Spring Celebrant Episode II

I figure if you spend enough time deep in old valleys - at the base of cliffs that are older than you can comprehend, you have a good chance of absorbing goodness and maybe even becoming a better person for it. There's really no rationale for the claim so there will be no typing in that direction. It's a feeling and as I tick off years I tend to put more on feelings and judgment and perceived goodness than on proofs, facts, etc. I just figure the sound of water, the sight of limestone: good. Probably really good.

So I walked around a bit, throwing a dark streamer because it was still gloomy and doggy and there was no chance of seeing any bugs in the air. No riseforms would be had today. Several beautiful fish were brought to hand in fairly short order. The first of note was a-laying in this dark little slot surrounded by boulders. Fished the near side of the situation, and then waded across, leaned on the boulder in the foreground and high-sticked the rig through there. Instant flash from the depths: watched BNT rise up to eat. Nice burning into memory there. I figure he was just tailing in that current watching detritus come by... investigating some of it, charging some of it pulling up just short on noticing it was not viable food... then in plopped a black, elongated mass: looked like a big bug or maybe a dying trout fry. Charge and eat. What came next. Something like the Primus song - Ol' Diamondback Sturgeon maybe. Can't say for sure but I put him back in that lay.


Water like this is absolutely ripe for streamers: some current, but relatively flat and deep. Fish hang out here. Casts up and across were stripped back but regularly interrupted by jolting objections to retrieval. Playing some of these fish the backdrop was noted as spectacular.



Like the look of the new scuds, which incorporate wiggle dub - a gift from John Montana.


Favorite fish, as of late, tend to be produced by context as opposed to the fish itself. This was clearly favorite: waded across to big red dot. Leaned over and high sticked rig to small red dot. Fish shot up and ate. It isn't dangerous whitewater, but it was an uncomfortable perch and a hell of a spot to hook a fish. It's not often in SE MN that you find yourself hooked up with pisces that is racing down a chute of rapids. Thoroughly enjoyable and memorable.

Of all the duplicative fish pics that me/you/everybody puts out there... sometimes a sweet one rolls out. I like this one: the background is right on, the fish is relaxed and beautiful. Says SE MN fishing.



Didn't even fish on the way out. In fact, wandered away from stream for long stretches.
Watched yellow rumped warblers wreck havoc on BWOs (which were around, but were not being eaten by fish). Those birds are efficient in their pursuit of the bugs. Swooping. And hovering even, over bugs on the water, to pluck them from the aqua. The bugs have it tough: mortal danger from above and below. Monsters eating them and all their brothers. Barred owl called twice. Up on the hillside I think. And nothing to say about Dutchman's Breeches. Just look at pic. Forest floor: a person could spend a lot of time there.


Got some nettles on the way out. That's about it.