Well, this season has not exactly started out as planned. First, I got laid up with back issues which forced me to cancel a 3 day outing and now a week long trip that was to begin this past Tuesday was cancelled due to a weeks worth of rain events followed by over satiated rivers. Fortunately, a two day trip with my oldest daughter along with some local pond fishing for stocked trout has helped appease my thirst but has done nothing to feed the monster.
And so for now it is day to day. My early morning routine starts with a 5am big mug of coffee only to be immediately followed by cfs river gauge checks and weather forecasts. There is one and only one good aspect to the rivers running so high right now and that it should help defend against a 4 day heat wave arriving today through Sunday. Hopefully the high water will allow the fish some recluse.
There is some good news in all this. I am watching one particular river very closely. It's history has shown it to rise and recede rather quickly. If it continues its normal path and drops throughout today I may have a shot tomorrow. I've also been asked by a friend to join him Monday on a northerly river that appears unaffected by this past weeks rains. I've also been invited to fly fish for stripers in northern MA.on Sunday. Time will tell. Hopefully the next report will be actual fish time and not fill and fluff. More to follow.
-ASM
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Sunday, May 19, 2013
A Father, A Daughter And A River
Opening Day
So the season did not start out as expected. Ailments, home commitments and weather all being a factor. However as they say, things do have a way of working out and what once seemed horrible and without reason is now but a distant memory. Good found it's way.
A cancelled trip a week ago with my good friend Gray had now become a trip this week with my nineteen year old daughter. A college freshmen, we had been apart for most of the last nine months and we had missed time together. When she asked if we could fly fishing together I knew things had worked this way for a reason. Just the two of us alone in the woods for two day on two of my favorite rivers. What more could I ask for.
A nights ride up to our cabin in the woods followed by a good nights rest. Breakfast came early the following morning. Eggs, hashbrowns and whole wheat toast the order of the day. A forty five minute ride to the river followed where we suited up and on the water by 10am. A near perfect morning with partial clouds and air temperatures in the low 50's. Water flows were ideal at 300cfs and water quality and clarity were good making it easy to wade.
During the morning we concentrated on the deeper pools and slower, softer slicks where we found healthy browns and rainbows on princes, stones and olive caddis nymphs. Being a state trophy river the fish ranged from 16" to our biggest, a 20" rainbow. By early afternoon we had landed seven fish and lost three including a very large rainbow that jumped twice then headed down river spitting the fly. Around 1pm high cloud cover developed followed by the darker lower clouds. You could feel the weather changing by the minute as a low was pushing through, the air temperature dropping ten degrees in ten minutes as the wind picked up and the rumble of thunder could heard in the distance. When a cold rain began, the fishing shut down. We fished another half hour then cold and wet, we scrambled to break down our gear and headed home to warm for the haven of a warm fire.
Day 2
A chilly night lent itself to a good sleep. I awoke at 5am to bright skies and high pressure. By 7am the thermometer read 52*. A beautiful day in Vermont on another beautiful Vermont river. The flows had been ideal on yesterdays river to our south however this river was another creature, a larger more powerful freestone river where naturally producing wild trout prevailed.. With flows running at 1,100cfs, I knew our ability to safely wade and access crucial locations might be limited and was right. When we arrived we found the water higher than what we had hoped. It was moving and it was still cold. We had our work cut out for us. For two hours that morning we focused on fishing the upper reaches of the river nymphing tandem rigs with little success. As beautiful as the river and its holding places of trout appeared we just had a sense that we had arrived a week or two premature. Around 11:30 we came to a bend in the river where the main current runs straight and hard before smashing into a 75' ledge rock wall and pushing the water east that creates a beautiful and very large and deep pool. I switched over to my sinking line and a big olive and tan streamer pattern. Within minutes I felt the soft lethargic short strikes of a trout. Two casts again, then nothing. What may have been curious below the waters surface was no longer. An hour later we fished a similar pool and felt another short strike but again no fish.
