Wednesday, April 15, 2015

The Godfather


The old man parked his minivan streamside and approached the bridge to inspect a pool he may have fished over a 1,000 times. Although Ryan and I were zeroed in on one particular fish, he had several questions for us.

"It's been pretty slow out here huh? said the old man. 

I replied, "It's been alright," even though the fishing had been quite good the previous day and a half...


Thursday, April 9, 2015

Forge


Even the most well known and widely trafficked streams harbor some sense of anticipation for the uninitiated. One's mind develops a mental image of what they think the stream looks like, behaves, and fishes. Upon arrival, that image can wildly differ from the litany of fish stories one hear's about a body of water. In my particular case, the perception I had of a wild brown trout stream situated in a highly populated area, far surpassed ten plus years of thinking I knew what to expect.

What I found was a beautiful clear flowing stream encased in several inches of freshly fallen snow. Winter's last gasp fell in the early day's of spring and I wasn't complaining. Expecting early black and brown stones, I found a fairly intense midge hatch. Due to the amount of midges on the water, I thought I was going to have an easy time of it, but the fish did not give in to my presentations nor flies. It took an hour, but I finally saw my first rise form in an area of a run I wasn't looking for one in.   A delightful wild brown missed my dry fly and then fell for my dropper on the next cast. She signaled  in the beginning of my spring and a burgeoning relationship between the new stream and I.

We can't ask much more than our expectations to be surpassed. Rather than having the run of stream from the get go, I prefer my fishing situations to be more of a challenge. In this particular instance, I now know that this flowing body of water will not be giving up her secrets easily. Our relationship will need to be forged overtime. As the seasons and hatches change, I look forward to getting to know this small stream and either falling short, matching, or exceeding the stories I've heard about her and her trout.