A little story

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Date: April 19, 2006 at 00:30:00
From: ken, [pool-64-223-38-40.prov.east.verizon.net]
Subject: A little story

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Date: April 17, 2006 at 12:19:51
From: ken, [pool-64-223-38-40.prov.east.verizon.net]
Subject: Re: a little story

One spring day many many years ago I went fishing with a good friend of mine.
He like so many of you on these boards was a Lawyer which is not at all relevant to this story.

It was about mid morning when we drove up to a very good place to fish. We were not disappointed. There were fish everywhere. There were fish to the right of us and fish to the left. There were fish far out and fish close in. Fish, fish,fish and not another angler in sight.
We didn’t even have to put on our boots, just grab our rods and fish.

They were milling and waking and rolling and bumping into each other. It was a rolling roily melee of fishiness. So we fumbled and stumbled and shouted with glee and made our first casts and then our second and then and then and then…
No fish.

We stopped and thought and changed flies. We tried our imitators and our attractors and our secret new flies and our secret old flies and each others flies and big flies and little flies and … Nothing

I made a cast and retrieved and another and a fish rolled off to the left and my line was out so I leaned forward and started to lift my line from the water for a backcast and as the fly sped to the surface BAM. Fish on.
I caught a fish!
I landed it and made another cast and stripped the fly as fast as I could and several started chasing it and I stopped and they turned away.

So right then and there I made a decision.

I started all over again at th beginning with all my favorite and un-favorite fly’s and junk fly’s and dumb fly’s and all the rest of my thingy fly’s and fly’s people had given me to try, fly’s - and I experimented continuously and scientifically with many fly’s to learn all I could learn about fishing with all my many flies on this glorious May Day that had started out with such difficulty.
And learn I did.

I caught one fish on every fly that I could not catch a fish on earlier...

It was a successful experiment!

I missed some (dull hooks) and I caught some and every fly worked
except one.
I found the one fly that would not work that day and my day was complete.

I am not going to tell you what it was.
You will have to find that fly for yourself.
It is a popular fly. All the writers love it.

These fish were fussy fish.
I could not catch a single one or get a look from any
UNTIL
I stripped that fly in as fast as I could move it.
Too slow
Nothing but there was a, “Magic Speed”
where every fish would line up to commit suicide on cue.
That is reaction strike fishing.

It is a powerful aphrodisiac to a fisherman’s ego.

It is the aberrant stuff that made cast and strip the only way to go in the salt.
Tuck that rod under the arm put on the intermediate and the little jig and BAM fish on every cast.
The right fly is the ticket to success as long as it has a hook and you move it like a speed boat - you will have a great day.

By the way,

Reaction strike thinking is what modern salt water fly fishing is based on.
It is very effective because of the, "Skill" of the anglers.
Like I said; it is an aphrodisiac to fishermen’s ego’s.

I think my Lawyer friend and I must have passed
the hatchery truck going into that pond
but we didn’t notice it.
I caught my largest R.I. born Brook Trout that day.
The technique works great on opening day too!

Posted with TalkShop version 2.71-8

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