9/18/2010

Hammer Down

Yea...it's been a while since I last made a post - partly because the last two trips to the river were relatively uneventful. Except for a couple of average fish, my last couple of outings has been an orgy of snapped lines and popped hooks, which doesn't make for an interesting blog entry.

However, I did manage to hit the river with Josh (aka Bigerrfish) one weekend, and we had a good time - from disappearing fish, to the elusive (yet all too real) hummingbird hatch, to a fish eating a bat, the day seemed to have it all. Except some fish to net.

The following week, I was on the water with Susan and Laurel ("...did you really have one on?") - again, great time, but lots of lost fish. And flies.

And if there is one way to get me riled up for some payback, it's by sandbagging me on the water.

So with about three weeks worth of frustration at critical mass, I hit the river early this morning. Matter of fact, I was a little too early, and spent the first twenty minutes blind fishing in the dark - and managed to pull out a sickly little fella.

Seriously, this guy was like a side-show freak - larger melon with bulging eyes, humped back and elongated fins. Bizarre. After releasing Quasimodo, I used a ton of hand-sanitizer, just to be safe.

A little after that, it became light enough to see and I proceeded to unleash hell upon those fish. Weeks of frustration dropped like a ton of bricks...and it felt good.

A handful of little fellas, and quite a few lunkers, to boot. And yes, I lost some to popped hooks and snapped lines, as well.

It was about as close to perfect as it gets - except for two things:

My new net. It totally sucks. Not only is it not deep enough, but it's just too damn small. I lost two fish when they 'flipped' out of the net and back into the water. Rest assured, I'll be picking me up a new one this week...like my previous one. Stoopid shallow net.

Secondly, around 11 am my body started cannibalizing itself from hunger - so I decided to take a quick break to eat some food, only to find SURPRISE! I forgot to pack my grub. Now, this isn't the first time my brain has let me down - the list of disappointments is loooooooong, and I'm starting to think it's about time for a Come to Jesus meeting with my gray matter. Stoopid useless brain.

So, there I was, starving...it was getting hot, and the fishing had slowed down (or maybe it was me and my low blood sugar)...and some loud-mouthed knucklehead comes to the water, and starts fishing right next to me and my gear - in a bright white t-shirt and throwing a line with more gear attached to it than the Space Shuttle prior to launch.

What a tool.

But, after the morning that I had had...I let it all slide, loaded up my pack and called it a day. And what a day it was. Well worth the wait...although some other folks may disagree, when they end up buying the first round.


11 comments:

nick said...

hell yeah dude, looks like you had one hell of a day! that brown is a sexy little thing haha!

i'll be in colorado at the end of october for two days and plan on hitting 11 mile for one of them. hopefully you can get your ass out there and we can tighten a line together dude.

Bill Trussell said...

Colorado
The number of fish landed out weights the hungry. I can program my brain to forget food if I can get that hit. Enjoyed the post.

Gary Thompson said...

I've always had one steady rule about nets... when you need a net, you need a NET! Check out the Fisknat Colorado net. It's guaranteed to keep em penned up and healthy, no matter what their size. It weighs a lot less than most of the typical long handle nets the Landon crowd migrates to also.

Neat post!

Bigerrfish said...

Right on bro, its nice to see a fish in hand with that back drop.. The biggest fly fishing home work assignment is to solve the broken line all the time issues, it got to be the rod by friend, it has to be, also check out, Rio makes a little elastic butt section, if used correctly it serves the purpose of this, being able to set a fish hard enough to poke the point into a mouth, thus allowing the angler to make more timly adjustments to direction changes, seriously man check it out, its pink and made by Rio.. nice job out there my friend!

R.K. said...

Thanks for the comments, fellas...

@ Nick - you're on! If my schedule permits it, count me in. Let me know the exact days as soon as you get your plans set!

@ Bill - HA! I'm like you, most days on the water I won't eat a thing...just wall-to-wall fishing.

This time around, I was starting to get hungry about an hour after getting stream-side...and it just got worse from there.

Not a huge loss - I had more than my share of luck during the day, and there were some good College games I wanted to see...so no complaints!

@ Silk Line - thanks for the info - that looks like a pretty decent net. I also like the larger openings to allow any excess debris to fall through so the fish isn't sitting on hard crap.

I was in a pinch, and needed a net and bought the most convenient one at the time...and while it's nice that it's 'fish friendly' it just plain sucks. Too shallow and the fish were knocking themselves on the wood far too much...and I constantly had to keep a hand over them to keep them from jumping out.

One thing I loved about my previous net was the 'flat bottom' which allowed the fish to rest comfortably..so they rarely thrashed around.

@ Josh - yeah, it was a long time coming. I went with a 5x/6x set-up, which seemed to help - 7x in the canyon is just not a really efficient way to to go.

With as much bottom dragging and rock scraping as the line does in skinny water, that 7x isn't going to hold up very well once you stick a pig.

I'll look into the Rio stuff...thanks for the tip!

Midgenut said...

Got a kick out of your blood sugar drop story. Until you get past feeling like hell and your body starts eating itself for energy that can be a rough one! My brother and I actually wound up making a snack out of Hostess Chocolate Gem mini-doughnuts splitting a piece of jerky and a flask of Jack Daniels, Kept us going for the rest of the afternoon and eveing so something must have charged our batteries...

R.K. said...

Midgeman, that sounds like some energy food, if I do say so myself! Especially the JD part! That'll put a fire in the furnace...on an empty stomach, no less!

My energy dropped pretty good by about noon - a little out of the ordinary for me...and I found myself rooting through my pack trying to find anything food-like...came up empty, though.

Those doughnut gems would have been like a King's feast for me on Saturday!

JEG said...

Great pictures and hilarious commentary, as usual. I got a good laugh reading about Quasimodo - I caught an ugly one on the Poudre last spring that matched that description. It was one of the biggest fish I've caught, but it was equally ugly.

Glad you had a great day out there.

R.K. said...

JEG...thanks for kind words!

Yeah...ugly fish...every once in a while it happens...and then it creeps me out a little.

Wonder what causes that? And, I feel sorry for the little fella...spawning must be a lonely time for fish like that, eh?

Zach said...

Good to see you are still slaying some fish.

R.K. said...

Zach - welcome back from Alaska! Yeah...still slaying them...or, at least, trying to...when they cooperate, that is.