It came quickly on my second cast. The fly hit the water and almost instantly a bright beam of light streaked from below the surface. Yet the surface of the water stayed absolutely still. I had tricked it, but not well enough.
I catch plenty of little fish and I am totally fine with that. I cast a light two weight rod because I know I catch mostly little fish and it lets me feel their fight. A mix of inexperience and hubris allows acceptance of this in a sport where the little fish are ignored. Not me. I risk dropping my camera into thigh deep water every time I catch a little fish. Even at five inches I can still appreciate their beauty. I’ve spent enough time on the water though to know when I’ve seen a fish larger than what I normally catch. That flash was a big one.
School of thought has taught me not to fish a spot too long. It also has taught me that once I get rejected by a fish, that I am better off elsewhere. In a lake that had steep shore lines, I doubled down and put all my chips on this spot. I backed off a little, putting myself a little further from the weeds I figured my fish was hiding in, and started cast to the opposite side. I’d give the fish a little time to settle and see if I could get a rise out of it again.
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Nothing. Far to the left, nothing. Behind me to the right, nothing. I tried to tell myself that it was simply the wrong time of day. That the rise wasn’t happening, that the fish were all asleep. But that second cast, the fish was too deliberate to be a fluke.
I looked down at my watch and figured twenty minutes was probably good enough to let the fish calm down. I dried off the fly, wound up into my back cast and caught a fist full of reeds. Damn it! Newbie stuff. So much for my silent patience. A light struggle and some minor detangling had me back in position with deflated hopes. An acceptable cast yielded predictable results.
I worked the left and right again, finally catching my first of the day almost straight behind me and around a corner. With a low, sideways cast, delivering the fly with an almost magical lightness. It was a typical six incher that still excites me to land. A culmination of the mystical and elusive, better than average cast, presentation and set. A quick snap in the net and off it went to warn its’ big brother of my presence.
I was running out of time and knew that if I waded away unsuccessful from the flash it would haunt me for days. I tied on a fresh fly, smashed the barb down and brushed it with a little floatant almost simply for luck. I gently tossed the fly into the gap in the reeds I first saw the fish in and almost immediately the water shook. Up went the pole and I saw the fly rocket skyward. Too early, too fast, too hard, ya dummy. How many times must you loose a fish before you remember to wait and then set over your left shoulder, not you right! Groan. Hurriedly I put the fly right back where the water was still swirling and again, the fish, hit it hard. This time, I made it count.
I not so gracefully stripped in line and kept the pole high, wishing upon wishes that I could manage to somehow get it to the net without breaking off or it shaking the hook. My little rod is practically bent in half, raised over my head as I scoop up the fish, practically filling my net. It isn’t the largest fish that has come out of this lake by any stretch, but it is definitely one of the largest I’ve put in a net. My hands are shaking, the fish is slippery and I do everything in my power to not drop my camera into the lake as I snap a succession of blurry pictures. Even though I got a picture of the fish in the net and out of the water, my favorite is the last frame in the series. It has just left my hand and is swimming away just under the calm surface. Giving me one final flash before it jets off to the deep.
