...Let Slip the Dogs of War

Ok, so my plans to make it out to fish the Gunni (or whatever other water Bigerrfish was going to subject me to) fell through for this weekend, so as a back-up plan, I set my sights on the Canyon.

Which isn't a bad thing, since I have some unfinished business up there with some aquatic life that I won't name....simply because I'm not a fish whisperer and privy to their identities, so labels such as Fish 1, Fish 2 and "...the bastard that snapped my line..." will have to do.

Let me recap: at the end of June I went in there and barely escaped with 3 netted fish after a long, hard day of fishing.

Last Friday (7/9), I went in there, all touchy-feely, and wound up getting smacked around like a Rodney King pinata at an LAPD birthday bash.

Going 0-5, in as many hours, was like waking up in the morning to find a naked Nancy Grace passed out next to me - the disgust and self-loathing was almost too much to bear.

It's obvious that the distractions of the past four months have softened my angling edge, and I've been fishing like a metro-sexual daintily sipping his double-latte-mocha-sheeple-frappuccino while browsing antiques, INSTEAD OF the aggressive, testosterone-laden Guerilla Angler that I truly am.

Plus I was slinging some...er, 'defective' 6x that snapped at the slightest sign of tension. Hell, it seemed like I could say one bad word and the line would cower and snap on it's own. Stoopid sissy line...

It's high-time I refocus and don the 'War Face' again - Sun Tzu and his battle philosophies be damned - we're talking a full-frontal assault, Ladies, and it ain't going to be pretty.

Back to the 5x? What took me so long? Jimmy Dean breakfast biscuit with extra, extra bacon? Alpha Male thrives on meat products. Throw in a super-sized pinch of cope to go with the coke, and some uber-aggressive tunes for the drive up, and I can literally feel the short-hairs growing as I drive.

Once on the water, I saw that the flows were down considerably from last week - and that's a good thing, since the fish tend to bunch up tighter in the deeper runs, making them easier to pick off.

On top of that, they were all active - feeding and moving within the columns. Yet another plus. [insert evil laughter here]

My first 3 casts all stuck a fish - sure, I lost two of them (and my flies) but that's a really good sign. Turns out, those first few hours on the river were beyond crazy - fish on, fish off, fish on, line snap, fish on, get him to net....lather, rinse, repeat.

Some were small (8 inches or so) and some were big. And some even made the big ones look small. And you can bet your sweet arse I tried for every last one of them.

I didn't get the video that I would have liked to have captured, for two reasons. The first is because I'm an idiot - apparently, I left the camera in record mode several times, and when I went to film the catch, I pushed the record button which actually paused it. Yeah, I be educated.

Secondly, with the summer crowds around, I feel a little stupid filming myself - especially when the other folks around me aren't having the same luck that I was. Blog or not, I don't want to look like an asshat if I can help it.

Anyway, around 11 am, the fishing slowed considerably, and by 1 pm, it ground to a complete stop. Oh, the fish were there, to be sure, but they weren't taking anything, which just made it frustrating as hell...and a good time to call it a day.

All of the fish I took today were caught on 1 of 3 flies - BDSP, the Black Mamba and a silly little worm that I threw together late last night while watching a rebroadcast of a Big Tenleven-Twelve(?) football game (when I should have been sleeping).

Although a really simple tie, it was deadly when I still had them in my box - #20 200R TMC hook, with tan 8.0 ultra thread and then wrapped with micro tubing. That's it. And it tore through them like black coffee and a bran muffin through your plumbing.

Not that I'm familiar with your plumbing and how it handles coffee and bran....eeew.

After that, the BDSP and Black Mamba did all of the heavy lifting - if the fish didn't take the scud, I switched out to the Mamba and scored a hit. When the Mamba stopped producing, I switched to the scud...

The two biggest trophies of the day were on the Black Mamba - one, put up a fight and ran me down the river before breaking my line (I got THAT on video), but the other, a nice 20+ fat, squishy rainbow wasn't so lucky.

Overall, it was a great day - I got my revenge through a vulgar display of superiority over aquatic denizens that run on instinct and have the brain the size of a pea. Which qualifies me for a management position.

Alpha Male is at peace.