Keep It Tight!
A big splash hit my dry fly! Instantly, he is shooting toward the undercut of the bank hidden by tuffs of grass. My immediate reaction is to squeeze the line between my finger and the rod's cork grip. "Don't let that guy enter the undercut," I keep telling myself. There is a bit of an open area just upstream from where he's thrashing about, and I begin back-stepping to maneuver him there. Taking him upstream kept the line tight, and held him between the two banks of this narrow mountain Rio. He's slowing down ever so slightly, and I begin reeling him in. Finally he slides into the net, I relax the muscles in my body, breathe deep, and admire the prize. Yup, this fiesty, fat, fourteen-inch wild brown trout was just the fish I came here to catch, and it made my day. On these narrow trout streams, there is no way an angler can let a trout run out a line, lest you lose him in a deep cavern underneath the bank. Nope, you must squeeze that line tight against the gr...
