HOW COME YOUR FOLDING MONEY IS WET?
Water level has come down to acceptable flows now. Clarity is just that perfect greenish-blue hue. It's probably enough to disguise my sorry attempts at fly flinging without startling all the finny folks for miles around. Also, it prevents the trout from making too much fun of the loose conglomeration of materials wound around the size 12 barb less hooks.
Decided to start with a newly tied woolly bugger, six strands of flash interwoven into the tail and then wrapped counter-clockwise up through the body and hackle and tied off a little behind the thread head.
When wet it looks like a luminous minnow to me. To a trout it probably resembles the crinkly plasticized wrapping from a pack of cigarettes with some amoebic matter tangled in it. No arguing with results though and they happen often enough to keep up the charade.
Anticipation of the first foray of the year was straightaway turned from this reverie to stark reality post haste.
What could it be; that sensation of icicles melting into and down from my left front pants pocket to the toes of my chest high waders?
DAMN!
Reckon I should have checked out those ancient chest waders beforehand.
Ah! What the #$%^ - it's only water; albeit mighty damned cold water at that.
Of course I didn't have any quick fix patches in my gear today and no duct tape either. I'll just ignore it till my leg turns rigid and useless; but, at least I'll have more anchorage in the swifter currents than just my stalwart wading staff.
Five or so casts into the expedition an obvious cigarette addicted rainbow inhaled the smokeless creation and was impaled by the hook of deception. The "NO LIES" measuring net showed it to be a smidgen below fourteen inches. As all truth-telling fisherpersons know, one says a "smidgen" when one is upping the length at least an inch over the actual physical dimensions.
An hour and a half hence and the "NO LIES" net hadn't contained anything else to NOT LIE about!
Slogging slowly further upstream, boot full by boot full, ultimately brought us to a deceptively deep and elongated run. It was punctuated by a series of sub surface hidey-holes that bode well as the lair of a potential big un'.
An excessive quantity of strike less drifts throughout the entire expanse served to proclaim this bountiful locale as an uninhabited piscatorial region.
Then, an almost imperceptible line tug belied the presence of some aquatic denizen.
It was a short struggle and turned out to be an even shorter opponent. No need for the "NO LIES" net this time. The perpetrator was a smallmouth in the smidgen-less area of five inches.
However, a fish is a fish is a fish.
Just a fancy way of saying I didn't get skunked - BUT!
Even with about a mere three hours invested into the excursion now seemed like a reasonable time to cease and desist this foolishness.
While crossing the Greenway that parallels the river a passing couple inquired if I was okay as they opined that my left leg seemed to be awfully difficult to maneuver. I told them it was an inherent condition that mostly afflicted fly fisherman.
It is called "Hole Full Waderitis!"
Richard A. (Dick) Taylor
5-20-2013