It was now 1pm and I realized it had been almost 4 hours on this river without a fish. I watched my daughter. I wondered what was going through that head of hers and recalled my days at her age and the excitement of it all. I could see her patience was now waning and that the lack of action was taking its toll and draining her interest. But still she continued to fish never once complaining. Around 2pm, the wind began to pick up more steadily as if whispering to me that it was time to go. We called out to my daughter and we hiked out. This would not be the day of a wild trout. But I'd had a marvelous time. And as we made our way home, she asked me when we could fish again, I knew so did she.
So the season did not start out as expected. Ailments, home commitments and weather all being a factor. However as they say, things do have a way of working out and what once seemed horrible and without reason is now but a distant memory. Good found it's way.
A cancelled trip a week ago with my good friend Gray had now become a trip this week with my nineteen year old daughter. A college freshmen, we had been apart for most of the last nine months and we had missed time together. When she asked if we could fly fishing together I knew things had worked this way for a reason. Just the two of us alone in the woods for two day on two of my favorite rivers. What more could I ask for.
A nights ride up to our cabin in the woods followed by a good nights rest. Breakfast came early the following morning. Eggs, hashbrowns and whole wheat toast the order of the day. A forty five minute ride to the river followed where we suited up and on the water by 10am. A near perfect morning with partial clouds and air temperatures in the low 50's. Water flows were ideal at 300cfs and water quality and clarity were good making it easy to wade.
During the morning we concentrated on the deeper pools and slower, softer slicks where we found healthy browns and rainbows on princes, stones and olive caddis nymphs. Being a state trophy river the fish ranged from 16" to our biggest, a 20" rainbow. By early afternoon we had landed seven fish and lost three including a very large rainbow that jumped twice then headed down river spitting the fly. Around 1pm high cloud cover developed followed by the darker lower clouds. You could feel the weather changing by the minute as a low was pushing through, the air temperature dropping ten degrees in ten minutes as the wind picked up and the rumble of thunder could heard in the distance. When a cold rain began, the fishing shut down. We fished another half hour then cold and wet, we scrambled to break down our gear and headed home to warm for the haven of a warm fire.
Day 2
A chilly night lent itself to a good sleep. I awoke at 5am to bright skies and high pressure. By 7am the thermometer read 52*. A beautiful day in Vermont on another beautiful Vermont river. The flows had been ideal on yesterdays river to our south however this river was another creature, a larger more powerful freestone river where naturally producing wild trout prevailed.. With flows running at 1,100cfs, I knew our ability to safely wade and access crucial locations might be limited and was right. When we arrived we found the water higher than what we had hoped. It was moving and it was still cold. We had our work cut out for us. For two hours that morning we focused on fishing the upper reaches of the river nymphing tandem rigs with little success. As beautiful as the river and its holding places of trout appeared we just had a sense that we had arrived a week or two premature. Around 11:30 we came to a bend in the river where the main current runs straight and hard before smashing into a 75' ledge rock wall and pushing the water east that creates a beautiful and very large and deep pool. I switched over to my sinking line and a big olive and tan streamer pattern. Within minutes I felt the soft lethargic short strikes of a trout. Two casts again, then nothing. What may have been curious below the waters surface was no longer. An hour later we fished a similar pool and felt another short strike but again no fish.
It was now 1pm and I realized it had been almost 4 hours on this river without a fish. I watched my daughter. I wondered what was going through that head of hers and recalled my days at her age and the excitement of it all. I could see her patience was now waning and that the lack of action was taking its toll and draining her interest. But still she continued to fish never once complaining. Around 2pm, the wind began to pick up more steadily as if whispering to me that it was time to go. We called out to my daughter and we hiked out. This would not be the day of a wild trout. But I'd had a marvelous time. And as we made our way home, she asked me when we could fish again, I knew so did she.
Saturday, May 4, 2013
The Game Changer
May 3rd, 4th & 5th. For six months we'd waited for this weekend. I'd made plans with my fishing partner, Gray. We'd chosen the three rivers we would fish each day and followed the weather, water flows and temperatures meticulously. Our plan was perfect. We'd fish a trophy trout river the first day, a wild trout river the second and finish up the 3rd on a small, local wild brook trout stream. The conditions could not have been better. High pressure with 60* air temperature and ideal water temperatures and flows. The bite would be on. Our gear packed and stowed.
