More of the 'mid.

I heard this lake called "the 'mid" recently-- and I like it, it's got a ring to it and won't be lost on people like when I call it "p-middy". So dumb, I know. I've never caught a crazy amount of fish at this lake (of course I've only fished it a handful of times)-- it's always just a two or three fish in a day with a few more bumps, taps & lost fish. But, if you haven't yet, you should check out this fish on the reno fly shop blog (I run that one too) to see why I keep going back!

So about a week and a half ago I had the chance to kill an entire day on this lake and I showed up at 6:30am with a shiny, cheap, new box from walmart full of bright fluffy hair & feathers and sparkle. As Justin would so eloquently put it: "these fish eat sparkly shit."

midnight cowboy in action:

I met my Pops and my brother in law and we got to casting-- two lure casters to one fly fisher. I think we should've started earlier because by 7am the wind had calmed down and sun beat down on smooth water. This isn't always the best scenario for bringing in the fish to casting range and they're more likely to stay deep. I promptly switched from fishing nymphs high in the water column to a 30ft 240gr sink tip (which is actually a blast to cast) and slow stripped a variety of big fluffy woolly buggers and foam beetles & tadpoles. A couple of hours in and I had the first hook-up:


This fish taped at 25" long -- a nice fish most places but nothing to write home about on this lake-- it was however enough (I think) to convince my Dad to switch to a fly rod. He rigged himself up and was casting for about an hour before I took a look at his rig-- let's be nice and say he probably wasn't going to catch anything on it, haha! I re-rigged him with some nymphs some casting tips and before I knew it he was into a fish. I was extremely happy that he was able to hook into a fish as, to be honest, I didn't think he was going to catch anything given the amount of fly casting he's done in the last 10 years:


It was a pretty average fish but could we maybe say it-- he's hooked? We'll see. Stillwater seem to be an equalizing sort of experience when talking fly vs. spin but I'll let you decide who the winner was this day:


By the end of the day I had put almost 12 hours of fishing in and landed only three fish but -- spending time with family, getting invaluable casting experience, and putting a first timer on a fish on a beautiful lake? Wouldn't miss it for the world.