Monday, April 2

Welcome to Open Season. (see, its funny coz I used that title a year ago)

Sure looks regal, eh? Has no bearing on this post.
Fuckin eh, new year. Well. Open season and shit.

Christ, almighty I hate the four fucking weeks I have to endure "closed season" each year. Because, inevitably, it will contain awesome weather, time where I'm free, and...err, restrictions to the same two fucking miles on each stream segment as the rest of a fucking population of assholes.

Including super fucking self important internet nymphing superstars who will loudly splash into the stream less than 20' away from you, and just upstream of the pool that's frankly, filled with eager and happy fish under faster water so they're particularly stupid, that you were about to get into as soon as you went under the bridge (that's approximately 20' wide, if you see where I'm going here).

All the while shouting to his buddy how its is favourite spot to fish.

I won't mention the stories about watching you manhandle a fucking 12" fish for 3 minutes while your pal ran to teh car and got the camera, either. I suspect its douchebaggery such as this that has you out of the already douchey competitive fishing scene, eh, pro-spec?
12pm.
So, fuck it, speaking of dead fish, let's talk 'bout opening day! I think it rained last year? It rained this year. I go out because it celebrates my return to fucking the rest of my stream, I goto the same place because I enjoy the torment and it angers up the blood.

Pfft.
Short version, tied lots of super awesome Royal Coachmen for stocked trouts. Used the heavy old  South Bend bamboo rod and figured I'd go all old school swinging shit with it because it worked so damned well last year, and I knew I'd reliably work fish on it.

Fish. Giant's thumb for scale...
Shit, I thought, as my first cast brought up a wee native wild on the top fly, a leadwing coachman (they can't all be outlandish looking flies, eh?), today's gonna be awesome as shit, right? Fewer assholes because of the rain, awesome fucking dumb 14" stockers pounding garish flies, and natives eating who the fuck cares what.

I then proceded to swing 100 pounds of cane and fucking reel for four more hours with only turning a few fish, but not a single solitary to hand. None. Not one. By midday, I was hungry, tired, and my ass was cold and wet from the rip I tore in the ass of the waders when I slipped (I do that alot these days). My fucking shoulders were starting to ache from that monster rod I thought seemed like a novel, fun idea at 11am and I was growing dismayed as places I haven't seen in a year turned into a silted mess (I'll miss you, 2008-2011 sulphur hatch, may you move to a new spot I can find this year).

As I was leaving said silthole (and to think, I was looking forward calling it Lyme Hole this year), some guy wandered by and said they were rising like mad somewhere.

Fish pron: All looks the same!
See! Same fish? No!
So, tired and beaten, I couldn't end the day as dismally as it had so I trundled in to only catch a fine hatch of the Who The Fuck Cares (Invaria Whatever) in size small.

Turns out an 70 year old 6wt can lay them quite gracefully. I'm banking on that "dry fly action," err, uh action... Seriously, though, it really only bends in teh top quarter. I guess people are right, bamboo can be tip fast.

7pm.
Only stocked rainbow I saw all day that wasn't hoisted above the head of the guy up stream from me during said raised above his head as bellowed out as a victory was dead under me while I picked up rising fish of a successful size for this place.

On the way out, I dry droppered my ass back to the car and again caught only natives. Err wilds. Whatever. Don't care.

As one might figure out, I've still got a handful of Coachmen. Fuck. Spent the evening patch waders and eating Flexeril. How the fuck did our grandfathers use that shit all day?

And why do I have bags of red and blue strung "deceiver hackle?" WTF was I planning on?

7 comments:

  1. Kick 'em in the taco, Paco!

    Be glad your closed season is only four weeks. In Northwest Oregon, our trout season in streams runs the last Saturday in May through Halloween. 5 month season.

