{"id":49,"date":"2012-05-05T07:55:38","date_gmt":"2012-05-05T11:55:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/fishing-professor\/?p=49"},"modified":"2013-12-17T14:54:36","modified_gmt":"2013-12-17T19:54:36","slug":"redemption-on-the-river-hey-hey-the-first-of-may","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/fishing-professor\/2012\/05\/05\/redemption-on-the-river-hey-hey-the-first-of-may\/","title":{"rendered":"Redemption on the River: Hey Hey\u2014The First of May!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was about to tell you the story of my humble first fish of 2012 that followed hard on last post’s fiasco. But today’s outing takes the cake. And the saying I favored in grad school works just as well for fishing, it turns out: “so many fiascos\u2014so little time.”<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the ‘kid couldn’t make it\u2014too much homework. A problem set, he said.\u00a0 I sent him a text to the effect that if he was going to have his priorities straight like that his fishing future was sure to be limited. So I set off by myself. My fishing buddy “Magyver,” also known as “The Car Whisperer” was suffering from a different moral attack: meetings at work, he said. So Mac couldn’t be there for the Redemption on the River that took place in yesterday’s rain.<\/p>\n

To make up for recent failings, I hiked into a local stream known as he Keva-Seam (to my friends) last week to see how water levels were after the pulse of steady rain we’ve been having. Just happened to have my rod along, of course. The current was running fast but a down tree sticking halfway across made a nice slack spot for fish to bide their time, save calories and see what got spilled onto their calm eddy table:<\/p>\n

\"\"

The Sweet Spot\u2014Home of Big Brown<\/p><\/div>\n

I fished the obvious line\u2014the crease between the fast and slow water on the left toward the middle of the stream. First a Black Ghost streamer before I realized I needed to get deeper.\u00a0 A black and green wooly bugger with a tungsten head was the weapon of choice. On the first retrieve I see the flash of a major tail. Weak kneed, I drift the bugger like a nymph down the same line and on the second retrieve\u2014WHAM.\u00a0 My five weight LL Bean rod\u2014the Orion\u2014bent straight to the river. My knees now had the strength of the $.99 cent a jar of the jelly you can get at Walmart. I’d heard of the big browns that haunt the ‘Seam, and there’s landlocked salmon too. The sign coming in even warned about releasing the occasional Atlantic Salmon rumored to be recovering here. No matter. After playing the beast to calm water carefully, slowly\u2014 as gently as possible given the huge back that broke the water\u2014my line snapped. Not at the knot, and not at the tippet. Above it–at the strong part of the leader, where I must have had a nick.<\/p>\n

No more fish were hooked that day.<\/p>\n

So I was out for revenge yesterday. Fishing in the rain is great. You’re alone with your thoughts and the fish will At a place I call rainbow alley in Central Maine, a fourteen inch rainbow went for a sparkly green bugger in a sink tip, retrieved slow:<\/p>\n

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Now I Was Feeling Better<\/p><\/div>\n

After that I wanted to go where the bigger fish are. So I headed to a spot on what I call the Eekem River, where there are no stocked fish. I was now optimistic about the rain and deep nymphing a favorite spot with different caddis pupa droppers, my indicator went down fast. Like for this one:<\/p>\n

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17″ Native Brookie Fatso: Released Happy<\/p><\/div>\n

There were smaller brookies too that went for nymphs higher up in the water column:<\/p>\n

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Keep Eating Junior!<\/p><\/div>\n

The redemption was almost complete and there’s more photos of the other fat brook trout. But I’ll save these hosannas for now so that Big Brown of the ‘Seam doesn’t get mad. Mac and I will be out to visit him shortly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was about to tell you the story of my humble first fish of 2012 that followed hard on last post’s fiasco. But today’s outing takes the cake. And the saying I favored in grad school works just as well … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/fishing-professor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/fishing-professor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/fishing-professor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/fishing-professor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/fishing-professor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/fishing-professor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":239,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/fishing-professor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions\/239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/fishing-professor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/fishing-professor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/fishing-professor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}