Learning: A lifelong series of Shocks, Dissapointmants and narrow excapes.
Wisdom, education and a life time of memories is what you get from going out on your own and doing 'it' !
When I lived in Seattle as a youth, it was a great place to be. I fished everywhere around that place. Rainbow for the most part..
Fly Fishing was so much more fun than Meat fishing it'd take A Tome to tell about it.
I also grew up Salmon fishing and sometimes when the Silvers were in we'd troll with big Green n' White Salmon flies. That was a hoot too.
One day someone suggested going down the Hi way I (before I-5)and fishing for Crappie.
"What?"
I went to the library and looked it up.
It was a Deep south thing, but they mentioned one lake in Washington, close enough for a one day trip. I cant recall the name of that lake now.
So I put the Wife and kid in the Pickup and went off to some lake down past Chehalis, and way out east of the Hiway.
Jeez, it was full of Stumps! What the heck, that aint what a lake is supposed to look like! Who can fish in a Brush pile? What Trout fly?
So I put the boat in the water. Rowed around casting where I wouldn't get snagged etc. Typical kid with Gear sans smarts. Nothing!
I must have been pretty noticeable too. About like an Arab on a crowded air plane. Everybody kept their distance.
Finally I began to watch other people. They would pull softly up to a stump, and drape the fly over the other side of the stump. They all used long fly rods, but just had a short piece of line tied to the Tip???
Then if they could reach another stump, they'd drape a fly softly down near that stump.
Shhhhhh..... they weren't talking either. There wasn't a sound coming off that lake, and there were probably 20 other boats there. No motors to be heard.
My Seven year old and I were probably an annoyance to the rest of those Library denizens out in boats.
Boy was I dissapointed.
I'd been to Dawn Holbrook's classes on Casting for distance. I was pretty good at that, but this was more like fishing in a North Bend area Clear cut.
Eventually the boy wanted Mom to fix him a Hamburger so we headed back. At the shoreline someone was cleaning fish and I sat alongside to learn.
He was a Boeing worker.
A Cracker from GA and was so dissapointed at the poor state of fishing up here in Washington.
Jeez what a shock that was. There's all kinds of fish in every mud puddle over the whole state. "How'd you miss all that?"
That poor guy was as set in his ways as I was in mine.
"Naw" he says. He was used to Crappie and Bass in every mud puddle in GA.
"Really?" I said, "No Rainbow or Salmon?" I was shocked.
"We don't fish for stuff like that. We Eat our Cat's, Crappie...."
I thought he came from another universe.
I learned a lot from that poor guy. I doubt if he learned anything from me though.
Now I live in Alabama. I know the other side of it now.
Boy do I miss the Pacific North West and Alaska.
I don't fish as much as I used to now.
I still row. Still fly fish, but its not the same as pinpointing a fly delicately near a brushy overhang. Another one was getting the fly to land gently above a slight disturbance in the stream. The pure adrenalin rush when that 'slurp' takes the fly under and the game is on. Boy oh boy do I miss that Rush. The experience is absolutely Salable to those who have little time.
As hard as I've tried, you just don't get much surface feeding in Crappie waters.
They like Jigs. I've seen seven lines out of a boat and only one guy in the boat.
It's been a fun ride. I'd do it all over again!
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Originally Posted by thudpucker
