. By then, she had warmed up to the idea. What followed was the unexpected part. Rather than putting up resistance, she embraced the new hobby and was begging to come along for the ride. We eventually caved.


So it was, on a Saturday morning, we awoke early and made our way to the local stream. We took the scenic route to show her the surroundings and to check out the creek. It was a muddy mess. Little did we know but thunderstorms dumped a lot of rain overnight and suddenly my new plan to get the g/f into fishing was looking like a problem. I even told them not to expect much.



Derek and I made our way to a spot we knew held fish. I rigged Jess up and instructed her on a catapult cast that uses the surface of the water rushing downstream to simply lift and shoot the line upstream. From there I talked about drag, fly presentation, and how to mend to get a good drift. After that was settled, we talked about where a fish would lie in this section and soon thereafter, she hooked into her first fish on fly. A stream chub. She subsequently caught her first two trout, a brown and bow. As Derek watched, he too eventually found some fish, and the day began. 






As everyone says, teaching a woman to fly fish is actually pretty easy. For one, they are better listeners and pay attention to minor details. She also put her "lack of ego" aside and wasn't afraid to ask questions when she struggled on her own. Overall it was a good day on the water for the conditions we found, especially considering it was her first time. In the future, look for these two to take over the fly fishing industry, travel to exotic locales, and take millions of pictures that monopolize fly fishing magazines. 











3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congratulations teaching someone else how to fly fish. I've been teaching beginning fly fishing classes for a couple of years now and its always great to see someone enthused and picking up the sport. I agree, women are usually much easier to teach. Its typically because of the patience factor and the lack of bad habits.

Bigerrfish said...

great shots and a great post... good stuff man!

Anonymous said...

Way to go Jess! Your grandfather and uncle also fly fish!

Nice work on "the plan" Mark, took quite a bit of foresight and it worked!