Visions of Springtime

I left my buddy to work the first good rises we found and continued my search. A few flies had started wriggling their way to the surface, and we both trusted to patience and stealth to bring rewards.

I waded down river gently, sticking to the edge and taking pains to prevent my passage from sending pressure waves out into the pool. I must have spent half an hour covering 75 feet of river, and the flies began to increase in number once I passed the head of the pool.

When the trout began to rise it was all at once, several of them, all within reach of a long cast. I worked the closest riser with my Hendrickson and he proved to be willing. A nice fish, perhaps fifteen inches, he made me concentrate much closer upon the riseforms scattered throughout the area. The next candidate to bend the bamboo was just a bit larger, the second to succumb to my Hendrickson.

A few Blue Quills mingled with the Hendricksons, and when I finally located a rise with less splash and more bulge, true to form he ignored the Hendrickson. My drift was good, but this fish was obviously interested in the smaller mayflies struggling in the film. A change to a Blue Quill Cripple proved to be just what he was looking for, though not until I downsized my tippet to 6X!

The Menscer bamboo rod bowed heavily when I tightened, and the old CFO sang his praises as he darted away down current. I did my best to pressure him away from the next pod of riseforms, ever conscious of the delicate tether we shared. He obliged by turning away from me, running out to the middle of the river. I was smiling broadly when I finally brought him to the net: twenty-one inches of golden bronze and dark-spotted muscle.

The Hendricksons were coming steadily, and though the battle had pushed several fish downstream, they weren’t so shy as to ignore Nature’s bounty. Ten gradual steps downstream put me within easy casting range of the first in line, and I studied his riseform carefully before casting. I judged this fish to be of decent size and had offered two drifts when my eye caught a heavy swirl and bulge in the next line of drift. A step down and a step out gave me the angle I wanted.

As the trout turned back to the drifting Hendrickson duns, I had knotted one of my CDC Sparkle Duns to my leader, allowing the fever of the hatch to prevent me from changing back to 5X tippet. An angler’s gamble, one born of countless experiences, some of which had led to victory, and others to defeat. I have waded many miles of rivers and well remember the expediency big trout often require.

Conventional wisdom would lead an angler to expect a larger trout to feed longer, taking advantage of a good hatch to take in all of the calories his bulk demands, yet often this is not the case. Perhaps it is their inert wariness that grows with the experience of years. I have found many such fish that rose just a handful of times before vanishing. It seems as if they feel you before you ever offer a cast. On this day, it would be 6X or nothing.

It required a couple of casts to match his rhythm, then perhaps two more to drift the fly teasingly to him, the flecks of light-carrying bubbles in the dubbing and the wavering fibers of the CDC wing convincing him, giving proof of life. When the cane arched, and the reel screamed to life, I knew the greatest finesse would be required to win this battle.

I fought the fish out in the secondary current that washes the shallow bank of that reach of river. There were no logs or brush piles as often populate the main flows at the foot of our steep riverbanks, but this pool has a fine complement of rocks and boulders in it’s gravelly bottom. I kept the rod shaft as close to a forty-five degree angle as possible, reacting quickly but gently to each turn of direction. If I could keep him working in that spring current and away from the sharp-edged boulders, I believed I could win the war; and so I did.

A deep, heavy bodied Catskill brown some twenty-three inches long can weigh in the vicinity of five pounds, and I agreed with that estimation as he lay glistening in the meshes of the net, a glorious gift of spring!