I hope everyone had a safe and Merry Christmas and Santa was good to you. I will tell you that the Christmas Holiday was good to me in a couple of ways. The first and foremost was that my wife was with me after she spent eight months this past year undergoing chemotherapy for colon cancer. She was cleared by the doctor and our lives are back to normal and we're looking forward to a healthy 2013.

I have just about everything I need in my life (that includes fishing equipment) so when my wife asked me what I wanted for Christmas this year my reply was for some advanced fly casting lessons. She was gracious enough to grant me my wish. There is a reason I asked for the lessons that I hope to tell you about in a future article.

A fishing trip with my friend Bruce Hedetniemi on Christmas eve was also a great gift. Bruce had been telling me about the big trout he had been catching the previous day. Every fish was over 22”. He also lost one over 30 inches when it broke a small treble hook that came as standard hardware on the lure. After my recommendation he is now changing the hooks to 4x strength, a much stronger hook. The conversation got me excited because I love fishing for trout. Anyway, not knowing too much about the area we would be fishing I asked if I would be able to fly fish. Bruce said he didn't think so but I would bring a couple of fly rods anyway. We agreed to head out the next day.

It was 6:15 AM when we met at the boat ramp, launched the boat and waited for a little day light so we could safely work our way into the backwater. While waiting for safe light another boat launched and also sat and waited. While they were waiting one of the guys started throwing a cast net for mullet. He was successful and was kind enough to ask me if I wanted some. I thanked him and refused his offering. He had a puzzled look when asked me what we were going to use for bait. I told him I would be fly fishing and Bruce would be using a lure. “You catch fish with a fly rod” was his reply. I told him I do OK and we shoved off.

To make a long story short, Bruce boated 2 trout over 22” using a topwater plug. I boated 12 trout with the 2 largest going 23 and 24 inches. The 24 weighed 6 ½ lbs.

Upon our return to the boat ramp the 2 guys from the morning were also there. I told them to come look at what we caught and that all but one trout was caught on a fly. He was astounded at the size of the trout. They looked at me and said “we need to take up fly fishing”.