Thursday, July 31

Two hearted and lost love

Do I like Two Hearted Ale because of the way it tastes or because there is a brook trout on the bottle, a story behind the name, and it goes well with tying flies? What the fuck is on the can by the way...it looks like a cross between a carp and a walleye?

          I promised my wife I wouldn't fish tonight.  I'm not really sure why. I guess I thought it was a nice gesture.  A "gas" budget may have something to do with it too.  I didn't fish last night either.  The hex are officially done up here...I think.  But what if they're not?  What if they're about to come off in a shit storm of glorious bugs and even more glorious fish, carelessly getting their fill?  What if there's no one on the entire fucking river system, and the fish are going crazy?  I should be there.  Hell, what if the ONE I lost a few weeks back is sitting in that same spot...the spot I've returned to so many times, waiting, watching, forsaking the rest of the river, even the rest of the fish in the river, for just one more shot at him?  Maybe it was a her.  I wonder if I'll ever lay eyes on him...her...I wonder if someone else will catch him and kill him, or if he'd already been caught and released. Probably so.  He was a smart fish.  It didn't take him long to wrap me around the logs, even well prepared as I was with my 8 weight rod and 10lb tippet.

I wonder if, when they manage to wrap the line around a log, it is a purposeful pursuit to the trout, or if they're just headed home and take a circuitous route to do so, in the process creating a lasting legacy of "the one that got away".  I was reminded recently that these are the most memorable fish, worth more than all else in the cosmic cost scale of time spent and things remembered.  It was only a few weeks ago, and the fish has now achieved legend status in my world. I wonder at his epic size in a few short years. A 20lb brown, no less.  My white whale.

4 comments:

  1. Love it Ian! Keep up the good work. The "white whale" will be found and you will be prepared. :)

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  2. Well said, brother. I've been fly fishing just over month and hooked my first 20+ brown last week(streamer fishing in POURING rain). As I knelt down to grab him(didn't have my net), he/she shook the hook and silently, casually, slipped away and disappeared. I just wanted to hold that fish and observe its beauty, take a picture, and have my peace. Oh and I've returned to and fished that very "spot". As much of a void that coming so close to landing that fish created, it has created a whole world and story of its own...

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  3. Well, if you've only been fly fishing for about a month and have already lost your first big brown, you're doing something right so keep it up! It's a weird feeling being so heart broken at the loss of a fish that you were going to release anyhow.
    Fish on!

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