I really should have stopped fishing for the year....

......on Friday past at Penn's. As I stated in my other thread, we were
fishing streamers exclusively(Peter, do I have your attention yet?).
Friday afternoon found us down by the trestle bridge below the tunnel in
Coburn. I staggered my way up the road, past a few camp houses to a likely
looking bank-casting spot. The current came in rough, in a V shape, then
smoothed out into a glide with a bit of current and around 4 or 5 feet of
depth. It demanded a cast from the bank, as said bank immediately dropped
off into nearly 4 feet of cold water, with slippery, large rocks. At about
50 feet, it was doable, if clumsy, as performed by your humble scribe.
I was fishing Slaymaker's Little Brown Trout streamers, one I have always
favored in the fall down here in PA. A decent cast to the head of the slick
current brought a splashing attack, but no solid hookup. Damn! A good sized
fish, or so it seemed. I blundered upstream a few yards, pitched the
streamer among the fast water and rocks, and hooked a decent trout, with
beautiful fall colors. I landed and released him and started back to Mike
and Brian downstream. I paused to look at the slick where I had missed the
earlier strike and figured I had a little time for one more try. On the
theory that a change of fly was needed for wise old Penn's trout, I changed
to a design for a baby Brown that Petah and I had tinkered with a few
winters back. It was tied on a smallish(#8 wet) hook, with a long mixture of
crystal flash, fine mylar and bucktail, overall orange/brown with a golden
flash to it. The streamer was a good 3 inches long, but cast pretty well. On
the initial cast, the darned thing landed right where I wanted and was
immediately seized by something substantial. Out in the water, a chunky
body thrashed.....whoa, I thought, a largemouth bass in here, and a really
big one! Then, upon leaping out of the water and shooting upstream, really
fast, it dawned on me that I was attached to the fattest Penn's brown trout
I had even hooked up with. I've fished with my old T and T graphite 5/6
nine-footer for nearly 10 years now. It is pretty stiff, and doesn't bend
deep into the rod length. For this fish, it did. That rod flexed right to
the corks and with 3x tippet and a solid hookup, it was merely a slugfest
among the rocks. I finally subdued a female, in spawning colors. At about 22
inches or a bit more, she wasn't my longest Penn's trout, but she had a
depth, at the belly, of at least 8 inches. The darn thing probably weighed
over 6 pounds, but there was little time for torturing her any further with
scales and such. I released her gently back to Penn's(she shot off, quite
healthy)....and, continued, belatedly my trip down to Mike and
Brian......who thoughtfully met me in the truck. No pictures,no witnesses,
but I couldn't care less. It was my finest Penn's trout to date, and it even
had a touch of ROFF in the story, to boot.

...tying streamers like a madman,
Tom