How I happened upon fly fishing…

I grew up in the Adirondack Mountains of New York state and was left to explore the great outdoors. While most of my time was spent turning over rocks to see what was underneath or fashioning bows and arrows out of simple stick and string, I also found another addiction that I am still battling today. Whether it was fishing with friends from school on Schroon Lake or visiting my grandma’s cottage in Pennsylvania, if there was water, I was throwing a line into it. No fish was safe. Largemouth Bass, bluegills, walleyes, pike, and trout all sooner or later ended up in my hands. My passion has ebbed and flowed over the past years as I went to college, found a job, moved, and found another job. This past summer I found the perfect opportunity to reignite the flickering flame of fishing. My brother, his wife, my girlfriend (who was soon to be my fiance, but due to my sneakiness had no idea), and I decided to head back to New York on a road trip. Living in Texas, my brother and his wife met us at the Grand Canyon to commence our three week adventure back to New York. Before I left Arizona, I grabbed my lady’s and my spinning rods in hopes of getting a few days to spend fishing some streams in the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone. The rain on our trip did nothing to dampen our spirits and we enjoyed a meandering journey through Utah, rock climbing and seeing some of our friends and family.  When we reached the Tetons, we were overwhelmed by the beauty of our surroundings. My soon-to-be-fiance and I wasted no time in buying a Wyoming license and heading down to Jackson Lake. Jackson lake did not produce for us and the next day found us at the base of Jackson dam. We were having the same luck until we discovered a discarded white rubber worm left by some other fisherman. Having run through every other piece of bait in my box, I tied it on and threw it in the water. Off the first cast I was reeling in a nice fat lake trout. By the end of the next day we had caught over a dozen fish, most of which were over 20″.

As any fisherman knows, catching fish leads to a desire to catch more fish. So on our next stop in Yellowstone, I decided to make a day to get out on one of the rivers. The closest river to us was the Madison and the section that was closest to us was fly fishing only. After stopping in and talking to a local shop, they set me up with the “poor man’s fly fishing set up”, which is a bubble tied to the end of my spin rod, a tippet run from that to my fly. Not real fly fishing, but close enough. I can still remember the shop owner’s words as I left, “it won’t be long till you have a real fly rod.” My, how he was right. Hindsight is 20/20 and I’m sure my lovely fiance would have taken a different course that day if she knew where it was going to lead. So I spent half the day “fly fishing” the Madison in Yellowstone. While there, I only saw one other fisherman who gave me the “stink eye” when he saw me. Now I know that he was probably showing disdain for my spinning rod, but it did not ruin my day. The climax of the experience was when a small rainbow snuck to the surface and sucked down my Elk Hair Caddis dry fly. After playing him to shore and releasing him…I knew. I was a hooked…