Monday, April 4, 2016

Fishing with Ryan

After guiding several days in the recent past, I finally made it out with my son Ryan and dog Rosie for some flyfishing for fun. We fished south, and waded exclusively during one of the prettiest spring days you can imagine. Full sun and low wind, even though it was a chilly ride out at daybreak.

It's always a joy to see Ryan succeed with a fly rod. Indeed, he's very good at it. I've said to many clients, whose sons have committed themselves to flyfishing, "There's not much more you need to know in order to predict your son's future success." Over the years, I've found this to be true. Not many people will dedicate themselves to a methodology that is so difficult to learn. But for some of us, "it's the damned difficulty that makes the fun," (St. Cecil in Dodson's book, Faithful Travelers).

I've posted a video clip on Facebook showing Ryan landing a red on his seven-weight TFO combo. Rosie had been wading with me, but she was back on the boat for the glamour shot. See https://www.facebook.com/gregory.s.sparrow. I tried to upload it here, but it was the wrong format. Maybe later.

The fish were thick down south--big trout and reds mixed together. But they were very tough, and the wading was difficult, too--an inconsistent bottom and thick turtle grass made line management and movement a chore. Still, we prefer to wade together, even though we would have gotten more shots from the boat. It's a matter of preference.

We'd planned to fish the sand, but the fishing was so good on the West side that we never headed east before going in around 2:30. It was a great day.

When we got back in, Randy Cawlfield arrived at Channelview with his new Stilt. He was all grins after struggling with a moody Etec for the last six months. It'
s hard to beat Yamaha, or Suzuki.

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