Last cast

There is something magical about the last cast - that one last effort to catch a fish before reeling in, breaking down the rod and heading home. For whatever cosmic reason,the last effort in fishing often provokes a 'perfect cast' or presentation that does indeed give the angler the best possible shot at that last rising trout. Most things in life don't work out that way. Far too often in my fishing, the last cast has carried with it the balance between catching fish and officially getting skunked. Sometimes it delivers, sometimes it does not. But as I said, there is something magical about it.

When I first got into fly fishing I spent a day on Flat Creek near Jackson Wyoming with an Old Friend. This is difficult fishing to say the least. Not really the best place for a beginner. Still, I managed to hook (and lose) a few small cutthroats during the sunniest parts of the day.

We stayed out on the river until well after sunset, hoping to catch one of the big cutts that we could see cruising like torpedos up and down the crystal clear runs. If anything, the fish became harder to catch when the evening shift clocked in. As soon as the sun went down, the bigger, more wiley fish came out to play, pushing the younger, less educated fish out of the best feeding lanes. Suddenly, that 15 inch fish you had been casting to during the day became a 24 inch pig that wouldn't even glance at your fly unless its legs were folded correctly.

As the gloom deepened and the sky turned to a milky colbalt, we began to look anxiously towards the gap in the elk fence, making sure we could still see our way back to the car. I convinced Old Friend to let me take one last cast. I threw my hopper pattern as far as I could downstream and started dumping line. I was just about to the backing when I heard (rather than saw) a big rise. I clumsily pulled in the slack and set the hook way too late, but somehow connected with a huge cutthroat. Magical.

Ok, so I didn't land that fish either, but the experience has forever convinced me that there is indeed something almost supernatural about the last cast. It also taught me that a series of 'granny knots' is not sufficient for connecting fly to leader.

On the river (which must not be named) that I fish most often these days in Norfolk, there are big stocked brownies that are relatively easy to catch and a good head of small wild brownies that are exceedingly more difficult to hook, much less bring to hand. I am normally more interested in catching the small wildies than I am in catching the big stockies.

Last night, I spent about 3 hours on the river chasing the wild browns in the long evening. Conditions seemed perfect, there were a lot of flies flitting and darting around, but the fishing was difficult for some reason. I was just about to go home when I thought I might go up to the very top of the beat and see if there were any wildies messing about.

This spot is very difficult to fish well due to overhanging branches and tricky currents. Consequently, it almost always contains rising trout. After a series of poor, splashy casts that should have put the fish down for the evening, I decided to call it a day. I had reeled up and was just turning away when I saw a rise close in to the bank in an area of water I had not covered. I decided to have one last cast for that fish. I stripped off what I thought was the right amount of line, crept up as far as I could on my knees and somehow managed to snake the cast around and under an overhanging tree to put the fly right on top of where I had seen the fish rise. The fly had barely settled when it was engulfed by a little copper rocket from below.

I did manage to land that one. And once again, I owe it to the magical last cast.