TO LAUGH OR NOT TO LAUGH - Ladyfisher - August 2, 2010
TO LAUGH OR NOT TO LAUGH
The truth is I did get my laugh for the day, or maybe the week. We had gone out to the creek
(DePuy Spring Creek) so I could get a little water practice casting with my left hand or using a very controlled, elbow-in-no-shoulder-motion right handed casting. [Bad shoulder ? you know]
Good Article about fly fishing, and one statement toward the end of the article, struck a memory...
"One of the biggest things you can do if you are taking a guided trip is once you know the date, count back 30 days and start practicing your casting just 20 minutes a day. That will get you tuned up so once you and your guide get together he can expect you to be able to put a fly where he tells you."
It was just before the 1999 FAOL Fish-In, being held in the Black Hills of South Dakota. I was a newbie fly angler and had never gone fishing for trout. I got some help from the Shirley, the owner of the "Fishing Cabin" in Little Canada, MN. I also spent my lunch hours at work, casting outside the work place, for over a month before my first big adventure in South Dakota.
It was at the 1999 FAOL Fish-In, when Denna called on me to cast to some rainbow trout that were stacked up beneath a tree that had fallen over into Ditch Creek, causing a temporary dam, causing the water in the creek to divert around the fallen trunk. To place my fly "Parnelli's Killer Nymph" to the proper spot so the fly would swing in front of the fish, I had to cast over some tall grass stalks shooting up out of the water. I had to hit a spot that was the size of a cup saucer, from about 30 feet away.
Two times I tried the cast, nailing the spot each time, and allowing the nymph to drift in front of all these stacked trout facing upstream for their next food delivery. Each time there was either no take, or the trout and the hook missed the connection. All the while I was casting, I heard Ladyfisher's voice saying things like Oh nice tight cast, and other encouraging words. Meanwhile Jim was taking pictures using my camera. Talk about a rookies first time up to the plate in the big league.
Looking back on this event from eleven years, I believe it was the soothing words of Deanna that were swimming around in my head as I cast that help me stay focus on the task at hand, that resulted in me casting my third cast to the same spot, and this time the fish and the nymph hooked up.......
Yes practice does make perfect, specially on a trout stream with everyone looking on, for a rookies first time up to the plate..... ~Parnelli
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