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.