Wolfgang wrote:

"Conan The Librarian" wrote in message
...

...and what did we find when nearing the trailhead, but Wolf back in the
stream catching fish. :-)

Well, not so much catching as fishing. Um.....truth to tell, not so much
fishing as casting. I DO love fly casting!

And it shows. :-) I hope to one day reach that point myself. And
actually, I did somewhat on the evening when you were "coaching" me.
Working with that long leader and casting across my body forced me to
abandon my preconceived notions (mostly gained from casting oversized
"flies" for bass), and "go with the flow". And of course it didn't hurt
that there were cooperative fish in the area. :-)

Hey, that's right. Whatever happened to that photo, anyway? :-)

I'm checking over my list of lame excuses. I'll get back to you on that
pretty soon now.

No worries. It's just that I told Carol that there was *some*
evidence that my whole time there wasn't spent drinking beer around the
campfire. :-)

Again, to be fair, this was shortly after Wolfgang arrived at my
campsite. We were sitting around chatting when some bug activity started
on the river right below the site. He insisted *I* fish the mini-hatch,
and not only coached me on a long-leader technique, but re-rigged his rod
and handed it to me with one of his flies tied on, and proceeded to direct
my casts to willing fish.

It's astonishing how easy fly fishing becomes when one assumes the role of
sage advisor and stands on the bank pontificating while the fish are
actively rising during a substantial hatch.

IIRC, you were actually stretched out on a boulder the size of a
large sofa, but that doesn't affect your point in the slightest. :-)

Anyway, the irony wasn't lost on me that after four solid days of
fishing, I caught the most and biggest fish of the trip within 40' of my
campsite, while being given casting advice and using a borrowed rod and
fly. :-)

I figured the least I could do was try to catch one. :-)

Why every sniper has a spotter.

My only problem was I felt like I needed a semi-automatic to keep up
with the rises of the fish. :-)


Chuck Vance (of course that would have made C&R a bit more difficult)