She is so new to all this, it's been fun to watch. She has been a swimmer, paddled a few times and fished with her dad. Twenty years ago while he did the fishing, and she, in her own words, was brought along so that if the fish were really biting, they'd go home with a double limit. Being around the water isn't entirely new to her, but her tepid response makes me wonder if she's nervous. She asked if I could teach her the ropes. Oh no problem I said. Her attire, her outfit she has chosen is text book issue from an outdoor store and if I have to tell the truth, she wears it well, as a matter of fact, extremely well. She's athletic, but from those indoor exercise facilities that allow for not a trace of tanned skin. Her profession is the indoor jungle of lecture halls that while the sun's rays are shinning freely in the out of doors, she's getting her fill of fluorescent beams. Over the past few months she's hit a career high that took years of study and dedication, a nose to the books at night for herself, while she taught others daily. She not only has the sheepskin, she now bestows them on others. Call it latent tendencies, a dormant desire, but she wants to know first-hand how to handle a fly rod with a trout on the end. When she gets her time off now, she is going somewhere quiet. We started with where she's to be fishing; she thought the western states, more than anywhere else. Then we looked over rod choices. I had to admit once again that I was really impressed with her selections to include rods, reels, fly lines, flies, fly boxes, tippets, leaders, wading staff, summer weight waders, and a vest, and I was more than jealous with the depth of her wallet. Back at my home, two Saturdays, and two Thursday's in a row, we dialed in some of her gear on my pond. She listened without questioning, she just took what she saw, and what she heard, and applied it to a fly rod, and I thought I was pretty hot stuff teaching the teacher. Yesterday we spent the morning on a real lake, with real trout and it was real early. I had my rod with and laced it up like an old pair of shoes. She attached a reel, strung the line through the rod guides, tied on a fly and looked at me like asking for permission to fish. I just nodded to have at it and told myself I wasn't even gonna touch my fly rod; I was just going to watch. Now don't get me wrong, she wasn't hard to look at in the first place, and I'm not taking credit for her inherent abilities, but to watch that woman work that magic little fish stick, was nothing short of extraordinary. The line swished ever so perfectly, she held a grace there over the water that was really something to not only see, but be a part of. And to tell the truth just one more time, I sure learned something. The trout whisperer