“We sure are losing a lot of beadheads Pop.”
“I bet there’s a trout in there.” If you have ever uttered these words, odds are you were right. At the same time, if it looks too hard to reach, it probably is. I say there is a middle ground, and you might just surprise yourself. If the spot is truly challenging, chances are you are the only one to go for it. That can be a big advantage in more ways than one.
When I pulled off the road and parked next to the South Platte River, I knew I was returning to a special place.
The beginning is special. It is in the beginning that the bond forms. After the excitement of something new wears off. When you are not catching fish. When you have to re-tie your knots. When the fish are rising to everything except your fly. It may not seem like it. And you may not notice it, but these are the times when something special happens between you and the river and the fish you chase.
It had been too long since I made it to the river. I was at a new job with the airlines and had been living in Kansas City for about a year. It was high time for a fly fishing trip to re-cage. I set my mind on some good old fashioned, summer dry fly fishing in the Rocky Mountains.
I was twenty-two years old when I put the chapel spires of the USAF Academy in my rearview mirror for the last time, pointed my burgundy Volvo North, fly rod sticking out the window, and set out for the Rocky Mountains with my best friend in trail formation.
Across the river a trout is happily filling his belly with bugs.