Conflicted

During trout season here in the Carolina mountains, I keep all of my gear in the trunk of my car- luck favors the prepared.  I never know when the day will hand me a free hour or two and if I can divert directly to the water, that hour can go from tedium to tranquility.  I admit that on Thursday it was a calculated move.  Staring down the barrel at the three day weekend and with family all in Atlanta for a volleyball tourney I was sprinting through work Thursday morning, scheduled a lunch meeting at a cafe in the same complex as my local fly shop- a quick stop there and I'd be free to fish all weekend.

The weather was cooperating nicely, cool for spring in these parts, but flat out balmy, at 58, for my brethren in Connecticut, Jersey, Utah and Alaska   This would be a good day!  I pulled into the parking spot, blissful to see no other vehicles.  Backed up to a nice flat piece of granite, chunked the phone and Ipad in the drivers seat and popped the trunk- my phone booth- where I make the transition from mild manner city manager of metropolis to wilderness super hero.  As I pulled out my waders, I became disoriented  cryptonite? something in the gear bag was amiss, something was not where it should have been!  Like the good people of metropolis trying to comprehend how a man in a cape could fly, I stood staring in the trunk, mind unable to comprehend how there was only one wading boot.  I instinctively began rummaging through the gear, then even went and looked in the backseat of the car- all the while knowing that I had dropped off the boot for repairs on Monday and had even put on my calendar today to pick it up- but there I was, ready to start my fish-a-thon weekend and only one wading boot, but knowing I had in fact two feet.

I felt sick.  The responsible thing to do would be to drive back to the office and go back to work.  I wondered for a moment if I could wade in my neoprene booty.  Sometime I had an old pair of running shoes in the car or my work out bag with running shoes, but not today.

Dressed for Success

To appreciate this little crisis, you have to understand it in the context of the bigger crisis of my life.  Ok, not really a crisis but certainly conflict.  Too much of my very limit mental capacity is spent trying to determine if I am a trout bum or a respectable father of five, manager of a large organization, and leader of my community and church.  The two can never seem to peacefully coexist.  And while fishing certainly gives needed respite and makes me better, I hope, at all the other stuff, the desire to be on the stream is constantly battling with all the important stuff, even sometimes ripping the "important" off the "stuff" - exactly as our blog mission has been so perfectly stated by Judge Traver, "And sometimes he fishes not because he regards fishing as being so terribly important but because he suspects that so many of the other concerns of men are equally unimportant."


So as I snapped a picture of my solution to the problem, I knew that I had captured exactly the conflict I often experience.  I also knew I had taken a real and metaphorical step to resolving the conflict.
Twenty years from now this will be part of the lore and legend my grand kids will know about me.  They wont care what I accomplished in my career, but they will know that their grandpa loves to fish so much that he once waded the trout stream wearing a $150 dress shoe- which was ruined of course!

By the way, the shoe did ok on slick rocks, I'm thinking about using that soft rubber dress shoe sole for a new line of feltless boots.  Fishing was tough, but didn't matter, I was out there, doing what I loved and caught a few fish in places other piscators must of over looked.

Expecting the Unexpected

The thing about being the early bird is it's freaking cold first thing on a March morning, even in the south.  A slip leads to wet hands and the chilly trickle down the leg.  Frozen fingers don't work for tying tiny flies to strands of hair and clearing ice out of the guides.  About the time I was thinking this whole thing was a big mistake- it happened, the unexpected.  The unexpected is one of the reasons we fish- you can always expect the unexpected, sometime bad, sometimes fantastic, sometimes inexplicable, sometimes unrelated whatsoever to the act of fishing- but you can count on the unexpected.

