A New Recruit

Mark, meet your fellow fly fishers.  Fellow anglers, meet Mark.  This introduction is important because Mark is new to fly fishing and landed his first couple of fish on a fly rod over the weekend.  It just so happens that this even coincided with his birthday so it was a pretty monumental day. 

Marks' first fish on a fly!

I have known Mark for quite a while and recently he has been showing more interest in fly fishing.  He made it clear that he wanted to give it a shot and wanted to learn some basics.  I tried to explain to him that there are MUCH better instructors out there other than me, but for some reason he seemed to think that I was the guy he wanted to learn from.  I have no idea why but I was more than happy to oblige. 

To say that Mark took to fly fishing like a duck to water would be a big understatement.  It didn't take long before he was casting about 15-20 feet from the boat at Tobacco Hills Lake.  On top of that, he only got into one knot the entire morning!  If you've ever taught (or tired to teach) someone how to fly fish, you can appreciate how big of a deal this is.  Typically the first time someone tries to use a fly rod they learn more about taking out knots than actually casting or hooking first.  Finally, Mark landed the two bites that he got that morning.  Again, newbies seem to struggle with what to do on their first couple of bites and tend to either miss fish or lose fish as they panic to figure out a few things.  They seem to struggle with how to set the hook and/or with bringing the fish in.  Things like "how hard do I set the hook" and "should I use this reel thingy" seem to run through the heads of a noob.  Not Mark though!  He just seemed to pick things up and brought in both fish like a veteran.

Mark's second fish on a fly!

Another compliment that I would like to give to Mark is that he didn't get frustrated because of the slow fishing.  I brought him to Tobacco Hills because of the large bluegill population and protected lengths of said fish.  All in all, he landed two, I lost one, and landed one.  Usually catching 20-30 fish on this lake is the norm but not on this occasion.  They weren't in the usual placed and biting the typical things.  I can only assume the cold front (I know, a cold front in the summer doesn't seem like much of a change in Missouri) affected the fishing for the worse.  However, Mark's attitude wasn't affected in the least and he just kept casting and trying to learn. 

At the end of the morning, Mark had learned a few things and landed a couple of fish.  I, on the other hand, felt a little disappointed with the number of bites we got and was concerned that the lack of productivity might have soured him on continuing.  Again, Mark's attitude and enthusiasm trumped my concern as he purchased an Orvis Encounter combo later on Saturday on Amazon.  All I can think about is that if Mark enjoyed catching a bass and a bluegill on a fly over the course of a morning, then only better days and more excitement lie ahead of him!  I'm glad to see that Mark is hooked (pun intended) and that he has the bug (again, pun intended).  The world has one more excited, passionate fly fisherman and I couldn't be happier for him.  Now all he needs is a trailer, drift boat, waders, tippet, leader, a landing net, a vest, etc.  I guess his family and friends know what to get him for his birthday next year.