My old man was in town this past weekend and he wanted to do a steelhead trip on the Deschutes. Ok, so maybe I had a little influence on the matter but he put up no argument. My poor ass can;t afford it. This just happened to be perfect timing. My quest with the Spey rod has been a Beatdown. Having a guide who knew what he was doing was going to clear up alot of things for me and give me my best chance for a fish. Lucky for me I got a guide, Matt McCrary, who is fishy as hell and can cast incredibly with little effort. But more importantly this guy loved what he does and it just showed. Guy picked us up in Maupin @ 4:45 am and we got out of the river at 7:30pm. He had a smile on his face the entire time. This is no Wyoming with easy little cutthroat to make your client feel like they really know what they are doing. This is Steelheading and there sure as hell are NO guarantees. This has to be a tough gig......
My report is one that lacks a fish..... but the amount of knowledge I gained was more important. By the end of the day my fiance was handling the spey rod like she was born with it in her hands. For his first day, the old man was getting the fly out where it needed to be and he was swinging it nice and slow. As for me...... Matt had me more excited about each individual stretch of water than the thought of catching a fish. Sometimes you stick one and sometimes you don't. I have alot of new tricks in the bag now. My knowledge of reading water has improved, I can cast close to a tight bank.... and the wind was an afterthought. I was having a blast the entire day.
Oh Shit. I'm Hooked.
Now, the most important thing I have learned:
This shit is unpredictable. You gotta think out of the box and just get your ass out there and try new things. In the first pool of the moring I was just getting my line out and so I flipped out the leader real close. Steelie took..... I missed. I won't make that mistake again. At the end of the day it was the last run and we had about 15 minutes of light left, and then I hear my dad scream...... "I got one!" 2 seconds later the fish had got off. Oh well..... I better start getting used to this.
Some photos from the day.
2 comments:
good job relishing in the beatdown kick to your figs.
the confidence with which you now speak puts you well on your way, young jedi.
I think my life is about to change. What the fuck did I get myself into?
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