C
ChezJfrey
0
Last year, 9/23, I caught my first steelhead with a fly. Caught it at the end of a swing in a tailout.
This morning, I nabbed #2 on the fly! I have a favorite spot on the Clack where I have caught quite a few with a spoon (my main MO and is my most effective steelhead tool). I wade out to some rocks, careful to keep low because the sun is behind me. There is a depression in the river bottom that sits right along a nice seam created by some protruding rocks near the far shore.
I snap my Wulff Ambush upriver, swing it around on the surface spey-style and let loose with my single hander (crutch that line may be, but I love that stuff). Line rockets out where I want and I mend an 'L' into the line and let it dead drift along the seam and intend to let it swing when the line drifts a bit further. I'm carefully watching my 'L' when I notice the bend sharpen a bit more acutely and it looks like my fly is hung up. I grab the free hanging loop in my left hand and pull some while simultaneously moving my rod tip toward the downriver side...I feel tension and within a split second, I yank further on the line and pull the rod fully toward the dowriver side...a fish erupts from the water, latched onto my fly. Yes!
Fish heads downward for a short ways, turns about and aims right at me...oh dear. I'm furiously stripping in line and it finally hunkers behind a rock. I'm fearful of the coils of line I have if the fish takes off again if they happen to wrap around the reel handle or rod butt..."don't move," I desperately say to the fish as I reel up the slack to get this thing on the reel before some inevitable disaster. Phew! Got it. Fish darts and thrashes for awhile as I play it out, move it to shallow water and voila! Steel on the fly #2 and it only took nearly a year
Granted, I probably only devote 30% of my fishing time to a fly rod, but I give it a go nearly every time out.
I'm still jacked up on adrenaline over this, hehehehe
This morning, I nabbed #2 on the fly! I have a favorite spot on the Clack where I have caught quite a few with a spoon (my main MO and is my most effective steelhead tool). I wade out to some rocks, careful to keep low because the sun is behind me. There is a depression in the river bottom that sits right along a nice seam created by some protruding rocks near the far shore.
I snap my Wulff Ambush upriver, swing it around on the surface spey-style and let loose with my single hander (crutch that line may be, but I love that stuff). Line rockets out where I want and I mend an 'L' into the line and let it dead drift along the seam and intend to let it swing when the line drifts a bit further. I'm carefully watching my 'L' when I notice the bend sharpen a bit more acutely and it looks like my fly is hung up. I grab the free hanging loop in my left hand and pull some while simultaneously moving my rod tip toward the downriver side...I feel tension and within a split second, I yank further on the line and pull the rod fully toward the dowriver side...a fish erupts from the water, latched onto my fly. Yes!
Fish heads downward for a short ways, turns about and aims right at me...oh dear. I'm furiously stripping in line and it finally hunkers behind a rock. I'm fearful of the coils of line I have if the fish takes off again if they happen to wrap around the reel handle or rod butt..."don't move," I desperately say to the fish as I reel up the slack to get this thing on the reel before some inevitable disaster. Phew! Got it. Fish darts and thrashes for awhile as I play it out, move it to shallow water and voila! Steel on the fly #2 and it only took nearly a year
Granted, I probably only devote 30% of my fishing time to a fly rod, but I give it a go nearly every time out.I'm still jacked up on adrenaline over this, hehehehe
