Beginners
	Teaching beginners on a river like the Deschutes inevitably produces some memorable moments. That's really the whole point in the first place. We're on a four day float trip with 17 year old nephew Jay and a buddy of his. They were able to catch big rainbows in Chopaka lake by trolling nymphs on a lead line and think fly fishing is always that simple and easy. It is the second day of the trip and I am quietly in the process of of teaching them the three cardinal rules of the Deschutes, 1) humility is the eventual natural state for all newcomers to this river, 2) the Deschutes fishes like no other river in the world, and 3) you gotta do it my way if you want to catch fish (like I am). Since these hyperglandular adolescents were not into learning by traditional means, I am nailing the point down in spades before their eyes. I have three rods rigged for myself, a 7 weight for a "meat 'n potatoes" stonefly nymph for the open riffles, a 5 weight with a Tom Thumb for heavy, surging shoreline water, and a 4 weight with an #18 Adams for the quiet backeddy sippers. Every time I stop the boat they hit "their" kind of water, and get skunked, while I run the appropriate fly though two or three pockets and hang the resident redsides. I'm up on them about 40 fish to two and Jay is beginning shift to a new idea, that maybe he doesn't know everything there is to this game. His friend is consumed with terminal know-it-all-ism and eventually will give up fly fishing altogether. Such are the stakes. Jay finally asks the question and I take him by the hand for my intensive, one on one tutorial. We had stopped at Frog Creek and were working upstream, wading through some very difficult water with a deep, rushing current and 50 feet of thick, overhanging bushes toward a very good stretch that Jay could fish. At the top of the bushline there is a small pocket I cannot pass up. Tucked in a little corner surrounded by heavy currents the flow in this pocket reverses, circling sometimes one way, then the other. Tough place to fish, so I take it while Jay watches. It takes a couple of casts to get the fly laying right, then we both watch as the fly makes a complete circle slowly one way around the eddy, stops, and starts back. The flyline and leader have sunk, and the fly is about to be pulled under at any moment, when a black shape materializes out of the green and noses up and down on the fly. I set on him and hope I can limit the fight to the pocket. Sometimes the fish in backeddys are doggy, fight-wise. No luck. This slab bolts out into the main current, which right there is one of the fastest and deepest on the river.
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