The following report is an essay I wrote for my fly fishing class after my first on the water experience. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures to go with it.
Lessons
at Birch Creek
March 2015
By Justin Call
Like
a little boy impatiently waiting Christmas morning I tossed and turned all
through the night. Saturday morning could not come soon enough. I have been
taking a fly fishing class this semester on campus and Saturday was our first
fishing trip. Although, an avid fisherman for most of my life, I have never had
the patience to figure out the art of fly fishing. Typically, whenever I have
gone fishing I have packed both my spin fishing pole and my fly fishing rod.
Many times I have started with the fly rod only to become frustrated and then
pull out my spinner equipment. Saturday, however, was no ordinary fishing trip
for me. It was the first time in my life that I have gone fishing with nothing
but my fly rod.
Lessons
Learned
We
loaded the van just after 8 a.m. and with a fairly long drive toward the West
Mountains we arrived at the creek where we were greeted by a cold breeze. The cold made for the first out of the
classroom challenge. Tying a small fly to tiny tippet can be a difficult with
warm fingers, but with cold fingers it becomes ridiculously challenging. Once
we were all rigged up and after a brief inspection of our licenses by the Game
Warden we were ready to start fishing. I was surprised by the creeks crystal
clear water and abundance of small trout that could be seen scattering up and
down the creek. I was able to head up the creek and find a nice spot to start
fishing. A few things that I learned that are particularly important include:
- ·
Fly fishing takes practice
- ·
Controlling slack and drag
- ·
Visibility of the indicator fly
Fly Fishing
Takes Practice
Not
long after we started fishing I realized that I wasn’t a fly fishing natural. I
was spending a lot of time un-tying knots and wishing I had my spinning rod. I
even mentioned to Brian, as I untangled a particularly bad mess that had I
another option I wouldn’t be fly fishing. After a while of struggling through
beginners mistakes, I was finally able to catch my first fish of the day. The
energetic 6 inch rainbow darted as I brought it to shore. I felt as if a
portion of the energy that the little trout expounded in the fight flowed
through my line, onto my rod, into my hand, and straight to my heart. Suddenly,
my focus and determination increased and I was caught in the moment. I was
shortly treated to another shot of energy as another little trout ran with my
fly. Feeling motivated the horn of the
van called us to lunch.
Controlling
Slack and Drag
After
lunch my motivated, energetic-heart was boosted by a full stomach, I was more
than ready to start fishing again. I was able to receive some one on one
instruction from Brother Murdock who was very good about letting me know what I
needed to fixed. “Look at all that slack,” he would say, “you will never be
able to set a hook fast enough with so much slack.” This was exactly what I
needed. I realized that I couldn’t just leisurely cast my flies, watch them
float by, and then cast again. I needed aggression. Stripping the line coming
toward me in the current had to done quickly and at any time I needed to be
ready to react to a fish. Drag was a similar story. Brian helped me realize
that I needed to anticipate the drag of my fly and to mend accordingly. I
couldn’t wait until I noticed the fly scooting across the water then try some
awkward mend to try to stop the drag. By looking at the flow of the water I was
able to mend my line at the beginning of my cast so the fly never presented
drag.
Visibility
of Indicator Fly
Throughout
the day, one of my biggest challenges was seeing my indicator fly well enough
to know what I needed to do. I found that in a soft ripple a white winged fly
was nicely, but in runs where there was foam on the water, I was fishing blind.
Visibility was also affected by the light. I am going to look into improving my
visibility on the water by maybe trying my prescription glasses on cloudy days
rather than my sun glasses. I certainly caught most, if not all my fish, when I
could see the indicator fly dunk under the water. I had a couple embarrassing
“walks of shame” when I realized I couldn’t see my fly because it was no longer
on my line. I call it a “walk of shame” because I lost 3 flies because of poor
casting and each time I had to go find Brother Murdock for a new fly.
Summary
All in all, the day turned out spectacular. I was grateful I was able to
stick with the fly rod all day and work through several hours of beginners
mistakes. The instructions of both Brother Murdock and Brian were particularly
beneficial and best of all I was able to feel the different trout’s
transmission of energy through my line, onto my rod, and into my heart a total
of 19 times leaving me excited to continue learning and hopefully move on to
some bigger fish
