Hello everyone, my name is John. Yesterday was my first time on a river fly fishing. Im not new to the sport, I've been fly fishing for blue gill since I could stand, but yesterday I found out that fishing for rainbows on a fast flowing river was a totally different critter all together. Anyone can drop a popper on the blue gill beds and catch fish all day long, but yesterday I didn't catch a single thing. It was then I realized that even though I know how to fly fish, I don't know how to fly fish. To be honest I grew up a bass fisherman, and so far no fish is more fun to catch than the almighty largemouth. I grew up in Illinois, where trout was something you could only find at the grocery store. Bass however where everywhere. Now I live in Wyoming, which is supposed to be a good state for fly fishing. I'm sure it is, I just don't know the first thing about it. I was excited, I got out of my truck and walked down the bank (keeping my distance as not to scare the fish) found what i thought was a good spot, and waded out (slowly). It was there I began to fish. I tried every type of water and lie I could find, moving from spot to spot after giving it about 25 mins per place. Tried casting upstream downstream. No fish. I tried almost every fly in my arsenal from mayflies to horseflies to wooly buggers etc. Wet flies and dry flies. Heck I even threw out every bug that landed on my arm at one point or another. I think my biggest problem was presentation. I just didn't know how to present my fly to the fish. In still water with pan fish its easy, give it a couple tugs and whala FISH! On the river however it just kept getting away from me. I wondered how the fish would every see my fly with it shooting down the river so fast. I barely had time to cast before my fly ended up at max distance only to cast again. (I can cast about 40 feet without getting sloppy). I dont know if thats normal eaither. So please my guru friends. Help this newbie, find his way to the catch of the day. I will be trying again tonight, I will catch fish if it kills me.