Fly Fishing Exile Ended

This weekend I was able to go fly fishing for the first time in over a year.  It has seemed like even longer since on the most recent fishing trip prior to this weekend all I had caught was a rock.  And to top the trip off, they guys in my family were springing for it for my birthday. The guys took me to Westover Farms in Steeleville, MO.  This was the last place I had had any success fly fishing so I have been really anticipating the trip. I wrote about my last trip to Westover Farms here and have some pictures of the grounds here.  We fished Friday afternoon, spent the night at one of their cabins, and fished again on Saturday morning. It was a great weekend.

I was anticipating fly fishing again so much that I got there earlier than any of the others.  I arrived at Westover just about as everyone else was leaving town.  It's about 90 minutes outside of St Louis so after getting my gear together I had about an hour of fishing by myself before anyone got there.  It was nice to walk along the garden stream with my fly rod in hand, sun in the sky and fish in the water.  It was also nice have an hour by myself to work some kinks out of my casting.  It had been a while.

I ended up catching my first fish just as everyone arrived.  I set the hook as my brother shouted hello out of the window of his car.  Everyone got to see me catch the fish in extraordinary fashion.  The fish was so small that when I set the hook it flew ten feet in the air out of the water.  I almost caught it in my hand before it landed back in the water.  An humbling catch, but a catch none the less.

I landed eight fish in all over the weekend.  A couple more small trout, three good size trout, and a couple of blue gill.  One of the blue gill was the biggest I have seen, let alone caught.  I fished the streams, big and small and I fished on the pond.  I fished with dry flies and with a midge on a dropper.  I did some high sticking, and casted long and short.  It felt good to be fly fishing.

So, since it's been so long how would I critique my technique?

Patience With Your Cast

Over the course of the weekend I found myself repeatedly having to force myself to slow down my cast.  I was starting to change direction on both my forward and back casts much too early.  I couldn't get any distance on my forward cast.  My casts would pile up on the water.  And I popped at least one fly off my line.  I was getting frustrated until I realized what I was doing.  I slowed down and started to pay attention to my casting rather than the water. I started casting better.  My loops and distance improved and I was able to put the flies fairly close to where I wanted them.  And I caught fish.

Line and Tippet Size

Westover Farms has great fishing.  That brings a lot of people out there.  And with a lot of people fishing at the facility, the fish have gotten smarter.  The fishing guide on site even told my brother that you have to use dry flies as indicators.  If the fish see a Thingamabobber they won't go near your fly.  This applies to your tippet as well.  I started off on Friday afternoon with a 6X tippet.  Fish were getting close to my fly, but none were biting.  I switched out to 7X tippet and started getting bites.  

Then on Saturday morning I replaced my leader with a new 5X tapered leader.  I put a dry fly on the end to use as an indicator for a dropper.  I planned on adding the dropper after we headed to the streams.  I wanted to stop by the office to get some of the midges they recommended.  They were closed when I got there so I just started fishing with the dry fly.  Not a fish came near the fly.  It was a very similar fly to what the fish were hitting the day before, so why were the fish veering away even before the fly came near them?  Then it hit me, 5X leader.  My line was too big again.  I put on the 7X tippet again and started getting strikes.

Sense of Humor

It took me almost half an hour to put on the 7X tippet on Saturday morning.  I tied a Perfection Loop on the end of my leader.  And I then I started on the tippet.  For some reason I couldn't tie the knot.  I tied them with no issues on Friday.  I had just tied one onto my leader without a problem.  But when I tried to tie the perfection loop on my tippet to attach to my leader... problem.   I tried again and again and again and again and I could not tie the knot.  As I kept on trying I started to get more and more frustrated with myself.  Why couldn't I tie this know?

My dad came walking up to see how I was doing and I vented for about a minute.  Time for a break.  We walked up to the shop for a change of scenery.  I pulled out my tippet, took a breath, tied a Perfection Loop and just laughed at myself.  Sometimes taking a little break, and a little laugh, is all you need.

Successful Re-Entry

All in all I have to say that my re-entry into fly fishing was a success.  I caught fish and I caught myself when my gear or my actions were causing me to not catch fish.  To that point, I did lose a couple of fish that were on my line.  One of them pulled my fly off the line.  Simply put, my knot wasn't tied well.  I made sure my knots were tied well after losing that fish.  

With the second fish I lost I took too much time before I tried to get him in the net and he worked the fly out of his mouth.  The bank of the stream was about two feet above the stream and on an steep incline.  I stood there on the bank of the stream looking for a place to step that was low enough to step without getting my hiking boots soaked and get my net underneath the fish.  Had I had on wading boots I would have stepped into the stream without a second thought and landed my fish.

And that leads me to next week's post.  Wading boots.  I'll do a little research for myself and let you know what I find out.