krayfish
Active member
- Joined
- May 26, 2011
- Messages
- 2,466
I finally got my nephew out for his first fly fishing adventure. It wasn't to an exotic location but we did the best we could with the few hours we had to work with this afternoon. We considered the Tully but the flow was way too high for safe fishing. I also considered the Little Lehigh, Big Spring or the Yellow Breeches. The little guy said wanted to try the Letort because he heard it was good. I told him the water was probably too cold so we'd wait until spring to try it. I figured we'd have enough trouble getting the little guy hooked up on a regular creek.
We set out on a small local stream that I knew was recently stocked. At 13, he's big enough to fit into my back up waders and the neighbor lent him a pair of wading boots that fit perfectly. I rigged 2 rods with indi rigs. One had a glo bug and the other had a PT and green soft hackle. I knew I was going to get a lot of practice tying knots today.
We hit the first run and came up empty but kept creeping our way up towards the next pool. He immediately spotted a palomino and wanted to catch it. I roll cast the rig up from the palomino and handed him the rod. What we failed to see was the 24" bow lurking in the bottom of the pool. The indi floated a foot and then shot toward the bank. My nephew pulled a hook set that would have made Bill Dance jealous. "SNAP". I handed him the other rod and began to re-rig. As I was finishing up with a new glo bug rig, he yelled "I got him". He'd cast the other rig on his own and hooked the palomino on the soft hackle. I told him not to get too excited because palomino trout aren't too bright. The fish proved me right because he took it again on a glo bug 15 minutes later! LOL. Hell, I've fly fished for 30 years and never caught one of those orange freaks.
He continued to improve with his roll cast and mending of the line. He was tossing it right against structure and by the far bank. From time to time, he'd hook up, have a seizure and snap everything off in a fish. He also got very handy at missing a take and depositing the rig in a tree 20' over our head. LOL. Actually, I was impressed with his casting and ability to follow direction. I'm thinking he'll be slaying them by May 2013.
He ended the day with a nice brown in the 16-17" range on a PT and took a brook on a soft hackle. It appeared that the brookie had been caught a few hundred times and much of it's mouth was missing. After all was said and done, it was an awesome fall day with my nephew and couldn't have scripted a better first day on the water for him. Watch out, this kid might be pretty good.
