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What I Learn Each Time I Fly Fish

There are many reasons I fly fish, but among them is meditative.  I was telling Bobbie that Fly Fish is like rock climbing in that I'm totally focused on the task at hand but it's less dangerous.  To which Bobbie asked my if I've every been hurt when I used to rock climb (vs Broken Ankle Fly Fishing).  Nope, good point.

I fly fish instead of spin casting because I want to understand the fish, river, flys, etc. and not use a blunt instrument with its only goal of catching fish.

I've been fishing up in Bakersville for the last few weeks.  The creek is small (~10 feet wide), clear with sections of ripples, rocks and some pools.  I avoid the pools as the spin casters clean those out and I focus on the remaining sections.  For these I used a dry fly.  This is where the fly rides on the top of the water and the trout comes to the surface and grabs it.  With this action you can see the fish "rise", break the surface and head back down.  You get to see all the action. 

But it does not always happen this way.  

If the fly does not drift just right with the current, the fish will notice.  If the fish notices the fly is not real with the touch of its mouth, it will spit it out and notice.  If you are not quick enough with setting the hook, the fish will not be caught.  If the fly goes under the surface of the water the fish will not bite.  If the fly drifts too far to the left or right of the fish it will not go after it.  After the nth cast to the same fish and spot the fish will have moved on or ignore your fly (you need to then wait about 20min to try again)

A lot needs to go right for dry fly fishing to succeed.  It's not just a number game where the more casts you through to higher percentage of hooks.

I do a lot of casts in different areas to see if I can even find where the fish are.  I kind of know where they should be, but these casts may tell me if there are really any fish there.  I look for any type of movement in the water under or near my fly.  If there is, then I focus on the spot and try to get them to grab my fly.  Focus, focus, focus.

Now my trip to East Fork Pigeon yesterday is a wild trout stream with rocks, pools ripples, etc.  These fish are also going after dry flys (or at least that's what I was using), but it's very different fishing.

Wild fish are spooked very easily so I can just lean over a section and look for them.  They see me before I see them.  When I do see them it's already too late and I see them scoot away.  So that leaves me with focusing on casting where they should be and casting further away so I don't spook them.  If there is a hatch (of bugs) going on then I may spot them grabbing real bugs, but if not it's just casting with a good "drift" into likely spots.

I did ok with my first time into East Fork of the Pigeon river.  I caught 3 and lost 1 there.  But it was hard work, lot's of focusing of the cast, drift and walking in the river on rocks.  

My point is that every day fly fishing is different and you need to adjust based on location and conditions.  And for that you need to put in a lot of days.  Days where nothing works and some that it does.  My goal is not to catch and keep trout but to understand myself, the water and the trout.  This keeps me out of trouble.


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