It took me three tries, winding both tag ends of the 4X tippet material around the standing line, then catching as I pulled that blood knot smoothly tight: finger retraining after several months. A good sound knot is paramount, for we all know if its not.
The arthritis offers pain, stiffness particularly when cold, and the carpal tunnel robs the sensitivity, making it hard to feel that 4X, 5X, worse than anything finer. When thirty-five years has been a passion, there is hope a full supply of patience when things complicate the essential, like tying knots. The trout often shed their patience. No, truly that isn’t what I believe they are doing, they use theirs differently.
A big wild trout is an older wild trout, they may have been caught a time or two, more likely they have escaped from being caught perhaps quite a good many times. Breaking tippets is the tough way to escape. I think they prefer to escape from being caught by avoiding people and their flies, nets and all our paraphernalia. I think patience goes a lot into that. Patience to study everything of, about or near what they hope is a bug that catches their attention, before they choose to take it.
They remain patient, but even after they take that first bite, they just hold back before they take another. You or I see that first rise and we want to make a cast. Yea, we know it might be better to wait, but we saw that one and there might not be another, and while the line is already in the air while we are still convincing ourselves to be patient… Oh, we already hurried out that cast. How many times when that scenario played out that we never saw a second rise in that location, either to our fly or a live bug?
One rise doesn’t tell enough. Depending upon the location and conditions, that one rise hasn’t even told us that a trout is or has been anywhere nearby. Things splash into the water, fall into from overhead trees, blown in by the wind, etc.
If we are looking right at the event when it happens, chances are better we will see a better picture and be able to decide whether this was a fish’s rise or some other disturbance. If not, maybe not. One rise that tells us a fish took something from or near the surface, but it doesn’t tell us if that fish is stationary or moving, much less in which direction. Consider these facts and patience seems more important doesn’t it?
Years of time spent upon rivers in pursuit of trout will expand your patience, but it night also weaken your will to employ it. Whether you think of the works of the Red Gods, fishermen’s luck, etc. there are days when things fall to our favor and days when they fall on our head. Seems like which choices, decisions and moves turn out like golden on the best days, while the same choices, decisions and moves turn to crap on bad days.
When I recognize one of those other days, I try to think about the way I have been fishing and make the effort to change the decisions which guide my fishing. If I have been patient and methodical and reaping nothing, I will work harder to react to things quickly rather than analyzing everything before I make a cast. Fish a different type of water, cover more water or less, doing the opposite of what I have been doing without results.
Sometimes I just stop after the Red Gods have whooshed a big gust to send a dead tree branch crashing down on top of the big brownie I had been stalking twenty minutes to get into position to make the perfect cast to, and just blurt out a big loud, lusty laugh at myself and them!
Bright Waters Catskill 