Big slathering mean Dogs with a weakness for Strawberry

I call it fishing but it’s mostly exercise. The misdeeds of late December have a habit of lingering until Spring, with every morsel of See’s candy, every indiscretion of fruit cake or Egg Nog – visible on my portly frame.

They’re gone, aided in part by a snarling big wet pooch that tracked my progress through the gravel, before succumbing to a Kashi Strawberry fig newton a couple miles upstream.

I’m evil incarnate as regards the family mutt, I’ve got more sunwarmed fart bars tucked away in vest pockets than Walmart has on their shelves. At precisely this very moment some farmer just launched “Killer” through the screen door – nearly overcome by colon-baked Soy goodness.

I warned him … while doling out the second one.

Three miles up and three back suggests I’m back to summer form, and for the entire journey, there was but six fish visible. The bass are nowhere to be seen, and even the small fish aren’t in their normal haunts.

I went up as far as the big pool that normally has Carp and the only thing stirring was an immense beaver that delighted in surfacing and smashing water whenever I drew a breath.

He didn’t care for the Strawberry Fig Newton, could be the trajectory was wrong … or the big hungry dog that followed was offputting.

I left the Beast upstream and started the trek out, he was engaged in extruding the beaver onto a whole wheat crust and no longer cared for my meager rations.

A phalanx of large Pikeminnow caught my eye in one of the deep stretches,  they were the only fish I’d seen all day so I stopped to admire them. These were a remnant of the “Untouchables” – cruising fish that I’d flung lots of flies at with no effect.

I’d been throwing an Olive Clownshoe earlier hoping to get some interest out of the pool above and figured a couple casts at the squadron wouldn’t hurt much – they were patrolling a regular route, and as they went downstream out of view I snuck out on the bank and dropped a fly on an intercept.

Using a Skagit head on my little 9′ rod offers a really nice feature, you can fling a lot of line with one backcast – as it’s really just a shooting head with thin running line, not the traditional WF that requires a lot of air time to get goodly distance.

The fly was midstream swinging for my bank when the fish reappeared below, I just let the fly tumble across the bottom into their midst. The tip of the fly line headed for the bottom, I tightened the line and the lead fish broke into “escape and evade.” All six vanished in a mushroom cloud of mud, and I’m hopping from one foot to another trying not to step on the running line as it came at me off the ground.

One victory doesn’t win wars but it’s mighty nice to get bit, especially on an untested prototype. I got a solid hookup in the upper mouth – so he figured it was food and was cleanly duped.

If I can land the other five I might come up with something else to call them, until then I’ll call myself, “lucky.”

Shirtsleeves in January doesn’t bode well for the season ahead of us, but with every other Friday off compliments of the state, I’ll hit it early and often, as should you.