As many of you know, back at one of Waldo's Spring Flings in the
mountains of North Carolina, I won a Mike Connor rod in the Clave
raffle. Some suggested I pass the rod along in subsequent raffles,
some wanted to buy it, some wanted to trade for it. I finally just
gave the damn thing away! Friday morning I arrived in Indiana, Pa.
and set about teaching my son to cast a fly rod. We worked on his
technique about an hour and a half then we looked at knot tying. We
talked about terminal tackle and fly selection. We talked about the
different types of fly lines. We then practiced a little more
casting. We were off to Wal-Mart for some cheapo waders. After lunch
and Wal-Mart we headed over to Little Mahoning Creek. This is a
managed fly-fishing only, delayed harvest section of stream. Not
another soul in sight. My son threaded up the Connor rod and set to
work. I showed him where to cast and where to look for fish. He saw
his first trout in the water. He had a couple of missed strikes but
did a nice job of drifting his fly and casting to the correct feeding
runs. Saturday morning he cooked up a big breakfast (his wife and
kids are visiting her family back in Va.) and we headed back to Little
Mahoning. A few more drifts with a dry and no takers. I had a couple
of fish in my first two casts with a wet fly and helped him change
over to a nymph. I hadn't intended to teach him nymphing techniques
this soon and wanted him to take a fish on a dry but you have to go
where the fish are. He handled the heavy nymph and two strike
indicators quite well and had a couple of fish on. He lost both
before he landed them. Then he picked up three Fall Fish and got a
feel for playing the fish on a fly rod. Soon after he hooked and
landed a nice 16+ inch Brown. His first trout on a fly rod! A couple
of minutes later he slipped and made a ¾ Reid. The only thing
preventing a hat-floater was the water was only about 2 feet deep. We
packed it in. Lunch at Conney's Pub (great Black&Tan) then I was off
to Penns. As I left I presented him with the Mike Connor rod as his
primary fishing stick and one he was intrusted to keep. I promised to
send him some of Mike's poetry to go with the rod.