~The Return~ pt 1

One fish two fish, red fish blue fish

Actually would've been happy with one or two fish, certainly saw a lot of red fish. Like all first ascents into a new biosphere pursuing a new species I was the proverbial duck out of water. The kayak thing was fine, but there was minimal standing up and definitely no casting while standing. The drill was to paddle to an area where you could see and hear reds wallowing in the foot deep water, stealthily as possible hop out of the kayak, sink to your shins in muck and cast to the closest most recent disturbance. Several times I felt certain I was right on the dudes dinner table but stripping didn't get any attention and letting the fly just drop into the grass and out of sight didn't seem to make sense. The casting distances were tolerable, 30-40 feet, some closer. What was comical was when I'd be out of the kayak, anchored to the lagoon floor facing one direction only to glimpse a roll to my right or left and try to turn at my waist and cast in that direction with feet still planted. Course that wasn't as comical as the two times my tether to the kayak dropped off my wading belt and I'd look up from a strip to see my ride catching the breeze and scooting away, enlisting a panicked slow motion plunge complete with terrible sucking sound. Yah, and try getting your fly line untangled from your legs when your feet are cemented in 18" of goo. I'm actually proud that I survived the day with out a single face plant in the turtle grass. I can only imagine the dilemma of both feet and hands (and reel) sucked into the muck- that might yield the first piscator drowning in a foot of water!

Well, I can saw the barrier has now been officially broken. Maybe next year I can spend 2 or 3 days flailing away until it clicks. But for this time, my last day in salt country will be spent with 50,000 of my closest friends waiting in line to touch Harry Potters Wand! When I do, I'm gonna cry out, "redfishimus catcherosa expeliromus!". Couldn't hurt.

Judas Iscariot Hogwallup!

Here I sit.  Staring down the barrel of the longest two months of my life. True, we have not had a "killer" winter yet, but the weather app says over a foot of snow tonight. I hate January and February. Well, maybe hate is too strong of a word, but unless I'm out snowshoeing or otherwise enjoying the back country, I guess I do hate these two miserable months.  To make matters worse, the people that are supposed to be my support group through this Hell, the ones that should commiserate with me are betraying me!  Yes, you read it right!  Betraying me. I've already been left by the Mule, he's off in la la land playing Ozzy and Harriet.  Now comes the final blow. The Gov thinks he's off to the salt tomorrow!  Yah, you heard me! Salt!? What does he know about salt?  You're right! Nothing!  But it's all he can talk about.... salt this, salt that,  and it's MY hypertension that's going through the roof!  SODIUM intake be cursed!  I curse his eyes!  Good for nothing traitorous pond scum... Here I sit. Go ahead, rub salt in my wound.

"The Truckee, what? are you kidding me, the Truckee"

Jim Mora, a football coach who's famous rant about the playoffs has outlived anything he's accomplished on the field, fills my head. I'm reading in the Drake about some ski bum from Squaw v
Valley fishing the Truckee River, and here comes coach Mora, "the Truckee, are you kidding me, the Truckee!?!".

So of course Montana (not Joe, the state of) is unequivocally the Mecca of trout fishing. But, my fishing roots have periodically been featured in some magazine. A few months ago the ladders of Pyramid Lake were on the cover of TU's magazine, and now this, the Truckee. What next Paradise Pond, Sparks Nevada, that trout haven tucked in-between the drive in theatre and House of Fabrics? Where a stringer of hatchery rainbows and hamster cage full of crawdads could be procured by 6 grubby boys looking for a summer fish fry, carrying rods and booty on their bicycles.

It's kind of legitimizing and mystifying at the same time to read breathless stories in fly fishing rags about the very places you cut your baby fishing teeth. The Truckee River, oh if that river could talk. Now my experiences there are shallow and few compared to Pablo and Loren Mills escapades. But I will tell you there was an afternoon, when I took a blond cheerleader to a favorite spot, not far out of town. I was wearing my green Galena Creek basketball camp shirt from 1979 and a pair of cut offs. I waded out into the pocket water and deftly let my Pautzke's Balls of Fire on a #6 eagles claw tumble down the current and was quickly rewarded with a 12" rainbow and then another. The water was too cold and the cheerleader too hot to keep wading, so I came and joined her on the sandy beach next to a deep green pool. A few split shots were added to the rig and I cast into the middle of the pool hoping the fish action wouldn't be faster than the lip action. My infatuation for the cheerleader grew deeper as I watched her excitedly clean my catch. It was a hot sticky day on the Truckee, I remember smelling for the first time in my life my own BO in the arm pits of that green shirt, probably was during a laundry strike my mom pulled from time to time, and for some reason I couldn't stop sniffing that shirt.

We left there that afternoon deeply, deeply in love like any high school couple and myself particularly bemused by the unlikely intersection of perfume, BO and salmon eggs. I was going to marry this girl and we were going to fish happily ever after.

On the banks of the Truckee river!

"Playoffs!?"