The Photo Bin - July 2014

This is, perhaps, the calm before the storm. The photos have been thin, the posts thinner. It's been a quiet summer.

But that's about to change. A new camera's arrived and there's some serious fishing just 'round the corner. Each should quicken the pulse and, hopefully, provide the sparks of inspiration that drive what goes on around here.

Ready or not, it's time to get going again.

In the meantime, here's a trio of shots from last week's misty morning on Virginia's Smith. Having your feet in the water and your head in the clouds is hard to beat - even when the browns are tight-lipped. And it's particularly nice when shared with good company, yet with just a few steps you can be alone in the fog once again.

The best of both worlds.

What is a Photo Bin?

The Dry/Dropper Double

A brace of browns on a single cast.
The dry/dropper double.
More fish in one drift than this river has been known to surrender in an entire day.
At least to me.

Orange-bodied Madam X attractor on top.
Bead-head pheasant tail on bottom.
Both, apparently, looked good enough to eat.

Negotiating two trout at a time is “interesting”
and the first few moments, when you don’t know exactly what you’re dealing with,
downright weird.

Glad that one didn’t zig when the other zagged.
I’m not sure that the 6X between them
(or, more to the point, my scrungy knots)
could have taken it.

Not particularly big guys,
but do a ten-incher and an eight-incher, taken together, equal an eighteen?

Let’s pretend that they do.

The Photo Bin - October 2012

The fall change is just getting started here in the North Carolina Piedmont so I loaded the long rods into my four-wheel-drive time machine and leapt a week into the future, seasonally speaking, by driving northward into southern Virginia for a day on the Smith River. The colors, and the day, were spectacular.

The Smith regularly kicks my ass but I keep going back, this time to explore a promising stretch of the tailwater that I'd seen but not fished. I'd tried to hit it this past summer, but a double-nymph-rig tangle of diabolic complexity on my opening cast and a surprise early dam release thwarted me before I could get a fly properly soaked.

This day, however, was more than I could have hoped for and I can't wait till the cascade of color finds its way to my neck of the woods.

On the Tracks

St. Croix Imperial 8'6" 5wt

Orvis Battenkill Mid-Arbor III
Scientific Anglers Mastery Series Trout WF-5-F

Norfolk Southern Timber and Steel

On my way to Trestle Pool
To fish the falling waters
Tramping down these well-worn rails
Towards another Smith River skunking

Fish or no
It's good to be out here again

La Smith et la Mouffette

[LePewOn]

Oh, mon cheri. Why do you treet me zees way? I come all zees way to wade in your beauty and chase your bright feesheez. Eeet's spreeng, ze time of loooove. So show me ze love, mon révérer, show me feesh love.

[LePewOff]

Such lovely sounding language. La mouffette. I was la mouffette on the Smith River yesterday. Seems springy, and nice, doesn't it? Well, I'm afraid that skunk smells like skunk, in any language.

Let the Stream Talk

"There was one older man, an excellent fisher and skilled in all kinds of woodcraft, who was pleased to look upon my house as a building erected for the convenience of fishermen; and I was equally pleased when he sat in my doorway to arrange his lines. Once in a while we sat together on the pond, he at one end of the boat, and I at the other; but not many words passed between us, for he had grown deaf in his later years, but he occasionally hummed a psalm, which harmonized well enough with my philosophy. Our intercourse was thus altogether one of unbroken harmony, far more pleasing to remember than if it had been carried on by speech."         Henry David Thoreau - Walden

Writers and fisherman venture out to the stream, not to listen to one another talk, but to hear nature speak. There's too much yammering going on in the world these days and it would be a great shame to let our all-too-few quiet outdoor moments fall prey to the din. We go out there for the serenity. At least I do.

Snowfall

Airborne, my light blue heron Sharkskin disappeared into the thick, falling snow; slate grey strand invisible against the backdrop of heavy, leaden skies and white-coated tree branches. Without visual cues, the other senses are enjoined – feeling the flex of the rod, hearing the textured line whisper through iced stainless steel guides, sensing the gentle rhythms of the slow, steady tick-ticking metronome that is the cast.

There’s magic in fishing the first snow.

Dam(n)

Dam Philpott, source of the Smith River tailwaters, Bassett, VA.

Dam(n) cold, the air hanging below the structure at sunrise, as though the previous evening's discharge had shaken off it's lake-bottom chill and left it hovering in smoky wisps beneath the towering ediface.

Dam(n) picky, the Smith River browns, who spurned everything we threw at them, and we threw a lot.

Dam(n) fine, the brilliant fall day we spent up and down the waterway, soaking in the bluebird skies and breathtaking autumnal colors.

Dam(n) lucky,  Curtis and I, to have been out there.

Ready to go back?  Dam(n) straight.

Transition

Autumn has finally gotten a foothold and this year’s long, scorching summer has begun its slide into recent memory. Good riddance. With the transition in season comes a transition in my angling focus, from chasing warm-water bass to stalking cold-water trout. The ceremonial pivot point occurred this week with the breakdown of my stout bass rod and transfer of its reel to a willowy trout whip for a day on the Smith.

Three Rivers

The more time I spend on the water, the more I realize that rivers, like people, have personalities and a fisherman sympathetic to his environment establishes relationships with waterways in much the same way as he does with the folks around him. This past week, I had the great pleasure of spending time on three rivers - the Roanoke, the Haw, and the Smith - a renewed acquaintance, an old friend, and a new companion.