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Kathryn (our new office manager) finally had the time to get out of the office and shop and head down to the mountains with Josh and Akasha.  Kathryn is Josh’s God Daughter and younger cousin and this was her first time getting to fly fish.  Josh worked with her on casting for about 5 minutes and was blown away at how quickly she picked up on the casting.  Seven minutes into her fly fishing career Josh put her behind a good fish that was sipping but what happened next we’ll let him describe:

“I knew this was a decent fish when I had Kathryn cast to it but I didn’t realize exactly what we were dealing with at that point.  Kathryn made a perfect cast with no drag on the drift and the cutty came up and sipping her green drake in the softest and most subtle manner you could ever expect for a big fish, and especially on a green drake eat.  When I saw this fish eat I knew it was big, but when Kathryn set the hook and we saw the first head shakes Kash and I were blown away.  We knew it was big but we had no idea it was this big!  Kathryn made the perfect hook set but the screaming that proceeded that and the panicked “what do I doooooo!!!!” at the top of her lungs had Kash and I buckled over in laughter yet completely puckered, not wanting to let on how big this fish was because if we started freaking out surely it wouldn’t help Kathryn who was now up to 7 .1 minutes of fly fishing experience.  She had all the slack out and the fish was on the reel and in somewhat safe water so I made the 50yard sprint across uneven and unstable rocks to get my camera and race back.  I handed the camera off to Kash and then went back to Kathryn’s side to talk her through the fight. She fought it like a champ, letting it run when was required and taking line when it ran at her.  At the point I slipped the net under the beast, there was a giant and audible sigh of relief from both Kash and, followed by utter and complete celebration.  This fish made my entire season, and I couldn’t have been happier or more excited to see Kathryn’s first fish in the net, an absolute tank of a 21″ pure Westslope cutthroat.  To say this fish was magnificent was such an understatement.  We get lots of cutbows in the 20-24″ range but to see a pure Westslope cutthroat this long, heavy and gorgeous is not very common, and I couldn’t have been more excited to see this happen for Kathryn.  The hard thing to explain to the poor girl is that its all down hill from here 😉 “

Kathryn followed up with a 18″ cutty where her first comment was, “oh its nowhere near as big” followed by a 15″ cutty that she proceeded to comment, “aww he’s so small”.  Ten minutes into her fly fishing career its becoming evident we may have ruined this poor girls expectations fro trout fishing 😉