And the adventure begins

Made it out today after lunch time for some fly fishing on the upper Guadalupe river. I have fished this section for many years out of the kayak but due to the recent drought a kayak was out of the question. Parked on the side of the bridge and made my way down the embankment to find almost no flow at all and water that was pooled up in places where a river used to be.
This being my first foray into slinging a fly with my own gear which by the way took me quite some time to figure out how to tie all of the different knots. I was throwing a TFO BVK 7wt rod on a reel that I had to pick up yesterday afternoon after it was revealed that I had ordered a BVK 3/4 reel by mistake instead of the 7/8 that should have been ordered. Walking down the gravel trail that is river bottom when we have rain, I came across a place that some casts could be made to see if I still knew how to throw a fly. Prettu rusty but it would do since the casts would not have to be perfect today as there was very little water to work with in most places. Ended up walking and exploring over two miles of the river from a different vantage point without the kayak. The fish were cooperative whenever deeper water was found. Don't let the pictures fool you. Yes, I caught fish but most of those shown came from a waist deep section that was found and had water flowing through a little bend.
The water was nice to wade in on such a warm day and I really surprised myself with my ability to catch fish on a fly rod without having any type of training. It's amazing what is available on the internet and the help from other fly fisherman on answering questions that I may have.
The things that I learned the most today were. I need a 3/4 wt rod to use in these small streams where the fish are generally not large but plentiful. Need to get either a chest pack or a waist pack/ I used a small backpack but it was hard to utilize while in the water. Did carry all of the gear that was brought but the other two would serve me better. Need to get something to retrieve the fly when the fish tries to swallow it. I'll check into that. Always take a plastic grocery bag to pick up the trash left behind by others. The water bottle in the picture still had ice in it from where they dumped the cooler before leaving.
It turned out to be a great time on the water.
Thanks for reading,
Robert