My father in law and I went fly fishing when they visited a couple weeks back. My father in law is a great fisherman. He's got all the gear, knows all about fish and rivers and lakes... the whole nine yards. I on the hand know very little. My fishing expertise is limited to grade school fishing in streams and ponds of Wisconsin.Now that we live in Idaho, fly fishing is THE thing. Apparently Idaho offers some of the best fly fishing in the lower 48. We can even drive downtown and fly fish for trout in the Boise River as it passes through town. Pretty cool really. So Dad and I took a class from Cabellas in the summer. We learned how to tie our flies onto the line properly so they wouldn't fly away on the first cast, how to cast twenty feet on the high school baseball field... lots of hands on practical stuff.
After investing a small fortune in the sport Dad and I have hit the river twice now. We went once last fall when it was still warm out. This last time it was definitely not warm out. We waded into a river cold from snow run off and my feet froze stiff in five minutes. My fingers were numb and I managed to set free a number of flies having discovered it's harder to tie them on in the river than in the classroom. It's also harder to cast twenty feet in the river than on the baseball field. I can manage fifteen but that's my limit. And speaking of limits... Dad and I hit our limit of half a dozen flies lost that morning after about three hours.
