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Awesome trip. Fishing can be a solitary sport, but we never do it alone. What a great enhancement to have the flatfish from your dad. Having done a lot of remote pond solo fishing years ago, I can't resist asking.
Sometimes I had a canoe, sometimes not, but like you, I took fly and spin tackle, usually a Fenwick, a Medalist, and an Alcedo Micron. I would prospect with spinning gear, since it is usually quicker to find fish that way. But after a few fish, it would drive me nuts until I figured out a way to catch them on flies (other than by taking a nap until the evening hatch). Sometimes it was mimicking the spinning lure best I could with a comparable fly and presentation (slow stripping a streamer, lets say) and sometimes it was completely different. It was always a chance to experiment. Often I would think of fishing partners who weren't there and ask myself, "what would he do," and try that.
My Dad was an outdoorsman--canoeing, camping, hiking--but not an angler, so I didn't have him to "consult. " Maybe that made experimenting with fly tackle easier than sticking to tried and true. So I'd have had a Mickey Finn on a fly rod after two or three fish. If it didn't produce, I'd swap back to the spinning presentation to convince myself the fish were still there. That would last a fish or two and I'd be tying on another fly, a wolly worm, maybe. Once on a pond in the Selway Bitterroot, I went through a dozen flies until a royal coachman wet, stripped of all but a little of the peacock herl, started producing even better than a tiny Mepps spinner.
Was it Dad's specially tweaked up flatfish that let you stay with that all day? Between that, the fish, the rod, and the classic Mitchell 308, I can see why.
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Posted: 05 May 2019, 12:56 • 
