I got a chance to participate in the Casting for Recovery retreat on the Fall River with Mitchie this past weekend (October 18, 2026).  And what a great weekend it was.  We were joined by six other "riverhelpers" from Gold Country Fly Fishers, Russian River Fly Fishers, and the Northern California Fly Fishers to assist in teaching the 13 breast cancer survivor attendees some basic fly fishing on the river after an initial fly casting lesson.  This is such a worthy organization offering  multiple recovery support services, including the fly fishing, during one of their their semi annual retreats.  I have to say that the women (2 on my boat and one on Mitchie's) were upbeat, excited, energetic, and anxious to get a rod in their hand.  Yes, few fish were caught on this tough and technical river, but wow, did they have fun watching the big Fall river rainbows jumping and rising throughout the morning session chasing the multiple hatches.

As part of this program we were encouraged to come up two days early and fish the river to scope out potential concentration areas, determine what hatches were about,  what flies to use to be successful, and how to fish the Fall's particular style (the Fall River twitch).  And they provided the boats for us so who's not going to take advantage of the opportunity?

And how'd that work out?  Typical 12-15 foot leaders with 6X fluoro tippet to #18-22 size flies.  Spooky fish, long dead drifts, and sunny skies with clear water.  Meaning we had to work for what we got.  We were fishing dries (carefully)and indicators from 3-10' down into the bigger holes.  We ended up with five fish on our own, lost twice as many before the net, and razed dozens to our dry flies.  But these fish are no fools, and precise patterns are essential. IF you can catch the hatch right.  We saw early Tricos, BWO's, PMD's, a few Caddis, and late afternoon Mahogany Duns.  Each hatch lasted maybe 20-30 minutes and also overlapped each other so finding the current fly of choice was tough.  By the time you had it nailed, they were on to another concurrent hatch.  If you come to play,  you had better be ready for the parade.

All in all, we came to support the women who really enjoyed themselves.  And maybe in some small way we could help them along through their recovery.  Well done and kudo's to "Casting for Recovery"!!

...Rob