Small Windows of Opportunity

There has been little, or shall I say not enough, time spent fishing. Something or someone takes precedence to the river. To the point that it ( time to fish) has become a last minute call. Just the other night, I received a call from Jack during the UFC162 gathering. Nine hours later, Jack and I were floating a pond trying to net as many bass as we could in the four hour window we had. Though there were not fistfuls to slime our hands, this particular fish was a result of a good call by Jack.

The other evening I had some time to myself. Granted, I could have done more work around the house but it was sweltering out, even at 6pm. The rest of the family had slid over to the mall which meant I could grab the spey and get in a few hours of practice. Of course, there was one big dark cloud, filled with thunder and lighting, in amongst a beautiful blue sky with fluffy white clouds all around. I decided on a bridge access to the river and spent an hour under it. It was high enough off the water that I could practice casting and avoid the storm cloud. There were a few moments that made me stop and question what I was doing. Not a drop of rain fell. It was cool to be outside under a storm. It reminded me of my youth, playing outside and on the porch during storms.

When the cloud past, I ventured downstream to work on fly presentation a little more. Near dusk, there were a handful of players willing to hit the streamer on the swing, confirming that I am on the right track.

As the action began, daylight was closing. It was still above 30c out and I was not interested in wading upstream in the dark back to the bridge. Drenched in sweat and in need of some rehydration, I sat on the bank for a few minutes to enjoy the moment. The family should go to the mall more often.

The Way of the Spey

When I first saw spey anglers on the Maitland River, I was amazed at how fluid and smooth they were casting. Knowing nothing about it, I thought as beautiful as it was that the line looped across the river, it seemd like a lot of work to get the fly out there. I was a single hander at the time and fairly new to it still. I was not quite sold on the effectiveness of it for salmon and steelhead. I was getting more into the centerpin scene.

Fast forward to today, centerpinning will still and as I see it, always be the primary method for migratories but I have reached a point in all these years of chasing chrome that numbers are no longer the true reason I target steelhead. I understand from all the research and conversing with those that spey only, that my fish to hook ratio may decrease if I took up the way of the spey. I am good with that knowing that at the times when I feel the need for some self-affirmation of banking some decent numbers of fish, there is always the centerpin to fall back on, not that it would be a guarantee as there is no such a thing in fishing.

There is much to learn and I have all summer to practice. Hopefully this fall, I will be ready to take on a few of those freight train powered strikes as the fly swings across the tailout.