First Practice Session with Oliver's 10 wt Fly Rod

We cast for an hour, and will need to spend more hours yet. I shot 40 foot casts with the leader rolling out straight, but still seemed to have the line sweeping to my right as if the first would take off the head of our charter Captain. We borrowed Oliver's 10 wt, 9 foot Scott rod and Orvis reel to practice for South Carolina in November. Redfish, possibly seatrout and other species sight fishing flats won't be easy to approach. I already made arrangements for spinning just in case, but this is  a big deal. We'll be out 8 hours and the $600.00 price is good; added to plane fare, car rental, motel, and meals, it will add up to a lot. All the money for this trip I've earned writing fishing articles, and I have yet a more money earned by them. I figure I better spend most of it before Matt moves on to the best college his excellent grades earns. So little time left with our son.

Not that anything's wrong with spinning, but you have to admit there's a special romance about fly fishing. I want to get on the casting deck and fly fish. I want to drop a shrimp pattern on a redfish's nose. I want to hook and catch five pounders. 15 pounders are seldom caught. But if the Captain blows the whistle on us, OK, we'll spin fish. Who knows, maybe wind will blow 40 knots. You can practice six hours a week, and if it's a bad day all of that's out for this trip.

We enjoyed our hour and will enjoy more. I'm on vacation for two weeks and mostly working around the clock, writing my book on fishing and performing other writing tasks. Nothing is more obsessive than writing. It gets hard to live your ordinary life. You tell yourself you don't have time to practice fly casting. But then you go to the field; you enjoy it, and you think about how you're spending so much for five days away in South Carolina, but that's not it, really. It's that you should make it special because it is special. Besides, the tensions of writing, writing, writing, and then trying to reorient around other daily demands can use a little relaxation, and casting provided this.

 Matt didn't get the rod quite level on release. He pointed it a little too low.