Winter Wonderland.

I came home from school this weekend to take the Praxis II Social Studies Content Knowledge Exam Saturday morning for six hours of my life. However, with the snow on the way, it was canceled which made me extremely angry but...this led to a day on the water. Adam and I headed out at 7 am despite the fresh two inches of snow on the ground and another six and ice on the way. Arriving at the ole mill, we slipped all over the place on the ice covered ground on the way to the stream. Three to four inches of solid ice with a fresh two inches of powder on top are not good conditions for walking with feltsoul wading boots.

Hooking Up.

Average Small Stream Brown.

Burr...

Where I (idiot) decided to enter the stream required a hike on an incline, followed by a catwalk on top of a concrete slab 10 feet above the stream, followed by a 5 foot drop to another slab, and then another 5 foot drop to the stream and stable walking conditions. That proved to be impossible, so we had to descend the incline. After having talked about how conscious we had become about avoiding thorn bushes in our new waders we were about to have wished we knocked on some wood. I lasted about three feet before I fell and slid down the incline feet first on my stomach. I only stopped because a forest of thorn bushes caught and stopped my decent about 3/4 of the way down. I was wrapped up bigtime all around my waders and slid down back into the thorns two more times before I finally made it out of that mess. Adam did not have better luck as he got wrapped up and shed some blood as the thorns ripped apart his frozen hands. After making it to the stream, we were thankful to be in familiar territory and have a chance to walk on stable slippery boulders and algae for the rest of the day.

Stones.

Next Time, More Rubber Legs.

Adam's Future Tattoo.

My Turn.

Brown Time.

Story over, the fishing proved to be a little sluggish because the temperature was a solid 27 degrees. We did manage to catch several small bows and browns on the stream and get some quality shots of some huge stones. The temperature proved to be quite a disadvantage. Before I could even cast, I had to submerge my entire outfit underwater for a few seconds in order for it to be free of ice and function semi-normally. The cold also hurt the hands and they haven't been this cold since Erie 07'. After six hours of fishing, and not wearing any gloves, the hands were a bit red and swollen. At one point, while filming some underwater shots my fingers froze together. After a few hours on the mill we decided to explore some new water and what we found proved to be worth the effort getting there.

Anticipation.

Winter Wonderland.

Doesn't Get Much Prettier.

There is something about fishing a body of water for the very first time that sets it apart from any other time you ever have a chance to fish it. Arriving, you have a heightened sense of anticipation rather than having expectations. You have no idea what awaits around the next bend or what lurks beneath in the fast currents and deep holding water. You can predict and probably have a gut feeling that something quite large lives in a particular lie. But if you never actually see it, you will never know if it truly exists. So when Adam mentioned to me that if there was something in this beautiful plunge pool, it was going to be quite large. I put the thought in my mind and had a little faith in the situation. The conditions for something large were all there and when it did happen I was a little surprised. The new stream can hold some nice trout and will be revisited again and again. The next time however, the allure of fishing a stream for the very first time will no longer be there. It will be replaced with expectations that may or may not be met.

Now We Know What To Expect.

Eye Candy.