Something Wicked This Way Comes (6/27/11)

The sky was overcast with a dark line of clouds crossing over the highway. Lightening crashed to earth all around the vehicle. “Those clouds look like they’re starting to rotate and I’m not fishing in lightening, or a tornado,” Average Joe Fisherman Scott said. “What do you want to do?” He asked. “Just keep going,” I said. “I’ve got a good feeling.”

The evening before, while having a movie night with my wife and daughter, watching the third installment in the Harry Potter series, the sky opened up and a deluge of water poured from the heavens. The rain came down in buckets, with the occasional cat and dog thrown in. With each flash of lightening, my excitement grew. “I’m trophy hunting tomorrow!” I thought.

As Scott and I pushed northward through rain that had not stopped since it began the day before, I began to become concerned that the streams would not be fishable due to high water with little to no visibility. Or, if the streams were fishable, that the fish would have developed lockjaw, already gorging themselves the day before.

My first concern was quickly put to rest as we approached our destination and crossed the first of several streams in the area. “Looks high, but the visibility is good,” I said excitedly to Scott. “Looks like were fishing!”

We suited up quickly as thunder rumbled off in the distance somewhere. Scott practically shoved me out of the way as he raced to the stream. Following on his heels, I watched him fish the first hole… nothing. “Uh oh, not the start I was looking for,” I thought. It took us a good twenty minutes before the first trout was brought to hand, a nicely colored nine inch brook trout. With the weather, I had expected the trout to be in a feeding frenzy, nailing our spinners with reckless abandon, giving chase to even the most errant of casts. That was not the case however. On this evening we had to work for the fish we caught.

About an hour in, thoughts of moving to a different section of stream danced around my head, but the good feeling had not faltered and was as strong as it had been earlier. Finally, I cast my spinner sidearm towards the right bank under an overhanging pine tree. The spinner rolled slowly out of the hole and directly in front of a log jam. My spinner stopped as I caught a log. I pulled back on my rod hoping to dislodge my spinner. The log pulled back. Feeling the large brown trout shake its head from side to side quickly caused me to realize that it was not a log my spinner buried itself into. After a nice battle, I held a deeply colored fifteen inch brown trout for the obligatory “grip and grin” photo.

At that point, Scott seemed to be getting a little discouraged. I had caught seven or eight trout to his two, including one well into the teens. “Just not my night,” he said shaking his head. “Don’t worry, your time is coming,” I replied. The feeling was still there, poking at me, prodding me. The day was getting darker. With mist falling from a gray bleak sky, I thought, “Something wicked this way comes!”

After a fishless stretch that spanned over an hour, it was almost time to call it quits. I had stepped out of the small stream to change spinners and stretch while I watched Scott fish. He approached a log that stuck out on a 90 degree angle from the right bank. The current rushed by at the end of the log forming a deep channel. Scott cast past the log and started to reel, retrieving his spinner. I stepped back into the stream. Watching where I was stepping, I took my eyes off Scott. When I looked back up, he had his rod tip in the air. “Got one?” I asked. “Got a fish?” I asked again. “Yup,” he replied. “Big one?” I asked. “Is it big?” I asked again. “Holy sh!t Ryan!” Then all hell broke loose. Scott’s rod doubled over. The fish, pulling line off Scott’s reel, screamed downstream heading right for me. Backpedaling quickly, I got out of the way. I was not going to be the reason this fish came unbuttoned. The large fish then stopped, sitting at the bottom of the deep run. Scott couldn’t budge it. “I can’t move it! Now what?” He asked. Finally the fish started to shake its powerful head and Scott gained some ground. The fish rose to the surface, showing its first sign of weakness. Scott and I both looked at each other, stunned. With a quick decisive move, Scott grabbed the brown trout by its tail. The fish measured at exactly twenty inches. Patting Scott on the back, I said, “They don’t get much bigger than that in a stream of this size!” And just like that, Scott was finally able to join the twenty inch club.