My dad-in-law and I went to Bell Cow Lake this weekend to do some fishing. It’s near Chandler, Oklahoma and just 45 minutes east of OKC. It’s a very nice lake with lots of open shore access and fishly looking areas. Since I got a fly fishing rod for Christmas, I thought now would be a good time to break it in. We hit three of the four areas of the lake.

For the first area, I didn’t even bother putting the leader on. I just practiced casting and got pretty good after about 30 minutes or so, though the wind didn’t help. It still didn’t quite click, and in a moment of discouragement I remembered the gift of technology in form of my iPhone. One Youtube fly fishing video later, I remembered the technique and did much better. Blisters we starting to form on my hand and my thumb started hurting.

The second area was on the east side of the lake. After my casting success previously I decided to go all out and put the leader and a wooly bugger on. I bravely cast a few times, somehow lost my first wooly bugger after a few dozen casts and decided my tackle box was too far away and my hands hurt too much to continue. I never had a bruise in my thumb until that day; it doesn’t feel good.

The last area was by far the nicest. Lots of open shoreline. My decision to stop fishing for the day was overruled by the awesome fishing potential, so I grabbed my rod and started casting. A few guys were driving up in their pickup into the parking lot and seemed to be watching my awesome casting skills. I wonder what they were thinking…

My streamer got stuck after one of the casts and while I was trying to get it loose, I apparently used enough force for it to snap back behind me and snuggly attach to my t-shirt. It didn’t hurt, but was quite difficult to get out So much for awesome casting skills.

I had a really good time even though I didn’t catch a thing. Oh, and weight forward line does indeed mean that the thick end of the line is in the front. I put it on the wrong way, so casting should get a lot easier once I get that right

Related posts:

1. Fly fishing for the win!