TR: The Day of the Black Sky.

Somewhere along the line, one of us had the bright idea to fish the
Maitland River as neither of us had tried it before. We should've
know the day would be cursed.

Greg says he'll be at my place by 7:00 am - that requires him to be up
at some ungodly hour. It's foggy , so I figure I can coast through
the getting ready. I have one leg in my long johns and no coffee on
when the doorbell rings at 6:50 am. Well, it took a bit of organizing
but the stuff got transferred from the van to the TDI. Jo had us
packed up with lunches and a thermos of coffee. So far so good.

Still foggy so I'm driving cautiously as we head northwest along the
country roads toward Goderich, home of the Maitland River, some 2 ½
hours away. It starts to clear. On reaching Stratford, we're looking
for a place to buy Greg's licence (Canadian Tire is closed) and we
stop at Tim Horton's for coffee. While we're sitting sipping and
munching, the sky is getting darker and darker -- lightning flashes
here and there. We're watching a very large, black cloud make a
beeline straight for us, as if the cloud wanted to stop in for a large
double-double.

Now it's getting really dark, I mean night time dark. And I don't
mean sorta duskish, I mean dark as in black, as in night. The handful
of patrons look about and begin to chatter. One American gentleman
says, "That looks like tornado weather. Do you get tornados up here?"
I smile sweetly and say, "Once in a blue moon." I don't think he was
reassured.

The rain is coming down hard and Greg and I make it to the car without
getting too drenched. I start the car up - and well, y'know diesels
are noisy but not this noisy. We're being pelted with hail about the
size of marbles. I pull away and the drumming gets worse. Greg
suggests I tuck the car back in beside Tim Hortons to get some
shelter, a sentiment with which I complied with alacrity.

After the hail has finished with its drum solo, we pull out and drive
the now debris littered streets of Stratford on our way through town.
The sky has brightened to the point that we can see without the need
of artificial lighting but the sky still looks ugly. We keep making
wishful thinking noises as we drive on, looking at the sodden fields
and the accumulation of hail stones, hoping for signs of better
weather.

Goderich looms in the windshield and the search is on for a licence.
First Canadian Tire, "Go to Goderich Bait & Tackle." Try Wal-Mart -
same story. We find the aforementioned bait shop and meet the
proprietor, Mr. Personality. Without going into a song & dance about
the guy, let's just say that either he was drained of personality at
birth or he's the intellectual equivalent of a Yugo running on one
cylinder. I wouldn't normally bad-mouth the guy except he stiffed
Greg by selling him the regular licence instead of the conservation
one.

So now we're off to the water with our expensive licence. Did I tell
you we intended to fish this water with spey rods? Greg has a 12'6" 8
wt. and I have my brand spanking new 14'6" 10 wt. - this should be fun
in these winds.

Now to the fishing part. Waving all that graphite in high winds get
real interesting real fast. Fishing from the left bank with a
downstream wind of significant proportions means casting off the left
side to avoid acquiring additional pieces of feathered jewellery. I
don't cast real well on my left side. I don't cast real well in gale
force winds either. Some casts make it out there, some don't. Still
we're fishing.

We get the odd tug and we see the occasional fish being caught by
others. I get a hit, then nothing, then weight. "Damn! Snagged
again!" methinks. I point the rod at the snag and pull -- then the
snag moves. It's weird, there's a fish there but it's not behaving
like any fish I've caught before. Then it rolls to the surface and I
see my little white fly is stuck just behind the dorsal. I'm pulling
a 3# smallie semi-backwards, semi-sideways up a stiff current. I
needed the 10 wt. Greg helps me to unhook the unhappy creature and we
wonder what it would've been like on the 10 wt. if hooked properly.
It was a slab! I figured it swirled on the fly, tapped it, then got
snagged when I lifted.

That turned out to be it - one fish snagged in the arse end. Oh ya,
it was still blowin' like mad when we left. After winding in my line,
I hold my rod up and listen to the wind whistle through the guides.
The wind is deflecting the tip by as much as a foot and a half.
Fishing weather, eh?

The trip home was blessedly uneventful.




Peter

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