Back to our early morning haunts on the river with dad. Instinctively we made order of our spots over the years. I took the 40$ hole (where I caught the first 20"+ brown between dad, Oscar, and myself, it took many years). I have caught another, but out of the many years and thousands of trout it is a rare thing. A lot of patience, practice, and luck! Anyway, dad took the upper shit hole and the cottonwood hole. We wet our lines by 5:45 and my first cast had me adjusting my slack which inevitably got my slightly hung up under the water. I jerked the rod slightly to free the line and "snap". My 3 weight fly rod was now broken in half. It served many trips on the river and caught many fish, so it was only a matter of time. Now I can get myself a new 3 weight ST.CROIX fly rod for Christmas! At that moment I basically said to myself, "F#$K!." Bewildered, but not ready to let the fat lady sing, I met up with my dad before he moved further down river and used his pliers to yank out the busted shaft. I was then able to at least re-insert the other half, albeit, whimsy. I pussy-footed back up to my spot and got my rhythm going with the fly line. I hooked into 17 beautiful browns in total. Dad did very well too. Finally, I also realized I had forgotten my snippers/pliers. Instead, I jerry-rigged a taught stick to pry out a hook when I needed too. It was all catch and release, and they all went swimming off happily and vigorously. In the fall, the browns really get a rich and beautiful nutty-orange hue along their belly, their dorsal area an inky black and their spots a vibrant mixture of poignant reds, yellows, oranges, and black, layered like individual cells of Chuck Close painting.
Posted on: Thu, 11 Jul 2013 15:45:02 +0000
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