It is the second weekend of June and I am finally joining Paul Haan and Eric Doyle with Eric's Friend Jamison for a weekend of fly fishing. This would , for Jamison and me, be our first fly fishing excursion and it quickly became clear that we had a lot to learn as we tried to catch our first fish out of the Muskegon River.
Fly fishing is a more involved activity than you might first think. I am confident that their are scores, if not hundreds, of species of flies that one can use that try and entice various fish to strike and impale themselves upon a hook. The flies you use change depending on the time of year, what is hatching, what is turning from nymph to fly (I think) and what the fish are doing. You may try different flies at different times of the day ; you might try using more than one fly at a time; you might move you line in different ways to make a fish think the fly is more like a real tasty morsel than not. Of course, most times you will fail to catch a fish - it's a good thing we about catch and release and not trying to put food on our tables.
While I doubt I'll ever be an active fisherman, if for no other reason than logistics of getting to fishing holes, I did enjoy my attempt at fly fishing. I am sure their are other people with very limited vision who fish, taking advantage of welcomed help by those who can see and know what they're doing, and I'm quite happy I was able to join the fishing community.
A trip video on YouTube is here.
