Mad skills

According to Napoleon Dynamite the opposite sex is only interested in you if you have mad skills. "You know, like nun-chuck skills, bow hunting skills...girls only want boyfriends who have great skills." So I thought I'd better learn a new skill--fly fishing. I already mentioned this in my previous post somewhat. A few weeks ago I signed up for a 6-hour fly fishing class. So yesterday morning I got up all by myself at 5 a.m. and drove an hour north to a fly fishing class. You all know how much I just LOVE mornings (not!), and love them even more when I only got 5 hours of sleep the night before and it happens to be a Saturday--the only day of the week I get to sleep until I wake up on my own. I was not a happy camper.
So I drive out to the middle of nowhere, GA to a cabin next to a lake and sit in a class and learn about a lot of stuff that has to do with fly fishing...rods, reels, lines, leaders, tippets, knots, bugs that fish like to eat, the different stages of these bugs lives, where fish like to be in the water, the physiology of a fish, equipment...ok you get the picture. Some of it was interesting, like the entemology (bugs), but some of it I will probably rely on Nathan for (choosing the right size line, leader, etc.).
The most exciting part was the last 2 hours we spent practicing casting out on the lake. It was so much fun! I really truly enjoyed it. I was amazed how you can really just feel when you get it right--the way the line loops, and the rod does the work. It was so cool. Apparently women usually have an easier time picking up casting. I fit into that statistic. I'm no pro at it--not all of my casts are perfect, and I only know the basic cast and how to roll cast. But hey, I was excited that after 6 hours of fly fishing school I came home and could talk the talk to my beaming husband. I showed him my "textbook" and he saw a page with a really hard but essential knot and asked if they taught us that one. Yessiree bob! So he got out some fishing line and watched as I expertly tied the knot right then and there. He was so excited (grinning from ear to ear) and said, "Wow, Babe!" and gave me a big smooch. I can't wait to go out on the Chattahoochee River and practice my "mad skills." In the mean time, all I have to show for it is a really bad sunburn on my neck down to my shirt line, and on my casting arm because silly me forgot the sunscreen. But maybe sometime in the not too distant future I'll have pictures and fishing stories to share. Woohoo!