Friday, July 8, 2011

First fish on a fly.........

I follow the Red Sox on Twitter (shocking I know) and they asked fans to tweet their first memory of visiting Fenway. I'll spare you my first memories of Fenway but it did get me thinking about firsts (easy Howard).

Do you remember the first trout you caught on a fly? If you do, then regale us with the thrill you had bringing  the fish to hand, net, land (in my case), etc.

In case you are new to the blog or missed it the first time due to Blogger going down the day I posted this then let me prime the pump with my account of my first trout on a fly: Memory Lane.

Let the stories begin................

9 comments:

  1. Not to exciting. I was about 10 or so and walked into the Woolworth, grabbed the net and scooped up a goldfish...oh wait, trout...never mind. I can't remember.

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  2. Woolworths........that is a name I haven't heard in a long time. I am assuming it met the fate of most of their goldfish.......swoosh?

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  3. Ed,
    If my memory serves me right, those days were in the late sixties, early seventies, and the mind clouds were always present.
    The Farmington River, and it was a stocked brown on a streamer, perhaps a BN Dace.

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  4. Alan...thanks. I have to get to the Farmington one of these days. I read about in New England Game & Fish all the time.

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  5. So about 8 years ago my brother and his ROTC wife get their first assignment coming out of college: Maelstrom Airforce Base, Great Falls, MT. My wife and I planned a trip out there and it seemed appropriate to do a fly fishing trip. I had never fly fished but I thought it would be fun for my brother and I to do. SO I booked a guide.

    Earlier that year I had received my first fly rod as a gift (I had used conventional tackle for many years pursuing mostly bass). A simple fiberglass setup from Walmart. In preparation for a trip to MT I decided I needed do some practice casts on the water so I wade in to a small pond in new hampshire. First cast...well it was lousy. However the erratic motion of the fly as I tried to pick it up sparked the attention of a near by smallmouth. One cast. One fish...He ran probably a whopping 10 inches at best. This fly fishing sure was easy (or so I thought) :)

    A few weeks later I am in Montana standing in a drift boat. Within a hour a nice trout takes my fly. I rear back and set the hook like a good bass fisherman should and snap the fish off (sound familiar Ed?). My guide tells me that he saw my fish take off downstream and it was a nice one. My brother does the same this on a nice brown. As the day goes on we get into some whitefish maybe a half dozen before I finally I get into a rainbow and bring him to the net. He went about 21". It was a great feeling. I hooked quite a few more after that but could not get them to the net. However it was certainly a great trip.

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  6. North Carolina with a fly fishing club I joined on a whim. Still a member, still catching trout. It was tiny but I was pretty excited!

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  7. Hey Mike.....I smiled as I read about using your bass techniques when I read it. That sounds like a heck of trip. I hope to get out there (e.g. MT, WY, ID, etc.) some day and do some fishing. For now, a trip to western MA will have to do.

    JGR...thanks for stopping by and sharing your story about your first experience catching a trout.

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  8. I honestly can't remember my first trout. However, I took my niece and her husband from Ohio trout fishing last year. I coached her where to cast and what to expect after the fly hit the water and how to set the hook. After all that coaching, first cast, Wham...fish on. She sets the hook and then starts backpedaling, forgetting to reel the fish in. I started yelling reel, reel and pulled her back to the water. The end result was a nice 12" rainbow. That was as much fun as if I'd caught it myself.

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  9. Howard....I have had the same experience with my nephew's son where seeing him catch his first fish was as good as getting one myself.

    By the way, when I caught my first trout while fly-fishing I backpedaled also because I was so excited and wanted that fish to make it to the shore.

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