Perspective

I've mentioned it before, and I'll likely mention it again, I generally fish alone. This allows me to come and go as I please and work a stream until I feel tired, which nowadays is not all too long of a time. But fishing alone has its downsides. So, sometimes I do enjoy going with someone else. It's fun to talk and compare experiences, and I'm never too old to learn something new. I'm always trying to learn something new, whether it be be talking to someone else or reviewing and analyzing my own data.

As you know, I like taking video of my fishing outings. I mostly do this as a way to record the stream, its conditions, water levels and fish locations for future review. It's sort of a video log, if you will. I do try to make them at least somewhat tolerable by adding music and some narrative, but really they are taken for the data and therefore they likely mean a lot more to me than to anyone else who views them.

But videoing by yourself has its downsides. First of all it's hard to get good footage of yourself fishing. Like many others, I have set my camera up to record me fishing but this generally doesn't work very well. I'm either too far away, or I move to fast through the FOV or the camera doesn't work or what ever. That's why most of videos are point of view (POV) or taken with my 3rd person set up. Still, on occasion I would like to have the ability to review my fishing from a different perspective.

Point of View.

3rd Person View

This past weekend one of my daughters visited home and I invited her to go fishing with me. She likes photography and so she decided it would be fun to take pictures of me fishing. I thought this might be a fun idea and I agreed. We had a great time talking, eating junk food and just hanging out together.

The stream I fished was small and brushy. I am aware that many of the streams I present on my videos do not look that small or tight, but I think this is just a phenomenon of the sports video camera I use.  This stream is about 3-4 feet across and is lined with conifers, willows, red-twig dogwood and other common riparian vegetation. Like most of the streams I fish you cannot fish it from the bank; you have to be in the water or you will not be able to fish at all.

So after we arrived and I geared up I entered the stream and started working up stream -- my usual MO.  I used either a 180 cm or 240 cm Kiyotaki rod with either a 5 foot or 7 foot line, depending on the situation.  My fly? A UKB of course. I had planned on loosing a lot of flies; this stream eats them!! My daughter followed me upstream taking pictures as I fished.

Due to the low overhead branches, or the tightly concealed trout lies, I used the bow and arrow cast frequently on this stream. It's not my favorite cast, but it gets the job done when no other presentation will work. To be effective you must pull the line backwards enough to impart energy into the line upon release, but not pull it back so far that the line slaps the water or the fly rebounds when the released line fully extends. It takes practice; I'm still adjusting my technique.

You can't see the large fir branch directly over my head.

I look like I'm fencing!

I also spent a lot of time on my knees. This is because I couldn't cast very far and so I had to get close to the fish. Being that close, I had to low my profile so to not scare the trout.

I took a few fish, but I must admit, it was slower than usual. Still, all of the fish were fun on those small, short rods! The 12 inch rainbow was the best of the day and on a 180 cm rod it was fantastic!

A 10 incher

We had a fun few hours tromping through the woods and enjoying the fresh mountain air, the sun, the breeze and each others company. In fact, we had so much fun, maybe I ought to go fishing with others more often, especially my daughter!

I want to thank my daughter for taking the time to come with me and to photo document her old Dad splashing around in a mountain creek scaring all the fish away! Thanks, babe, for giving me perspective and showing me what's really important in life!