Hello All!
It’s been a while. I’ve
had to transition from the USAF to the civilian sector, landed a job, and I’m
not sure I’m done job hunting just yet. Seems
working over 50 hours a week is more than just the military. Working for a defense contractor is like working
for the military. Hope things will level
out soon. Anyway, the rain has come, and
come, and COME this year. They have run,
and run, and RUN the generators every day for almost three months. I’m bored and heading for the long drive up to
the Norfolk River soon to get reacquainted with my rod. Man, it’s been too long.
However, I happen to have a magic moment with a very
influential person in my life back before the rain. That person was my Dad. He has NEVER fly fished before, and he was definitely
a…uh…fish out of water. However, he got
to it. The first night he was here, I
sat him down and got him to make some simple flies – San Juan Worm and Red
Zebra Midges. He flat had a ball tying
those things, and he said that he understood why I did it - Therapeutic. He actually stayed up after I went to bed and
made about 10-15 more. AWESOME stuff
folks. The next day, I took him into the
front yard to do the casting drills I learned with, my kids learned with, and
now my Dad learned with. Within about an
hour, he could cast 35-40’ with little to no effort. Then, I started grabbing the yarn at the end
of the cast and demoing how to set the hook.
After about another 30 minutes, he had that down. We were set to fish on the morning of day 3.
The morning started just like any other day with me going
fishing or hunting with Dad…Dad is SLOW.
Had to prod the old man about every 5 minutes to get going. We can’t start fishing LATE. Anyway, we were on the water about 0700 hours
(7 AM for normal folks). We hit the
Little Red River at Cow Shoals, Arkansas.
One of my favorite places to fish.
I picked the super shallow riffles at the entrance from the stairs to
get him concentrating on the cast. Yep,
it was so exciting for him that he was chucking the thing like we NEVER practiced
the day prior. Anyway, I finally got him
to settle down and he started casting about 10-15’ without issue. I told him to keep on working that distance
for now. He had about 9-10 takes, but
was SLOW in setting the hook and when he did, he set it like he was trying to
set a 32” Cobia in Pensacola with me deep sea fishing – Yep miss that too. After the 4th time, I had to seriously
council him on the fact he was probably tearing the jaws off the poor
fish.
I finally started fishing and caught 8-10 fish. My Dad continued to struggle with setting the
hook. I decided to take him to the HOLE
where there are more fish and generally they STRIKE to get fist shot at the food. It took about 10-15 minutes for my Dad to
settle in, and the fish to start striking.
The first two or three took him by surprise that he was clumsy and lost
them. The third…Well here it is! This was my Dad’s first Rainbow trout on the
fly, and he was whooping so much….I think everyone on the river knew he caught
one. He caught a couple more, and he is
now SOLD on fly fishing. All he talked
about on the way home was the PEACE, the calm, and the absolute weirdness of
the rod twitching so much and the pull of such a small fish like a trout.
It was a beautiful day with a beautiful person. It is days like these that I hope to remember
the rest of our lives. Awesome father
and son time. We are now planning to
meet in Gatlinburg, TN and hitting some rivers from there to Chattanooga. Should be a heck of a time and fun meeting
new fly shop owners and people in the river.
There is nothing quite as fun as fly fishing.
Tight lines!
RobF
Arkansas Fly Fishing
