New Mexico. The Fishing.

The tranquility of the water. The early bird chirping of the early bird. The sun peeking over the horizon, slowly warming the ground and casting off the fog floating lazily across the land. The half open eyelids and groggy plodding towards the fishing ground to hopefully catch a large slimy fish and unhook a metal hook from its mouth in triumph.

This is early morning fishing.

We fished later in the day, too, though. The area provided to fish was enormous. The ranch had 7 small lakes, each stocked with trout. There were rainbow trout, brook trout, brownies... I also caught an awesome 2" brook trout, which is pictured here. There was also a river running the length of the property and beyond, with small pools set up at different intervals along the stream. So you could fish a small patch of the river, or spend a little time at your own personal pool trying your luck.

They really split everything up well, dividing the different areas up by room. At dinner the night before, you would draw a number. After every room had picked, you would go in order and select which station you would like to fish. Any one of the 12 stations along the river, or you could pick a lake. This kept it open enough that you wouldn't have three rooms worth of people trying to fish the same patch of river.

At lunch, you could sign up for another spot of water, without the burden of trying to remember the number you picked. We weren't here to think. We were here to fish.

Any station left open could be fished by anyone. Since we had three rooms in our group, we were able to arrange our choices in line with each other. So we would pick, say, Lake 4 and 5 and station 6 on the river, or something. That way, we could all switch around as we liked.

My personal favorite was fishing the river. The third day of fishing, we all chose sections 10, 11, and 12 on the river. That put us as far upstream you could get and still be fishing within the stocked areas of the river. The further up you went, the less man-made the areas became. So when you kept going past 12, as my Dad and I did several times, it got a little harder to traverse but a lot more fun to fish. At one point I found a small little natural pool in a river and caught 4 fish within a 5 minute span (I hooked about 7 but only managed to reel in the 4).

To me, that is fishing. There is definitely something to be said for fishing in a lake; it is calmer, there are more fish around, and very relaxing. But to me, the real fun comes from treading through the river, making my way through high grass and all sorts of branches and rocks and knee deep water and ankle deep water all to find that one little spot where you can catch a really nice fish. A lake is almost too easy - although I will say that I caught more in the little streams than the lake, but I think it might have been a technique problem or something.

We used several different types of flies, no live bait. Fly fishing has great names for their lures. Wooly Boogers would be my favorite. It is also the majority of what I used, at least in the lakes. Going up the river, both my Dad and I were using small dry flies (looked kind of like fat mosquitoes), with a small fake worm trailing behind. The dry fly would stay mostly on top of the water while the worm would sink a little. Everything was made out of yarn, these are not rubbery or plastic as regular fishing lures tend to be.

As this ranch was strictly catch-and-release, all the barbs on the hooks needed to be removed or smushed down as to not really harm the fish (aside from getting a hole in its lip). This works out better as a whole, because there would be nothing you could do with the fish anyway aside from sitting it in a cooler for a few days until you left. Trust me, I don't think you'd want it after that.

You know what's fun? Losing flies. I must have lost at least three for every time we went out. When you lose one, you just have to tie another one, but my oh my is it frustrating. I once lost two in the span of about ten minutes. I lost the first one under the water. So I sat down for a bit and tied another on, went to cast, and immediately tangled it up in some branches roughly 10 feet above my head. After subjecting the tree to many a scathing insult and cursing the Great Lord Of The Fish for a couple minutes, I angrily sat down to tie yet another fly with only a modicum of grumbling and scorn.

Fly fishing is almost the polar opposite of regular casting, which I think is referred to as spin casting. The only thing that keeps it from officially being the polar opposite is that you are still trying to catch fish either way. Normally, you would use the reel the whole time, both in the casting of the lure and retrieval. You hold the line, cast it out from the reel. Then, you slowly bring the line back in, again using the reel. With fly fishing, the reel is really only used to hold the line somewhere. When you get ready to fly fish, first you pull as much line as you need from the reel, letting it settle around your feet, essentially. One hand holding the rod, the other holding the line, you cast the rod back quickly so that the line goes taught, then bring it forward. At the end of the forward cast, the hand holding the line lets some go. Doing this a few times back and forth is called a false cast. Now, when I say you cast the rod back, I'm not speaking as you would when spin casting. You don't flick your wrist back. You move your forearm. The wrist stays straight, there is not bending. If you get into the bending of your wrist, the cast will be nowhere near what you would have liked it to be.

Upon re-reading that, the part of me that is pretending to not know how to do it is kind of cocking its head to the side and saying, "Huh? Why not just write it in spanish, douche?"

I mean, you can kind of tell what I'm saying, but you also can kind of not. So here. A link to a website called www.flyandspincasting.com. I am convinced they will do a better job than I did. Take note of that, it's not the type of thing I will usually admit.

Here we come to the advertising portion of this blog. I recommend to anyone who is a fan of fishing to try out fly fishing. I liked it so much better than spin casting, and I really didn't think I would. It's frustrating to get a feel for at times, but once you get a good rhythm going it's great. You have more control over the line. Reeling in the fish is easier because you are using your hands to pull in the line, plus you can decide exactly how much line you want to cast. You can change direction mid-cast if you see a fish pop up over there. Good stuff.

Plus, and this is the kicker, when you do it right - you look totally awesome doing it. Like a real pro.

Or, if you will a reel pro.

See what I did there?