We ran upstream from the Jones Bridge ramp just a few hundred yards -- and a literal minute after beginning the downstream float, Hansen and I both were hooking into rainbows.

“Polly! Polly! You have one!” Scalley had to holler this to me several times before I learned that it took only the slightest movement of the strike indicator to signal that a fish was taking the fly. Sometimes it was just a matter of the indicator not moving with the current, or ever so slightly going under the water’s surface, which could be hard to see in areas whose water was crystal-clear.

I fly-fish often, and am fairly competent at the sport, but I’ve come to realize that when you fish with a guide, you can always learn or improve on something. On this trip, the lesson was: Pay close attention to the indicator.

(I have to admit, though, that it was something of a relief to hear Scalley shouting Allen’s name almost as much as he did mine!)

The basic idea is that it’s better to go ahead and set the hook a few times with nothing there than to miss a potential trout sipping in the fly. A trout was usually on -- and seeing the flash of the fish immediately after feeling the line go tight was a blast!

The movement can be slight, but that doesn’t mean that the fish is a small one. The largest trout I’ve ever caught barely moved my indicator!

Apparently Allen and I had both fallen into the habit of fishing by means of what Scalley referred to as the “Helen Keller method”: waiting until our nymphs were on the swing, which is to say dragging in the current at the end of the drift, and we could feel the fish take our fly. Even though I’ve caught many a trout as it hit the nymph at the end of the drift, I hate to think how many I must have missed during the dead-drift by not knowing how to watch the indicator!

For fly-fishing, Scalley recommends a 5- or 6-weight 9-foot rod. The longer rod helps for mending the line, needed when the belly of the line lying on the water is drifting at a faster speed than the indicator and fly. A slight flip of the rod rolls the belly upstream of the leader, such that the nymph isn’t dragged downstream in an unnatural manner.

Scalley rigged my 6-weight rod with 3X (6-pound test) leader and a size No. 14 nymph called a Rainbow Warrior. He added a smaller No. 18 Lightning Bug as a dropper, tying it on with 5X (4-pound test) tippet about 18 inches below the other fly. Both of these were then suspended under a strike indicator, which is nothing more than a glorified name for a miniscule bobber.

I was having great success with the nymphs, catching rainbows in the shoals and seams -- the lines created when water flows at two different speeds, causing an “edge” to emerge between the two currents.