    It's a hundred plus mile drive to the nearest open trout streams. And fishing those streams in the winter becomes an adventure. Those streams are in the part of Oregon that actually gets a good deal of measurable snow - or at least, you have to drive through those parts to GET to those rivers. So you run a good chance of dying on the way over, because of all the fuckheads in Subarus who decide they don't need snow chains because hey, I've got All Wheel Drive - so I can drive like a fuckhead, fuck all ya'll!

    If you survive the trip to the river, and don't slip and fall in and die of hypothermia in the first couple minutes, your hands will go numb. Your face will go numb. Your dick will go numb. Your feet will go numb. The coffee in the thermos will go cold. The bugs, if they hatch, will be those god damned little bastards you can barely see. The fish will be half frozen themselves, because the water will be barely above freezing. Your guides will ice up.

    If it rains - the water will be high, cold, chocolate, and flooded with leaves, twigs, and maybe a cow or three.

    And you probably won't catch many fish. The days will be short, because of both the short natural days, and the drive home - again with the Subaru driving assholes, and maybe their hillbilly cousins driving the jacked up pickups with truck nuts and mud tires (which you know, are so great on ice...)

    Most guys wind up in the trap of steelhead and salmon fishing - where you spend your day freezing your sack off on a coastal stream, trying to catch fish that don't exist - except in the photoshopped pictures of them you see in magazines, and some people's websites. Lucky bastards.

    5 month trout seasons suck ass... Happy open season! I shall live vicariously through you - and those lucky bastards in other parts of the country that are enjoying stream trout fishing and warm weather.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dear sir,

    Congrats, your fishing misery dick is absolutely bigger than mine. I'll think about you next time I'm watching some asshole clamber into the water 10' ahead of me.

    Which, on a minor tangent is an expected act on opening weekend, and one I can oddly accept as "part of the spectacle." What I didn't expect was the only guy who did it that day was a fly angler on an entire stream of baitchuckers.

    I did have one set of yahoos (the trout lifters) comment on, "what's that guy donig down there?" as I was kneeling in teh water, between heroic dry fly action sequences, to take apicture of dead rainbow (unused in said post).

    Either they thought it was heroic fishing shit, or they knew damned well I was documenting the fish they put back in after it died on the stringer. Dicks.

    Also, I admit it, if I had actual steelhead and salmon, I might be oddly more motivated to fish them. I don't. I watch Portlandia, and I know people who've moved there.

    I don't know how you can do it. I'd murder them all.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Glad you got out Gary, and as always your eloquence is only slightly superseded by your utter disdain for most of humanity and the use of profanity. Looking forward to your next post, hopefully I'll catch up with you on the stream and be part of it...

    ReplyDelete
  4. I like this blog because it is honest. One never ever has to guess how the author feels or thinks about anything. It is up front and personal. In our household much the smae experience was had by the younger lad #4. He chose to fish away from the f%*king crowds. They will die down soon.
    e3

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oh, good. I'm back.
    I thought trip reports were what people wanted, I was giving into popular desire, man, I'm a pleaser! A PLEASER!

    And, before you get the wrong idea about my being a complete and utter bastard, I'd like to point out I handed my crap to two completely random kids yesterday during lunch and tried to catch them a feesh. It wasn't because their mom was hot, either. I'm just a nice person. I ooze the milk of kindness outta my pores.

    Finally, you think this is stellar now, write me a 'script for a bag 'o codeine #4's and adderall, and I'll take this here blog to the next level.

    Can I joke about that? Probably not. You doctor types take all this drug abuse nonsense so damn seriously.... (and in other news, I'm convinced every GP I've ever met thinks I'm a drug seeker)

    ReplyDelete
  6. I only said MOST of humanity, like those suckling at the teat of commercialism. and DB's who drop in on the spot you are fishing. and generous with the kids, yeah I'll buy that. See you at the end of the month?

    ReplyDelete
  7. If I don't forget, which is what happened LAST month.

    Month before that was oncall rotation.

    I forget alot of things. I'm a terrible human being. IIRC there's a stream cleanup for Monocacy TU real soon like...

    ReplyDelete