Fall Side

With Fall officailly here and the land of Yoda fast approaching, the secrecy involved in that venture made this was the last weekend I had to fish with the Garside. It has been a fine summer teaching another to fish, and now that the legacy has been properly passed on to the next generation. I feel I am done teaching another person to fish. Sure, I'll take newbies out, but I do not wish to spend another summer season of fishin' teachin' in "Merica". I learned so much from teaching this summer. I feel it not only helped me to improve but also forced me to do so as well. It was a personal test and lesson so rich, rewarding, passionate and profound. I questioned myself, my tactics, my philosophies, my patience, my "prowdness", who I am, what I knew and thought I knew, etc. The experience was a menage of frustration and glory. You want people to progress so much at whatever they're doing and whether it happens quickly or over many years, you still want it to happen. My pupil was awesome and I think she only got grumpy a few times over the summer. Amanda's strength and passion took over most cases of frustration and it was usually solved quickly with a little tug on the end of the line and a fish to hand.
This trip took us around quite a bit. We searched out older rivers we had fished previously and a few new ones as well. We hit new stretches accessed by different routes, roads, trails, and turns. We figured out on the first stretch that we like the other end of the river more. The other end requires a lenghty hike in, and therefore sees less people and less stressed fish. On the second river we figured out the original spot was better than above where we fished the third day. Yet, you have to seek it out to find its bounty or lack there of in this case. Then on the way out we hit another spot for a few hours before we headed south to go home.
Truly my goal over the last few weeks has been my own education in streamer fishing. I have been starting out with dry-dropper, snagging a few fish then switching over to streamers for learning and practice purposes. I am very good at setting the hook now with streamers, however the rocks, stumps, and sticks don't really ever surface. They put up a fight like a Mako shark, but still I can never get the rockfish, stickfish, and stumpfish netted. So... there I was, I mean it was there that I lost a bunch of streamers and nymphs. There was a pool, a glorious pool of enchanting possibilities. It was a magical scene that invoked visions of sugarplums, large browns, and cutts.
I pounded the water for 45 minutes. The pool was deep, I tried a few streamer patterns, some wet flies, some dry-dropper combos and nothing nothing nothing. I thought to myself that this had to be the sticky icky goo-E money honey spot and continued to pound the water, anger ensuing as the trout did not take what I was serving up. Yet, I would not give up... pound pound pound... then.... tie on another fly and pound some more. Not until the gigantic salmon fly worked. I thought really? After everything I throw at you bastards you take a gigantic salmon fly off the top... WTF?
(sometimes fish are jerks :-)
Amanda hooked into some beautiful fish, a few good size cutts and browns. Her excitement of weight clamped onto the end of her fly sometimes gets her too excited and she manhandles the fish to her feet with the strength of a WWF wrestler stacking some dude on a table and hitting him with a garbage can. Then picking him up and throwing him back to the table. Ok, slight exageration, however she is not afraid to bring a fish to shore. She lost two very nice fish because of this and when I offered up the explanation she said "I KNOW!" and sat on the bank to re-tie. I think this was the only moment of poopie diaper and she never lost another fish that way again over the weekend. Another lesson learned.


So, fall is here. Heading to see Yoda over the next few weeks then a possible trip with B.G. in the making to chase big bigg biggg fish the end of October. Snow will soon follow and my rods will lay in rest for pow turns. But that is still a month and a half to two months away...
and did I mention the food? MMM, beer can Cornish Game hen to round out the weekend!