 Brown Trout: High Water, Halloween And Black Ghosts
Posted by jeremy on October 30, 2005
(2309 reads)
High water is an inescapable environmental factor that changes the dynamics of any river. Usually, not for the better. But, if you want to get out for a few casts it can still produce results. Today, the water was outrageously high. The water was swollen way over its banks and creating micro tributaries in places that were typically dry. Whitewater and fast water seemed to be everywhere. My favorite runs were not only unfishable, they were unaccesible. My typical methods were certainly not going to work. So, what to do? Go home or give it a try. Very rarely, is going home an option in my book, especially without at least giving it my best shot. Today, however, it was almost my only option. But, since I was already there and geared up it made a tiny bit of sense to throw some sort of fly in the water. So, I looked at the water and realized that I needed to forget everything that had worked before. I reverted back to the very very basics. I put on a streamer. Big and white. A Black Ghost. I anaylyzed the water and looked carefully for any slow spots or seems. They were few and far between, actually there seemed to really only be one spot. This spot was created by a huge back eddie and it was a spot that is typically only fished by the worm dunkers. Yup, it is customary for the bait slingers to claim ownership of
this territory and the fly fisherman walk by them and proceed downstream. These two groups of Maine's fresh water fisherman, fly fishermen and bait fisherman, have so little in common and there is really nothing to say other than "gettin' any?" Actually, they have one more thing in common. The bait guys, the lure guys and the fly guys all come to this spot for one thing and one thing only. Potentially, big Brown Trout! Oh yeah, they are there. Not easily tricked, but they are there. In fact, they torment everyone. They lay there, without a care in the world and ignore every piece of artificial nonsense that is put in front of them. Worms, lures and flies drift right by their faces and they never even flinch. Typically, the biggest fish are taken on nymph rigs and by the flyfisherman. But, I am a little biased and I am sure the bait guys would say the exact opposite. Whatever the case, it was a mute point today because nobody was there. So, I stood in an unconventional fly fishing spot high above the water and casted an unconventional Brown Trout fly into the seem. It had to be a long cast in order to get past the raging current. So, I stripped off a ton of line and went for it. I felt the rod load after one double haul and release the line, leader and fly. Perfect! Just where I wanted it to land. I could see the maribou start to work its magic as it entered the soft water. Bang! The Brown Trout hammered the fly. He didn't even question it. It was awesome and it was one of those times that I could almost feel that fish hit before he really did. I know it has happened to you. It happens to everyone once and awhile and it is a cool feeling when you get a sixth sense that a fish is going to take your fly. That was it for the grace and action. After that first fish it went all downhill. I tried to fish nymphs in my typical runs but it proved to be as fatal as I thought. I was either hung up in trees or stuck on the bottom. I would re-rig and get hung up in the same spot that got me before. The only sixth sense that was working was my sixth sense telling me to go home. So, I called it quits and went home. I would not recommend going out of your way to fish any rivers when they are at flood stage. But, if you find yourself there by circumstance or without having known the conditions were such, it can't hurt to take a cast. Unless you fall in.
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Re: Brown Trout: High Water, Halloween And Black Ghosts
by patm on October 30, 2005 http://www.yankeeford.com | | nice looking fish. at least you tackled the elements and didn't just give into them.Interesting last sentence in this article. I remember your article from last halloween. Do you?. |
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Re: Brown Trout: High Water, Halloween And Black Ghosts
by greg on October 30, 2005 http://www.fliesandfins.com | | You caught one! well whats next, the Rogue? |
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Re: Brown Trout: High Water, Halloween And Black Ghosts
by jeremy on October 30, 2005 http://www.fliesandfins.com | that is so cool pat. i take such care in writing the articles, not because i actually think anyone will read them...i do it...just because i love to write. always have, always will. but, i must say...i really loved that last sentence too...especially in the context of the entire piece. i kind of get like a little writers high when i write - because there is always a better word, a better sentence, a different way to weave the words...and i really put alot of thought into each word and sentence. i do not focus too much on perfection of grammar or spelling, as i feel that it is a distraction to the soul of writing. in the real world, that's what editors are for anyway. the editors clean up all the little imperfections after the writer crystalizes the soul of the subject matter.
i have always loved to write. i enjoy all types of writing. technical, music (notes and words), marketing/advertising content, poems, research documents...it is very similar to flyfishing for me...finding the perfect fly/word.
Anyway, one thing i know for certain is that the internet has the ability to turn even the most patient person into frantic information junkie. gone are the days of ink and feather pens. today..we live in a world of speed.. what's next..graphics things that move and more, more, more and can you blame us. look how much information we have. literally, at our fingertips. billions and billions of words, web pages, tv channels, satelite radio, IT is information the information age and information overload. Don't get me wrong i love IT! In fact i promote it and even make a living off of it. but, what i really strive to find is the balance ... the little pieces of all of it the make up one thing. and, that is how i originally created flies and fins.
i looked at everything going on and i thought to myself the following things:
forums - they are good for immediacy - but the long term value of forum related content isn't there. its kinda like the phone - clearly a value to the conversation at hand - but you would not want to archive all of your phone calls and go back through them at some point in the future.
chat - valuable technology but immediacy is the benefit again.
white paper type articles - a little too boring for most peoples liking
photo galleries - not too much value without context - in other words i am certainly not going to go over a friends house and look through his shoe boxes full of photos. i need them to be put in context for me.
video - immediate gratification and a good tool for hightening the senses - but not always the best way to tell or listen to a story.
SO...I thought to myself: What is there that can tie it all together??? and fliesandfins.com was born
quality articles + 1 graphic + 1 video + 1 song + interaction = fliesandfins.com
now - sometimes all of the elements are not there ... but you get the point. and more importantly than all of that - anyone can participate as a writer, photographer, reader....the writers that fliesandfins.com seems to attract are thankfully..NOT...the blow hard know it alls. All of the articles, from all of the writers are written with a certain sense of realness and that is what I like most. Nobody, at least not me, wants to hear from some self proclaimed know it all about this or that....who cares. and that kind of content gets real old real quick...there are plenty of "expert" fly tyers, guides, casters and professional this or that's. i like to hear about the soul of a subject matter - not the Minutia.
Finally, my point.:) - i got a great deal of satisfaction from that last sentence. so much so that i even pointed it out to my wife. good sentences just seem to come from out of nowhere - NOT all the time - but when they come i'm like "YES! That's IT"....That sentence was one of those for me...and it is so cool that you recognized it. because, i thought that most people never even r
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Re: Brown Trout: High Water, Halloween And Black Ghosts
by KodiakCommando on October 30, 2005 | | Great story jeremy. If there is one species i miss more than any up here it is brown trout, seems like i haven't caught one in centuries. |
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