Fishing Alone

Once a year I have the opportunity to fish on some private water in Wyoming.  The deal is simple - we get invited to come to this place and to fish for a couple of days with some of the best fishing guides in the US and with a cook who is first rate in a house near the Green River.  (No I am not going to be more direct about location.)

But the trip is set up in such a way so that once during the trip you need to go out and fish by yourself.  When I started fishing I did not like that time.  It still takes me an inordinate period of time to change a fly and I, while I am getting better at it, I am not perfect at finding fish.  So you go out for a period of about two and a half hours where you may not see another human being.  Today, I saw a blue heron and a dog and a couple of horseback riders.  But what I really got to concentrate on was fishing.

The benefits of a guide a obvious - the best figure out how to find fish in almost any location but more importantly they also help in the mundane tasks that can be frustrating - like changing rigs from one fly to another and the like.  They can do it in a few seconds where it takes me, at my best, about fifteen minutes.  Today was my lone day.  I fished in three locations and caught a couple of fish including the one in the picture.   When you are alone you also have to be able to take a picture and get the fish back into the water.  That is no easy feat.

At the end of the period I had my line fouled up so simply waited for one of my friends who was fishing upstream to pick me up.  There is something in fishing called the five minute rule - if you can't untangle in less than five minutes - you cut the lines and start over.  With my rigging skills the better rule would be a fifteen minute rule, but you get the idea. Before I went in for lunch,  I got to figure out the challenges of the stream without the able assistance of someone more proficient than me.  

I need to work on my casting (a lot) but I am pretty good at landing fish once I hook them.  So I got to practice technique under a number of conditions.   While I like working with a guide, I have not gotten to the place that I also like fishing by myself.