... been catchin' some big Rainbow Trout in the waters of the 'Yough' the past two weekends...
... so last Sunday 'Muscle Girl Sarah' and 'ZMan' stop over, amped to do something outside... bit of a late start and low energy day on my part - suggested an easy MTB ride up river for a few hours... toted a fly rod along figuring to stop and "cast a few"...
... 'ZMan' and 'Muscle Girl Sarah'...
... cranked up to a usually productive fishing hole that we hadn't fished in a few years... mostly fish alone and seldom have an audience along... had caught two very nice (and large) Rainbows the previous evening further down stream... considering the run I'd been having was hopin' to land something big in the limited time available - only had the one rod along and there's nothing more boring than watching someone fish*...
... this particular location is a pretty deep hole with a moderate current, submerged boulders, a few exposed boulders necking some swift tailouts resulting in some nice eddys, and you're casting from the top of a large boulder about four feet from the water surface - on top of that ya' got a nice submerged rock ledge dropping off into the deep about five feet from the waters edge - bet the hole itself is close to 8ft deep - great habitat...
... had been casting an always reliable muddler minnow for probably ten minutes, gettin' about a two foot "draft" while floatin' maybe forty feet with the mild current in crystal clear water - know that there's trout in there and also know that they're layin' deep... usually not a showoff, but sure would like to hook something considering the captive audience...
... gotta' go deep, so decided to violate one of our most stringent rules and add a split-shot to the system - one "BB" clamped snugly to the 4X tippet did the trick - the muddler was disappearing into the murky depths beyond the submerged rock ledge...
... about fifteen casts alternating between between deep and slow and shallow and swift drifts apparently got some attention - a decent size wild Rainbow emerged and started sniffin' around the muddler at shallow depth - I was puttin' perfect casts directly in his path which he would intermittently make a fast run on only to jacknife at the last instant... who's playin' who now? ...
... plop!... another perfect cast directly in his face floats by with indifference and I'm watchin' him while habitually workin' the muddler swift and shallow downstream when - wham! - a sudden jerk on the rod and the line is goin' nuts and racing in tight circles - a second fish has shot up and snatched the muddler and is putin' on a show - he breaks surface twice about a foot in the air, all the while kickin' and fightin' - he's gorgeous too with some very vibrant speckled silver and yellows offsetting the signature lateral deep red - nature couldn't have detailed him any better - definitely not a stocked fish...
... so while I'm workin' and lettin' him play himself out I get the brilliant idea to ask Muscle Girl Sarah to grab the camera from my waist belt to snap a photo or two when I bring 'em in - never get any photos of fish we land and this is a good opportunity...
... but in the process of workin' the fish and freein' up the camera and explaining it's functions, I'm playin' him too long - he's a big fish and I know I'm stretchin' the limits of the 5wt/4X rig (combined with the bad news split-shot) while he's swiftly circling the submerged boulders...
... this is takin' too long - gotta' get 'em in - forget the photo - he's about two feet from the waters edge along the rock we're fishin' from - within arms reach - when snap! - the line goes completely slack and he's gone...
... mu##!!r fxxkr s#n of a b!!t*h dirty b#st!!d !!!!...
... later inspection reveals the 4X tippet snapped right at the split shot! - he's gone, literally "hook, line and sinker"...
... been fishin' off and on since probably six years old and have never, ever lost a fish to a snapped line or leader - and for that matter have never, ever left an injured or wounded critter in the wild... not a great feeling knowing that wild fish is swimming around up there hooked with a fly and about six inches of leader - bugged me all week - anyone who would think any different needs to go set under a big tree for a long period of time...
... he continued to circle the hole, doin' what he does... changed lures and tried to hook 'em again so I could at least release the hook lodged in his lip, but he wasn't goin' for it... two other large Rainbows emerged as well, so now there's four circling about twenty feet from shore or workin' the shallow slackwater directly upstream and a few feet from the shoreline... thank's to my screw-up, however, was feeling completely out of my environment and more like an intruder than anything else and really didn't want to disturb them anymore - so we packed up and left...
... headin' back downstream..
... a short but technical hill climb on the way out...
*... except this, maybe - was taking an open water scuba course at a divers quarry in central PA years ago and noticed four gals who had been setting along the shoreline in lounge chairs. After about two or three hours our group made our way over to their vicinity. We noticed that they hadn't moved out of their loungers all this time. One of our guys asked the gals how it was going - "Oh, we're just watching our husbands scuba dive" was one's response... definitely not our idea of an exciting Saturday afternoon...
