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Well since this past Friday my oldest son, Austin, and I have been bachelors. The wife and the other 2 young'ns have been in eastern Washington visting her Mom. So after a serious skunking on Saturday fishing for kings, Austin said that he would like to try a fly rod on a little creek. So being the obliging Dad that I am, I took him to my favorite little creek, Pilchuck Creek. This is a great place for a youngster to get to play with a fly rod and be successful in the quarry, so they don't get bored. When I say successful in fighting or bringing to hand young steelhead fry and at certain times of the year cutthroat I mean it is generally non-stop action. So we went and I took along the little Heddon #8381 along with a small box of flies, mostly dries, soft hackles, and a few nymphs.
When we got there I was amazed at how the river has changed since I was there last fall when we were going through some flooding. In some spots I will surely visit again when the salmon start to run up the creek. Once that starts the cutthroat will be in there with them, and after all the "new hiding spots" in the river ( complete trees that have been un-rooted) there is surely to be some whiley senior cutties hiding in these new digs!!!
Anyways, the one thing that wasn't happening was that the usual activity that is going on with every pass of the soft hackle or dry wasn't even occuring. I don't know what has happen. I wouldn't think that the floods we had last fall would devour any eggs, especially since the trout don't spawn until the spring. Every hole, slot, back eddy, and seam was null and void of any life. I could't figure it out and I was starting to fustrated. I mean, my oldest has now really started to get into learning the ways of the force and the fish weren't there to play along. My constant encourgement was only going so far. I've come to learn that the encourgement that a child feels when THEY make that cast, THEY make a mend, the FISH is either tagging his offering or taking it, and THEY land it. I think it is then that a child truely sees that it doesn't matter that much how is cast might look, or how he/she drifts the fly, if the whole process was good enough for a trout to at least hit their fly let along take it, then it was just fine.
Sorry for the rambling, long story short, the fish didn't come out to play that day, but we both learned some things about each other and we enjoyed each others company. I think it was a good time for him to be out there with Dad, especially since he thinks Dad has been kind of hard on him lately. It's that FAMOUS age when a young man starts to think that he might be a little "tougher" then his old man. (yes we had the father/son sex talk last weekend, haha)
Here are a few shots of that "manely" day, hopefully next time the fish will be a little more playful!!!