The Backcountry Trout Beckon. And Ian Lives!

While the tech wizards at SBC scratched their heads over my dead DSL service ALL DAY LONG, I spent my Internet-free time pulling together gear for this weekend’s backpacking trip to the Lassen backcountry.

This, I think, will be fun.

You gotta sneak up on ‘em…

High altitude trout are best approached with a guerrilla mindset, but one tempered by a minimalist approach (remember; before you can fish all that gear, you’ve got to carry it there first).

When I fish the river, it’s often a contest to see how much gear I can jam in my vest. When I fish the backcountry, I wrestle with how little I should load in my pack.

Fortunately, backcountry trout are rarely picky (note the “rarely”). The hard life in the rarefied backcountry environment rewards aggressive feeders, but also creates trout that are pretty damned spooky (that guerrilla thing again).

In the end, you end up fishing for naive, innocent trout that freak at the sight of you (much like the girls in high school).

This backcountry trip ends Sunday afternoon, but I’m going to play the self-employed card and tack on a Monday exploration of a Brook trout stream near Lassen.

I’ve never fished it and the whole thing is speculative – based as it is on rumor and the fly fishing equivalent of a ghost story – but dismissing anything that’s not a “sure thing” is probably a sign of impending doom (not physical doom, but the metaphysical kind where fear wholly overwhelms your sense of wonder).

As always, I’ve got a camera in my pack and a pad of paper in my pocket, so you’ll hear about it right after the L&T Nancy does. See you on Tuesday.

The Rutters Return…

Thanks to the magic of e-mail, we can now safely end the Underground’s Ian Rutter: “Lost in Montana” Vigil.

Twenty-four days after disappearing into the trout candy store that is Montana, Southeast Tennessee’s hardest-working guide(s) finally surfaced with an e-mail suggesting Montana was wonderful, but that it was good to be home.

If Ian ever figures out his new digital camera, we might even see pictures of the trip. Ian also mentioned stumbling across Alert Underground Reader Matt Smargiasso, who left home Labor Day weekend and wouldn’t go home until early October.

Some might applaud that kind of commitment, but once again, the Underground is left to wonder why the hell weren’t we invited?

I weep bitterly. See you in the backcountry, Tom Chandler.

[tags]backcountry, lassen, backpacking, brook trout, Montana[/tags]