Sunday, February 19, 2017

Before the snow melted into rivulets and went along the gutter into grated transport systems 


I decided it would not be a bad idea to go looking at some big fish water.  And the snowshoes were neutral meaning they were neither needed nor any sort of encumbrance or otherwise an issue.  The bindings are leather and midway through the walk I had to pause to tighten them.  If nothing else the dust was abraded from the wood frames and tight buckskin webbing by the snow crystals and I think they feel better now having had some good use in recent times.  
Walked to the fence.  And from what I know and understand to tread further would be a risk in that the overseer is known to ask one to leave.  The fence marks the spot; just stop there and turn around is the word as I know it.



The big fish.  Like some sort of obligation set out there.  Guys catch them and they don't have to do shit else in the world of angling and they are writing articles and posting themselves as famous in the Midwest.  I never have felt this drive.  I can't figure what's left to be gained.  Can't eat them.  And we know where they are now.  And we know where these guys are fishing.  And we know what it takes to get them ranging from a glob of nightcrawlers fished downstream under logpiles to a well-place streamer.  Whatever man.   They are there, we know.  They have giant kypes and they eat flies.  Single guys with a lot of time not interested in protein can dedicate a lot of time to the fishing of said quarry.  

Fact is that I am constrained by time and thus I have to fish some winter mornings.  On this winter morning there was a great south wind pushing crystals of ice along the snow crust and a great grayness was settled over the land.  I was in it and I knew that I wouldn't move any fish.  Some might say that is the mark.  I just took it as a walk to the end; a walk back, nodding to the deer on the blufftop who were snorting at me.  You fix what you can fix and you let the rest go. If there ain't nothin to be done about it it aint even a problem. It's just a aggravation.  - Ed Tom Bell.


Afternoon right by home I stopped at some regular water and moved a bunch of fish; caught almost all of them.  Fishing that same big streamer but failing to get any fish greater than maybe 13 inches.  Despite working woody debris.  Etc. etc.  Not much to do about it.  Was getting deep.  
Well-proportioned fish in the great design; spots all right and fins perfectly intact.



Probably ten stocker bows.  Wanted to bash in their skulls and take them home for food but it wasn't to be.