Living a Dream...

Nice - fourth time in the Canyon in less than three weeks? All that clean living must be paying off for me....

Actually, my schedule has had me close to home for a bit, and it just so happens that I've had a little extra time to hit the river.

And believe me, when I see an opportunity like that, I'm going to grab it and run like hell - just like Orpah with your Twinkies.

Now, I've been trying to get some leeway to go fish the Gunnison area, but it's looking like that won't happen, now, until the end of July-er-ish...or there about.

In the meantime, however, I can go back to some familiar haunts and torment the fish there - and we all know that they have it coming.

I think deep down inside their fishy little brains, they know it, too. Which is why they always have that look of 'fake astonishment' on their little fish faces when you get them to net - not unlike small kids when they know you've busted them.

"Hey now! Why'd you do that?" is what they appear to want to say, their eyes wide with disbelief. At least that's how I filter it through my distorted take on reality.

Or maybe I've just spent far too much time alone, on the water, with creatures that have no eye-lids.

Anyway, you know the drill - pack and stack on Thursday...blah blah blah...up at 3 am on Saturday, yeah, yeah...Alpha Male needs meat...so on and so forth.

Having used the literary version of the WABAC(forward?)-machine above, I'm now at the water's edge with far less writing than previous posts and, after saying farewell to Sherman and Peabody, ready to start re-living my own Improbable History segment.

And now that we're at the water's edge, the first order of business is to study the river:

"Water? Yup...its still there and, by the Gods! it's WET just like it's supposed to be..." Yeah, I'm a finely-tuned angling machine.

Once that tedious task is out of the way, its time to roll up the proverbial sleeves and get to work dishing out servings of punishment, Colorado-style (which comes with your choice of red or green chile).

Now, today, the flows were up quite a bit from last week, and the current of the water was moving a helluva lot faster - which had me a little bummed out. High, fast water means adjusting the fishing tactics and using heavier weights. Ugh.

So, I load up the line with some split-shot and drift my fly through a happy bunch o' fish and POW! right in the kisser! And I thought to myself, '...eh, maybe today won't be so bad after all...'

Wrong. That would be the last fish I netted for quite some time and by about 11 am, I was 1-9 and getting a little antsy.

Granted, I was sticking some pretty hefty fish - plus, they were really active and aggressive today, so when you did hook one, it was a serious fight: lots of running and jumping and quite a bit of name calling, crying and ruined mascara, to boot.

Losing a few I can handle....but 8? IN A ROW? Plus, a couple of them were really sweet fish which makes it all that more painful. They would either shake the hook after a tussle, snap the line, bend the hook (twice) or, in one instance, snapped my fly like it was made of plastic.

Also, as the morning ground on, the hits were harder to come by - I came roaring out of the gates early, but by chow time, things were moving at a snail's pace.

So I decided to take a break, eat some lunch, and then decided that if I went 1-10, I would raise the white flag, flee to the comforting shelter of my home and, once there, wallow in my suffocating misfortune while I plotted my revenge.

And maybe do some laundry. You know, multi-task...plotting/laundry....that sort of thing.

Now, for the 'final' attempt before my planned walk of shame, I decided to go old-school, and attached a #20 Pheasant Tail (a solid TMC 2487). I also decided to go Medieval and changed out to 4x. Yeah, I know....Medieval Old School....someone stop me before I hurt someone...

After that, the fish started to roll on in...nice fish. Big fish. Pissed off fish. That 4x was about as harsh a mistress as money can buy (not that I would know.)...and the Pheasant Tail? They were hitting that fly like it was a speed-bag.

And they only wanted the #20 - I lost one fly, and tied on a #18, and got skunked. Digging through my pack, I found two more #20s and, tying one on, was back in business in no time.

I managed to take a few from the deep runs, but where I really did some damage was in the flats above the Family Pool, where they were piled up like the skeletons in my closet.

I turned that section of river into my own personal fish farm and there was nothing they could do about it.

The icing on the cake was that the 'crowds' were not an issue - where I was, I saw 3 people all day. It was the kind of day that dreams are made of...provided you dream about fishing, and not about being chased by rabid clowns, having your teeth fall out or, God forbid, Carrot Top.

So, having narrowly averted a stint in the 'Cone of Shame', I can rest easy now. But that doesn't mean I still won't plot against them while doing my laundry.