I sucked

Pride comes before a fall. Prior to our Argie trip, my Skagit casting was good. Not great, but I could bang a cast out off either shoulder. Post Patagonia I didn't pick up a rod but my mates' photos of nice fresh run 'bows from the Tongariro fueled my hankering to get down and boom out some casts. My #7 was still over at Coch's place and he was away so I'd use the #4 with a 325g skagit head and appropriate tip. I'd show those fish who was boss. I'd put the fly right in their face. All I had to do was show up....

Show up we did! Layla almost immediately found a dirty old crap left by some mongrel who clearly couldn't be fkd digging a hole. She rolled in it. That wasn't going to stop me. But what did stop me was... I simply couldn't skagit cast. Off-shoulder I could bang out a line one in five times but that was it. I was screwed. I couldn't diagnose what the hell was going wrong. I messed around with tips. I messed around. I fished with zero confidence. By some marvel I managed to bank a couple of really dumb fish. I got some more tugs.. but the whole time my lack of ability was killing me. I sat down and talked to myself. The dog looked at me like I was mental. Some of the best swinging water on the river may as well have been a mud bath for all the good I was doing. I blamed the head - it was the first time I'd fished that combo and it was gonna be the last too...

But still, it was bloody awesome to be out.

Last night Coch and I were heading over to the Auckland Fresh Water Anglers Club to participate in a show and tell discussion on our Patagonian adventure and we got to talking. He'd swung up some awesome fish on Sunday - using the exact same setup I'd been using. He'd banged out good long straight fishing casts all day and was rewarded with some awesome fish. He raved about that 325g skagit. I told him about my abject failure. And that's when he told me about his steelhead adventure on the Santa Cruz - he'd found himself in the same place I'd arrived at and said he was a bit dejected to have pretty much wasted 2 of his 3 days on a legendary river. Jase had picked up a copy of Tom Larimer's Skagit Revolution DVD on his return, and had diagnosed a couple of faults that had hindered him. I've got the DVD now. Lots of practice needed....