Second Time Around

When a big fish beats you, its pretty much expected that a return engagement is warranted. Ma Nature and her trout don’t always allow another opportunity of course, but some of us that remain impassioned by this grand game tend to seek them anyway. I have been guilty of carrying that to extreme, maybe even obsession.

With one day of fishing remaining last week, my thoughts were centered on that trout that didn’t rise, yet managed to keep my Grizzly Beetle at the early ending of our surprise encounter. The forecast was bleak: rain and thunderstorms, winds 15 to 20 miles per hour, with a side of hot and humid despite the overcast. Of course I was going fishing.

I made one concession, taking along my old Winston BIIX four weight, yes a plastic fly rod, as I didn’t wish to get my choice bamboo soaked when the deluge came. I know how the Red Gods think, and I figured I was due for another soaking.

The little Winston has mojo. It served as my everyday rod on the Cumberland Valley spring creeks for a good run of seasons. Winston even put my name on it. In my humble opinion, the mid-2000’s Boron II X rods were the best of the boron/graphite fly rods that Winston made. They had a really nice flexing medium action, particularly that little eight-footer that could do everything required on my spring creeks.

So, mojo in hand I set out that afternoon to find the forecast was about 180 degrees off course. Hazy, hot and humid ruled, with nary a drop of rainfall and a fair amount of sunshine. The trout seemed to be elsewhere as I worked the same plan of attack as I had the day before. The Red Gods did have something in store for me though.

I was getting close to the location of my non-rising, tippet breaking foe when my solitude was interrupted by a terrific splashing and rustling near the downstream shoreline. I quickened my wading to the limits of stealth, but I was going to come up short of my target. Three wader clad individuals emerged from the bushes with an electroshocking rig, fine meshed nets, buckets and assorted gear, courtesy of New York State. They were just far enough downstream that their sloshing about hadn’t immediately sent waves across the river toward the primary lies I had come to fish, seeking a rematch, but they began to move upstream.

I managed to get into position as the seconds ticked away toward disaster, wading deeper and with poorer footing than I had planned, and started casting the venerable Grizzly Beetle toward fate’s doorway.

I was watching my casts and my drifts, and looking over my shoulder to check the progress of disturbance, with my nerves getting frazzled. Turning back with my line retrieved for another cast, I caught a streak of motion beneath overhanging cover, and then a soft wide ring opened and radiated outward. My arm dropped and I sent a side armed cast low and gently beneath the lie’s ceiling, checking my wrist to drop the fly downstream of tippet, leader and line. I watched those little barbs of grizzly hackle catch the light, and tracked them right into the spreading rings of another soft, wide ring of the rise.

A pause, a solid strike, and then I was backing away and stripping line to draw the trout from the cover he had so effectively used to defeat me. Avoiding a dunking when the precarious footing sought to betray me, I managed to control the big fellow and get him headed downstream against the drag. No teeth would cut the tippet this time.

In the net at last, he was a gorgeous, heavy and uniquely colored brown taping 23 inches. I found no fly in his mouth save the one still attached to me and my little Winston. The same fish? I cannot know with certainty, but the chances are good. Caught just in time, before the Red Gods new little twist of fate could rob me of the chance!