Presentation is Everything...or is it?

Any experienced fly angler will tell you that presentation is the most integral part of getting a fish to take your fly.  On almost every cast we are mending to get a dead drift or a perfect swing. Other times we are stripping line or moving the rod to impart that tantalizing or antagonizing motion to elicit a strike.



Big flies for big fish



Sowith that said , I was on the water the other day with my friend Ron going after some big browns with big flies.  We had been in the water for a couple hours, had one fish to hand already, and were just starting to get into the good stretch of the river.  Suddenly, my phone began to ring in my chest pocket.  I normally don't answer my phone on the river, but today I was expecting an  important call that I knew I had to take.  I waded over to the river bank so I could put my fly rod down and answer the call.  As I was finishing my conversation Ron caught up to me and we took a few minutes to catch up about what color flies and presentations were moving fish.  After a few minutes I picked up my rod to resume moving downstream. I dumped my slack line out to the middle of the river to get ready to start casting again.  As I turned to say one last thing to Ron I put my boot right into a gap between two rocks and promptly lost my footing.  After some serious arm flailing I was able to quickly catch myself and came up with nothing more than a wet arm.  While Ron and I were having a good laugh my streamer had managed to swing downstream about 20-25 feet from where we standing.  All of the sudden my fly rod lurched so hard it almost ripped itself out of my hand.  Instinctively, I set the hook and felt a strong tug on my line as my rod bent towards the water.  

Literally falling into an 18" brown trout



My eyes were the size of silver dollars by this time and I was able to get over the sheer shock of what was going on and had a decent sized fish bulldogging like crazy trying to spit out my fly.  A few minutes later we snapped a picture of an 18" trout that had to be pretty embarrassed when he finally met up with his fish buddies and apologized for being late because he got caught by an idiot that fell in the river.  This isn't the largest trout that have caught on the river, heck it wasn't even the biggest fish caught that afternoon, but it is one that l will remember for a long time though.  I guess the moral of the story is that it's better to be lucky sometimes than it is to be good,  maybe it is to just go out on the river and have fun, or it could simply be the next time your phone rings on the river be sure to answer it? I guess it just goes to show that you never know what is going to happen on the river.  Get out there and have fun!