The last couple of times I stepped into a river, the results were less than exemplary. This is just a fancy way of saying that I got skunked. It’s been a while since I had a tight line, and I am getting concerned that I’ve lost my mojo. I don’t get to fish that often these days and so expectations are high when I finally get my boots wet. And coming up blank is a huge hit to my confidence.

Now like every good fisherman I have plenty of excuses; got more of those than flies in my box. Some of them are actually believable, like blaming the water levels in our rivers. Those low flows mean that a lot of my go-to spots are shallower than a politician’s apology. This also limits the places to find fish and pushes many of us into the same locations.

Case in point: Last month I found an opportunity to fish at the end of a day, but with the remaining light I could only get to a closer, smaller river that I’m not too familiar with. When I arrived, there were cars in the lot next to mine. I was hoping that were hikers. Still, I headed in all the same. I spotted only one trout in the shallows that day, but I’m sure he saw me as well—me, and the other three other anglers that shared the 150 yards of fishable water.

See how well that excuse holds up? It’s almost formulaic. Low water + high number of anglers = zero trout. And if that doesn’t work, I’ve got more.

The time before that I took a good friend of mine fishing for the first time. After all my stories, he wanted to see what fly fishing was all about. I warned him that it wasn’t the best time of year or the best conditions to fish in, but we took advantage of the one day we had. (See how I started with the excuses before we even set out?) I took him to a place that I was certain would be our best bet to find fish. It’d never let me down before. (This is called foreshadowing.)

This is my other excuse, by the way. You don’t always get much fishing done when you’re teaching someone else. But that’s ok and expected. My singular hope was that he might catch a fish and fall in love with fly fishing just as I had. I stood next to my friend offering advice, demonstrating technique, untangling line, and retying lost flies.

We fished hard, tried new flies, worked new areas, and we found zero trout. Nothing. Even when I stepped in to “demonstrate” how it’s done, I couldn’t summon a bite. It was disheartening to say the least. My friend said he still enjoyed it and wanted to come try again sometime. I hope he wasn’t lying to me.

I had nothing to show for my last two outings. My mojo was gone, and I was worried.

Another friend, Abe, who lives in D.C. said he was coming to town, and he also asked if I could take him out fishing for the first time. (I’m strangely getting lots of requests like this these days.) We set a date in the calendar over a month ago. I’ve been warning him since then that the fishing was tough and that we hadn’t seen rain in weeks. Undeterred, he came into town, and we headed out with plenty of excuses in my pocket.

Of course, the day we put on the calendar turned out to be the one day that New England finally got some rain. Perhaps these conditions might disrupt my excuse formula. We didn’t see another angler all day. Maybe…

…or maybe not. My streak of nothingness continued as we worked hard at a promising location. I spent time next to Abe, but he picked things up quickly and this gave me time to fish alongside him. We worked the deeper parts, the faster water. We tried multiple flies and a variety of sizes. Still, nothing tugged our lines so we decided to move on. With limited time, we skipped over a few promising holes and headed further down to the one place I knew was our best and final shot—it’s not very big, not easily accessible, but it’s always produced. (You’ve heard this before, right?)

We drove to the pull off and began the hike in. Abe, new to wading boots, fell twice on the wet ground our way down. Maybe this was a bad idea. But he bounced back, and we continued on our way. When we finally arrived, my heart sank a little. The water was even shallower than I had imagined, shrinking the hole to half its normal size, and changing the makeup of the run significantly. Still, I lined Abe up, gave a few instructions and let him go while I changed out my fly. When I looked back up, Abe’s rod was doubled over. I figured he was hung until I noticed the streak of color darting through the water. I practically threw my rod on shore, grabbed my net and went in for the assist. Next thing I knew, Abe was holding a beautifully colored rainbow and grinning from ear to ear. I was thrilled for him. This must be the next best thing to your own first catch—watching someone else net theirs.

And moments later, it happened to me, too. My blowtorch fooled a feisty little rainbow and he found his way to my net. However, this wasn’t a fish of excitement; it was a fish of relief. Whew! I still know how to catch trout. With one fish, my mojo had returned.

We didn’t find any other fish besides those two, but that was ok. They worth twenty more. They may not have been trophy-worthy trout, but they sure were meaningful fish for us both. In the end, it just takes one.