I lack the Warden-aint-looking-Velveeta “rod holder”, the depth meter, but more importantly I’m missing that gracious and relaxed look that comes with consistent success.
I was too busy sulking to notice. Fishing is five grabs – and if you’re lucky enough to hook most of them it’s a good day; sunburn hurts less, dinner tastes better, and the mosquitoes bother some other unfortunate.
Me. Mostly.
I flopped around trying secret and double-secret, figuring with each new color I’d unlock the lake and its secrets, but it was for naught. The weather was friendly, yet the fishing remained deathly.
Not a Factor.
Why you keep a #10 Adams in a box of #16’s
After the sixth or seventh honey bee floated by I was rethinking the McGinty – and why hadn’t I been smart enough to have a half dozen at the ready…
Everywhere was “Pizza” water. Toppings included every terrestrial not supposed to be there, a smattering of everything that belonged, throw in some midges just to confound everyone and a rise was something to dread, not its normal welcome quickening.
Two fish over was the fellow that likes mayfly, and I’d just cast at the fish that prefers Ladybug…
… and that welcome breeze, the one that adds enough cooling to your burnt forearms so’s you won’t notice – suddenly delivers enough protein to wake up everything downwind plus sending the sunbathers screaming.
It’s the reason you have that one bedraggled #10 Adams in your box of sixteen’s – where you pray you used lots of black thread, because having tried everything earlier, you know you’re lacking ants of any shape or color.
A deft use of the nippers – a bit of artistic license, and sent on its way with a prayer. The first fish shakes it loose in midair, and with only four grabs left …
… that satisfying feeling of a solid hookup. Large meat heading for the weeds and suddenly 5X is too thin, gossamer even.
Suddenly everything looks better. The girls are prettier, the sky bluer, dinner is strictly gourmet, and there’s still some fish working. No one’s noticed – none have crept closer, and after those two Canada Geese trail past my fly …
NO. He did not just eat that…
(The honker is making a wry face, beak and tongue suddenly active)
… and the line is moving smartly from the slack position to nearly taught.
Time freezes.
The little Devil on my left shoulder says, “ Dude, figure she’s nearly eight or nine pounds, that bitch can peel line …”
The lesser Devil on my right says, “True, but you’ve got about 60 small children and parents on the beach to your left, that Honker is going to scream bloody murder, likely go airborne – and while you’re flying that kite with your click-pawl pointing its ugly finger right at you, the entire National Park Service is going beat you to death in a really public way.”
… so I feed slack as fast as I can, the Goose is still mouthing frantically and I’m praying the last of my five grabs is a clean miss.
Ptui … and the fly drops safely into the water.
Left shoulder Devil isn’t done yet, “Dude, that counts. It’s aquatic, it lives here – it’s natural, and it was a clean take.”
Right side responds quickly enough, “ An asterisk at best, what’s important is that as the National Park Service has recently converted from wheel guns to the Model 92 – featuring 15 in the clip and one in the pipe – they’ve stopped counting until the slide locks at empty.”
We all agreed that was a good point.
Yet another reason to fiddle with caustic chemicals and satanic dyeing ritual; when the French Press dies an ignoble death after being rapped too harshly on the sink – you’re only mildly put out …
It’s bad enough they’ve had to exhume Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow six or seven times – largely due to the vibrations of them turning in the grave was scaring school kids.
Six weeks of rehab isn’t changing anything, it’s just celebrity traffic school for first offenders. Like the Phoenix, recently emerged and armed with the verve of the righteous, we’re supposed to 
The rest of us could wear a fragment of the $800 rod we sat on, perhaps with the label foremost – or at least a guide wrap visible so we could give each other the nod, and cluck our tongues in commiseration.
Here I think I’ve got it bad – a two year ban on salmon fishing and me and my fellows either gashing ourselves over too much water or too little, and now 