Technical difficulties

One of my goals for the summer is to fish in some new places on the river. I was hard at work getting this very important work done when I ran into technical difficulties.

Have you ever noticed that when you see fishing rising they are either on the other side of the river or....under some trees? Or....under some trees and on the other side of the river? But nothing in life is easy so you give it a go and do the best ya can.

So I figured out just where I needed to land that wet fly to let it swing on through. Sometimes I get lucky and this time I did. On the first cast the fly went right where I wanted it to be and for a very brief moment I felt pleased with myself. Then the line stopped moving.

I remember the words as if I uttered them only yesterday - which is exactly when it happened!

"Oh, nooo!! You have got to be kidding me. A snag?? There??? Please...."

So I gave the line a tug. Nothing.
Tried another tug. Again, nothing.

Great. I hate snagging logs, sticks, rocks, old fishin' line and beavers. It is never any fun when you end up yanking on your line waiting for that inevitable "snap" when you leader finally gives in and breaks. Those are the technical difficulties that drive me nutso.

So I moved on and tried a spiral pick up to see if I could wrangle that hook out of what ever it was lurking down there.

Zip.

With a big ol' sigh and the realization that another leader was about to be fried, I tried another spiral pick up and this time with just a bit more oomph.  Instead of the leader snapping I thought I detected a very subtle movement at the end of the line.Not much mind you, but something was definately up because it moved again.

This time it felt "fishy" so I started stripping the line. It didn't take too long before the "somthing" that had caused technical difficulties was fighting and jumping. Soon I landed a nice 14" stocked brown trout. Didn't have to break my leader. Didn't lose a fly, either.

I sure wish all snags ended up this way.