Annie O'Shaughnessy shows her determination as a fly-fishing student...

Annie Learns the Double-Haul

Midway through the summer of 1992, it rained for four days straight, swelling the Saco river in North Conway, NH to its high banks.

I was finishing out the 4-day fly fishing lesson with a local guide that my husband had given me for a wedding present, along with a beautiful Orvis 5ft by 8 weight rod. The class consisted of three middle-aged men and myself – a young rock-climbing woman.

The guide told us we would be practicing double-haul technique, since there was "no way" we would catch any fish with the water so high and cloudy. He told us to put on a heavy fly of any description. I secretly wanted to catch a fish, and after choosing a glittery wooly bugger, I started flogging the water.

The guide came up to me laughing. “Trying hard to scare away all the fish, aren’t you?” he asked.

I shook my head and said, “I am going to catch one.” He laughed, but I remained intensely focused on my
casting.

After 30 minutes, the rest of the crew were down stream when something big hit my line. I thought it was caught on a submerged log, but then the log started moving. The line flew off my reel, and I finally realized this was no log.

“I got a fish!” I yelled loudly enough for the crew to hear and come running. As the class and guide gathered
around, I played and landed a beautiful 4-pound brown trout.

As I let the fish go, I turned to my guide and said “I told you so.”