THE
REEL THING December
2001
I’m actually beginning to write the December Reel Thing today, the
last day of November, because we’re off fishing again this weekend and I
won’t have time…..travelling……fishing……cleaning fish……and so
on, you know, during the weekend. This
month has easily provided the most interesting and productive fishing of any
November that I can recall in my many years of fishing trout.
Most of the weekend trips have already been documented but the last one
deserves repeating here, partly because it was so great and also because the
Reel Thing goes to a lot more folks than the interim notes and so on that I
send out from time to time.
Last
Saturday, Jim Lloyd and I headed up to Haliburton to have another go at the
late fall trout fishing. It was a
difficult Jeep ride getting in to the lake in the minus 2 degree Celcius
weather and we had to negotiate among other things a bush trail flooded by a
beaver dam backing up the creek, a corduroy road that must have been laid down
at the beginning of the last century, mud ponds almost three feet deep, steep
rocky ledges and completely washed out bush roads.
Alas! If only our wives
knew how hard we work just to put food on the table.
Anyhow, things began in short order as Jim scored with the first fish
to claim the first leg on the ‘dollar each for the first, biggest and
most’ bet. Before I could get into action he nailed another one, boating it
with a grin and the comment, “So you thought this spoon that I tied on was,
“A piece of sh..!”, did you. Indeed, the spoon he had unearthed out of the depths of
his box had to be bent and adjusted a half a dozen times before it would work
properly in the water. With the
score 2 to 0 for Jim, I finally got on board with a nice trout of my own, then
took a couple of others in rapid succession before Jim tied things up, three
each.
Not ‘letting him off the hook’ I caught two more before he nailed
another. This was fast, furious
and exciting fishing, the way we all dream about, score (5 to 4).
After a few more casts I hooked and landed my biggest to that moment,
but it was still an inch shorter than Jim’s first trout, which was also his
biggest. Jim was hanging on to two legs in the fish bet, the biggest
and the first, while I led in the most (6 to 4).
The trout we were catching ran from a little over a foot to about
eighteen inches. It was then that
I had the ‘subterfuginous’ brainwave and suggested,
“Heh, James, Old Buddy, you know this is almost like the proverbial
‘shooting fish in a barrel’. Why
don’t we pack up early, like now, and head over to the next lake.
The fish aren’t as numerous, but they certainly are bigger? What do you say to that?
Liking the idea, himself of catching bigger trout, he agreed and
although it was not even eleven o’clock we packed up the fold-boat, threw it
on the roof of the Jeep, drove back through the swamps a couple of miles to
the other lake, unfolded it and we were
fishing again in about an hour.
“Whose bright idea was this?” Jim grunted after an hour or so
passed with nothing but weeds fastening on to our lures.
I smiled broadly and continued tossing out long casts working the water
in all directions. We even
trolled around what we believed would be the logical places for the trout to
be staging, all to no avail. However,
while reeling in to commence casting again I had a hard slam on the line and
slowly started to work what was obviously the biggest fish of the day towards
the boat, all the while having to listen to Jim’s derogatory comments,
“Ah, it’s probably just another gob of weeds.”
However, it was not to be as with another yank on the line, the
apparently lightly lip-hooked trout got off to fight another time.
Then
after one of the longest casts that I had made all day, the water boiled as
soon as the Crocodile wabler hit the water and I struck back firmly,
determined not to lose this one. What
seemed like an eternity, actually about fifteen minutes, it was boated, a
lovely twenty-two incher, easily the biggest so far and my seventh.
With my now owning two legs to Jim’s one, he went into high gear,
working the water furiously and just when we were getting ready to call it a
day, he latched into another, a fat twenty-one incher, his own best of the
day, but not quite good enough. The final score, Gord, seven trout and two
legs on the bet – Jim, five, with one leg.
Twelve trout in all. With
plenty for the pan, about half the catch had been released.
However
this was one memorable day that we both will never forget and actually we
could have had eight or ten more if we had been better adept at hooking them
when they struck. Oh, by the way
we’re going back again tomorrow!
Well,
I hope all you fishermen and ladies, enjoyed that little story and get into
great fishin’ like that yourselves occasionally.
Things
are moving along quite nicely in the shop.
The bamboo sticks are rapidly taking shape and flies are being
fashioned in goodly numbers. Our casters are all primed for the fun Christmas party and
casting games next Thursday evening and it is to be hoped that everybody joins
in on this one. The party also
happens to be our final night in the gym until January……..but we will
continue working Tuesdays in the shop until a week before Christmas, December
18th.
The
club would also like to welcome our newest member aboard, Scott Owen, who is
already hard at work in the shop tussling with the fur and feathers.
Scott, although just a beginner at fly casting promises to give it a go
in the games at our Christmas party next week.
Some fine results have been showing up on the targets over the last
couple of sessions, from Ray, Hans, Jim, Sheila and so on.
Wouldn’t it be great if Tom and Richard joined us for the evening!
We have all missed their presence at the fly tying table and on the
targets – as well as Tom’s dry sense of humour.
Bye
now, Gord
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