Thursday, October 1, 2009

Day 25 - Tired & Humbled

No this isn't me. For details read on.


So, the river I went to this morning is almost 200 miles exactly from my house in Greensboro. I managed to arrive at the stream around 10 AM. I fished for 7 hours, stopping only to have lunch (Nutella & Door County Cherry Jam sandwich).


The original plan was to test out some wet fly patterns that I tied yesterday. After talking to the folks on the river, I changed plans and moved to midge patterns. The day started out really amazing. Within the first twenty minutes I had landed and released two fish. I had decided to fish what I believe to be a red serendipity #20. However, I could be mistaken as it had peacock herl instead of deer hair.


Then the day turned. Don't get me wrong. I had a great time on the Davidson River. The river was exactly what I had been missing the last few years in terms of "good" water. I've been told that Trout Unlimited named in within their Top 100 streams. I was turned onto this stream by a reader of this blog (thanks John).


One of the gentleman on the river told me that I should try upstream a little bit on a run called "Humble Hole". Yeah, I should have know by the name that I was going to get schooled. I walked up the stream and a gentleman was fishing on the lower pool. I headed upstream and fished the upper pool of this run. Within a few minutes I heard that all consuming scream of joy. I looked over and sure enough he had a nice brown on.


I tried to ignore him. I figured they were biting at his lure, so they might bite at mine. I kept at my pace. Ten minutes later, I heard another scream of joy. I looked over my shoulder again. Yep, another nice brown (maybe even bigger than the last one). I heard him say that he wished he had his camera. I reached into my pocket and grabbed the Olympus Stylus that I borrowed from my wife. I snapped his photo and told him that I would email him a copy.


Back to work. Flip, mend, mend, pickup and repeat (change fly every 20-30 casts). Fifteen minutes later, another scream and another big brown. Call me humbled. I walked over and took another photo and shook his hand. I gave in. I asked him what he was using. Turns out he had an Adams on. Maybe a #16 or #18. We spent a few moments examining each others fly boxes. During this time, a huge feeding frenzy occurred almost at our feet (thanks to the food pellets from the fishery). We changed flies and went at it again. Say it with me, "He got another one."


I read a recent article in Fly Fusion magazine in which Lefty Kreh was asked if he thought some people were just luckier than others. His reply that maybe some people were, but usually those people were on the stream more often than others. I'm stupefied, this gentleman had the same fly as I did, had the same pool as I did, yet I remained fishless and he had brought in giant browns. Maybe there is something to this luck thing. Or more likely I need to spend more time on the stream.

4 comments:

  1. Great post once again. The Davidson is a river that everyone should experience. Two fish was a great first day. Many have left there skunked, you didn't..great job!!

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  2. Thanks, I feel slightly better about bing humbled. I should have had more though. I actually saw a rainbow and a brown (both of some size) take my flies. In one instance my knot failed and the other was not a good hook set.

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  3. sunday to day was a great day on the davidson river , sum good fishing, i caught sum nice rainbow trout 15in and better this guy caught a 25in brown nice catch like a trophy trout!

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  4. it's me mitch i went to the davidson river and it was great sum big rainbow trout one guy caught a 25inch brown trout nice thanks mitch.

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