Persistance Pays Off

In my opinion, the largest difference in fishing ability is strictly a result of persistence. Perseverance is what separates the men from the boys, the posers from the real deal. Those that put in their time learning a stream and how to fish it are invariably the most successful fisherman. My buddy Joe Mcgroom is one of the most dedicated fisherman I've ever met. He will spend as much time looking for fish as he does actually fishing, sometimes even more. When we fished together and he finally caught the nice 13 inch brown on Little River, I got to watch him in action and see how he would approach a difficult fish.

Recently he found a nice brown trout on Little River. Of course, there are good numbers of nice fish but knowing that they are there and actually finding them are two distinctly different things. This past Monday, amid cold temperatures and intermittent snowfall, he decided to try and catch this fish. The horrible weather conditions made it uncomfortable for him, but the fish felt safer with the low light. Here's what happened next:

I spotted the fish in the same position as the last time I missed him. After rigging up my nymphs, the fish started to rise periodically. I switched to a dry but was unable to get him to eat anything. It snowed the whole time on me, and my hands were going numb from changing flies so often. I tried just about every nymph and dry in my box until he finally rose to a small, dark dry fly. After several tense jumps and a brief run, I netted the fish, took a couple pictures, and released it.

When I talked to Joe after he had caught the fish, the excitement in his voice was obvious. I would have been excited also if I had caught a 17" brown on Little River after working as hard as he did. Despite making it sound almost routine, Joe worked this fish for over 2 hours before hooking and landing it. Most people would have given up long before, but he persisted and was amply rewarded...