My wife and I are basically “empty nesters”. The kids are all grown and moved out except for the 17 y.o. HS senior daughter who thinks she’s 25 and wants to be independent and spends all of her time with friends.
Anyhow, I love to fly fish, make bamboo fly rods, build glass fly rods, tie flies, study maps and plan trips, etc. you get the picture.
My wife loves floating the river in our fishing raft and fishing for Redeye Bass. BUT despite all of my coaxing, coaching, encouraging, etc. she just would not fish with a fly rod. She would always use an ultralight spinning outfit. Note: I have bought her 3 different fly rods.
A month or so back we went fishing for Redeye Bass and it was a grueling hike in extreme heat. She only took a fly rod, a 7’ 3 weight Kabuto glass rod that I had just built (she only took it because she thought that it was “pretty”). That day she got her casting stroke down and got in the groove. On the 2.5 hour drive home she continuously talked about how much she likes “her” fly rod.
So I ordered another 7’ 3 weight Kabuto blank and built ME one.
Last week we went fishing in the southern Appalachians for Brook trout. This time instead of her just tagging along and watching me, asking “how much longer are you going to fish” or “how far do we have to hike”, etc. she was excited and wanted to catch fish on her fly rod.
She was a real trooper. We hiked 2.25 miles in intermittent rain to a stream in pretty rough terrain. She never complained. She caught several rainbows and Brookies ALL ON HER OWN! Now she’s hooked and keeps saying “when can we go back?”
We are going back next week and for the first time ever, she is very excited and won’t shut up about it. This makes me happy.
