Stana Claus
03-27-2011, 06:06 PM
My son & I spent the day last Friday, 3/25, fishing in the Park with one of the local guides. We started the day wanting to improve our nymphing technique and learn how to better fish a typical pocket-water type stream, both of which we accomplished quite nicely, thank you. I brought to hand 8 or 9 rainbows, ranging from pretty small to decent sized, LDR’d about another half dozen, and completely whiffed on at least 20 more. My son caught 6, LDR’d a few, and missed just as many, if not more, than I did. We both REALLY need to work on our reaction times, so I guess we’ll just have to practice, practice, practice.
It was kind of cool & cloudy early, so we started the day working with the nymphs. We caught a few, spooked few, and missed a bunch, but we made some progress. Then, on toward lunch time, the sun came out, the temperature warmed up a bit, the bugs started hatching, and the trout started looking up. We switched over to dries and it was game on! The best moment came when a nice 8”+/- rainbow came completely out of the water to take a shot at my son’s fly. My son hollered, “He went all Shark Week on that one, Dad!” I think it will be awhile before the smile he had on his face fades away. Later that afternoon, the clouds came back, the breeze picked up, it cooled back down a bit, and the fishing slowed way back down as well. We still managed to get a few rises and draw some interest in the flies, but not nearly like it was earlier.
Anyway, we had a great day of fishing, learned what we were doing wrong and how to do it right, and proved that there really are fish to be caught right there in the Park. Now it will be up to us to get back out there as often as we can and, like I said before, practice, practice, practice.
It was kind of cool & cloudy early, so we started the day working with the nymphs. We caught a few, spooked few, and missed a bunch, but we made some progress. Then, on toward lunch time, the sun came out, the temperature warmed up a bit, the bugs started hatching, and the trout started looking up. We switched over to dries and it was game on! The best moment came when a nice 8”+/- rainbow came completely out of the water to take a shot at my son’s fly. My son hollered, “He went all Shark Week on that one, Dad!” I think it will be awhile before the smile he had on his face fades away. Later that afternoon, the clouds came back, the breeze picked up, it cooled back down a bit, and the fishing slowed way back down as well. We still managed to get a few rises and draw some interest in the flies, but not nearly like it was earlier.
Anyway, we had a great day of fishing, learned what we were doing wrong and how to do it right, and proved that there really are fish to be caught right there in the Park. Now it will be up to us to get back out there as often as we can and, like I said before, practice, practice, practice.