Fly fishing trips rarely go as planned, and if they did, there’d probably be little point in going.
After all, if every time you made a cast where you thought you’d find a fish – and it turns out you were always right – fly fishing would take on the patina of predictability that spells doom for anyone with half a mind.
At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.
You always spot the trout's shadow, not the trout.
On Saturday I got an early start, figuring I’d lure the Wonderdog into the truck, drive to a nearby ridgeline trail, and hike the 3.5 miles into a pair of lakes.
It’s been hot up here (high 90s) and while I didn’t think the fly fishing would be stellar, there was always the chance for a Brook trout or two.
And yes, the hike alone would be worth the price of admission (which largely involved getting out of bed and leaving home); it winds along a the top of a ridge, delivering alternating views of two different (and stunning) watersheds.
Plans, however, have a way of unraveling right in front of you, and this one met its end at the hands of “Road Closed” signs on the canyon drive.
Oops.
The Road Closes, The Mind Fails
Chalk this one up to my aging memory banks, which stored the fact that the road might be closed, but apparently didn’t grasp the reality of the situation.
Clearly, If I was a computer, I’d be headed for the scrapyard already.
Still, when life zigs, you zag back.
Which is my clever way of saying I took a dirt side road, heading for a lake that was only a series of interconnected, largely unmarked dirt roads away.
In my fevered mind , this is what passed for a good plan, and yes, you can see the problems looming already (I couldn’t go home again; I was banished until later that evening due to a “no guyz allowed” party).
After all, I hadn’t been to this lake in years, and yes, I’d gotten lost the last time I tried to find it.
Which is pretty much what happened here.
Finally – many miles on a deteriorating road later – I recognized the error, but was loathe to drive 11 more rutted-dirt-road miles to the lake.
This, Undergrounders, was not working out the way I’d planned.
The Last Gasp Exploration
So you’re sitting in a truck with a dog that is really not interested in bouncing along any more dusty roads, and you look over the steep embankment to your left, and you realize you’re looking at a stream you’ve never fished or even looked at because – where it enters another small stream you have fished – it looks pretty small.
Hmmm.
"I'd like a table with a view, please."
This might be the start of the uplifting portion of the story, where our gritty hero – through perseverance and and an almost puritanical force of will – turns the tables on the day’s setbacks, triumphing over impossible odds and catching many trout from an undiscovered small stream.
In other words, a morality play with the proper Hollywood ending.
And I was just setting my chiseled Hollywood Action Hero jaw to do all that when I discovered I’d brought a reel with a 3wt floating line to match the 6wt rod I was planning to throw at the lake.
Oh.
Experts say disasters are typically the result of a long chain of occurrences, and a careful examination of most failed fly fishing trips suggests that’s true.
Still, at some point, you just say “the hell with it” and chuck the fly gear back in the truck.
After all, you can cast a 3wt line with a 6wt rod that’s already way too long and strong for a tiny stream, but at this point, it would have simply served as a constant reminder of one more screwup on my part.
Instead, I grabbed my pack – complete with lunch and and ziplock bag of Wally the Wonderdog fuel – and headed up the small stream where it spiraled away from the road.
A good 45 minutes of bushwhacking later, the Wonderdog and I sat down for lunch at surprisingly sunny stretch, complete with its own table-sized stump.
I fired up the Underground’s used-too-rarely backpacking stove and heated up lunch (Jaipur vegetables and strong, spicy tea) while the Wonderdog cooled off in a bathtub-sized pool.
Later, he spotted a trout in that same pool, and chased it – in hilarious Wonderdog slow motion – up through a run.
The Wonderdog moving at the Speed of Wally - which isn't nearly enough to catch a trout
If a slow-motion trout chase by a determined, stubborn-as-hell dimwitted Lab/Basset mix doesn’t lighten your mood, then maybe you’ve got bigger problems than a busted fishing trip (hint: by “you” I mean “me”).
And yes, it was reviving to do anything besides sit in a hot, dusty truck, growing more frustrated with every rocky jolt to the suspension.
Perhaps the Hollywood endings pop up more often than I thought.
As Our Hero Rides Into the Sunset
It’s easy to become a little jaded about the place you live – even when it’s a place where others come to spend their vacations.
The occasional exploration of a tiny stream that holds more water than expected (in stretches) should probably be mandatory, and I realized I’d be coming back with a smaller, lighter fly rod (with fly line to match), and we’d see how many of the trout I’d spotted would eat a dry fly.
I’ll bet a lot of them.
This look unfishable to you? Me neither. I'll be back.
It reminded me there’s yet another small stream I’ve been threatening to explore – a place I’d skied into higher up in the drainage when winter flows were very low, but that farther down – in a remote canyon – another trib joins it, and that I hadn’t yet tried it out.
In essence, I may end up with two more pieces of small water to fish less than 30 minutes from the house.
What a stroke of luck.
See you on the undiscovered small streams, Tom Chandler
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