Defeated

I don't think I've ever fished the Fork for three days and not gotten fish slime on me somewhere.  So, break out the clichés.  There's a first time for everything. Can't always land 'em.  That's why they call it fishing . . . blah blah.  Fuck that, I just didn't have my game.  And, without any bad luck, I had no luck at all.

 

Arrived early Friday afternoon to light rain, no wind, and baetis on the water.  Woo hoo!  After a couple hours of physically and mentally acclimating to the 40 degree temperatures again, watching the little guys rise from the viewing platform, I decided to layer up and go find some risers.  I found 3 at the roadside "billboard" run.  They all ate a #20 Sri Lanka baetis.  I missed all three.  Omen.

Saturday morning was the pure definition of perfect.  The air rose above freezing, it was full on cloudy, no precip., and not a breath of wind.  Not much of a breath of mahoganies either.  The baetis did finally come in the afternoon.  I found a few nice fish up during the morning, had a couple eats and refusals as usual, but that was all.  Later in the afternoon, I found a couple of nice fish above the logjam.  After failing with aquatic flies, I went to the beetle, hooked two brutes, and proceeded to lose them both to weeds and destiny.  Guess that’s what I get.

Sunday dawned bright and cold, but warmed by 10 am.  More mahoganies, but not a lot.  Fish were eating them occasionally.  More refusals, more misses, and a few hours spent on two particular fish that I also missed, was rejected by, and eventually spooked from their “impossible drift” lanes.  But I was busy for 6 hours or so, enough that I forego the late afternoon baetis fishing in the upstream wind that made a good presentation with tiny flies all but impossible.  My ass is hurting now.

Monday morning had some light overcast and no wind.  Perfect again.  There were more mahoganies, but still not lots.  Enough to get some fish eating them, though still mostly smaller fish up.  I did find two of the biggest fish I'd seen on this visit.  It took an hour or so on each one, but I got both of them to eat and got hooks in both of them.  Too bad they were size 20 hooks on 6X.  One just cleaned my clock and parted ways with fly number one.  The second was assisted by a large weed bed followed by a jump, and that was over.  But I did hear my clicker and see line run out!

I had fish to cast to every day.  My flies got ate every day.  I stayed busy every time I was on the water, every morning.  This place can do this I guess.  So I've heard!

Arrival

 

That's mid-afternoon steam

 

Three ate it, then none for the rest of the time.

 

Yep, Summer's over now.

 

Just below snow line

 

 

Still plenty of weeds

 

Just following the first miss of the day (Les Kish photo)  Good meeting you Les!

 

The trail, in honor of Bob.

 

 

Where the big ones live

 

Lots of this

 

 

Large bank feeders here

 

They ate it and refused it.  Mahogany winner though.

 

Really liked the thread tail.  It hooked up.

 

Uh huh.