Saturday, June 11, 2016

Almost Not Incompetent

It's Friday night at the campground, and a little sadness has entered my thoughts.  Not because I'm sipping bourbon and nibbling on Hershey's chocolate and graham crackers.  Certainly not because we got here Thursday night, allowing me to fish this morning.  And not even because it's raining and there's no campfire tonight.  I remembered that Fathers Day Weekend is when we haul the Mobile Hotel® back home.  Our run of pre-summer camping and fishing weekends will soon draw to a close.

Ah, well, the time has been good.  How good?  The first weekend down here in early May left me with a skunk stripe.  This morning was different.  I spent about three hours on the water and managed to lose count of how many brown trout I caught.  I paid close attention to the brookie count (four!) but lost track of the other count after 4 or 5.  Many were missed and many self-released from the barbless flies.  For a brief time, I actually felt as if I knew what I was doing, especially when I managed to catch 3 fish that I missed the first or second times.

Could've been luck, or the law of averages catching up with me.  And I have many bad habits to correct.  But you should have seen those little brook trout.

11 comments:

  1. The longer you fly fish the less you'll count how many you caught. It's not about the number of fish caught.

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    1. I grasp that philosophically. But right now, it feels darn good. More than anything, I want to be able to reliably catch fish, so that I can help my wife and kids reliably catch fish. I can enjoy it when there's no catching. Them, not so much...

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  2. some days it just clicks for both you and the fish. Hang on to those times....they are the ones that keep you coming back for more. :)

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    1. This weekend was definitely one for the scrapbooks. Much like you, Ralph, I'm writing all of this in hopes of preserving the memories for later. Otherwise, the moments fad far to quickly for me.

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  3. Chris
    The more you do something the better you get at it, same thing applies to fishing; especially when you enjoy it as much as you do. Congrats on a good run--thanks for sharing

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    1. Sounds about right, Bill. My first couple of weekends down on the MN driftless in May were tough as far as catching. One weekend left, then a break from fishing for a while.

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  4. Sometimes you are keyed in on the fish and all goes well for you, or as is often the case, sometimes the fish win in the game of fishing........

    Congratulations on having a good day. Brookies and Browns are nothing to sneeze at.

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    1. Lucky? Good? My skills are basic at best. I'll take lucky while it lasts. And I was happy to discover there was more than one brook trout in that little river. I was concerned that I was catching the same one each outing!

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  5. I used to have a few days like that Chris. It's funny, but those aren't the ones I remember the best.

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  6. No doubt. You learn more on the days when catching is slow. This particular day will probable fade pretty quickly, but I'm glad I've got a short record to someday make me go, "oh, yeah... that day."

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  7. It's never how many you caught, but how pretty they were.

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