Listening To The Bow With Jim Mclennan

[darrinhurst]

Well, the day finally came. When I discovered the course, "Listening to the Bow with Jim McLennan", I signed up immediately. That was back in February.

 

Yesterday, the day finally came. I was excited to finally see if I could tame the beast we call "The Bow". We all gathered at the shop at 9:00, introduced ourselves to Jim and made our way to the river for a beautiful day of instruction, frendly chat and, of course, fishing.

 

We drove out to the Bow along a stretch that I have never fished before (another reason why I wanted to take this course, to find some new waters ) that had a little bit of everything, nice long stretches of slack water for some nice dry fly action, plenty of rock obsicles to create some nice nymph runs with deep slow pools.

 

I went into the day thinking, "Wow, I'm going to be able to fish with Jim McLennan ALL DAY". A minor mis-conception on my part, as it's been.......25 years since I've been in School, I kinda forgot what going to class meant......

 

Anyway, we spent a lot of time 'reading the water' looking at where the water changes, where it slows down and speeds up. He gave us a casting "tune up" where he talked to everyone individually and checked thier casting techniques. He noticed that I had an arm brace, so he was hoping to find something in my casting stroke to see if there was something there. He was kinda disappointed when he couldn't find anything. lol Which is a good thing for me I guess. lol

 

We also touched on some entomology next, noticing that there were stonefly husks EVERYWHERE, he flipped a few rocks to reveal the Stone scurrying in all directions. Picked a couple up and showed us the difference between the males and the females and even held a fly next to one to show the similarities. Some guys out there tie some pretty good flys. One of our classmates had a Realistic Gold Stone. It was pretty nice.

 

During the first discussion about reading water, we did notice some fish rising, so Jim took us down the way to the flat, slack water to try and hunt some risers. We did find one (I still think there was more than one there, but Jim figured there was just the one crusing around that particular lane) that was rising pretty constantly to a PMD hatch. Each one of us had our shot at casting to this guy. He was a nice sized fish from what we gathered. He wasn't making much of a splash, more of just a ripple when he was feeding, revealing no more than his dorsal and tail fins, which were sizable from what we could see. Only one of us managed to have him go for our fly, which would have been his first on the dry. I did have a gull take my fly off the water not once, but twice if you can believe that. I fooled the birds, but not the fish. Go figure. lol

 

Making our way back up stream, we started our nymphing clinic, which is where we all had the most success. He showed us some examples of shallow or "short line" nymphing then the deeper stuff. There were a few guys who didn't have much experience in nymphing so we spent a fair amount of time doing that. I hooked into my first fish after we moved way up the bank. It was one of those unexpected takes, where I was just getting my rig ready and spooling line off, moving the rig out, pulling more line off and moving the rig out, when suddenly, my rig pulled back. HARD. I fought this guy for only a few seconds before the tippet broke, but man he felt big. Strong head shakes, and pulled hard down stream to get away. After a long walk back up and down the bank looking for my floatant and nippers that were attached to a zinger on my chest pack that broke, dropping them into the tall grass. We gathered around Jim for a breif introduction to High Sticking, or what he also called Czech Nymphing. He rigged up right in the same run where I had my heavy guy, and I told him that he was casting right where I had my guy on. Sure enough as he was showing us what to do, bang. Fish on. Acted exactly the same way mine did, stayed under and went straight down stream, pulling down and hard. We all walked with Jim while he fought the fish about 40 or 50 yards down the river. Showing us better landing techniques suggesting side pressure, more than upward pressure. I joked that if that fish had a bead head phesant tail in it's lip, it was mine. lol We did get a good look at the fish, a very nice sized Rainbow, before he rolled, spit the Stone nymph, got hung up breifly on the bottom fly, and then took off. So, I never did get to see if it had my fly in his lip. lol

 

After that, only one of us had any more luck that day. One of our fellow anglers had hooked up into three or four more rainbows in a nice pool created by a rather large rock, in fast moving water. One of them fought like a demon and leaped about two feet into the air and went from about ten feet from the bank, to about two feet from the bank. Was very cool to see.

 

After that was when it started to rain pretty good, so we called it a day and made our way back to the cars. But not before we cast to another guy rising in a pool on our way back.

 

All in all, it was an amazing day. Jim's a wealth of knowledge, great guy to hang around with for a day and pick his brain. I would recommend any one of his classes to anybody. Weather you have five days experience or 30 years.

[Teck71]

Yeah took his seasons of the bow at the Fly Expo this year I find what I have applied from there to my fishing here has really increased my numbers. and a great teacher as well.

 

 

[rusty]

I took that same class from Jim 13 years ago when I was a long-haired snot-nosed little 16 year old punk and still remember it really well. I floated the river with one of the guys in your class (Lincoln) on Saturday and he was pumped about it.

[CPs]

If anyone is looking for a chance to get into one of the remaining Listening to Bow Schools, you can sign up through Country Pleasures as well.

Jim is an unbelievable teacher, and a hell of a fisherman

 

There is availability on July 16th and August 7th (the dates on our site are a bit querky at the moment, they'll be changed asap. But it is the 16th, and 7th)

 

Give us a shout or click the link for more info

 

http://www.countrypleasures.com/intermedia...ing_schools.htm

[Brunsie]

 

:Hi jack:

 

13 years ago when I was a long-haired snot-nosed little 16 year old punk

 

And now you're just older with shorter hair?

 

Russ did you get my Email a weekor so ago?

 

Sorry about the hijack

BK

[darrinhurst]

I took that same class from Jim 13 years ago when I was a long-haired snot-nosed little 16 year old punk and still remember it really well. I floated the river with one of the guys in your class (Lincoln) on Saturday and he was pumped about it.

Yep, Lincoln is the guy who had the most luck that day.