Last week I told you all about my spinning rod trout fishing victory on the Rush River.  It was a great night and I caught a bunch of trout (by my standards). I left brimming with confidence but had I finally figured out that section of the Rush, or was I just lucky that night?  I decided to head back there and this time with a fly rod.  If I’m an average trout angler with a spinning rod, I’m a true flat lander when it comes to fishing with a fly rod. 

If I had to guess what piece of my outdoor gear has the most dust on it, no doubt it would be my fly rod. I must have wiped off 10 years’ worth of dust when I pulled it from the rafters of the Dave Cave. The first thing I did to prepare for the rematch was to get a new tippet and leader for my fly rod. The second thing I did was watch a YouTube video on how to tie on a tippet and leader onto my fly rod. Next I headed to the backyard to make a few practice casts. Although I have the basic skills and knowledge when it comes to using a fly rod I also have some pride in that I don’t want to embarrass myself on the stream in case I run into a real fly fishing angler. In the end, if hooking a trout was as easy as hooking a tiger lily, it was going to be fun.

I headed to the Rush and slipped down into a spot that was unoccupied.  I immediately started hooking up: first I hooked some willows, then I hooked some brush and then I hooked some weeds. I was off to a rough start but then the fish gods rewarded me with a sliver of hope in the form of a brown trout about the length of a No. 2 pencil. In spite of all the things that I had caught alongside the stream, with that first small trout my confidence grew, even if just a little.

I moved into a spot where I had caught a couple of nice trout with my spinning. The fast water slipped over a ledge and spread out into a drop off, making it the perfect trout hole. That was my target spot and it also represented my best chance for catching a decent trout. I started flipping casts upstream allowing my weighted wet fly to tumble into the hole.  I waited for that gentle tug.

I’m not going to bore you with a play-by-play of the first 50 casts or so because absolutely nothing happened aside from occasionally hooking something behind me. Eventually the insanity theory proved false in that a different result did happen. I was borderline startled when I felt the not so subtle tug on the business end of my new tippet and leader. A nano-second later a brown trout leaped from the water. I looked around hoping that someone could hear me yell: “Did you see that?”.

After that jumping brown trout I didn’t catch any more fish so I can’t say that I actually tamed the Rush River with a fly rod. If you’re keeping score: I beat the Rush last week with a spinning rod but it got the better of me this week with a fly rod. Maybe to break the tie I’ll take on the Rush River next week with Garden Hackles.

What are Garden Hackles?  For the answer go to Outdoor Tales and Trails with Dave Beck on Facebook or read this column next week.

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