Trout Fishing Old School..

   Paul called me today and said he would like to come up and fish. His first question was, how is the water ? I said a little high but we should have no problem finding fish.He said good I'll be up in an hour .

  So while I was waiting for him to arrive I went to my tying desk and picked up a half dozen Picket Pins I tied up last night.When Paul got here I went out and greeted him and gave him his flies for the day . I told him they are Picket Pins a fly that was developed back in 1915 by  Jack Boehme . The only difference between mine and Jacks is the wing, I used raccoon instead  of squirrel .This would be the fly of choice for the day as it was still pretty cold out and there were no hatches going on. 

    We got to our destination in no time. Put on the waders strung up the rods and headed off.The first pool we hit is a nice one with a deep cut on the far bank and some large rocks scattered a long the edges .

    Paul asked how to fish this fly because he had never fished it before . So I said to him we'll be doing the old wet fly swing across and down. I had him make a cast across stream throw a little up stream mend to get his fly down and then come tight to the fly and follow the drift.It wasn't long before he mastered the technique and had a fish on . Paul was well under way for the day with a nice rainbow to hand in the first 15 minutes of fishing.

  We fished all total and hour and a half or so moving from pool to pool with much the same results . Paul landed two more on our way down and I had a half dozen total to my credit all bows.

     And all caught on the Picket Pin a fly developed  96 years ago. I would say it works just as good now as it did then. 

     So the word for trout fishing this year is Old School . We are going to fish as many old patterns as we can this season.Meaning patterns that were introduced 50+ years ago and have since been forgotten or rarely fished.