Unfinished Business (10/5/10)

The ring of my cell phone jolted me from my daydream. The voice on the other end said, “Tomorrow is Wednesday, the last day before the end of trout season. You ARE going fishing aren’t you?” No “Hello” or “How are you?” My response to Average Joe Fisherman Scott was a firm, “Hell yeah I am! I have a date with a large brown!” Most of my thoughts the last several days revolved around the fish that scared the crap out of me after dark the week prior and I wanted some payback. Normally I would be polite and ask who ever my fishing partner was going to be that day where he would like to go. Not today.

The hour and fifteen minute ride passed quickly due to a discussion on politics which it seems Scott and I never see eye to eye. Hey, I cannot help it that he is always wrong! We arrived at the river at precisely quarter after five and I had my first brown shortly thereafter. Like most of the fishing trips this fall, the fish came often, chasing my spinner from great distances, but there were fewof great size. With that being said, I did miss a sizable hit within the first few minutes of fishing. The trout was sitting at the end of log and, while I never saw it, it darn near yanked the rod out of my hand when it hit. As soon as it hit however, it was gone. As the evening grew darker, I became more and more excited. I knew what was to come.

Once we could no longer make out any kind of structure due to lack of light, Scott and I turned around. Thirty minutes later we were back at the vehicle and I was swapping out my five foot, six inch, ultra-light St. Croix for a six foot, medium light St. Croix. I replaced my spinner with a Jitterbug. More times than not a Jitterbug is normally used as a bass lure, but I thought it would have the perfect action being retrieved in a slow moving stream. Scott switched his rod and spinner as well. His lure of choice was a hula-popper, also a bass lure.

The night was much darker due to lack of moon light, but we managed. As we walked towards the river, Scott’s lure grabbed the line and he had a mess to unravel. While I waited I stood on the bank and flashed my head lamp, hopefully resembling lightning, something the fish should be used to, in order to capture the stream and any potential snags in my mind’s eye. Scott was still detangling when I made my first cast. The Jitterbug flew up stream and landed with a “plop!” I thought, “Yes! I hit water!” As I retrieved the lure I could hear it coming back to me as it shimmied back and forth… click, click, click, click… BOOM! Fish on!

Truth be told, I was astonished that my plan had worked. Many doubts crossed my mind as I walked down to the stream through the darkness. “The lure is too big” and “There is no way a trout will hit that thing,” were just a few of the thoughts running through my head. A nice thirteen inch brown trout resting in my hand erased all of those kinds of thoughts.

Scott just about shoved me out of the way once he was ready to start fishing. I’m pretty sure I heard, “Get the hell out of my way!” as he entered the river. I walked along side of him as he tried his luck. He quickly caught a brown trout of about twelve inches. After he caught his fish it was my turn. We pushed up stream to where I had my encounter with the Loch Ness Monster. Once again I flashed my head lamp to see where the bank was and any obstacles I might encounter. I stretched to cast as far upstream as possible. The lure was met with a violent encounter when it was about half way back to me. The fish effortlessly yanked line off of my reel and then it was gone. Was it the fish that scared me? There is no way for me to tell for sure, but in my mind it was and while it ultimately won the battle I did exact a little revenge. I stuck it this time!

Scott and I fished for what we thought was about forty five minutes total. Turns out that we were in the water for almost two hours! When it was over, Scott caught two and missed one, with his largest pushing thirteen inches. I landed one and missed two. As for the large brown, we have a date next year!