Weekly Reflection

 Weekly reflection:


This week I began to learn how to fly fish and how to tie my own flies. I learned a couple different fly fishing techniques. First, we started with high stick nymphing. Which includes using a hook that imitates bugs in a bug hatch, it is less back casting and more roll casting. This was thought to be more effective because the water in the rivers was incredibly low and clear. This makes fishing a lot more tedious. High stick nymphing helps reduce the amount of fly line that is touching the water so that the fish won’t be able to see the fishing line. Another fishing technique I learned was streaming. This is where you use a fly that imitates a small minnow in the water. This requires you to backcast upstream as far as possible and let the minnow swim upstream. My dad was also able to teach me how to tie a fly called a wooly bugger along with a few saltwater flies.

Although I learned a lot, not everything went as planned. I have gone fishing 5 times at 5 different rivers and was only able to catch one fish. Many factors could contribute to this. Some being my skill level, the water level, the amount of people who have fished the river in the past and many others. I am learning that fly fishing is incredibly tedious and most times does not guarantee a fish. It takes a lot of patience and trying different techniques in order to successfully fly fish. I was starting to get discouraged when I was not able to catch anything but I am focusing on learning more about how to fish and figuring out what I can do better. I am also able to make progress with my fly tying so that is helping me motivate myself to keep going. 

My end goal is to be able to fly fish alone on a river and be able to overcome any obstacles that I face by myself. Even though I have not caught many fish yet, I have made tremendous progress towards this goal.

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