Meet Jack, he is my 12-year-old son. Jack is a lucky kid growing up around people who hunt, fish, grow and gather. He has done a good bit of trout fishing with me over the years. He only ever wanted to use a spinner and that was fine with me.
Today I told Jack it was time to catch a trout on his flyrod and with a dry fly. Start as you are meant to continue, I reckon. It is cicada season and the trout have been pretty keen for the last month or so. We left the spinner at home and Jack was keen to try the fly rod.
We got to the river mid morning and ran the rapids with Jack in the front of the canoe. He does like splashing through the rapids and seems to have absolute confidence in my ability to keep us from tipping in.
We stopped at the end of a long rapid and put his rod together. I showed him a few of the basic moves and away he went. Actually, it was challenging as Dad's can be pretty aggressive when it comes to teaching their kids. I kept my cool mostly and got him flopping a fly around. It takes years just to get the basics right and I was determined to make him cast perfectly. Just kidding, I know the drill and once he had a sort-of cast, I spotted our first fish.
After a few tries he managed to get the size 6 deer hair cicada in the right place. The trout took it hard and Jack missed the strike. The rainbow followed the fly and tried twice again. The video shows the rest; it was pretty awesome.
So we jumped back in the canoe and literally on his first cast while floating hooked and landed a great rainbow trout. What a start!
There were lots of challenges trying to improve his casting but Jack found a rhythm and came up with a pretty good roll cast. New casters never seem to get the 10 to two thing or be able to pause and let the fly line straighten behind them before starting the forward cast. Jack picked it up ok and I tried not to badger him too much. It reminded me about when Steve and I took his son, Kadin, to do the same thing. All he could hear was blah blah blah as two old dudes gave constant commands.
I remember my first serious fly fishing lesson from my Dad. We were on the Kennebago River in Rangely, Maine. Dad handed me a fly rod and a few flies and said, "see you later at the bridge, I am going up river." I suppose having tried to train two older brothers, he just sent me down river to learn for myself. I wound up bored late in the day so I dangled my black ghost streamer fly from the bridge. This giant land locked salmon jumped out of the water but missed the fly. I dropped it back down and hooked it. Soon after, there was no line left on my reel and Dad had come back. Man was he hysterical as he guided me from the bridge to the river bank. It turned out to be the largest salmon caught there in a while. So safe to say I was hooked on fly fishing at 10.
We continued down river and Jack kept casting. He picked up several more rainbows. Once he had killed our limit of four fish between us, he had had enough. He did not want to let any more go. We definitely have a meat hunter here.
Let's hope he is hooked on fly fishing.
We got an ice cream on the way home then I filleted and smoked all of the trout. Maybe next time he will want to learn how to fillet and prep for smoking.
I am a proud Dad and I look forward to out next adventure.
