One thing that I emphasize in my fishing seminars and clinics is to “play the heron.” In other words, approach with calm, pay attention, have patience, and strike accurately when the time is right. I try to practice what I preach, but I never really expected to get schooled in my own teaching by my wife on waters that I grew up fishing…

The sequence shown here was one of the best examples of “playing the heron” that I have seen in some time. We had been stalking this particular fish for a couple of minutes, and we thought that we had its cruising lane more or less figured. We were wrong. The fish had reversed course and we ended up walking right up on it. Fortunately, the brown was working through a clump of rushes, and didn’t spook, but Kel was left standing upright and about as exposed as you can get.

I immediately hissed “Cast!” Kel didn’t move. “Cast!” I urged again. Nothing, just Kel frozen in place. The trout was now a couple of yards from Kel’s feet. “Just drop the fly and let it swing out in front of you!” I finally barked out. With that, I got a punctuated response: “Calm. Down.” When a woman uses “That. Voice.” it stops you pretty fast.

A moment later, the fish rose nonchalantly no more than two feet from dry land, sipping some unseen morsel. Kel whispered “I can’t believe how close it is…It’s at my feet!” My only response was to shut up and press the shutter release as fast as I could. And, like a true heron, Kel waited to strike until the time was right.

Once the brown had turned back out toward deeper water, Kel made a quick flick of the rod tip, landing the fly just behind the fish. With the surface being so calm, we both thought that the fish might turn and take, but no dice. Kel stripped a few more feet of line off the reel and made one more quick flick farther to the left, leaving her offering perched like an “eat me” beacon. It worked. The fish slid over, eased up, and sipped the fly. Kel set, I let out a whoop, and we were in business.

Kel kept the fish on a short leash (a long leash wasn’t really an option in that water), and was soon cradling the trout at her feet. A couple of quick clicks of the shutter and the fish slipped back into the unseen.

It’s one thing to “close the deal” when a good brown is closer than the rod tip, it’s another to do it when you are standing bolt upright, with no cover. Kel took a difficult situation and made it great by playing the heron perfectly. I don’t know if my first instinct to make a move immediately would have worked on that fish, but I do know that my wife’s patience was golden. And watching the whole thing unfold through the focused lens of a camera was the kind of “schooling” I’ll take any day…