As most of you in the Midwest know, our own world renowned fly tying quantity champion, BH Boobie, has been fishing a couple of times this season with the
following results-zippo, nada, skunkereno, leaving a great number of amused fish in his wake. This truly amazes me, because he doesn't go anywhere without
200 lbs of assorted gear, and you'd think with that amount of stuff, he'd luck into one by accident.
So, today, in exchange for a little manual labor on his part to help out a deserving and gracious older person, I offered to take him fishing to see what the problem was. We began with some definitions. I had to explain that an LDR was only possible if you had first hooked the fish, not merely getting the fly within a couple of feet of it. Then, realizing that he does tie a lot of flies, I had to advise him that losing a couple of dozen on every trip really cuts into his fishing time.
Then, noticing he had brought along 4 plastic rods and one bamboo rod, we had a conversation about what would happen if he even got one of the plastic rods out of its tube. He reluctantly put the boo rod together, and we got down to business.
After getting the briefing completed, and the boo vs. plastic rod thing settled, we went down to the first pool, where there were fish everywhere, and where he promptly missed the first four strikes. Then, miracle of miracles, he actually hooked one and it stayed on until it was into his net. I actually took a picture of this because I know a lot of people are going to be saying that I'm lying about this, but it's true- The boy finally caught one. (No kidding, Dennis, he really did!)
The day went on, and he caught about one spotted dace per 5 chubs, but what the hell, give him a break. Especially when it's 40 degrees, windy and raining, anything with gills counts in my book.
We finally called it a day when I couldn't feel my hands or feet anymore, but not before I proclaimed the day a huge success. BH Boobie had his first fish of the year, after only about 36 hours on the stream, and I hope to get some feeling back in my toes and fingers by the 4th of July.
gofish
So, today, in exchange for a little manual labor on his part to help out a deserving and gracious older person, I offered to take him fishing to see what the problem was. We began with some definitions. I had to explain that an LDR was only possible if you had first hooked the fish, not merely getting the fly within a couple of feet of it. Then, realizing that he does tie a lot of flies, I had to advise him that losing a couple of dozen on every trip really cuts into his fishing time.
Then, noticing he had brought along 4 plastic rods and one bamboo rod, we had a conversation about what would happen if he even got one of the plastic rods out of its tube. He reluctantly put the boo rod together, and we got down to business.
After getting the briefing completed, and the boo vs. plastic rod thing settled, we went down to the first pool, where there were fish everywhere, and where he promptly missed the first four strikes. Then, miracle of miracles, he actually hooked one and it stayed on until it was into his net. I actually took a picture of this because I know a lot of people are going to be saying that I'm lying about this, but it's true- The boy finally caught one. (No kidding, Dennis, he really did!)
The day went on, and he caught about one spotted dace per 5 chubs, but what the hell, give him a break. Especially when it's 40 degrees, windy and raining, anything with gills counts in my book.
We finally called it a day when I couldn't feel my hands or feet anymore, but not before I proclaimed the day a huge success. BH Boobie had his first fish of the year, after only about 36 hours on the stream, and I hope to get some feeling back in my toes and fingers by the 4th of July.
gofish
I almost punctured him with my cleats once on the Rapidan because I didn't
see him under foot. 
