Shoulda known better...

You shouldn'a dun dat....

Elation...trumped by despair...relieved by satisfaction.

Yesterday afternoon I started out on a bit of water smaller than anything I can recall fishing previously. The very top of Default. Well, sortof. Anyway, whatever was nipping at the fly wasn't big enough to eat it. They were fish though, that much I'm sure. I gave up and worked my waterlogged jeans back to the truck with my foam "stonefly" creation, which had replaced a waterlogged hackled dry, now waterlogged, and tried to grip pedal with my waterlogged sneakers. Ahh...spring.

I took some time out to check on the big bend pool. The foam dry was now fishing more like a winged wet, so we (you know, my gear and I) were into swing mode and took a quick hit after a couple casts. Tittilated that my failed stonefly had found a new, more rewarding life, I went back over the seam, and the hook stuck this time.

Now, pardon my ignorance, but I had been catching wild fish for the past week, and hadn't seen any sign of stocking up here this season yet. So that must have meant that a wiley, wild (or holdover) fish that had survived at least one round of seasons in the heavily fished pool was fooled by my creation not once, but twice! Damn I'm good.

Knubby fins suggested I might be misinformed.

In retrospect, the fact that the fish went after a poorly presented clump of foam and hair on back-to-back casts should have been indication enough. Still, a fish is a fish...unless said fish gill-hooks itself and bleeds out in your hands...then it's dinner.

Shucks. Not only do stockies not taste great; each one not killed by me has that much more chance to become a holdover...or even spawner. Not to mention the waste of life thing. Garlic and butter makes a hell of a salve for the soul though.

The wild fish shown above was not killed or otherwise permanently damaged in the making of this post. He's jus' a boih.