Avid fisherman Lou and guest of my brother-in-law, Bruce, had a tall order along with me today: convert golf maven Bruce to fly fishing for steelhead! Well, I’m here to report that, contrary to what you may have heard or experienced, golfers are not a lost cause to fly fishing. Despite hooking a number of steelhead which, during the tussles to bring them to the boat, any number of unforeseen developments occurred—all to be expected for a newcomer to fly fishing—Bruce, perhaps much to his surprise, found himself totally absorbed and enjoying the entire experience! Turns out, Bruce is a closet caster; once he found his groove, he laid out beautiful cast after beautiful cast. Very cool to see a guy whom one knows well digging an activity entirely new to him! Great job, Bruce! Welcome to the fraternity of fly fishers!
Here Lou poses with a bright hen that munched his egg fly first thing in the morning. Lou also fought a boss hog buck for at least 10 minutes only to watch the steelhead leap close to the boat and fall back on the tippet, breaking it off in an instant. I loved Lou’s rejoinder, though, to his losing what was one of the largest steelhead I’ve seen this year: “Hey, he gave me a great battle, and I would have released him anyway so no problem!” That’s a guy who gets it, to be sure.
All in all, a great day with Lou concurring with me that maybe, just maybe, we converted golfer Bruce to what I hope will be more days of chasing chrome in his future.
Captain Tom Kuieck