Fishing Report: Lidia

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Yesterday Lidia started saying, "Take me fishing!" Over and over. She's bored.

So we went.

We launched over by the channel. My plan was to head over to the big bay where I had seen the Drakes the other evening.

We got there a lot faster with two paddlers than I would have alone.

Not to say she always paddled. It was another hot day and she figured out some ways to keep cool.

We started out with generic nymphs under indicators. There were fish rising all around but on this day they weren't going for the nymphs.

So I tied a CDC Caddis on my line, a grey fly with a mottled plastic underwing, another of the Orvis flies I got from John. I got a rise to it, so we changed tactics. I handed my rod to Lidia. She was the sport, I was the guide.

I paddled her slowly up along the bank and she began to get hits. She missed a few, and then hooked a little fish who tangled her in the willows. It got off, and we had to break off that fly.

Things got personal for Lidia. She insisted on staying right there and catching that little fish who had disrespected her. Then she saw a nice fish swim by and decided to range along the bank some more looking for him.

She did a pretty good job flipping the fly out along the shoreline, and pretty soon she got another hookup and landed the first fish.

Things were perfect, the kind of evening I've been looking for. The water was calm, Drakes were hatching here and there, and the fish were up and active.

The fish, at least most of them, didn't seem to be keying on the duns, but the grey Caddis seemed to be a good combination of emerger and dun, especially as it got wetter. Lidia did great, although I'm sure I sounded like John teaching me how to fish the Henry's Fork. She'd cast and then, for some reason, look away, or maybe scratch at her mosquito bites--they were a factor--and miss some takes.

When I would remonstrate, she'd just say, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." Or, "Don't get so excited!" She caught four. The best one she handled all by herself.

I didn't catch a single fish, and I had a great time.