New Fishing Friends

Saturday, Dean and David Barrett rode up from Wichita Falls to fly-fish the river Blue. Dean picked up the fly rod about a year ago and had made two previous trips to Blue looking for his first Blue River trout on a fly rod. David would also be looking for his first Blue River bow on a fly rod and this modern day Marco Polo would indeed find that first bow. In addition, Dean would find his first ever Blue trout with a fly rod...plus ten or eleven more.



We got started about 9:30 Saturday and I don't know how we could have asked for a better day. The temperature was in the high 50's with a slightly overcast sky. The river had been fished really hard this past week with the pretty weather and all, so we decided to visit the south wilderness in hopes of finding fewer anglers. Wishful thinking that would prove to be and it didn't take us long to realize a lot of other anglers were out and about.



Our first stop was Coyote Pass and it would be here that Dean would capture his first ever Blue bow on an olive yellow bugger. It didn't take long... Dean hooked the fish within the first five minutes of fishing. The fishing was spotty however so we decided to move on and look for other water.



Our biggest problem Saturday was simply finding a good spot to fish that hadn't already been claimed so we ended up moving around a lot. Buggers were fished primarily and it was at the Cove that David found his first ever Blue bow on a bugger.

We switched gears upstream and Dean tied on a Prince Nymph and found another bow using this fly. We ended up walking all the way to the end and Dean and I waded out on the sandbar and here we found lots of bows willing to do battle but hook-sets were hard to come by.

Earlier in the day I told Dean about Desperado Springs and how we'd catch it on the way back which we did, and it was here Dean would put on a show battling bows. Armed with the olive yellow bugger Dean started battling bows pretty much at will, one after another, and each battle brought a wider grin to Dean's face.

We had a wonderful outing and between the three of us we battled around thirty bows. The river is mainly clear with some off-coloring and the flow is really good which makes the fly-fisher re-examine techniques. All day long I knew our flies needed added shot but having lost my needle nose pliers adding split was going to be difficult.

We finished our day around 3:30 and although I didn't admit it to Dean or David... I was spent. Old legs tend to give out rather easily. Dean and David were staying the night and I'm sure they are on the river as I sit at this laptop.

I hope we all get to fish together again someday.