I won’t make a lot of whiny excuses about overwork, underplay and sleep deprivation (and I could, damnit), but let’s look ahead instead – to more overwork, underplay… and sleep deprivation.
Sometimes I depress myself.
And of course, nowhere is that more true than when you’re fly fishing a body of water where you absolutely slaughtered the trout in prior years – a Super Secret, No-Name Private pond where in prior years I landed more big trout tonnage in a single day than the rest of the year.
Wayne Eng in the midst of a hookup
This year? Not so much.
Not so much at all.
Things started promisingly: A great big trout freight-trained my streamer on cast #3, cleared the water completely four times, then came off, leaving me wiping pond water off my glasses while thinking “damn – this is going to be a turkey shoot.”
Naturally, it was the last trout I hooked all day.
Dave Edmondson looking for a new solution to our not-catching-trout problem
The Special Super-Secret streamer pattern (which – according to uber-guide Ian Rutter – is suffering from a lack of exposure to Brown trout) didn’t buy me another bite, so after 45 minutes, it was retired in favor of a soft hackle (a good stillwater bet when nothing’s happening).
The best I could get from that was a bump, so it was time to downsize yet again – this time to a series of midge patterns.
Edmondson hooks a trout on a soft hackle... for a couple seconds.
Clearly, it wasn’t going to be my day. Then again, it was barely anyone else’s day: the fish in this water are big but not numerous (they may have winterkilled), so the infrequent hookups tend to result in frequent losses.
the Underground's Art Shot
Ultimately, I had three more grabs (one on a #20 midge pupae, and two on a Callibaetis cripple), but hooked none. Dave Edmondson almost landed a real pig, and uber-napper Kathay hooked up with two, both of which came off.
Wayne was high rod for the day by dint of landing the fish he hooked – I think he landed two.
A good response to the slow bite? Probably.
I’m perfectly willing to whine about losing fish I should have hooked, but I couldn’t possibly have gone negative about the setting.
The weather was gorgeous, the tiny valley is gorgeous, the views are… gorgeous, the trout (predictably)… gorgeous…
And I’m not even touching on the subject of the wildlife, which included hordes of red-winged blackbirds, which are seriously cool.
What’s that? Did you say something? Not you? Oh. That’s my job calling.
See you in the salt mines, Tom Chandler.
Been there TC,
I go to a pond a few times during the summer that holds some of the best trout I’ve ever hooked into. Sometimes its like fishing with dynamite, where one cast produces a strike almost instantly. Other times I’m not so lucky. My last trip was spent changing between drys, streamers, wets, and nymphs for two days. In the last hour of the trip I managed to catch one well below average Brookie.
The scenery is always nice though, and I still had a blast!
Benjamin Rioux(Quote)
Veracity has no business in fly fishing. You should know better.
Sully(Quote)
Yeah, but at least it was a Brookie – the Official Char of the Trout Underground.
It was a weak moment.
Tom Chandler(Quote)
Hey Tom…..Who ate all the chocolate chip cookies cookies after lunch when i left to fish a rise there were 16 cookies when i got back only one Tom!…….w.
wayne eng(Quote)
Forget it Wayne – everybody knows about your huge obesity problem, so I did you a favor.
Tom Chandler(Quote)
(If you don’t know Wayne, he’s got as much extra body fat as your average pencil)
Tom Chandler(Quote)