Amateur Hour....

  Sometimes a person needs to take a sec, sit back, reflect for another sec and then just burst out laughing at themself. One of my favorite sayings of all time is that if you don’t learn to laugh at yourself, you will miss the greatest joke of your generation. Today was one of those days. As a so called knower of all things flyfishing(yeah right) I expect every encounter with the water to be nothing short of perfection. I was able to sneak out of work after lunch and headed straight down to the Nature Center. When I got to the water I already had everything ready to go. I began sneaking up the river and trying to spot fish on the other bank when I just happened to catch a glimpse of something in front of me, it actually startled me just a tad. Another two steps and I may have flattened about a twenty incher. I quickly moved back and then snuck up to the side and dropped my flies in front of his nose. He took it and immediately ran me into the rocks and broke me off. I rerigged and moved up a few feet and recasted, great take and snap. I rerigged again and casted back into the same hole and I hooked another. At least this time he only popped off and left me with my flies. Another cast and déjà vu quick run and he popped off. At this point, whether Fieldman believes me or not, I just had to laugh. Ten casts with two breakoffs and two fish unbuttoned. Amateur hour to say the least, I am sure the fish were laughing as much as I was laughing at myself. I moved up a little further and finally landed my first fish of the day, it was only about 14 inches but I nearly broke out in the bull dance(from Happy Gilmoure fame). I expected that now the ice was broken that I would not miss anymore but I could not have been anymore wrong. The next two fish spit it back at me but then I landed my fish of the day. It was a healthy, beautiful, big shouldered rainbow that measured out at twenty one and a half inches. And yes, if you are keeping track it still was not as big as Cats from Tuesday.

  I moved up from there and landed several more quality fish. The surprise came when I s found myself in a killer midge hatch but the fish seemed to shut down. Not sure what was up with that but still had a great time on the water today. As I keep saying, fishing is very good but not easy. Fish can be had using small black midges and true bloods. Thanks as always for reading, Connell, Cat, Winston and The Drift Fly Shop…..