After a couple of weeks of practicing in the driveway and backyard, I finally got a chance to get out on the stream and try my skills. Since we had a full day of working on the house planned, I woke up at 5AM and was on the stream by 5:30AM. It ended up being a beautiful morning.
I spent the first hour or so fishing a deep hole that I know has quite a few trout in it. I started out with a Wooly Bugger that I thought would be promising and then moved on to some nymphs. I really don't know how to fish those properly so I'm guessing that's why I had no luck there. Either way, I was mainly there to practice casting.
From there I switched to dry flies. I managed to lose two in a tree across the pool in pretty short order and was feeling pretty dejected. At the point, I switched to a larger fly, which I have since learned is a Muddler Minnow. I fished it as a dry fly, casting it up stream and letting it drift with the current. A few yards upstream from the deep pool, I hooked my first brown trout while fly fishing in about 12" of water. She was about 12" and put up a pretty good fight, mostly considering a fly pole is so flimsy and the drag on the reel was so loose, but I landed her successfully and she's now cleaned and in my freezer waiting for a few more to make a meal.
After that I continued to work my way upstream but the sun was out on the water at the point and I didn't get any more bites. I didn't even see any fish rising at that point, so I climbed up the bank and headed home. All in all, I got 3 solid hours of fishing in and got home just as everyone was getting their things in order for the day.