Then it happend. 20 hours before departure, I begin to feel burning and aching in my lower left back & rib cage. This to be followed by chills and a headache. Then comes an upset stomach. By 7pm I could not move without immense pain in my back. Any range of motion- bending, flexion gone. I was locked up and in trouble. My intial thought, food poisoning and a severe back spasm. By 11pm I knew it was more severe. It hurt to even breath. Sleeping was impossible. At 1am I phoned Gray and left him a voicemail along with a text. The trip was off. Nothing short of learning of a loved one's death could I be this upset. The pit in my stomach felt deep, black and overwhelming.
At 9amFriday morning I was not on my trophy river. I was not again feeling the flow of liquid aqua against my legs, hearing thecalls of nature, experiencing that spiritual moment with an unwielding appreciation for all that the real world has to offer. And I was not feeling the bend of the rod and the power of the pull as an 18" brown trout took me downstream like a freight train.
Instead, I was in the doctors office. The sounds of nature replaced by the sounds of people coughing, chattering on their cell phones and complaining to the receptionist. This could not be happening. But it was and in this time and space was real. Finally, after a twenty minute examination by the doctor, my diagnosis; Shingles. A virus that remains dormant from having chickenpox. It can re-activate at any time however most often when one's immune system is weak. It choose a vulnerable part of the body and attacks the nerve endings. The cure; antibiotics, pain medication and rest. Recovery time; two to four weeks depending on one's own body to recover.
It is now Saturday Day 2 of the trip. I sit in my office, medicated and typing. As I look out the window on this beautiful spring day I think how Gray and I would have been waist deep now nymphing for wild rainbows. Or maybe we'd have been swinging large streamers on sinking lines in the big pools of this, my favorite river, or even possibly tying on a #16 Hendrickson or #12 Quill Gordon as the hatches begin to show. But there will be no fishing for me today or sadly, for the next several weeks. The wait must continue. And though the pain of this god forsaken virus will eventually leave, the pain of what should have and could have been will never go away.
If there is a life lesson to be learned from all this I say "Live your life as you choose, not what others would choose for you, for tomorrow may never come".
-ASM
Then it happend. 20 hours before departure, I begin to feel burning and aching in my lower left back & rib cage. This to be followed by chills and a headache. Then comes an upset stomach. By 7pm I could not move without immense pain in my back. Any range of motion- bending, flexion gone. I was locked up and in trouble. My intial thought, food poisoning and a severe back spasm. By 11pm I knew it was more severe. It hurt to even breath. Sleeping was impossible. At 1am I phoned Gray and left him a voicemail along with a text. The trip was off. Nothing short of learning of a loved one's death could I be this upset. The pit in my stomach felt deep, black and overwhelming.
At 9amFriday morning I was not on my trophy river. I was not again feeling the flow of liquid aqua against my legs, hearing thecalls of nature, experiencing that spiritual moment with an unwielding appreciation for all that the real world has to offer. And I was not feeling the bend of the rod and the power of the pull as an 18" brown trout took me downstream like a freight train.
Instead, I was in the doctors office. The sounds of nature replaced by the sounds of people coughing, chattering on their cell phones and complaining to the receptionist. This could not be happening. But it was and in this time and space was real. Finally, after a twenty minute examination by the doctor, my diagnosis; Shingles. A virus that remains dormant from having chickenpox. It can re-activate at any time however most often when one's immune system is weak. It choose a vulnerable part of the body and attacks the nerve endings. The cure; antibiotics, pain medication and rest. Recovery time; two to four weeks depending on one's own body to recover.
It is now Saturday Day 2 of the trip. I sit in my office, medicated and typing. As I look out the window on this beautiful spring day I think how Gray and I would have been waist deep now nymphing for wild rainbows. Or maybe we'd have been swinging large streamers on sinking lines in the big pools of this, my favorite river, or even possibly tying on a #16 Hendrickson or #12 Quill Gordon as the hatches begin to show. But there will be no fishing for me today or sadly, for the next several weeks. The wait must continue. And though the pain of this god forsaken virus will eventually leave, the pain of what should have and could have been will never go away.
If there is a life lesson to be learned from all this I say "Live your life as you choose, not what others would choose for you, for tomorrow may never come".
-ASM
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)