Friday, August 31, 2018

The Perfect Dumb Trout



            I've only gone trout fishing three different times this year.  It's unusual.  But with various responsibilities, or other things planned, it's had to go to the wayside; however painful that is to type.  Things happen.  And so in order to continue posting at least one adventure into my blog each month, I had to dig up an outing that I journaled about many years ago.  I wrote it back on Wednesday, July 21st, 2010 after a day of fishing.  Enjoy!  And don't worry, once the busyness from the beginning of school winds down I'll get outdoors again.  Until then, life itself is an adventure!
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            When I go trout fishing with my dad, and in our human clumsiness we happen to screw something up, we usually make the next cast with a familiar old saying we share between us.  It usually comes after tripping on some underwater structure of logs or rocks, splashing or making too much noise, getting a hook caught in a branch laying on the water’s surface, or some other unforeseen circumstance.  It is usually the type of circumstance I couldn’t even begin to dream up, or put into words.  Nine times out of ten a trout within a one hundred mile radius would probably, “swim for the hills,” after such a spectacle.  We ourselves usually laugh, but it’s a laugh that borders on delirium; especially after having been on the water for several hours, or when we’ve been in the direct sun too long, or we’re covered with swarming black flies and mosquitoes.  With a hint of disdain we’ll continue on with the next cast; more than likely right back into the same section of water we just screwed up. As we make that cast we typically preface the retrieve with a comment that goes along the line of, “Well, if any trout is left (in that once in a lifetime bend in the creek), it would have to be a dumb trout!”  We don’t comment like that to save face, or hope that the God of fish would have mercy upon us, but rather to save the creek from certain destruction.  If a trout was still holding up in the currents after one of our “casualties of clumsiness”, and was left to reproduce and pass on those “dumb” genes, who knows what the chain reaction would be to the future life in that waterway.  The very existence of the micro-organisms, insects, and plant life, including the otters, eagles, and black bear, could be at stake if the trout was eliminated from its environs due to its own poor decisions or lack of awareness.  Who wouldn’t want to flee for their lives after a large, two-legged creature came crashing through their favorite feeding spot; complete with neoprene leggings?  And yet, inevitably there is that small chance that one trout may linger; a small chance that it may actually still be feeding.  And so, as part of our civic duty after such a debacle, and as proponents of healthy, wary trout populations in every clear, cool watershed system, we look to see if we can “cull the herd” and save the trout as we know it by making that half-hearted cast into the infected waters.
            It was under such conditions that I found myself last week while fishing solo.  I’d seen a few trout in the hour or so that I’d been fishing, but they were merely feeble attempts at my spinner.  Light taps as they checked it out.
            And then I came to a lovely, deep pool fed by a cascading flow of trickling water and a swinging bend in the creek.  I started in the tail of the pool and began working my way up through it.  Again, I saw several meager attempts, but no hard strikes.  At last I flipped my line toward some over hanging grasses; hoping to find a trout hiding under the bank and on the inside of the bend.  It was next to fresh, incoming water.  What I found instead was some exposed roots.  Hung up in them, I shook my pole up and down, lightly trying to free it without too much ruckus.  When that didn’t work, I went to the harried, jiggling effect, trying to get the hook to magically pop off the root fibers.  Lastly, I jerked the pole tip up, trying to rip it free as it slapped the water’s surface time and again, but it was to no avail.  I stumbled forward, reached down and of course easily unhooked it.
            Looking ahead from my reach I saw there was about two feet of pocket water following the current that was pouring over the rocks on down to my outstretched hand.  I straightened back up and lightly flipped my spinner into that bubbling water that was directly in front of me.  I thought to myself, “Only a dumb trout would still be there after all of my splashing around.”  I of course made the cast anyways.
            As I finished that thought, twenty-two inches of brown trout exploded out from under the bank.  Somehow it had remained safely hidden in a tight hold of water.  How it remained undaunted, I do not know.  What I do know is that it struck with vengeance, and I was very busy in a small area.  My pole was doubled over.  The large trout made several runs into the pool below me, but each time I managed to turn its head back into the current and slowly brought it over to me.  It took a few attempts to slide my hand under its belly and bring it into the shallow head of the pool.
            The brown trout was flawless.  It had vivid coloring with its red spotted markings.  Its mouth was curved and beaked with a strong jaw line.  Its back and belly were proportionately streamlined.  This trout, without argument, was the picture of health.  It was perfect.
            And yet there it was in my hands.  How so?  Was it the one out of ten trout whose dumb genes were destined to destroy the species?  Holding it even briefly would probably tell you otherwise.  More than likely it was better described as, “just plain, dumb luck” on my part.  At a point in the creek where the water was loud and churning, the brown had detected no difference when my hook became fouled in the roots.  My approach went unheeded as it had to face upstream in the stronger current.  It could only be such a specimen through opportunistic living and wary chances; if indeed there was such a thing for a trout.  The brown trout had remained perfectly hidden, able to feed on the finest of foods at its own discretion, in an impeccable location.  I just happened to come along under ideal circumstances, despite my clumsy actions, and was fortunate enough to catch and hold the “perfect dumb trout.”  I wished it well, and hoped its genes would be passed on, as it slipped from my fingers and disappeared down into the pool.
            See you along The Way…

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