Not All About the Trout

It was a foggy morning in my home water. I was fishing with Chris Young. This morning was not the best for fishing but the scenery was very memorable. I remember it was so humid I could feel the moisture on my face. As I walked, I looked back and I could see my footsteps in the dew.

I remember us hurrying a little because the sun was breaching the hills and we wanted to catch a couple more trout before the fishing shut down. Trout have no eyelids and are hyper sensitive to sunlight. The picture of me walking was taken by Chris Young.

The morning was quite humid and moisture adhered to the grass and shrubs and gave the path I walked almost a dream like sheen. I directed Chris to the next place to try on our immediate left and I walked about 30 yards upstream and was going to fish upstream. I didn't make it to the water.

There on the right side of my path was a huge spider web. There was a large black and yellow garden spider residing there. The fish would have to wait I thought. I needed a photo of this beauty.

The web had lots of droplets in it and humidity plays havoc with my digital camera so I was there taking photos of my spider much longer than I thought. The sun was up then and complicated getting a decent photo even more.

Chris walked up from the stream looking for me and there I was laying in wet grass with my head laying directly under the web and trying to get a decent photo of my discovery. I was wondering if Chris thought I was losing it for paying so much attention to the spider but he too then got out his camera and took photos of our discovery.

We fished a little more after we had exhausted our photo session with our yellow and black beauty. Chris told me he had seen another spider near the edge of the water earlier while we were fishing. We followed his path in the dew directly to the second photo subject. The water droplets clung to this web also on this cool September morning the orange touch me not flowers behind the web were decorated in the morning dew. We took quite some time taking photos of that one too.

As we walked back to the vehicle, I was thinking about old saying I had heard in the past. They all were the type like: "Don't forget to smell all of the flowers while on your path of life," I smiled to myself and tried to come up with something witty about spiders but I could not.

I then remembered a Thoreau saying that I thought that fit. "Many men go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not the fish they are after."

For more of Len’s work visit; Small Streams Trout Monsters Club, or www.facebook.com/len.harris