Sometimes You're the Hammer & Sometimes You're the Nail (9/30/10)

Not sure what left those, but I'm betting it fell in the water

With time running out in the 2010 trout season I made a quick decision Sunday to head north in order to spend the afternoon chasing tail, or more appropriately, fin. The day was overcast and bleak, more suited to sweatpants and football than being outside, unless you pursue trout that is. The clouds were many shades of grey and looked like winter storm clouds. The temperature gauge in my Silverado read sixty two degrees Fahrenheit when I backed out of my driveway. By the time I reached my destination, ninety minutes later, the gauge read fifty five degrees. The air was damp and smelled of fall as I stepped into the stream. My lure of choice was a solid gold Blue Fox, size one. My first cast was downstream where I let the spinner flutter in the middle of a deep run. A brown trout of about twelve inches flashed and bumped the spinner. The second cast brought the fish to hand. After releasing it, I turned and ventured upstream.

The day progressed in much the same manner, catching several trout, all of which were less than thirteen inches. The day was a remarkable in the sheer number of fish caught, but unremarkable in the size of trout. As the evening progressed I started to push for a chance encounter with a pig. The lack of even seeing one eyeball my spinner was becoming irritating. Fall is large brown trout time after all. The time of year when territorial brown trout coming out of hiding and smack an errant cast with the vigor of a Great White Shark. The time of year where your breath gets caught in your throat because you are witnessing a nineteen incher come out from an undercut to chase down your spinner eight feet away. The day was perfect for the big pig brown but I had not seen any and there was only thirty minutes of daylight left.

Then, by chance, one showed itself. As luck would have it I placed my cast directly across the brute’s nose. The fish didn’t even have to move, it only needed to open its mouth. Instead, it bumped my spinner with its nose, flashed its side as it turned and then it was gone. Shoulders sunk and head hung low, I took a deep breath and pressed on.

With about ten minutes left of daylight I cast my spinner to the closest side of log jam in a deep corner bend. Something dark darted out from under the logs and there was an immediate weight that resonated through my St. Croix ultra-light. The large brown trout, upon me setting the hook, turned and ran upstream, then back down charging for a submerged log. I had to put more pressure than I would have liked on a fish of its size to keep it from reaching its destination and in that moment my line went limp. The fish was gone. As a friend of mine once told me, “Sometimes you’re the hammer and sometimes you’re the nail.” Today I was the nail.