Fishing not catching
My friend Jim Furley and I fished Thursday morning until 11am. It was sunny out and the trout were quite persnickety this outing. Trout don't have eyelids and shun sunlight. It was about 9am and the trout started to shut down. Jim was having luck slowing down his retrieve and going deeper and giving the trout more time to see and time to think about attacking his spinner.
I had been having problems with the trout failing to commit and really slam my spinner. I had many bounce offs. We got to a nice stretch where there were downed trees in the water and Jim had an immediate hook up. He landed and was unhooking a decent trout and told me the hole was mine and to go catch a monster.
I made a long cast and slowed down my retrieve due to Jim’s luck with a slower retrieve. I casted right up into the downed trees. I had fished with a friend two years ago exactly here and had had a monster slam his lure. He battled it for about 30 seconds and it jumped out of the water a good three feet, shaking its head non-stop and dislodging the spinner while doing its jump. That memory was playing in my mind during my retrieve.
Suddenly my spinner was freight trained. The rod was nearly ripped out of my hand. The trout did something very unusual then, it bull rushed me. It came screaming downstream directly at me. I kept tight pressure on the trout and reeled for all my worth. I raised the rod high and made sure there was a bend in the rod in case the trout jumped like it did to my friend two years prior. It did a wide S turn while swimming downstream while shaking its head the entire time. My adrenaline was pumping now. I had visions of giant trout racing through my mind.
Jim did not see me engaged with the trout. Suddenly one of the ferocious head shakes dislodged the spinner. The tale sounds like it went on forever but it lasted 2-3 seconds maximum. My first instinct was denial. I told Jim I had just lost a little one. Jim fired in the run and had no takers. As I watched him fish, I thought about the force generated by the trout required to almost tear the rod out of my hand. I then thought about the distance it covered coming downstream at me. It had to have had a giant tail to cover that much distance in such a short time. The head shakes were violent and non-stop. The trout dislodges my spinner with those head shakes. Why had I not had better penetration with my spinner with such a ferocious initial hit? Old big trout mouth's get almost armor plated when they get really old. I added 2 and 3 together and I had just lost a battle with a monster. I guess that's why it's called fishing not catching.
I did change my spinner afterwards. I took a new sharp one out of the package. I thought the rest of the way to the car and wondered if I had battled the monster wrong and what I would have done differently. I would not have done a single thing differently. Monsters lost are remembered longer than ones landed. We will dance again another day I thought as we fished upstream.
For more of Len’s work visit; Small Streams Trout Monsters Club, or www.facebook.com/len.harris
