Lousy Struggles, Good Struggles!

I managed to get quite a bit done early today, and then scheduled some time to tackle an SSH server problem on a linux server here at the office.  After about three hours of struggling with it, and not getting it to work correctly, I decided “enough lousy struggling for the day, let’s see what’s going on at the ponds.”

It was a beautiful afternoon – sunny with cloudy periods and no thunder storms in the outlook like yesterday.  So off I went to the pond, thinking it might be too bright for the fish but what the heck. I could use another few hours wetting flies and contemplating ssh servers while enjoying the ocassional croaking of bullfrogs and watching red winged blackbirds flying near shore. As I did yesterday, the first fly I tied on was my “Malteser,” that crazy fun fly that I tie up using my Maltese dog Rudy’s hair.  The thing works so often and often works when nothing else will.  I always get a kick out of catching fish with it and of course when I get back, I give Rudy an extra little pet around the ears.

But today, the Malteser wouldn’t produce for the first 45 minutes, so I decided to try a black leech pattern that is tied with rabbit skin strips.  If white doesn’t work, try the opposite.   Well, at least one big rainbow wanted a leech for dinner – and it wasn’t long before I was involved in a fun struggle! I knew this fish was bigger than the one I had on yesterday even though it never jumped – it pulled hard and went for the bottom, towing my rowboat behind it.  Eventually, I brought it to the net and decided I wanted another trout dinner.  It turned out to be about 22″ long and on the kitchen scale, 3 lb. 14 oz.

I thought I’d keep trying and see if I could get more fish to hit, but that seemed to be the life of the leech pattern – one very nice rainbow.  But I wasn’t done yet.  My friend Arron Varga had tied up some flies for me last year – I cannot remember the name of them – bright yellow with a beige coloured tail – and thought “what the heck, let’s try it out.”  I was about to give up after about 20 minutes when I felt an awesome tug – and another fun struggle began.  Once again, the fish never jumped but I did get a look at him as I managed to bring him close to the boat, but then the hook broke free. Ah well..  three casts later, another fish on!  But that only lasted about 15 seconds.  But it was interesting that the fish seemed to be interested in this fly so I continued to fish it.   Several minutes later, another fish on – this one was obviously smaller than the previous ones – and again, within seconds, it was lost.  I think the hook needs sharpened on that fly, so it came off the leader.

The sun was still high in the sky but above some cloud when I decided to try on a chironomid pattern.  Very basic and thin red body tied onto a red hook, with a gold beadhead.   Very slow retrieve – most of the time just enough action to allow the fly to drift in the water.  After a few casts and some ultra slow retrieves, another fish on! And this fly had a sharp hook.  Again, not quite as large as the first fish I had caught, but about 19” – the same as yesterday’s fish.  Headed straight for the bottom and my R.B. Meiser fly rod felt wonderful.  Looked wonderful too:

I Love This Rod!

I brought the fish to net, and it stayed still enough for me to get this shot of it:

A few more casts later, I realized I had to get back to that other server struggle – and regretfully leave the pond.