Directions

Directions are essential to fly fishing.  Being able to follow even the most vague of directions can net a large reward.  You know the kind. Go 3 miles past the first pullout and park in that pullout overlooking the big pool with a large boulder on the far bank.  Walk upstream 300 yards and start fishing there.  Of course, there are other kinds of directions as well.

Recently, while fishing with my buddy Joe, it occurred to me how important individual rocks and logs are on the stream.  We were watching two large browns in a pool and trying to keep the hand gestures to a minimum so as not to spook them.  See that reddish brown rock that is really flat? About halfway across and slightly upstream?  Those types of directions can be confusing at first, but as you start to really see the bottom of a trout stream, those directions make more and more sense.

Just the other day I came across the ideal direction rock, one that is easy to pick out and isolated enough so as not to be confusing.  What made the view even better was the more subtle direction rock also included in the picture.  If you were standing with me looking at this run, I'll bet you could pick out the nice bright quartz rock.  Just below it is a strip of reddish brown bedrock.  Using the quartz to help locate the bedrock makes the whole process much easier.  Such are the directions you might receive on a trout stream.