Gone Fishin'

The day first day of the trip started out early, around 6:30am when I woke up, double checked everything I packed and ate breakfast. Shortly after that my roommate Mia drove me up to the overflow lot on campus where I met up with the rest of the group. We loaded up the trailer, waited for a few stragglers and hopped into the Van Terra. It was a long, bumpy ride to Utah filled with conversations, card games, sleep, and even a trip through the Green Glass Door. Somewhere between Craig and Utah I hit the power button on my phone, making the weekend an escape from technology. Once we arrived at our camp site we set up our tents and grouped up so John could brief us on the necessities for the day. We then grabbed the gear we neglected to pack and headed to the Flaming Gorge on the Green River for some fishin'.

I learned quickly that fly-fishing is quite the complicated science. Believe it or not one of the first things I learned is that in order to catch a fish you actually need to see them. This may seem like common sense to some people, but I'm used to the type of fishing where you put some bait on a hook, cast it out and wait for something to bite. In order to fly-fish you need to understand the fish you are trying to catch and their eating habits. When you look in the water you need to look at what type of eating they are doing. You then choose an appropriate fly to match those habits. Essentially you are trying to trick the fish into believing that what you are offering them is real food. And that's just the thinking part. Once you've figured all of that out you need to learn the proper technique for catching a fish.

On the second day of class we woke up around 7:30, ate some delicious breakfast burritos if I do say so myself, packed up our gear and headed back to the river. Since we had a full day ahead of us we were given three options. Our first was to go back to Little Hole, where we had gone the first day and fish. The second was the get dropped off at Little Hole and hike the gradual seven mile up hill hike to the dam throughout the day. And the third option was to get dropped off at the dam and fish there for ten hours. After much debate, my group decided to skip hiking and hang out around the dam for the day. Since Bruce, John and Tim (the teachers) decided they wanted to hike we were left with very little aid. We had to rely on our minimal knowledge of the sport in hopes of catching a fish. Needless to say, no one in our group caught anything that day. My friend Ryan got a bite but that was about the extent of our excitement. We watched fish swim up to our flies, check them out then blatantly reject them as if they were only putting on a show to get our hopes up.

After losing four or five flies without even so much as a bite, my spirits were down. I had pretty much given up hope for catching anything. I attempted a few more flies before we hiked back up to the vans and waited for everyone to regroup.

On day three it was time to leave. We packed up camp and then headed to the river for one final attempt at fishing. Although I never caught anything on the trip I did manage to get a bite. It was difficult watching a kid posted about fifteen feet up the river catch a fish but it was also really exciting to watch. Overall it was a very relaxing trip. I learned more about fly-fishing than I could have ever imagined and had a great time in the process! Oh, and did I mention it counted for one of my mandatory physical education credits?