Yesterday morning I was up early, vainly searching the sky for a hint of cloud cover as the brite sun dawned over my piece of Montana. I promptly forgot about fishing and whiled away the day until evening, which brought some cover from the relentless sun.

Saturday had been a fine day ! Early drizzle turned into heavy thick clouds and the fish and bugs were out in force . I tailed a long and managed to hook a few gulible fish.

On Monday I got to one of my favorite spots (the Braids) about a half hour before sunset. I had just switched reels, I like to rotate them so I fish with a clean line when I saw a fish rise about 40 feet out. Quickly I put on a caddis fly and without further ado flung out the line to where I thought he was. The trouble with this was it was my first cast. I had no real idea how long this leader was having just put on new line and the "art" of fly fishing is being able to cast your line a fair distance and put it aprrox 6" in front of a fish so the fly just drifts naturally down the water. I imagine a lot of hidden calculus goes on in the brain while doing this , sort of like an outfielder chasing down a fly ball. Some how you unconciously use all sorts of high faluting math equations to take into account your angle , distance to the fish , length of your leader and any wind which may effect the cast. If put it over him as he s looking up you be rewarded with a strike. Not rocket science , but difficult enough for me that I feel rewarded when I succeed.

As the fly was floating towards its intended victim I realized this was the first cast I had thrown and in the back of my mind began to hope he d refuse the fly; as fish taken on the first cast usually mean disaster for the rest of the day. As luck wouldn t have it, he took the fly! A large swell under my fly sucked it from sight, I struck, and he came out of the water; I could see it was a big fish. I played him carefully, tho I guess not carefully enough as the line and my fly parted ways. O well.....

I retied and as I was getting ready to cast my line somehow wound up behind me and when I went to straighten it , the fly got caught right in the middle of my back. Damn ! No help for this as just pulling the line works the fly in deeper. While walking back to the shore to undress, the fly line got wrapped around the swivel that holds my net. I stripped down , took the fly out of my sweat shirt and then cut it off to facilitate unravelling the line that was hopelessly wrapped around my net apparatus. Ten minutes later I was back in the water as it was getting dark.......

The curse wasn t totally effective as I did manage a nice fat rainbow at dark. Tho I think I would have done better if the first fish hadnt taken the fly.

Sept 2008