A New Year and Old Memories

My first fishing trip of 2009 was a blast. Probably not what you would expect on a fly-fishing blog; no exciting bush flight to get to a wilderness outpost, no passport required, no exotic species, heck - not even a fly rod (this IS north Texas in January - we have to get creative to find good, predictable fly-fishing)!

Nope. My first trip of 2009 was to a local pond in Denton with my father and son. The pond has been stocked with trout for the winter and it was a good chance to get everyone out of the house one more time before the weather window slams shut on north Texas. Yes, they were stockers . . . in town . . . with people slinging bait right and left . . . who cares! Sometimes what you catch on a trip isn't fish.

The outing brought back some great memories as I watched my Dad fishing with his grandson. We spent every summer in Colorado when I was growing up (I was 17 before I went through my first Texas summer!) in a cabin half way between Creede and Lake City. I started learning to fly-fish when I was 6 (the same age as my son) by swinging wooly worms and muddler minnows "across and down" on the Rio Grande. Fly-fishing was for "fun"- something we did for kicks in the river for a few hours before we settled down to the real business of catching trout for dinner. My father was a product of the depression and WWII and free protein was not something to be dismissed by such a noble idea as catch and release. All of our "river fish" were released in the name of sport but when it came time for dinner, the action moved to the lakes - fly rods went back in the cases and out came the spinning tackle. Rito Hondo, Continental, Browns Lakes, Road Canyon, etc. were our targets and we hit them with deadly precision. Dad, along with being a management professor, college dean, aeronautical engineer, and superb wing shot, was also a retired Air Force pilot (as well as still-serving Air Force Reserve hospital commander) and would slip into "strike-mode" upon arrival at the lake.

His deadly trout catching secret came from a lake outside of Denver in the 60's. Dad was on leave from some Air Force activity and decided to go fishing. At the lake, he soon noticed NO ONE was catching fish except for two older gentlemen. After questioning the pair as to their success, they finally fessed that they were retired surgeons and still liked to fish on their "day-off" - and they passed on to Dad "THE SECRET."

And, it works. Boy, does it work. I can remember countless times driving up to a lake, setting up our rods, and reeling in fish after fish for 30-45 minutes until we had a mess - often while folks on either side caught nothing. To this day, even with the arrival as such things as Berkley Powrbait, THE SECRET still outfishes everything (notice the bent rod in the above photo - my son caught more fish in an hour than anyone around had caught all day).

Dad was like the Pied Piper of Colorado; he would soon have kids surrounding him wanting to catch a fish. If you know my father, you know that no man has a bigger heart and Dad would walk over to these kid's parents and show them how to catch fish. Usually he would just adjust their tackle; a smaller line size, a longer leader, less weight, new bait, etc. Sometimes he would totally re-rig them with some of our equipment (always refusing offers of payment - just happy to see kids catching fish). And a few times, when nothing else would work, he would pass on THE SECRET. Many times we would be down in Creede on an errand or at dinner and hear "Mommy, mommy - that's the fishing man!"

Now, thirty years later, my son fishes with his grandfather the same way. He's already a Colorado lake "veteran" - having caught his FIRST fish in Lake Erwin outside of Crested Butte. And, yes, he's starting to cast a flyrod but still prefers his little spinning rod. As a matter of fact, he got a new "big-boy" spinning rod for Christmas . . . one "just like Granddaddy's."

So, what's THE SECRET? Not much, really. Just a combination of leader design, bait preparation, and trout behavior. Contact me and I'll pass it on.