March 20 Local Trout

First trout on the fly for this guy.  Maybe fifteen minutes into walk upstream.  I could see immediately that he was going to get some fish because he was putting the flies where they needed to be and logging good drifts.  Walking up to the hole pictured below I told him 100% his first trout was coming.  The Kid had been 3/3 on three outings at this water thus far in 2016.  Good vibe there.  I was very happy watching him hook and land a trout.  Good dude who appreciates good things.  Like bend in a 2 wt Sage.  Tandem nymph rig.

That tandem rig bit him here.  As our guy moved to help with the net, the second trout of the day dragged the trailing nymph into woody debris; tension was thus lost and fish gone.  I remember reading one author who after many years made a clean break: no more tandem rigs; too many fish lost via snagging the other fly.  He said he was afraid that he would lose the fish of a lifetime.  My experience has been that the benefit of two nymphs far outweighs the occasional negative.  If you even call it a negative when the fish win here and there.

Backhand cast wasn't working on this day.  Same hole, few weeks earlier he had it.  But here he kept putting the flies on the upstream bank in tight and he got frustrated.  I don't mind that; frustration.  But then he started whipping the rod back and forth all pissed off...  making rats nests for me; had to put a stop to it.  He cooled off up on the bank by barbwire fence; water and a cookie.  Gathered himself and kept on which was a good thing because at the next hole he got eight trout to hand.  Including two more doubles.  Meaning of his first twenty trout on flies, six have come in three pairs on tandem nymph rigs. 

Formerly thought that getting two at once was pretty cool; something accomplished maybe 1-2 instances per year at best.  Sometimes zero.  But then after kid hits it twice on this day, the new guy busts one out.  Three damn doubles in the course of about fifteen minutes.  All while I sat back and watched; netting fish; taking photos; watching these guys work.  Top prize for me is seeing these guys discern.

Might have been final fish of the day.  We saw some risers at this last hole and I had a dry fly rigged up but we never did cast it.  Had a right-hand wind and these guys were working the nymphing hard.  Left it alone.  Put the fish down in coarse fashion; we hackers flipping four points of weight right on their heads and smiling all the while.

I made one flip cast while kid was peeing on a tree.  Hooked a fish.  It came off and before I could flip again he was urging me to hand him the rod.  What I like to hear.  Fifteen fish between the two of them and we walked out in the sun.