"What the hell is that?" I said and then started laughing. "Whatever. It still went long."
I've re-visited the quote a couple times this week; once while talking to Mitch Kowalski at Pelican Point. He asked me how my spring was and what my June looks like and I told him I had some holes but July is pretty well booked up. My spring has actually been pretty good by comparison as well. In fact, I'm up about a third of where I was last year at this time and I'm only short about 3 or 4 days in June. I would love to fill in all the holes but it's actually not looking too bad. It's not perfect but could definitely be worse and a lot of guys are in the same boat. It's just that time of year when you want to work as much as you can.
So I put on the river with clients after talking with Mitch. They are a wonderful couple who just started fly-fishing as something they could do together as retirement comes creeping up. They did awesome deep nymphing as caddis pupas were on the move in the sun down on the lower river. Neil caught a huge brown and Dorothy was absolutely crushing it. We were definitely putting the wood to them.
After lunch some clouds moved in and fish were popping all over on beatis and caddis. I figured we could shorten things up and absolutely crush 'em on the marshmallow rig. From there I just knew we would make the transition to dries and by the end of it, these two would be the proficient anglers they ought to be with the day and a half they spent with me...
One thing about the marshmallow rig is that all the weight is at the end of the leader, which not only counters the weight of the line but also causes the loop to collapse. Long story short, it becomes a challenge to cast and even the most experienced anglers can have difficulties with it. That's something I didn't really take into consideration and since these folks were just starting out, changing the dynamic of the cast wasn't really fair.
We struggled with the short-short leash for about an hour or so. We only touched a couple fish so I said lets lose the short rigs and go back to what's been working. They doubled up five minutes into going back deep and then doubled up again with Dorothy catching a 21 inch rainbow.
Fly fishing isn't about perfection. It's not a science either. There are a lot of ways of getting it done and a lot of ways to have fun with it. Eventually we'll get to the dries with Neil and Dorothy as I'm sure we'll be fishing together again and they definitely catch on quick. Thanks for the great day guys.
As a side note, I'm sure you don't recognize the brown that Neil is holding but it's actually already made an appearance on this blog. On May 4th, Steve caught that same fish on a streamer only five feet from where Neil caught it. I'm absolutely positive it's the same fish because the mandible was damaged from a previous angler and there was a growth on its tail. Pretty crazy.
Keep 'em where they live...
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