My First Brownie |
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I am glad to report that I have hooked, landed and released my first Brown Trout. It was my first experience fishing a creek, and it was great. I played in my head a line from the “Curtis Creek Manifesto” – required reading for any fly fisher – that reads: “…trails are for the uninspired herd”. I don’t like to think of myself as uninspired, so I drove dirt access roads (in my wife’s BMW), hiked, scouted and then found a nice bend in Bishop Creek with two deep pools.
 Owens River Since the sun was already overhead, I decided that my quarry would be lying up in the shade-covered ledge near the far bank. I cast my fly upstream (elk hair caddis) to allow the current to move the fly into the shade, mending the line as it drifted. When I saw the strike I quickly lifted the rod tip straight up and was rewarded with an aggressive fight from a smallish Brownie. It was all fun and games until it got near the bank and I reached for my net. It was clipped to the back of my fishing vest for easy access… hrrumph! The plastic clip do-hickey on the net would not release, so I ended up trapping the fly rod and line against my body (with fish trying to take advantage of this newbie) and use both hands to free it. By the time I got the net off of my vest, the line was slack. I thought for sure that I had lost it. Turns out he was resting behind a big rock – recovering – for when I began to retrieve line again. He shot out of the water, gave two big tail lashes and made another run upstream. I was lucky to overcome three water-breaking/tail-shaking runs, my own ineptness with the net clip and allowing the line to slack with a fish on. Considering how much trouble I had with the net, I left the camera in my pocket and released my Brown. In summary, here is what I learned a bunch from this one short expedition to Bishop Creek: |