You're welcome.

My introduction to fly fishing was completely different, and worthy of recounting here if only for that reason.

I was 13 years old, and it was the end of 1979. I had just moved to Texas. Fishing a 120 acre spring-fed lake almost daily after school for bass and pan fish, I would sometimes see an elderly man in a wooden row boat and straw hat with a bamboo fly rod catching a bream on almost every cast from near the banks. It was graceful, peaceful, artful, and obviously VERY effective. I finally worked up the courage to approach him in my small peddle-boat, say hello, and watch from a closer vantage point. He asked if I wanted to try it. Not knowing that I was supposed to think it was difficult, I said sure! We pulled alongside one another and I climbed aboard his wooden jon boat. He gave me about a five minute fly casting lesson...if that long...and told me to cast as close to the bank as I could. I did. It worked out OK. I caught a Red Ear. We repeated this procedure about a dozen more times that evening before going to our respective homes for dinner.

I met the old fly fisherman on Lake Brenda a few more times and fly fished with his rod from his boat that year, and then I never saw him again. I fly fished a few more times over the next few years for trout in Colorado, but mostly I fished a LOT with conventional tackle. Catching fish never was a problem for me no matter what tackle I used: trot-lines, jug-lines, limb-lines, yo-yo's, cast nets, traps, hand-lines, gigs, conventional tackle, or fly tackle. I just never thought of one type of gear being more of an obstacle than another type once you got past seines, electricity, and dynamite.

Then, in 1998, I moved to Branson, Missouri. I immediately marched into the local fly shop and bought a $100 rod/reel combo. The fly shop owner had a rule: no rod went out the door of his shop with a first-time buyer without a free casting lesson. He didn't care about my story about the old man on Lake Brenda 20-some-odd years before. (I don't blame him) We spent about 15 minutes in the parking lot, and he said, "Go fishing tomorrow even if it is only for an hour." So I did. I was able to go for about half the day. I didn't know a lot about trout, bugs, or fly fishing techniques back then. I could roll cast and single-haul about 35-40 feet with my new rod. Honestly, I had cast the old man's bamboo rod much better than I did that stiff new Redington RedFly. But I caught over a dozen Rainbows in a few hours that day totally on my own in unfamiliar water.

The moral of the story is NOT that I am a great fisherman! The moral of this story is that my grandpa, the old fly fisherman on Lake Brenda, and the fly shop owner in Branson were all great teachers who kept it very simple and all about catching fish for a beginner fisherman, a beginner fly fisherman, and re-beginner fly fisherman. And I have found my way down the funnel a little ways.

The path is a bit different for each of us.