Reattack

The art of the missed hookset is nuanced and complex. Like most artforms, grasping one aspect of the missed hook set does not translate into a full understanding and mastery of the overall process. It takes a greater level of skill to miss the hook set on a trout after years of experience, but truly great fly fishermen and women do not succumb to complacency in the other aspects of the sport they love, so it follows that the art of missing hook sets is no different.

Getting skunked. It happens. But it’s not about catching fish, right? It’s about wading through a beautiful trout stream. The stillness of being alone with your own thoughts in nature. The rhythms of casting and mending line. Spending time with the people you care about. Are these not the special reasons we go fly fishing? Sure they are… but I still want to catch fish.

When I pulled off the road and parked next to the South Platte River, I knew I was returning to a special place.

The first time I fished Mammoth Creek, I drove past them. The fences were weathered grey and white cedar bleached by the sun. Faded and torn, the old coral melded into the tall grass along the river. Part of the landscape. I noticed them just before the gravel road took me up a small hill behind wide oak trees that reached over and made a tunnel for my small white truck. I drove on until I knew that those worn posts had been the landmark. “The Corals”. Then I travelled further through the beams of light that penetrated the trees and strobed off the white gravel until I found a spot where I could make a three point turn and drive back through my dust cloud towards The Corals and access to the river.

Fly fishing is problem solving in the pursuit of fish. Fishing a dropper solves many problems, but when and how to do it still “depends”. Upon what? For me, a lot ---