Monday 4 July 2011

A Rogue Angel, the Lakes and a first on the fly!!






I have such a lot to blog at the moment but you'll have to bare with me on this one... A rare weekend away with Janet (my wife) and one where I managed to get her to agree to fishing with me! Now it either goes horribly wrong or goes incredibly right... lets just say a few things fell into place.

Having decided where I wanted to fish we fished some place else as we had an access problem... I was the only one with waders! Short straw in place I scouted the water from behind high grasses... small trout fry shoals and there was a pike suspended in the gin clear water close by. I moved Janet to a different piece of bank and had her cast the fly rod for the first time... now ideally we would have done practice on a lawn. However, this was a "fait accompli" situation where it was learn on the job. Janet was casting... not pretty but doing the job! We'll work on technique with a lesson or two in the near future. I placed Janet by the lily pads and I moved up river to cast a line and quite soon I had an excited "what do I do now?" with foaming water at her feet. We netted a lovely fish that fought hard but was brought to the net quickly. Janet didn't wish to have her photo with the fish so your guide did the honours!

This was a special fish as I wanted Janet to have the honours in getting fish 50 on the BUG-BOND rod and it was her first fish on the fly as well. I was really pleased for her... it was a great start to the day!

We then moved down stream where we swapped a floating line on the BUG-BOND rod with the flashtail whistler for the Loomis with a Rio Striped Bass line and a Jonny King built Kinky Muddler... I put her on another mark and went to sort out my rod... I hadn't even touched the rod and I heard "I've got another!"... after a short fight the fish came to the net... it was now Girls 2 to Boys 0! I regained some honour by hooking and landing a fish soon after...

We cast some more dropping a couple of fish but called it a day wanting to ensure Janet enjoyed the day... I think she did!

I recall an e-conversation with K8 Taylor from the Rogue Angels blog where I said that I wanted Janet to experience what I do and K8 I did it... maybe took me a bit longer but we got there in the end. Another Rogue Angel is born?

PS fish are shown in reverse order... bottom image is Janet's first fish!

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