Learning: A lifelong series of Shocks, Disappointments and narrow escapes.

[thudpucker]

Learning: A lifelong series of Shocks, Disappointments and narrow escapes.

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Wisdom, education and a life time of memories is what you get from going out on your own and doing ‘it’!

When I lived in Seattle as a youth, it was a great place to be. I fished everywhere around that place. Rainbow and Salmon for the most part. I never kept anything else.

Fly Fishing was so much more fun than Meat fishing with messy bait, clanging noisey hardware and messy baits and those Backlashes. Lordy why?! It'd take A Ream of good white paper to tell about it.

I grew up Salmon fishing and sometimes when the Silvers were in we'd troll with big Green n' White Salmon flies. That was a hoot too. There was a Boat House off the end of Harbor Island where I’d use a big Salmon fly and catch Ducks, Gulls and occasionally a Salmon.

One day someone suggested going down the Hi way I (before I-5) to fish for Crappie.

"Fish for What?"

I went to the library and looked it up.

It was a Deep South thing!

They mentioned one Crappie lake in Washington State. I can’t recall the name of that lake now.

It was close enough for a one day trip. So I put the Wife and kid in the Pickup and went off to some lake down past Chehalis, and way out east of the Hiway.

Jeez, it was full of Stumps! It was more like a Swamp than a Lake.

What the heck! That ain’t what a lake is supposed to look like! Who can fish in a Brush pile? What fly to use in the Woods?

Ignoring my shock, I put the boat in the water. Rowed around casting where I wouldn't get snagged etc. Typical kid with great Gear sans smarts. Nothing!

I must have been pretty noticeable too. About like an Arab on a crowded commercial airplane. Everybody kept their distance.

Finally I began to watch other people. They would pull softly up to a stump, and drape the fly over the other side of the stump. They all used long fly rods, but just had a short piece of line tied to the Tip??? This is Fly fishing for Crappie? How exciting!

Then if they could reach another stump, they'd drape a fly softly down near that stump.

Shhhhhh..... they weren't talking either. There wasn't a sound coming off that lake, and there were probably 20 other boats there. No motors to be heard.

My Seven years old and I were probably an annoyance to the rest of those Library denizens out in boats.

Boy was I disappointed.

I'd been to Green Lake, taking Dawn Holbrook's classes on Casting for distance. I was pretty good at that, but this was more like fishing in a North Bend area Clear cut.

Eventually the boy wanted Mom to fix him a Hamburger so we headed back. At the shoreline someone was cleaning fish and I sat alongside to learn.

He was a Boeing Import.

A Cracker from Marietta Georgia. He was so disappointed at the poor state of fishing up here in Washington.

Jeez what a shock that was. There are all kinds of fish in every mud puddle over the whole state. "How'd you miss all that?"

That poor guy was as set in his ways as I was in mine.

"Naw" he says. He was used to Crappie and Bass in every mud puddle in GA.

"Really?" I said, "No Rainbow or Salmon?" I was shocked.

"We don't fish for stuff like that. We Eat our Cat's, Crappie...."

I thought he came from another universe.

I learned a lot from that poor guy. I doubt if he learned anything from me though.

I live in Alabama now. I don't fish as much as I used to. I know the Crackers side of it and for the most part, fishing is still fun, even down here.

But boy do I miss the Pacific North West, BC and Alaska..

I still row. Still fly fish, but it’s not the same as pinpointing a fly delicately near a brushy overhang.

Another one, in moving waters, was getting the fly to land gently above a slight disturbance in the stream. The pure adrenalin rush when that 'slurp' takes the fly under and the game is on. Boy oh boy do I miss that Rush. The experience is absolutely Salable to those who have little time.

As hard as I've tried, you just don't get much surface feeding in Crappie waters.

They like Jigs. I've seen seven lines out of a boat and only one guy in the boat.

The only rush you could possibly get out of that would be at the Dinner table.

For me, my lifetime of different kinds of fishing has been a fun ride. I'd do it all over again!