- April 29, 2024 -

Life has a way of getting in the way of fishing! Once again, I had been eager to get back in the water. In my previous post, I mentioned how persistent high winds had buffered my attempts to wade fish. This time, it was because of a bad back. For the past week, I had been hobbling around our lodge, unable to do much of anything let alone get into the water, but finally, my back was better, not perfect, but better, and I was resolved to go fishing! So I hustled down to the river on a beautiful day in the high 70s with the days beginning to stretch into early evening. I love this time of year. Though I saw nothing coming to the surface I decided to tie on a sulfur with a size-20 olive midge as a dropper. My hope was in the midge while the sulfur was a “maybe”. I soon got a few tugs on the midge but failed to set the hook each time. Arrgggh. Finally, I got a strong tug only to have my knot fail. Amateur hour was beginning to unfold! I ended my evening with a gnarly mess at the tip of my rod that was both embarrassing and exceedingly frustrating. One might conclude that I had had a difficult evening on the water, but it was actually terrific because just upstream from me by 50 yards was my wife fishing with me — she’s the best catch of my life! Paula and I had gotten into flyfishing later in life after our kids were grown. It was an activity we could do together, yet we had not had opportunity because life kept getting in the way. So, to be fishing together on a beautiful evening in a serene setting was all I needed – it was a wonderful fishing experience, as long as I didn’t look at the tip of my rod.