Michael Jones has been talking me me about fishing for a few years now. Now living back in the States, he was back in the area for a visit. He brought along with him his 12-year-old daughter, Joyce. She had not done much fishing before so I started her with a spinner. I showed her the basics from shore how to open the bail, place the mono on your fingertip, cast the weight of the spinner, reel quickly to get the spinner moving, adjust the speed of the retrieve based on the water current and then do not let the spinner jump out of the water or get stuck on the bottom. That is pretty much it in a nut shell. Then I showed her a backhand cast.
Dad was following behind the canoe in his little pontoon boat. I talked Joyce through the casts and retrieves until she got the hang of it. I teach a lot of people how to fish and Joyce was my best student ever. She picked it up so naturally and was soon into her first fish of the day. It was a really good rainbow in fast water. She was using my spinner set up which was ultra light with six pound monofilament. So I set the drag pretty loose for her. As time went on, I taught her to tighten the drag during a fight as she gained control over the fish.
She even was able to hold a trout for a photo after a little encouragement of course. So here we are at a rapid and fast run with a good nymphing edge. Dad was working a couple of nymphs so I left Joyce to have some casts while I joined Dad. She starts shouting and out of the water jumps this massive brown, taking off downstream. I ran to the canoe, we jumped in and gave chase. The photo with Dad says it all!
But wait, it continued. Here we were by a big foaming eddy with trout rising. I thought we should wait for Dad and chuck on a dry fly but he was too busy upstream. So I told her to throw one in and boom, she hands another huge rainbow.
So then we got out at a shallow riffle and put a couple of wee wet flies on my rod. We waded out and I showed her a basic roll cast where the flies would swing around below her. She caught two little trout on a fly rod. I thought that was a great success. But she want to cast the spinner more.
So again, Dad is busy when we find the next foaming eddy that is boiling with rising trout. She caught two more big rainbows out of this one including the beast she released below.
Before we knew it the sun was already touching the hills. The day had gone so fast! Joyce landed 22 trout. She may as well retire from fishing after that.
Now Dad in the pontoon boat had a bit of a learning curve. Trying to float and fish in mostly swift water was a challenge. Getting out and fishing was a different story but he saw the value of being in the front of a canoe having someone else do all of the hard work.
