First Time Fly Fisher

Usually the time around the first of March, for me, is reserved for a comfortable place on the couch, a big screen TV, and the end of season conference basketball tournaments in the NCAA. It is the eve of the Madness that is March and I enjoying watching all the games while bubble teams played for their tournament lives. This year though my lil' Aggies were bounced in the first round of the Big 12 Tournament and my thoughts drifted to the river. With no motivation to watch the games the rest of the weekend and high hopes that the Aggies would get their invite to the dance on Sunday, I packed up the gear for a trip North to the Lower Mountain Fork River.

At the urging of a friend/coworker, I decided it was okay for him to tag along...even though he had never thrown fly rod, let alone fished in freshwater. I figured I could cover the basics and get him on some trout.

Most of Saturday morning was spent going over the cast, how to set up a nice drift, and retying his set up when it ended up in a jumbled mess. Michael was getting it down but I could not get a fish to take the rig I had set up on the end of his line.

While he was fine tuning his cast and drift, I was tying on fly after fly until I found the golden ticket. I never knew how many knots I could tie and I began to worry I might run out of 5x tippet. There were a few times where I thought I had it figured out because I had some takes and landed some fish...

...like those above. I would pass him the rod I was using and tell him to throw it. But as luck would have it, the trout were turned off that fly in a matter of minutes.

After wearing out a hole that I was certain he would pull his first trout from we ventured further down river. We came upon this section of the river where two creeks come back together to form the river. The trout were stacked deep and it was back to figuring out what they were taking. I was trying different sections of the river, working my way in and out of fly fishers in attempt to find the perfect place for Michael. As I explored, Michael would occasionally hook up with a fish and the fight was on. I would rush back to help him land his first trout and as I was coaching him on what to do, the trout would unhook himself for a long distance release. This occurred three times before the stars aligned.

I was finally able to get Michael into another favorite spot of mine after some fly fishers left the spot complaining that there were no fish in there. Like an ant on sugar, I jumped in immediately and signaled Michael to come on down.

A few casts later, he was hooked up and by this time had an idea on how to fight the trout.

And for a guy's first trout in Beaver's Bend, it was a fine one.

After that, he had it down and landed five fish in about twenty minutes. The last one being his best...

We fished Evening Hole through lunch and when it finally slowed down we made the trek back to the FJ via Lost Creek.

Mike had to take care of some personal business behind a tree and while he was tending to the matter, I decided to throw into a nice pocket of water. With my first cast, I hooked up with a so-called "contract trout." I landed one in the exact spot when I was up there during Thanksgiving with Chris and have always had some luck right there.

I landed the trout too quickly and he was more than squirmy for the photo op but Michael got a nice picture.

Right before I handed the rod back to him, I threw back into the water and I hooked up with another solid fish.

And of course, by the time I handed the rod back to Michael the trout that were here were no longer interested so we headed back to the car.

As we were making our way out of the park after packing the gear into the FJ, we were crossing a bridge and I was pointing out to Michael an area that is usually pretty good to fish. Just as I was talking about it, I looked out across the water and saw a familiar profile wading in the waters. Sure enough it was Wes and we spent the rest of the daylight fly fishing with the Dude.

That evening, Michael, Wes, and I formulated a game plan to hit up Zone II in the morning. Zone II always gets me excited with the opportunity of catching some of those German trout. Plus the waters are a little more wide open and the scenery is real nice. But for whatever reason Zone II just does not produce for us like it has in years past. And this year in particular has been disappointing for me down there with only enough trout landed to count on one hand. Nonetheless, he thought we could buck the trend.

Well, the trend continued. The only excitement came when this crane landed near by...

...and Michael officially joined our club by slipping on a rock to take his inaugural dip of the waders into chilly waters of the Lower Mountain Fork.

I had no idea the kid could move so fast but I guess the feel of frigid water running down your back all the way to your toes will make you do superhuman things in a effort to stand up quickly. I could not help but laugh all the way back to the car. Wes got a kick out of too and welcomed him to the club.

After drying out his gear and regaining feeling in his lower extremities, Michael was back at it in Evening Hole. By mid Sunday morning his cast was effective and he had realized that the longer he could keep his fly in the water with a realistic drift, the more opportunities for trout would be had.

We made the decision to head back to Zone I, after the slow morning in Zone II. It was a good choice because the fishing was great to close out the weekend.

Michael and I scored a nice double at one point during the day which lead to some chaos on the river. I saw that he hooked up with a big fish and I was making my way down to him to help him land it. As I made my way down, I threw my fly out for fun. Just as I was about to get to Michael, I had a take and embarked on a fight of my own. Our lines crossed a number of times but somehow we both managed to land our trout.

I am confident my was bigger, but Michael's was not too bad at all.

But our glory of the biggest trout of the day was short lived. Soon after, Wes hooked up with a healthy trout that sent him running down the river trying to keep up with it.

This trout has some splendid acrobatic moves out of the water but lost points from the Russian judge on his entries to the water...the splashes were too big and cannonball like.

Finally, Wes was able to turn the trout's head and bring him in for his photo shoot.

It was indeed a fine fish and easily the biggest of the day.

After it was successfully released, we all agreed that was ender. We made our way back to our cars to pack up for the ride home and enjoy a cold beverage. Reflecting on the weekend, we all agreed it was good time. Wes decided to stay another day but Michael and I needed to head back to Texas. The drive home is never as exciting as the drive there and there are always thoughts of wishing to stay another day. This drive however was not too bad when I replayed the weekend in my head. As we slipped back into Texas across the Red River, the sun was setting and I could not help but feel good about introducing a friend to fly fishing and helping him land his first of many rainbow trout...no matter the record breaker number of knots I tied and 5x tippet I burned through. Plus, I got word the Aggies received their invitation as a #9 seed to the NCAA Tournament.

-Parker