March 30, 2010 Report

And that's AM you see below. 05:52 hours ground coffee ready to go amidst a quiet house. First thing that came to me this morning was the line My girl, my girl, don't lie to me, Tell me where did you sleep last night?, not because my gal slept anywhere other than here last night but because my brother gave me a CD that includes that song and Mr. Cobain is installed in my brain right now singing that over and over. Sometimes when you get a lyric like that and you repeat it you end up naming flies after some of the words in the lyric. Who knows if it'll come to that (the WDYSLN maybe) but for now the words are wedged so I stood there in some good outward silence pouring hot water through an aluminum funnel listening to Nirvana inside my head. My girl, my girl, don't lie to me shiver the whole night through

In fact if you want to make your read complete, consider opening another tab and getting it going before you proceed. Why not. Not too loud though if the boss is around.

Tell me where did you sleep last night?

And there's also another lyric from another song from another genre of music that I think of every time I'm driving east early in the morning: it's such a blessing when my eyes get to see the sunrise. That it is. So songs are good for something and maybe something more than just listening. Good Lord is the sunrise something to see and it cannot be captured on film. Or in pixels.

And then down in the valley. Another interesting phenom: down, down, down. Tell me where did you sleep last night? In the pines, in the pines
Where the sun will never shine Down in the valley so low. Hang your head over or just roll down the slope to the stream and get ready to go fishing. Another cool feeling though: enclosure by the road cut and the trees, and descension.

And then some fish were caught in the minutes after stepping to streamside. In fact, I was about catching my car door on the backcasts. Approx fifteen minutes in, I'd landed maybe 5-6 good fish nymphing. Looking at cows and cows looking back. Gray morning and nymphed up fish. I saw the beaten banks and exposed blackness and wondered if a worm or two might be dislodged now and then and float and squirm downstream downcurrent into a waiting maw and then into a stomach. Who knows, but the fish ate the SJW. Worm fly. In the pines, in the pines
Where the sun will never shine
I would shiver the whole night through

Kype just coming on here.

This shallow, broken water produced a very remarkable fish. Pretty and fairly large. And two spooked out of there after their compadre was skewed on a #16 hook. I'd run away too.

You can see that little trout in there, feeding and feeling good and safe. No apparent threats. I heron-walked on this absolute wrangle of debris and persisted and cursed and did eventually hook two fish but I couldn't land either of them. No big deal though. Kind of a theater of sorts and that was fascinating.My girl, my girl, where will you go?
I'm going where the cold wind blows

And some streamers were thrown. SMB to be exact, courtesy of WFF. An interesting note here is that there was very little action swinging the streamers down riffles into pools. A couple small fish. To get fish with streamers on this day, a guy had to go to the tailout and slow water and cast up and/or across and strip back through. Jolting strikes ensued. Not a ridiculous number but enough to make it very interesting. Maybe a coincidence, maybe not... but after watching quite a few fish follow and refuse, I trimmed some of the flash collar off a black SMB and that less flashy fly seemed to produce more enthusiasm.


Good dog here. Hung around for quite a while and even wanted a bit of my coffe and lunch. Only problem was that friendliness meant going ahead of me and scouting every pool in brusque fashion... i.e. scuba diving. Maybe a pact with the fish, as it is after all more his territory than mine. I didn't mind. What the hell. The fish will always be there and so will the fisherman and there will be adventures always so if something gets fugged up big deal I probably would have screwed it up anyway. Unless a bass boat pulls up on a carp flat - that can be a different story.


View from lunch seat. Not bad. By this time I was coasting so I watched some water. All told probably landed around 15 fish. Not sure but I recall catching 5-6 from the first hole, and at least that many on streamers. And a few holes that gave up 1-2 fish to tandem nymph rig. So coasting was in play. Some nice fish too.

Turned over a few rocks. Found a sculpin under one of them.

On the way out. Thinking about catch and release, fishing as sport, etc. Looking forward to drawing the big Ken Onion and ingesting some of this land and water. Six months of no harvest of trout in MN.

Stopped at this store on my way out. 150 years of service. The teller/owner is 94 years old. She made me guess her age and I said 71 knowing she was older than that but no way in hell was I going to guess much older than that. She wanted to chat. I was running late. I stayed as long as I could. I bought some food and she asked me to put the money in the till myself so I did.

Last day of March and all that - no snow for a month. Also no really good hatches yet. Bummed about that, but it is only 3/31. More to come. Wider scope of fishing starts tomorrow. 17 days or so to harvest of fish. And carp starts now. Sunning ghosts were observed today and will be addressed. Methods to force them to eat will be employed. Spring oh spring where did you sleep last night - in the pines in the pines now get your ass out here and keep us all warm and make bugs hatch and fill the sky in big clouds and pour sun on dirt and wake up the plants and grapevines and bounce around on water surfaces. Good Lord spring come on and stay on strong! Woohoo!