Español

Manual de Lanzado
Sección de Carlos
The Downloads

Falsecast

Monday: Paul Arden
Tuesday: Harps
Wednesday: Bernd Ziesche
Thursday: Mr T.
Friday: Ray
Saturday: Viking Lars
Sunday: Bruce Richards

Ronan's report

Preface- I do understand some things can/t be rushed, if I knocked that fish loose, i may have caught the girl and believe me the girl is the real prize, my best catch yet! So I do understand!!! Enjoy this piece from Tiana, AKA Lady Strange.

Conditions perfect: big blue sky with puffy white clouds drifting lazily by, hardly a breath of wind. Water warm enough to wet wade and yet not too warm...Perfect. Fish unusually active; feeding on buggy goodness. Good access to beautiful river close to our campsite, easy to cross with back cast room. It started out as the perfect day, fishing with your furry fishing friends; what could be better? What about landing 50 fish in 250 m of river? Or an exceptionally large trout you would expect from a lake not a stream only 10ft wide in most places?

Today, one of those events was going to happen. It had to. The fish were rising like mad and nothing was putting them down, not even Finn doing his fish-pointing dance at the head of the pool. (Thanks Finn, I can see the fish without you spooking them) Really, how could you miss them? They were everywhere! Bloooop, bloooop, bloooop, voracious rise after rise, ambushing unsuspecting insects from behind rocks, under overhanging bushes, heads of pools, along a log jam, next to a fallen tree, riffles, runs and pockets. They were literally everywhere. Anywhere you would expect a Cutthroat to be one was there. A perfect day does not always mean an easy day. Where's the fun in having an easy day. This perfect day definitely was not easy. What should have been an easy day turned in to one of those difficult days. You know, the ones where fish are rising but there is nothing visible on the surface despite there being Mayflies dancing on the gentle breeze? Yup, one of those. After several hours in the upper stretches of this particular 250m section of river casting to frustratingly picky fish it became apparent it was not to be a 50 fish day. At this point we were lucky if it was going to be a 5 fish day.

Despite all the activity, nothing seemed to be happening in one lonely pool. Odd, since there was a trout rising consistently in the riffle above the pool. He was feeding next to a jumble of sticks, twigs and branches making a delicate drop and drift precarious at best but do-able. After tanking every other pool and being completely ignored throughout the feeding frenzy, I thought I would try the riffle fish, he seemed more receptive to the buffet floating overhead. I tried drifting between the sticks from above… nothing, he slammed the caddis behind my fly; TYPICAL! Jerk-face fish @#% Giving up on that vantage point, I moved down to cast up to him, thinking maybe Finn would follow me and stop pointing at the fish. (I must remember to teach him pointing is rude) So dog in tow I planted myself mid-pool kitty-corner from the rising trout. Easy 40ft cast, no problem, cast above and drift over him… Cast, drop, drift, repeat as necessary.

I went through a few different patterns, nothing seemed to satisfy even though I had matched the surface bugs. Then I noticed the surface caddis I thought he taken floating passed me, no worse for wear. Ding, Ding, Ding… emergers were on the table today. Sneaky fishys taking emergers. I flubbed my next cast with the emerge on… badly. I came up short and crossed a current, being annoyed with myself and somewhat disheartened I didn’t pick my line up as I normally would to recast. I just stood there, stupid look on my face wondering what the hell I had done. My little emerge swept passed me towards the tail out of the pool, line in a mess at my feel. My forlorn 3wt. Sigh, line control all but abandoned. Finn looking at me as though he could just utter one "WTF". What a sad, sad sight it was.

And then the unbelievable happened, a silver flash darted out from behind a large boulder at the bottom of the pool. OH CRAP and HOLD ON!!! were the only thoughts in my mind. And this, boys and girls, is why line control is so important. Although I resembled a dazed and confused, idiot-savant, window licking mouth-breather with a hickory switch and a bobber standing riverside; line control was the only thing saving my ass when the largest Cutthroat I have EVER seen in a stream 10ft across took my fly. I think my 3wt was bent in half when he decided to run; I scrambled to get the tangled line on my reel. Downright comedy of errors ensued. I looked at Ray, and shrieked, "I need the net… Ray, get the net… You DON'T understand Ray… NET NOW!!!"

Meanwhile, Ray was trying to poach the fish in the sticks and was casually collecting himself as I panicked. I never bother with a net when 99% of the trout are under 18 inches, I don't even bother with the hassle of putting them on the reel or handling them… drag them in, tail, snap an underwater shot, pop the hook and on to the next one. So for me to start shrieking "GET THE NET", should have been some sort of indication this was not the usual 12 inch Cutthroat. No, this was the fish of the river, big fish on campus, bully of the pool; which explains why the pool was eerily still in spite of the rest of the activity going on. I'm hyperventilating, Finn is dancing about pointing like there's no other fish in the river and Ray is sauntering, not even, perhaps meandering. Adjusting his back pack, farting about, looking for a place to put his rod, taking a moment to get his camera ready, all the while I am trying to turn the head of a river monster on a 3 wt. It's a damn Cutthroat of a lifetime on my line, not a free shopping spree at Prada. All a girl asks for is a little sense of urgency. Drop the pack, toss the rod on a bush, quit farting around, get your ass over here and "GET THE DAMN NET" ready. You SO do NOT understand.

Eternity was only a few minutes, I lost some time somewhere in all the excitement and rush. Finn stuck to my leg, pointing, Ray finally ready to net the fish and the rest was a flurry of activity. I'm not even sure I was breathing until the fish was in the net. Meet Fishzilla, 5 or so lbs, 22.5 inch Cutthroat with shoulders of a linebacker. Yup… it was one of those days. Perfect <(((>< …

Pic Of Day

SL Promotions