Last night my wife and I decided to go visit my favorite spot on the Bear River. The drive, the suiting up in my waders, the hike, the rigging up and tying on the flies, they’re all starting to feel familiar. Little things like threading the tippet into the fly and tying the knot are now almost 2nd nature. The excitement is still there, but I’m starting to feel like I know how to do this.
I waded out at the downstream end of the pool and my wife found a rock where she had enough room to roll cast. We started to work the water.
There have been evenings like last week where I could see a dozen fish rising across this pool. But last night it was incredibly calm. The occasional fish would rise and up near the rocks where my wife was I saw a fish actually jump out of the water, but for the most part, it was much slower and calmer than normal.
I fanned my cast across the area where I hooked a trout last week. No reaction. I started to think that maybe I was spooking the fish, but that would require evidence that fish were there in the first place. Twice I reeled in my line and prepared to move to another spot and THEN a fish would splash. How do they know?
Meanwhile, my wife has 4 or 5 fish rising right in front of her, but they’re ignoring her fly.
I move above her to try another spot that was hot on previous trips but I’m still getting no reaction. The fish must all be relaxing in their Lazy Boy chairs watching Paris Hilton on Larry King because they sure aren’t feeding tonight.
This gives me some time to watch my wife cast. I can see that there are a couple small things she could be doing that would help her. I wade down and let her know, “You’re casting pretty well. I’ve seen you place that fly right on top of his head several times. Can I show you something that might help you get a little more distance?”
“Sure”
I noticed that she was bringing her roll cast back correctly. She was letting the loop form correctly, but she wasn’t stopping her forward cast until her rod was horizontal. I showed her how to make the power stroke shorter. She started making the “V” of her cast smaller. That used the power of the rod loading and unloading and her cast gained about 4 or 5 feet. Probably more importantly, her tippet was laying down flat instead of falling into a pile.
“Awesome. I think that’s going to help a lot.”
I moved down to my “for sure” hole where I hooked two big trout that got away. One broke off my tippet and another fought hard and then threw the hook off. But tonight I couldn’t get a rise to save my life. I look back down river and the fish are jumping right near my wife. I decided to walk back and check in.
“How ya doing?” I ask.
“He’s right there. He’s taking flies right next to mine and I can get my fly in front of him, but he won’t take it. Do you want to try to catch this fish?”
“Sure, I’ll give it a try”
I cast out and sure enough, he rises to a mayfly right next to mine. On the next cast I notice another mayfly coming downstream. It’s fluttering it’s wings and the trout comes right up to it, just inches from my fly, and eats it. I realize that even though I hooked a big trout on this very fly, my fly is bigger than the mayflies they’re eating.
“I’m going to try something” I said. “Let me try a smaller fly”
I tie on a generic small brown fly with grizzly wings and not much hackle and toss it out. I’m about 3 feet short of where I want to be so I mend a few feet of line and roll cast it right in front of the trout.
Bam!, He hits it!
“You got to be kidding me” my wife says.
Thinking of the folks here at FOAL I ask “Honey, could you grab the camera. This may be the first fish I’ve landed on a fly.”
He fights a little bit but he’s obviously smaller than the ones I’ve hooked upstream in the “for sure” hole. I get him on the reel and bring him in. Making sure my hands are wet I gently scoop him up and land my very first fish caught while fly fishing.
It only takes a moment to get the hook out so I turn towards my wife for a quick picture of that little rainbow trout.
“Ok, Give me back my rod”.
I give her the rod and we both laugh. “Well sure” she says, “If you put the right fly on the line you’ll catch fish.”
“I swear! I hooked a big trout on that very fly last week.”
She gives me a little more good natured ribbing but we’re soon back to fishing.
We got a few more close calls that evening but pretty soon it was getting too dark to fish. As we’re cleaning up and breaking down the rods we hear the local peacocks calling each other.
“I can see them. They’re up in that tree”
My wife points me towards the right pine tree on the far side of the river.
“I had no idea that peacocks would fly into trees.” But there they were. Two really big birds up in the pine tree.
We hiked out by flashlight (I brought backups this time) and got into the car.
“I’m glad you were there with me to share my first fish” I said.
She smiled back. “Next time put the right fly on my line and it will be MY fish.”
