QUICK TRIP
I had several things to do on a day off. I had many of them done and was getting ready to work on the last couple of things when I came into the house to get a drink of water. The phone rang and being the good guy that I am I answered it.
It was one of the folks that I work with. He was in town and wondered if I wanted to go fishing for a while. He had about two hours before he needed to head home. I told him that I would meet him in about 15 minutes and we would head for a pond.
I am not easy, but I can be had! Got my stuff in the pickup and got changed into my fishing clothes. Sun screen shirt and a wide billed hat, and I also got the sunscreen on. Before I headed out I washed my hands with soap to get the sunscreen off the insides of my hands.
I met Terry and we headed to a pond not far from town. He was giving me a bad time about using that “trout” stuff to fish where there were no trout. I told him my reply would come after we had fished for a while.
I had a 3 wt and a 5 wt with me. I had a hare’s ear variation and a prince nymph variation on the two rods that I had. Those seemed to be good things to start with. The sun was shining and there was a slight breeze.
We had been fishing for a few minutes when I got the first tap. Set the hook and knew right away that this fish had some shoulders on it. I also knew the leader was some 5X tippet on the end. Not a good time to be horsing something. I worked the fish for a while and finally got it to shore; a nice bass of about 3lbs.
We moved to another place on the pond. I wanted to hit a break line and see what might happen. The prince nymph had not dropped very far when the line started going sideways. That seemed to be a good indication to set the hook. This was a nice feisty gill.
The next six casts produced carbon copies of the first gill; all of them about 7 inches in length and very fat. At that point the action stopped. I tried the hare’s ear, but the fish were not interested in that.
I moved to another spot and tried again. I am not sure why, but here were places that were about 2feet squares where there would be a few fish and the places in between had nothing, or at least, nothing that would take my flies.
I headed back to the area where Terry was. He had picked up a few fish. I will admit that it was fun to show him the fish I had. It was at this point that Terry told me that he was trying to get enough fish to have a fish fry that night.
I asked him how many folks he was having come. I told him he would have to get more serious about catching fish, since he did not have nearly enough to feed that many people. I can’t repeat what he said about me.
I headed to another spot on the pond. There is a huge, old oak tree there. This is the place where my practice casting left handed came in handy. I was able to cast and drop the fly under the branches of the tree.
I caught 25 fish on 27 casts, which was great fun, but not the norm for most of the time. It was at this point that Terry said that he would have to think about going home in a short time. I was curious and asked him how he took care of his fish. He said he scaled him and then gutted them. I asked him if he wanted learn to filet them?
We headed to the house. When we arrive at the house and showed him how to fillet the fish. He was sold on this right away. He did a fairly good job. He called me names for how fast I did it, but I have had more practice.
He had fish for his fry. I was able to share some fillets with other folks.
I even had time to finish up the last of the things that needed to be done.
The fishing was a nice break.
Hope you can get out on the water.
Rick