Old River--New Buddy

Fishing with a new guy is always fun because you get to see how he approaches the river. Everyone has their own way of doing things, and who doesn’t want to see if someone has an style that could work for you?  It’s sort of funny because we were both waiting for the other guy to start off—both out of having manners and a curiosity of style observation.

Once you start fishing, you never know how a guy wants to spend his day. Some people just take off, and you won’t see them until the end of the day. Some guys stay in one hole for what seems like forever, and only move 100 yard the whole day. Some fishermen stay in a hole for no more than 5 casts, and they put on 10 miles of river in a day. Colby and I really worked the river together well. He was on the right side of the river, and I was on the left, and we sort of staggered one just in front of the other.

We came to the Weber today with a mission in mind: for me to demonstrate my vast & extensive knowledge of how to “swing soft hackle,” Which took all of about 2 minutes. I really am new to it myself, well not actually new, more like one stage past new, I’m still very much in the developing stage of it. Here’s the thing though, unlike pretty much every other technique in fly fishing, you can pick up swinging soft hackle really easy, and you can have instant success.

What’s hard about “swinging it” is that it goes against everything you have previously learned as a fly fisherman. You cast down at a 45 and have to keep the line as thigh and straight as you can through the swing. In dry fly fishing, all styles of nymphing, streamer fishing--all of them you have to keep the load off the fly and let it dead drift. More or less it’s trying to let the fly drift in a natural way, and not like it is a water skier behind your line; all that goes out the window with “swinging.”

It was a beautiful day on the river, you cannot ask for better weather. I really can’t think of one way you could improve on fall. If I were Mother Nature, every month would be September, over and over. Okay maybe that would be too much of a good thing; you’ve got to have a little variety. How about a month of spring, summer and winter, and the rest would be autumn. 

If look forward to fishing again with Colby. He’s a pretty chill dude, and really easy to fish with. We talk a lot about exploring new rivers, and the quest to wet your line in as much water as possible. He’s a Colorado boy, the Gunnison area. I cant wait to get back there—in particular I would like to hit the Black Canyon section.  I'll have to try him out on a few more local rivers first. But if his wife finds out he's nymphing and swinging, when he goes to get his line wet, this trip may be out last?