Windy Day.

Today my son Kevin and I decieded we needed to hit the river. For the past two weeks we have been in the grip of a major winter beat down. Old Man Winter came a-knocking and overstayed his welcome by more than a little, but midway through this past week the sun started shining again and the snow started melting. Even though most folks don't refer to a 50 degree day as super warm, it beats the crap out of -12. So when the weather man said it was going to a nice day, Kev and I made plans.
We had to battle a bit of wind today, but that's a pretty normal thing out here. We hit up The Sand Sage or just "Sage" as the locals call it, a public wildlife area just a few miles down from the actual spring where the Republican starts. It's a small section of land of maybe 4 square miles where the Republican winds back and forth and back and forth. This is one of the areas most known for browns. The stream is really only about 20 to 30 feet wide in most places and not very deep, but the winding motion of the water creates cutbanks, pools, and eddies.
One of the really nice things about fishing small steams is that it's easy to eliminate fishless water. We just walk along heading upstream and fishing these cutbanks. After a few casts, if nothing bites, we move on to the next one. You could spend all day fishing one hole and changing every fly in your box if you wanted to, but the truth is these fish aren't very picky and if you don't hook up within a few casts chances are there is no fish there anyway.
Our flies of choice are pretty simple. During the winter months, we mostly use Soft Hackles of about any color in sizes 12-16, simple nymphs such as Zebras, and my personal fav the Buzzer. Quite honestly, it's the simplest fly in the world to tie, and the fish love them. Summer months have been good with the same nymphs but under a Micro Popper or a dry dropper setup such as a Elk Hair Caddis and a soft hackle. Any other kind of strike indicator would be pretty much useless here due to the shallow water.
Kevin is fishing an 8ft 5wt Bass Pro youth rod with a simple Shakespear Click and Pawl reel. Its a great little stick, honestly. And today I was using my new Eagle Claw Featherlight Glass rod. It was a first time for me using this rod. It's a 7ft 5/6wt with an Okuma Seirra Reel. This little rod was really what I have been looking for in a small stream fly rod. With a slower action and the shorter rod, hitting those pools from a distance was a breeze. This is not a fly caster friendly strech of water, and the short rod gets the job done with very little struggle.
We managed to catch a few chubs, lose a few flies, and generally have a pretty good father-son time. Kevin is really taking off with this fly fishing thing. He has yet to catch a fish on a fly but his persistance and detemination are strong, and I know when the day comes that he does hook up it's all going to come together. He is already light years ahead of me when I was his age. I had to teach myself everything from scratch. I'm hoping that this last bit of bad weather is a sign that winter is almost over. Soon the bluegills and bass will be on the move, and then it's game on.

Kevin two years ago with his first bass.