The Dead Drift

The big brown moved slightly as my elk hair caddis rode the swift currents towards it’s holding place. The trout lay suspended in the soft pillow of water eddying in front of a mid-stream boulder, watching for food in the faster flow on either side – ready to eat. But, as the fly approached the eddy and the brown began to rise, my leader tightened, pulling the caddis a fraction of an inch, against the flow. Startled by the movement, the fish spooked, turned into the faster water, and was gone.

*****

As the first fingers of dawn reached into the morning sky, I had slipped quietly into the river, crossed the riffles, and settled onto a large, mid-stream boulder. I sat silently, my fly rod across my lap, and watched the sun emerge from behind the trees, the fish begin to rise, and the first daylight moments of my 57th year arrive.

Haveluck's Excellent Adventure

From the Chatham Chatlist #3829 - Sept 14, 2010:

Subject: Lost 40 lb. tortoise

I'm posting for a neighbor whose 40 lb., 18 inch long tortoise escaped from her pen about a week ago in the xxxxxx community. She could be far away by now. She looks like a miniature giant tortoise that you have all seen pictures of, from the Galapagos Islands. She is harmless to people and other animals, NOT a snapper. She is tan, brown and unfortunately, a perfect match to the leaves that are now falling. If the temperature gets below 50 degrees, she could die.

Who knows what direction she took off in, so please keep an eye out for her in xxxxxx, of course, and around Sugar Lake, Mt. Gilead Church Road, along the pathway that follows the Haw from the bridge on 64 to Bynum, and along Bynum Ridge Road to Bynum and everywhere in between or maybe beyond.

If she is spotted please e-mail or call me and I'll pick her up. (nnn)nnn-nnnn xxxxxxx@xxxxxxxx.com

Thanks, K

What? No Pot of Gold?

I had to chuckle at this barbeque apron that I saw in the gift shop while playing tourist at Blowing Rock.

Funny stuff.

Tippet Tantrum

I hate 6X tippet.  It’s difficult to see, a pain in the ass to tie, and impossible to avoid wind-knoting within the first half-dozen false casts.

7X?  Forget about it. Spider-webbery.

8X tippet cannot be seen with the naked eye. One should take extreme care when purchasing 8X so as not to buy an empty spool by mistake.

9X is only one molecule wide and is often used by science fiction villains as a weapon to slice through everything – wood, steel, human flesh.

10X, I believe, is the basis for the particle physics string theory, hypothesizing the sub-atomic base material for all matter, space, and time.

Einstein loved light tackle.

Virginia Breakaway - Day Four

It’s a sad, sad truth, but all good things must come to an end. It had been a great fishing trip but T-Bone needed to get back home for a Saturday night gig with his blues band and I needed to return to pack for a trip to the Windy City and points west. So, at daybreak, we loaded our belongings, bid adieu to Heffe and The Rog, who were staying through the weekend, and pointed the truck east, and south, for home.

Virginia Breakaway - Day Three

T-Bone doesn’t like me much.

He will, of course, deny it, but there can be no other explanation. How else can you interpret our spending nine hours together in a New River drift boat with nary a long, circuitous story told, rib-poking barb at my casting skills, or slightly off-kilter joke? All we did was fish. Nose to the grindstone, eye on the bug, minds on the water, fish.

Now, admitted, it took that, and more, especially knowing that every cast might yield a beast of a smallmouth in this unbelievable Virginia fishery. Our drifts had to be absolutely dead in the tricky currents and the smallmouth takes, when they occurred, were as dainty as a butterfly’s kiss, easily missed. Even our guide was all business, in a competent and collegial manner. It was all about the fishing...

...but still, I wonder...