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Picture Of The Month



SD2OR with a trophy fall walleye

Topic: Giving One Away  (Read 3226 times)

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Tinker

  • Sturgeon
  • *******
  • Kevin
  • Location: 42.74°N 124.5°W
  • Date Registered: May 2013
  • Posts: 3304
It was Fishing Thursday - the one day each week when the fellow I fish with goes fishing, unless, of course, they're really biting, in which case he goes on Fridays, too, but on Fridays he doesn't invite me, because... well, as far as I can tell: because the fish are really biting.

We arrived at low tide and had to wait around, dawdling even longer than the forty-five minutes it typically takes us to rig-up.  It wasn't an exceptionally low tide but there was exceptionally little water in the slough, and even had we managed the precipitous drop-off at the end of the ramp, we'd still have been facing twenty or thirty feet of soft, oozy, muck before reaching water.

It was an ideal time for me to search for the frou-frou water bottle I deposited in the muck last year but I decided to forgo salvage.  Even if I could find it without me getting trapped in the muck alongside it, I was never again going to put that thing in my mouth.  Best to let the departed rest in peace.

We spent the time waiting for the rising tide by annoying an older fellow who showed up with a lawn chair to fish the narrow channel.  I'm not entirely comfortable annoying bank fishermen, but while I didn't join in, I was feeling reasonably sure that because of the differences in our ages, I could probably outrun the fellow if I had to and so I didn't try to get my companion to shush.

Finally, the water had risen until there was just enough in the slough to launch a kayak and I happily leaped on board.

If only.  Although I was up to my knees in water, for some reason I'll never understand, I tippy-toed around and sat down more gingerly and more cautiously than I have since the very first time I sat down in a kayak.  I'd like to claim it was because I left my fish-finder at home (more on that in a bit) and boarding a naked kayak threw me a curve ball, but it would simply be a random excuse for odd behavior.

Happily, my companion was keeping the older fellow entertained with tales of catching monstrous fish with 1/2 pound test tippet material and the older fellow was claiming he used 1/4 pound test when catching tuna - or something like that - and the only one who saw me was me, and I didn't have a great view of the spectacle, so it passed mostly unnoticed.

I managed to drop my hat and then step on it when getting in and it got wet and mucky so I didn't use it all day.

One of the entertainments I provide is the "Guess What I Forgot" game when I first jump out of the truck.  Once it was my Mirage drive.  I've left the battery at home more than once.  I'm not the best at remembering to bring my cart.  Once I forgot to bring my flies and had to rummage around in the  cup holders to find one.  Yesterday it was the fish finder, which isn't a handicap - I haven't yet dialed in that Humminbird and it's there mostly to tell me the water is X-feet deep because nothing else on the screen makes the least bit of sense.

...

Okay, I've tried to avoid this for as long as I can, so here's the Tale: I hooked a salmon.  I'd cast the fly and then decided to reel in a bit of line because fly lines start to tangle if you keep too much extra line in your lap.  Everything adjusted, I started to strip in the fly and it wouldn't move.  It wasn't a fly that should have reached the bottom even in shallow water, but there was no doubt it was stuck in something that was neither a tree nor a piling, so I tugged a bit harder and everything started to vibrate.

My companion called-out, "You need help freeing your fly?"  He's ever so helpful when I need to recover a snagged fly.  I'm more of a break if off if it's stuck because once they get a taste of tree they never come back kind of a guy, but he's recovered dozens of flies for me.

"I don't think so - look at how my pole is shaking!" And to make sure he had a good view, I held the pole higher, above my head, which caused it to shake and vibrate even more.  "Wow! Look at it now!"

A car drove past and the driver was looking at me, so, on the advice of my companion, I started putting on a show, complete with loud grunts and shouts to "Bring the net, I need two hands on the rod for this one!"  I did a lot of things in the next forty seconds, but what I didn't do was set the hook - and with nary a "So long, and thanks for being an idiot!" the fish was gone.

SIGH

We stayed around for a while, paddling down to the smaller tide gate where I managed to not catch pilings or the gate again.  On our second trip down to that smaller gate, salmon started rolling and I came up with a plan: I was going to watch them moving up the slough and stay ahead of them, casting right to their noses until one bit.

We approached a pinch point where fallen trees blocked most of the slough and I positioned myself perfectly to cast to the narrow opening where the fish would be, and as the fist fish approached, I made a mighty cast to it...

Or I would have if I hadn't snagged a tree branch behind me.  And I wouldn't have snagged the tree branch if the sun hadn't been at my back, which wouldn't have mattered if I'd been wearing my hat - which I wasn't because it was mucky and appearances are important to fly-fishers.  As it was, I simply didn't see that lone, spindly, tree branch because my eyes were dazzled by the sun when I glanced over my shoulder looking for obstructions.

Oh, the lengths to which my curse will go to deny me a salmon! The subtlety it wields! The nefarious patience it displays!  It's mind-boggling.

My companion drifted into view and I choked out, "I just snapped my leader and I'm going home."  My companion had the good grace - or the good sense - to not point out that I carry all kinds of leader-making materials, or that he's seen me whip out a pre-tied leader dozens of times.  I was going home and that's all there was to it.

But always willing to lend a hand, and always the Source of All Fishing Knowledge Worth Knowing, just before he went back to fishing and as I climbed into the truck to head home, he offered a pearl of wisdom: "Always set the hook."

If only that advice had been offered three hours earlier when it might have helped.
« Last Edit: October 02, 2020, 10:03:43 AM by Tinker »
I expected the worst, but it was worse than I expected...


skayaker2

  • Rockfish
  • ****
  • Since 2010. Formerly known as "skayaker"
  • TAFKAS (The Angler Formerly Known As Skayaker)
  • Location: Seattle
  • Date Registered: May 2018
  • Posts: 104
How appropriate that this forum is called "Waving the Bug Wand" and your series of unfortunate (but hilarious) events reminds me of Dr. Seuss "Because a Little Bug Went Ka-Choo", or in Haiku form:

Waving the Bug Wand
cause a Bug Went Ka-Choo
always set the hook!


Time to work on "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish"?