Yesterday morning started with waiting for a mobile service to arrive to replace the windshield of my truck. Having taken a rock while passing a flatbed hauling a grader on I-90, last week, this was unavoidable. The upside was that I was texting two buddies as the service van was updating the arrival time, so we could head into the mountains as soon after the repair as possible.
The technician arrived in the middle of the quoted “8am to Noon” span and only took 45 minutes to know out the full job.
Nice!
With one buddy coming to this side of town for another task, and the second one living only a mile from the rental house, we were on the road shortly after 11.
By the time we got to our chosen spot, the truck was telling me the outside air was 82 degrees (water at 64 degree and only moving 40 cfs) and the air was fairly calm, but with occasional gusts.
We geared up and selected the stretches we would each start on, in short order. For me, with only the rod/reel and fly boxes being left of my old gear, it was exciting to even just be getting ready, again!
I took a stretch I had not yet fished, this year, and worked my way out into the gentle current. I have to admit, I was hesitant to really push the rod, given that it had been in the same area as my old work monitor and other items that had significantly melted in our fire. The tube that had housed it was called out as not being salvageable by the remediators, too. For the first half hour, I slowly ramped up the force I used, almost expecting some new heat-induced fragility to result in an awkward *snap*.
I am VERY please to report that this never happened, even after my cast had returned to nearly Hank Patterson levels of force, as required.
As I waded upstream, moving through a long pool that has a consistent history of saying “no fish for you” to me, I came upon a crawfish, near the bank. As I stopped to make the one fly change of the day, I spent some time observing his movement and the thoroughness with which he scoured around the rocks looking for food.
See him next to the larger rock in the middle? No? Not surprising, actually. He didn’t care at all when I was just standing there or working on swapping the flies, but the moment I took the phone out for a pic, he bolted for cover. Did it twice, too. I suspect he knew that I’m married to a wonderful Southern Woman, and may have been fearful that I was sending an “is this plump enough?” picture (She’s also the reason I am absolutely obligated to refer to this as Crawfish, despite my Northern childhood!).
Happy to say that all of us caught fish, in the roughly 3 hours that we were there. Nothing big, but certainly better than not fishing! Great to spend time with good friends, enjoy nature, and just unwind for a bit.
A few tweaks are in order for the new vest and some of the kit, but that too is part of the fun. Altogether, a great day back on the water.
Now, to make sure that it’s not another month+ before I go back!
Tight lines.