STOP fishing. That was the key to my success today. Sometimes, while I am on the river I get wrapped up in the same habit. Cast, retrieve, cast, retrieve, cast, retrieve… Yeah, sometimes I get one while doing this, and when I do it’s usually as shocking to me as it is to the fish who just ate my fly. Today I realized the power of not fishing. I got so bored of the cast and retrieve habit. I simply reeled in my line, attached the fly to the cork grip and stood still. I put my fly rod under my arm, relaxed for a bit and studied my surroundings. I started to see a bunch of things that I was oblivious to while in the cast and retrieve mode. I noticed the many currents and cross currents. I also noticed that some nice hatches were transpiring in different runs of the river. I also watched the stone flies drift downstream. Hey, I look at it like this. If they ain’t taking the real thing, it’s gonna be tough to get them on a fake fly. So anyway, I stood there silently and watched. Then I saw a trout rise in a shallower run. I watched a he rose again and again. I patiently picked up on his rhythym and slowly unhooked my fly from the cork. I worked my way over to an advantageous casting position, stripped a sufficient amount of line off my real, casted and dropped the fly where it needed to be. I watched the fly drift naturally through the current and wouldn’t ya know it, I tricked him. He ate it just like he ate every other fly before. He was…right on time and in the same exact spot. It was truly rewarding. Entirely different than dredging a nymph or wooly across the bottom. So, I brought the fish in, released him and started to cast, retrieve, cast, retrieve, cast, retrieve. Old habits are tough to break, especially after a little adrenaline rush. Hey, that’s ok. That’s what being a young flyfisherman is all about. Every now and then I excercise a little bit of flyfishing wisdom, in one form or another, but it is naturally short lived. So, if you see someone running up and down the banks of a river, casting and retrieving like a maniac, it might be me. Some day, I will be old and unable to do it. So for the time being I am content with experiencing windows of wisdom becausee the day will come when wisdom finds me and it will be my only option.
