Had a guided trip on Saturday. It was a father and son team that wanted a stream orientation; see some water other than the Gorge. My plan was simple, show some different water types, that had easy access and good fishing. I have been on the water all week so I knew what was happening and where…We met at the shop, Shannons Fly & Tackle, in the early morning and planned our day... Unfortunately when we showed up at the first spot, it was already occupied. So I started them High Sticking some nearby pocket water. The morning started out pretty slow and I was already planning our next move when I positioned them to fish a popular water fall ...The father hooked into a fish and Pat and I ran to net the fish but the fish was gone by the time we arrived..So I positioned the boy on the far side and told him to cast upstream into the base of the fall..First cast and he was hooked up into a large fish..I saw the initial flashes and new he was a brute. Pat fought the fish like a seasoned fly fisherman, you would never think he was a 12 year old..He was able to keep the fish in the pool and out of the side currents which are fast water chutes, filled with downed trees, branches and 3 series of drops. We saw this fish many times and he was a LARGE BROWN between 23 and 25 inches. One of the largest Browns I ever seen in this river. After about 5 minutes we thought the fish was ready to come to the net, when the fish made one last fast run into the chute, over downed branches and broke off...We were all broken hearted, as were the small audience of fisherman and a biker that stopped to watch the fight...Pat held up his hand and said I am shaking...I showed him my hand and said So am I...I told him he did a great job and that it is very difficult to land a fish that big especially where we were fishing...He than told me that if we would have caught him, he would have released the fish anyway...You got love it!!
Late in the morning we finally ran into a pod of fish that were cooperating and we ended the day landing a handful of rainbows and a wild brown on dry flies...Pat asked me if I thought the big fish was stocked, I said it almost was certainly a stocked fish. He said that catching and releasing a wild fish on a dry fly, is much more exciting than a stocked fish...I nodded but was still shaking when I thought about the one that got away...
With kids like Pat, our sport has a great future...His quote of the day " This beats playing video games any day.."
1 comment:
Great report. The kid has it right!
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