On Topic: Went fishing today

And it was colder than the proverbial witches areola.

Knowing it was gonna be cold, after I got the truck loaded I brought my reel
into the kitchen and ran the hot water until it was as hot as I could stand
(boiler is set for 125F, so it was lower than that at the tap). Let the sink
fill a couple of inches, then spooled my well-coiled leader in (9' Orvis SS
tapered to 4x with some leftover 5x & 6x tippet still attached) and let it sit
for a couple of minutes. Then I removed the reel and leader, wrapped the line
around the faucet a few times and put a bit of tension on the end of the
tippet, until it had cooled. Dead straight, and surprisingly limp. Nice.

Put the reel in my fleece jacket pocket, jumped in the truck and headed out to
one of the few tailwaters in Massachusetts to see if I could entice a fishy or
two. An hour's blast down the highway and I was walking down the road to the
river.

About ten yards from stream side I paid out my leader - and immediately
noticed how nice and straight it was. That's good stuff - didn't need to fight
the cold to try to straighten it out. Chopped off the old tippet, tied on a
foot of 5x followed by a few feet of 6x, threaded on a #16 flashback PT nymph,
and did the stalking thing to get close enough to the put-in to see if there
were any fish hanging in the current. Spotted two - I think they might be the
same pair of rainbows Tim or I catch every trip :-)

First cast upstream I noted the leader laid out very nicely. I let the fly
drift into the slot...only a few inches to the far side, wondered if either
trout would go for it...and...whack! Trout on! A couple of minutes later I did
the bare-hand "sleeping trout" lift on a nice 16-17" rainbow, turned the
barbless hook out, and let it slide gently back into the friggin' cold water.

Ok, that's one. Feeling pretty full of myself, I sat down for a bit of smokey
refreshment, while waiting for the other trout to come back to its holding
spot. It took a little while, but the second trout finally eased back just
below the set of rocks that bounded its comfort zone. Still crouching, I
lobbed the nymph upstream a couple of rod lengths, gently pulled it into the
slot, and watched it...watched it....watched it slide about a foot too close
to my side of the river.

Right. One more try before moving on, this time with a bit less correction,
saw the flashback twinkle as it settled into a near-perfect drift a few feet
above the fish, made sure there was plenty of slack left in the leader...and
(s)he hit it! Off to the races! This 'bow was a couple of inches larger than
its sibling, expended much more effort to get away, and put a nice bend in the
9/3 Winston as it ran upstream. Dropped the rod tip and put some side pressure
on it, got it to make its first turn, and few minutes later it submitted and
let me coax it back downstream to me. I was able to get the nymph back without
even removing the rainbow from the water before it finned away. Extra nice.

20 minutes, two fine rainbows...and I had another two hours before I had to
bail.

Walked the south side trail up to the first of two wing dams to see what I
could see. Which was pretty much nothing. The light was all wrong from that
side, reflecting off the gentle ripples such that there could have been a
flotilla there but I just couldn't see them.

Fine, up to the Cable Pool we go.

A few minutes later and I was easing down the short steep bank to the water's
edge. Looking upstream I spotted a goodly sized brown holding behind a
boulder. It would take some luck to get the nymph to drift to where this fish
could see it, and I must have used that luck on the brace of 'bows, as my
first drift snagged the rock solid. I wanted the fly back more than I needed
to hook that fish, as it was in fact friggin' cold and tying on another fly
with my numbing fingers would have been a time-consuming effort. So a few
steps into the water and the fly was mine, while that brownie was a ghost.

Onwards, to the flats below the Y-pool. Where I found where the few
like-minded souls were fishing. Around eight cold looking dudes were stationed
about 30 yards apart from right above the Cable Pool all the way to the tail
of the Y. Not in the mood to risk anyone's wrath, I kept walking up to the
head of the Y to see if anything interesting was going on up there. Noted, for
the first time in quite awhile, that there wasn't any flow over the dam, the
drought we've been having this year finally catching up with the Quabbin.

Sat down on a streamside deadfall at the crotch of the Y, gathered my body
into as compact a form as a gangly guy can manage to conserve what little
warmth I still had, and watched the three guys fishing the Y do their thing.
You never know when someone might have come up with a novel idea that actually
works in the Y Pool. The fish there invariably key on minutiae pulled from the
depths of the reservoir - we're talking size 30-something nits of the caenis
and chironomid variety. Not today, though. I think the cold had settled firmly
in their craniums - a lot of repetitive casting, drifting, retrieving. And not
a true strike between them for the half-hour I sat puffing on my gloved hands.

Eventually I realized one of the three was a friend from years ago when we
worked at Digital, who also once owned a small fly shop in Leominster, a few
towns west of where I live. Got up and quietly waded out to him, while working
out a cast worth of line. Laid one out just upstream of him and let the leader
gently bump his leg - which caused him to whip around - and just before he was
about to read me the Riot Act, he realized who was approaching, and broke out
into a wide grin. Priceless. And for the next half-hour we each played back a
decade's worth of our separate histories to get caught up, which I enjoyed
thoroughly, the warmth nearly extending down to my near-frozen toes.

With the end of day rapidly approaching we walked back down the trail to our
cars, packed up and headed out. Only a couple of fish for me, but more than
enough happenings to make the day worthwhile.

/daytripper

If we were to take the words of the ancient at face value, we'd all still be
using hand-lines and fish-bone hooks...

On Fri, 16 Nov 2007 21:19:38 -0500, daytripper
wrote:

ahahahahahahaa! whoops! Not so on-topic for here, sorry :-)