On Saturday the sun was shining and the ever-present winds apparently had called in sick. I decided to take a 90 minute drive to a well known river here in Washington. I?m mostly a warmwater fisherman and I?ve only fished for trout a few times, and only fished moving water for them once. In other words, I don?t know what the heck I?m doing out there.

I stopped by a local fly shop to ask for directions on where I might be able to wade into the river without risking life and limb. I was given some directions to a nice mild section of the river and I bought some flies that he suggested I try, a couple different varieties of dry flies. I don?t recall what they were, but I believe they were size 18 or so.

Not long after I got there, some sort of hatch was taking place, just as the guy suggested it would. I tied on one of the flies he said to use when it happened. Here?s where my troubles started. Unless I was making very short casts into calm spots on the water nearby, I could not for the life of me see where the heck my fly was landing or where it was drifting to. So how in the heck do you keep track of your fly out there in moving water, particularly when you throw in some glare from the sun? For the most part I was just watching the water where I thought my fly should have been, looking for signs of surfacing fish. I tied on an elk hair caddis just so I could see what my fly was doing, and I even managed to catch a fish on it, but they weren?t nearly as interested in that as they were in the smaller fly I had been using.

I suppose if I could cast worth a darn, I might be able to actually know precisely where my fly is going to land. Until then, I guess I?ll just have to either stick with bigger, more visible flies, or just keep hoping what I?m watching is really my fly and not just a spot of foam or a bubble floating downstream.

Despite my troubles, I had a great afternoon. I was only able to fish for a couple hours, but I did manage to catch a couple fish, and had several strikes in addition to that. I might just have to head back over on Friday morning and try it again.