It would be hard to top opening day last year at Eagle Canyon Trout lakes near Red Bluff but in my mind this year was even better being with Mark and the Boys (the Syn Twins).   Some say that fly fishing is like riding a bike but there is no experience in fly fishing that can prepare you for a really large fish that  can take line out of your reel till it smokes  and swims faster than you can reel.   Its been a year since my son Mark cast a fly rod for trout with a personal best in his life being a 20 inch trout on a size 20 midge pupa.  Trying to teach someone when to strip a fish in and when to go to the reel in the first  runs of a really big fish is nearly impossible.   Only experience and luck teach you that.   Mark hooked up 4 times with strong trout over 5 lbs and could not land a single fish.  He wouldn’t even take a fish from me to land.   That afternoon,  he picked up an extra rod from the truck while I was fishing the upper pond and  cast hooked and landed a 17 lb rainbow from the lower pond.    Michael and Matthew did well in float tubes chuckin’ leeches in the upper pond.  Wayne and I had a chance to finesse some big fish that were rising to calibaetis nymph and midges.  It seemed this year the fish fought better and according to Clint, the gillie, they lost very few fish this last season.   For sure we will return and give those big trout some exercise next year.