"Pride comes before the fall."
We were all here to hook into some trout that were moving up from Mary Lake to the river lock system. One could easily hook into a smorgasbord of lake trout or speckled trout.
Somebody was in my regular spot so I was forced to fish on a less than ideal section of the river. I did not have hip-waders, so this meant I had to fly fish from a portion of the bank that was hedged with small trees. It was possible, but it would prove next to impossible for this rookie fly launcher.
I started to get into my ‘groove’ of getting my fly out into the water when a slight tug behind me hooked my attention. My fly, and attached fishing line, could be seen (by myself and the surrounding anglers) dangling several feet in the air. I could hear the quiet, facial mocking from the crowd.
Embarrassed, I untangled my line and began my line ‘motions’ again. Things moved well for about 10 minutes. As, I became more confident in my casting the line reciprocated by moving farther and farther out.
This was when I assumed the other spin casting anglers appeared to be very interested in what I was accomplishing.
However, pride comes before the fall.
As I had just said, after 10 minutes I thought I should change my fly because my technique had not triggered any strikes.
When I had retrieve all of my line where I could reach for my tippet, I noticed that there was no fly attached. I looked casually behind me and noticed it lodged into the branch it had encountered earlier.
Defeated, I packed up my things and hoped that nobody noticed what had just happened. I laughed the whole way back to my vehicle.
I have vowed to return with my spin casting reel in hand to remove the fly caught, in that old birch tree, and post a hand made sign that says, “No Fly Zone.” Just in case another rookie makes the same mistake I did.
