In a post earlier this year, I wrote about our first trip together after dad had completed chemo-therapy and surgery for colon cancer. After a few complications this summer, doctors have now cleared dad. This trip celebrated the end of all the recent nonsense -- he is once again cancer-free and feeling great.
Yesterday morning, the weather showed high-60s, moderate winds and partly cloudy. The US Army Corps of Engineers report for Lake Tenkiller dam indicated that all water releases would be completed by about noon.
We were on the water just after 12:30. Dad and I rigged up from the back of his pickup in the parking lot and walked along the river until we found a suitable spot not too far from where a few other flyfishermen were working the water.
Along the path, I asked someone returning to the parking lot if he had any advice. "Black and silver and small." He noted that the fish were midging on top.
Dad wanted a bead-head Hare's Ear, and I had tied on an olive Wooly Bugger. After a few casts I changed to a small blood worm that our friend Scott Hood had tied and given us earlier in the year.
There is that awkward moment when standing mid-stream. You've been casting your heart out for an hour with no reward. Meanwhile other locals around you are pulling in fish with relative ease. About that time, dad got a strike. He noted that the retrieve was very slow. I quickly changed to an emerger pattern and tried the same. Sure, enough, the strikes started and I managed to bring one to the surface but he got off. Dad was getting good strikes as well but no cigar.
Just as I was starting to lose hope, dad hooked up and I maneuvered downstream, reminding him to keep his rod tip up high. I extended my net, and dad had his first trout caught on a fly and brought to hand.
The action picked up then and we were both getting good takes and bringing in fish. It was a lot of fun, and I'd say in the next hour or so we did even better than those nearby fishermen. We just needed to get our river legs beneath us.
Living where I do in the Pacific Northwest, where the dark, cold, wetness is well underway, it was nice to stand in the sunny warmth of a late November afternoon in my home state of Oklahoma. It was even nicer to see my dad get into some fish. He's an old timer at fishing and a relative newcomer to fly fishing. But his old instincts have advanced his skills pretty quickly. His cast, practiced a little over the past few days in our backyard pond, looked very good. And his ability to make adjustments to the conditions will enable him to fish any stream in the years to come.
In this blog I am always looking for what I can take away from each fishing trip. From this one it was clear right away. I learned to get even ore enjoyment out of someone else's enjoyment of flyfishing. It's a great lesson and even greater feeling.
