3 months later, I find myself in Trout Town USA, Roscoe, NY. Wading the historical Beaver Kill and Willowemoc Creek, hoping that the couple dozen or so fish I've caught at the East Branch were enough practice to have me ready to be successful in the East Coasts premiere fly fishing areas.
This time of year, with the water temperatures being so cold, and the flow so quick, it's challenging to be effective out there. You need to tie your knots quick, move around with care, and not get ahead of yourself. For me, I was riddled with angst... having not shut up about fly fishing for the last 3 months, I couldn't get skunked for an entire weekend dedicated to the sport.
First day, I was on the water at 6:45am trying my luck nymphin the fast water. It proved to be far more difficult than nymphing the EB and quickly I had to take a step back and collect myself. After half a dozen snags, tangles, and near falls into the drink, it was time to catch my breath. Since light was breaking through the clouds around 9am, I took a short walk too a nearby pool and started running some streamers through it at various speeds and depths. My thought process was to cover as many square inches of water as possible to increase my odds of catching something.
Second streamer, with some weight, probably my 80th or so cast into that pool..... Fish on! I now understand the rush, the sensations, and the emotion into catching a fish on the fly rod. Forget the 12 inch brown that went on a 15 foot run on the EB... Whatever I just hooked in this pool was making me work for it. Adjust your drag, move downstream, swivel the rod from your right to your left, keep the tension, not THAT much tension, show the net, let him run, now he's on the reel, reel him in, not to much, let him run, show the net, let him run, reel him back and move in for the scoop....
I felt like a kid opening up a present on Christmas morning…. Just 180lbs heavier! (me, not the fish)
I think it could have been a “2 hander” if I had enough sense about me to hold it the right way.
After the rush from catching that fish had subsided, there was a huge feeling of relief that came over me… for about 10 minutes. I thought to myself, “ there are fish like that here? This is what it feels like to catch them?... I want more!” and I went back to work.
Lady Fish Luck wouldn’t find me again until the following day, but when she found me, she found me with a smack in the face! I was working this rock wall that lead into the Willowemoc, no more than 60 yards away from the backyard f the cabin we were staying in. I was again drifting my flys in a way to cover as much water as possible before moving two steps upstream. I was about 1 hour and 15 minutes into my routine, in mid afternoon. It’s that subtle tug, rather than the huge smash, that more often than not catches me by surprise. Where everything just gets REALLY heavy. I knew from the first 5 seconds of having this fish hooked, that this was going to be a wild ride.
The short story is as follows. After being hooked, this fish ran 30 feet, DIRECTLY AT ME!!! I started reeling and reeling and reeling as the slack was building up so fast. He ultimately stopped 3 feet away from me, I could tell because I saw my leader sticking up out of the water, but I couldn’t see the fish yet. I had my leader into my rod, like I was high stick nymphing. Then the fish took off downstream of me, the reel was screaming. I applied some pressure with my palm as a natural drag, but realized at that point that I was into my backing. Panic cant even begin to describe what was going on. I suppose the hundreds of youtube videos I’ve watched had become ingrained my head because I started working my way downstream, reducing the area between me and the fish, I got back to my fly line. Another run upstream had me now battling the current to close the gap even further. I could feel the fish tiring. Did I mention this was the short version? The real version took 5 hours, or at least that’s what it felt like to me. I was tired, so was the brown. She surrendered to me under the bridge seen in some of my pictures. I was solo for the picture, even though one admirer from the shore line asked to play photographer, best guess (knowing that my first fish was 17 inches) is that this was an inch or two bigger. Either way this brown was certainly heavier. Couple of pounds or so.
Here are some other memorable shots from the weekend, you’ll see slow drift in here a few times. He also had a successful outing. And yes I’m referring to my 50 hour, 2 fish trip as successful. Enjoy the pix.
