A Trophy Memory
There
was a deep arch in the old Sage 4wt. I leaned into the heavy Henry's
Fork Rainbow, loading up the rod a tad more than the manufacture
intended the rod to go but still the trusty Martin Clicker reel sang
it's tune as the fly line ran out putting me into the predicament I
don't like to go....playing fish on the backing. Slowly, I gained
ground bringing a wrap or two of line onto the spool. The trout felt
heavy, much heavier than it looked when it gently sipped the #14
Green Drake Cripple off the surface. I had watched the fish feed –
porpoising, as they call it and I inched closer, withing my
comfortable 40 foot range. The big fish refused two offerings, a
Wulff style adult, then an emerger, then all went quiet and I feared
I put the trout down for good. I tied a cripple on my 5X tippet and
presented the fly again. The cool thing about dry flies or flies
fished in the film of the surface is you 'present' the fly rather
than cast the fly. There was a small boil that engulfed the fly that
was barely visible and I believed I a smaller, fish had taken up the
hole that was vacated by the big fish I had spooked. I brought the
rod up taught and felt the satisfying weight of a trout at the end of
my line. Henry's is a barbless stretch of river, even so I always
fish barbless regardless of regulations, all in the name of safety,
mine and the fishes. I kept some pressure on the fish which normally
only makes the fish run farther and faster.....you know, the old
adage, if you want something to go farther, add more pressure.
Anyway,
with only a few wraps of line on the spool, was was fully prepared to
have the fish run, using the current of June water flows and once
again, have me into the backing, but the fish pulled the 'other fast
one' on me and ran upriver a fast as it could go putting me in
another predicament....do I play the fish and strip line or do I keep
the fish on the reel. I hate playing fish by stripping line back in
on moving water as it leaves a large loop of line directly down
stream that is prone to tangles, bad tangles in everything from
floating vegetation to rolling and thrashing fish and is just a bad
idea. The old Martin Clicker reel is just not a speedy reel but I
did my best which was not good enough, just as I was about to abandon
reeling and start stripping, the line went slack and I immediately
dropped into that short period of depression when anglers learn they
just lost a nice fish.I
made my way, a bit too fast, and mostly sloshed and gurgled twenty
feet over to a large rock sticking out of the river and sat down.
This is where fly fishermen get philosophical and say to themselves
“it's all goodâ€