I had decided to take a gamble and wade across a sandy area of the big pool I was fishing to give me a better presentation to some finicky or maybe cold and sleepy trout.  The sandy area had at the front deep water and at the back tree limbs hanging over the flow, so I was ducking and maneuvering, eyes intent on the area where I knew fish held.  I looked down to see if the depth of the water was changing and just beyond my cold feet was a dead fish, laying on its side, silvery and lifeless, but just past that, under a low hanging branch was an armada of trout, sitting in formation like F14s on an aircraft carrier.  I had a flash back to a mangrove flat of Puerto Rico where a mask and snorkel brought me face to face with a school of juvey bone fish tucked up under the protection of the overhanging bank.  Suspended in formation, swaying in unison with the tide.  Those fish were uncatchable because I didn't have a rod, but these trout, in the same formation feeling smug under their low hanging branch were fair, if not challenging game.  How do you get a fly to fish right at the end of your rod with out spooking them and both of you surrounded by branches.  A slow cold morning suddenly had my heart beating, this would be fun!  I tied on a big nymph so I could see the take underwater.  I pointed the rod horizontal to the waters surface and with fly between thumb and index finger of my left hand, used the tension of the leader to bend the rod tip back- bow and arrow style.  Pop- I launched the fly perfectly into the tree branches-aimed high.  Afraid another move would spook the school, I used the end of the rod tip to untangle and retrieve the fly, all the while, one eye on the school hovering 3 feet to my left in 2 feet of water.  I lower the rod tip to 6" above the surface, and this time shot the fly perfectly in front of me, where the current would carry it right to my quarry.

Just as it drifted into the kill zone, I realized I had no leverage to set the hook and if the fish bolted, I'd be wrapped up in branches and probably snap my brothers new Orvis.  Love those ah ha moments!  I could just make out the fly drifting past the lead fish- come on.... I lost the fly but saw a fish move with purpose and open it's mouth- I swung the rod quickly right simultaneously stripping quickly and felt the lovely familiar tap tap while also seeing the fish shake it's head and try to bolt to deeper water.  I had just enough room and leverage to keep him in place and pull him toward me, out of the school.  I turned my back to the school and let him run, shake and splash in the water to my right in a window about 4x4 feet where I could raise the rod with out branches over head and bring the fish to hand.

Ended up hooking an equal number of branches and trout, all the while tucked into these over hanging trees, completely hidden from the main body of the stream.  I imagined if another piscator had come upon me I'm sure I would've started them and they'd have thought "is he fishing from a tree stand, what the heck?"  If they'd have seen me at all.  Eventually the ache in my feet overcame the thrill of hand to fin combat and I back tracked to dry ground and warming sunshine.  The morning had turned on a dime and the momentum and confidence was now squarely with me.

After a change of gloves (wet for dry) and some serious stomping of ice blocked feet, I decided to head to the flats- a favorite place, but one that skunked me last week.  I'm not sure if it was the result of having brought fish to hand in a tight spot or the residue of volume 3, but instead of attacking the flats with reckless abandon, I stood for a long time on a boulder and peered through the water like a giant behooded heron- red hooded.  The cool thing about the flats is it's all sight fishing, but one lined fish can be a pin ball bouncing off every other fish churning the entire football field sized flat into a frenzy of fins and tails and you might as well move up stream.

I made out the shadow of a single fish.  The soft 2 piece 4 wt Orvis was new to me, but felt familiar and I fed out line with false cast until I put the fly 10 yards above the fish and in the same current column, one quick mend and I should get a good drift to the target.  Three more spot on drifts of the green body caddis and the fish remained unimpressed.  Must be a brookie- brookies rarely take a dead drifted fly, for whatever reason, they like movement.  I wondered where the other fish were, surely this section of the flat held more than a single trout.  Again I stifled my urge to "throw and go" and waded down stream to the rapids and crossed to the other side, well below the holding water and up a steep bank where I could scan that entire section of the flat.  Even with polarized eyes and relatively flat water, it took a few seconds for the dark shapes to come into focus.  One, two, three, four, five, six.... there's a bunch of nice fish in this hold, all calmly pointed up stream, largely ignoring the skittish little pups frantically zooming around.  The movements up and side to side were the tell tell signs of feeding trout, though none broke the surface.  The problem would be presenting a fly with out spooking them.  If I went back to my original perch, I'd be casting across at least two current speeds and any fly movement would be across their bows and brookies like to pursue a fly running directly away from them.  I stayed on the high embankment and moved up stream.  The fish thinned out in number and size as the water become even shallower and flatter.  Sixty feet above my targets I eased into the water, spooking a solo fish.  10 feet from the bank were two rocks shoulder width apart that would give me a partial elevation where I could just make things out.  I swung a side arm cast to within a foot of the bank and used the rod tip to stage excess fly line in the current, giving the fly a clean drift in front of the leader on a collision course with feeding trout.

