Here is a “two day” trip report from Dan Staggenborg. He writes that it’s all about luck – I don’t think it is. What do you think?

It’s all about luck, really. As much as I’m tempted to hint at some level of skill, I just can’t do so in fairness. 

Sure, there’s a small percentage of having something “not totally unsuitable” on the end of your fly line. But stumbling into the right place, at the right time has more to do with the eventual outcome, I’m convinced. 

I had 2 such days last Wednesday and Thursday in 2 quite different places that turned lucky for me. 

The first adventure was at my brother in law’s farm pond which has some very nice fish and a ton of hand sized bluegill (along with many hand sized crappie and bass). Being addicted to fly fishing I always try my fly rod first. 

In the past I’ve had great luck catching bluegill by euro nymphing a small gold headed jig with turkey butt feathers. It was designed to look like a small minnow. I had fished it for a dozen casts and was thinking it might NOT work at all when I got a fairly hard hit and a ferocious pull which turned out to be a catfish. The biggest challenge was to try keep the fish from breaking off and getting tangled on the dock posts on one side or in the sunken tree branches on the other. Keeping steady tension on the rod and letting the fish run when he wanted to, I was able to finally let it wear itself out. 

I was rewarded with Pretty nice catfish (maybe 5 lbs) on the fly rod ! Not bad…

The very next day I met my good buddy Jim Craig down at TanVat with the intention of fishing from the cable below Montauk down to TanVat where we left a car. 

I figured it would take 3-4 hours max; It ended up being a solid 6 hours since we fished each hole rather than just passing through. 

Initially I tried a hopper dropper setup.  After a dozen casts, hooked and lost a fish on the red zebra dropper which must have come loose from the hopper. Tied on again. A few minutes later a small rainbow come up and take the hopper which broke off and lost both the hopper plus the dropper (grrr….) 

Fished a bit further and picked up a fish or two down to the turn at the bluff. There was an interesting eddy that had trout sipping spinners off the surface with very fast, very deep water between me and the eddy. Wading out until waist deep and keeping my flyline up high and out of the current, I was able to float a dry fly (elk hair caddis) into the eddy, I got a couple strikes and picked up a small 10 inch trout which swallowed my fly. Rather than kill the fish,  ( very nobly) I clipped off the fly and released the little bugger. 

Jim was moving downstream and picking up a fish here and there, while Euro nymphing a double nymph rig using a blowtorch and a zebra midge (first red, then later black). I tried a variety of different methods which didn’t work: like various nymphs under an indicator, stripping streamers and a crackleback. 

Some hours later, we reached a spot in the stream  against a bluff which was knee deep and about a foot deeper near the opposite shore. I could see some fish in among the cooler sized rocks, but got no interest myself. Once while casting my full sink line and the crackleback, I inevitably got stuck on the only branch around for 30 feet. 

My fly hung down from my tippet just to within 1 inch of my farthest outstretched fingers. If I pulled on the fly line, the fly would have moved up even higher. But it was tantalizingly sooooo close. 

With what seemed like a good idea at the time, I jumped to grab the fly to pull the whole mess out of the tree. Not really a good plan, it turned out…

When I jumped and grabbed the fly it impaled in my index finger, I lost my balance coming down and fell torso down into the knee deep water filling my waders and wetting the contents of my sling pack. My buddy Jim helped me up, somehow without laughing and I got the hook out (another reason for going barbless). I gathered myself switching back to floating fly line, tying on a different fly. 

During the few minutes afterward, Jim Craig hooked into a very nice brown trout, one of the biggest and most beautiful I’d ever seen using a small black zebra midge. After a nice steady fight, the fish was in the net and pictures were being taken.  Bad karma had peaked and good karma was glowing all around us. The colorful yellow bellied female measured very nearly 20 inches. A great, memorable fish ! 

Shortly afterward Jim got tangled. [Being admittedly clumsy I don’t use 2 flies myself since I tangle easily.] 

Jim kindly and generously invited me to try that same spot with my wet pants and shirt while he worked on his rig. 

I had a black zebra on already, so right away, I hooked and landed a nice fat 18” rainbow, which made me forget my hooked finger and the water in each wader boot. 

A couple casts later while my heart was still pumping fast, I hooked, played and landed a nice brown trout myself. It measured at least 16” but was nowhere near the beauty that Jim had caught.

I was pretty satisfied at that point, going straight from the sh**-house to the penthouse!

All those aggravations and defeats from earlier seemed to melt away, painted over by my and Jim’s great fortune at the end. 

We were still 300 yards from the car and I didn’t have any more luck the rest of the way. Sloshing back to the car with a gallon of water in each wader leg, It just didn’t seem to matter. 

For two days in a row, Lucky rather than good, won out in the end to cap off a couple of great adventures in vastly different settings. 

Moral of the story: Get on the water as much as you can, you never know what will happen. 

-DanStag