The fly passed over the first three or four fish with out incident, as it approached the tale of the holding water I pulled the line tight and slowed then stopped the drift.  The fly bobbed quickly under then with a slight down stream move of the rod, pop back to the surface.  The water exploded, the fly vanished and the rod tip shot up with a shout and a ping- sending tippet flying back toward me.  Cleaned my clock but good, that one did!

But the technique worked, the puzzle was solved and two or three healthy robust flies met their fate leading fly line down stream to fierce little brook trout teeth.

The reward of a good day on the water is two fold, instant gratification for a problem solved and the subsequent mental imagines of lighting captured in a bottle- every sliver perfectly unique and indelible.  Secondly, complete mental and spiritual clarity- when the mind can only focus on the moment at hand, perfectly clear and calm, and God's creations, you included, melding together in a communion that fills the your soul.

Judge Not

My mind was in that odd space of thoughts with out thinking.  The road so familiar, the rising sun illuminating the mountain tops growing larger before me.  No blaring music or raging impatience- that was opening day in volume two.  Just the familiar turns in the road and the gazing down into the tannin stained water.  It's been said you can never step in the same river twice and the rains of  the previous few days gave the familiar flow an entirely new dimension.

The old mill walls are so out of place- a relic of a past civilization- one of the few remaining evidences of a center of commerce and industry in a now pristine watershed.  At the turn of the century  the furniture mills at the base of the these mountains sucked the lumber out of every accessible valley and holler.  They clear cut the entire region and built saw mills and even cotton mills right in the valleys to bring more finished products to the growing cities and towns below.  They clear cut the ancient hardwood forest and endured epic flooding which washed away the homes, towns and mills- finally in 1930 the last flood and the national depression won out and the area was never built back.

There's a sharp breeze that squelches the forecast of shirtsleeve fishing as I back up to nice flat slab of granite that outlines the crude fish parking area in the shadow of the concrete walls.  A perfect place to sit and wrestle neoprene booties into stiff wading boots.  As usual, I'm the first person here- its a week day and I make it a point to arrive early and get my pick of honey holes.

The old mill pond is favorite spawning ground, and as NC Wildlife.gov had predicted, the spawn had taken place on Monday and Thursday morning found a veritable armada of brook trout stacked gill to gill and head to tail at the back of the mill pond.  The first two casts connect, as does the fifth and six, eighth, tenth and eleventh and then I've lost track.  I'm in that zone of reading and reacting, oblivious to all things above the surface and talking gently to fish when a voice startles me from behind just as the fly disappears in a splash, "I was going to ask if you were having any luck. "  An involuntary spasm brings me upright and I spin around faster than I mean to- trying to hide how startled I am.  I just smile and nod.  He's a gray haired man in his late sixties or early seventies.  What looks like a hand carved wading staff in one hand and a long fly rod in the other.  He inquires about what I'm using and how many I've caught and asks if it would be OK if he crossed the stream well below me and then decides maybe he'll throw a streamer up here above me if that's OK.  I'm usually pretty territorial given that spin fisherman will appear out of the willows and step right into your back cast, throwing a panther martin a foot above your fly.  But this morning I'm into fish to start the spring season and I'm certain I will catch fish on every cast, all day, every day.  "Yep, that's fine, you'll slay em with a streamer."

A few more hits and misses and I've forgotten about him.  When I come back to reality 30 minutes later, he is still bent over his rod messing with line and streamers or whatever.  I"m not sure he has even cast yet.  15 more minutes pass and I'm becoming bored with this spot.  Same presentation, same result, same size fish, too easy, need to explore and try some other things.  As I turn around and make for shore my companion has walked down and greets me.  Turns out he is a semi retired judge from Charlotte.  Fished up on the South Mills on Tuesday after he had court on Monday.  I shared my locale and occupation and told him I worked my schedule around the spawn as best I could.  He smiled when I said, "I can be back to my office in an hour for meetings this afternoon, but, I may not make those meetings today."  He asked again about crossing down below me and I said that was fine, I was heading up stream and he decided he'd just jump right into my spot there, seemed that had worked out pretty good for me.  I watched him fiddle with a bobber style indicator and understood why he'd been wrestling with gear the whole morning.  I don't look forward to the day when fingers don't feel and eyes don't see.  "Well, good luck your Honor" I offered with no mirth.  With out looking up he shot back, "Don't worry, I never saw ya."   Our laughter instinctive as the rise.