No Fish, No Problem

How many of you out there have gone out for a day of fishing and not had a single bite all day.  Every cast seems to either get snagged in a tree overhead, caught on underwater structure or the reel gets snaggled (my own word for the various messes that happen with my reel).  For all intents and purposes it should mean a miserable day of fishing.  For me that is almost never the case; this weekend was a great case in point.

This past weekend I invited my nephew to come fishing with me.  As it was a good 30 minute hike I invited him to bring is Australian Shepherd with him knowing he would enjoy the chance to take his dog with him.  Since he was off work Friday as well as Saturday this worked perfectly for him. 

The weather couldn’t have cooperated any better for the middle of February.  We arrived at the parking spot around 9:30 and the temperature was probably in the mid 30’s with a bright sunny sky.  Unlike the warmer months of the year we didn’t worry about getting out to the water at dawn to catch the early bite and we had a nice relaxed hike to the creek side.  Along the way we had an eye out for any game in the woods or fields and watching Kota the Australian Shepherd running hither and thither.  My nephew being essentially a city boy, enjoyed being shown the different game tracks of which we saw plenty – deer, raccoon, and turkey.

It was just cold enough that the trail was crunchy instead of muddy and warm enough to unzip the coat.  The last couple of hundred yards is a pretty steep downhill and I was able to fully appreciate my nephews 5’11” height as he lent me his shoulder to help me with my balance (I have had a bum knee the last few weeks) going down the steeper rockier sections.

The actual fishing was an exercise in frustration as my 8.5’ fly rod was virtually useless with the overhanging trees and brush…next time I go to the creek it will be with an ultralight spinning set-up unless it’s warm enough to wade.  Still, with a little over a week until trout season closes for stocking, we got to walk a good bit of the shoreline and scope out some areas that should hold some fish.

We decided to finish up earlier than we planned and walk back in a leisurely fashion…well, as leisurely as it can be when the first couple of hundred yards is a straight up, lung busting, thigh burning hill.  At this time a few leisurely snowflakes were occasionally falling.  Once we made it to the top of the hill, Kota flushed out some huge turkeys.  One of the turkeys flew up into the tree tops above the trail and Kota was running around trying to find a way to get to it.  It finally flew off and we set off for the car.  We didn’t see any more wildlife but we still had plenty of laughs at Kota’s antics.

Once we arrived down at the car an old man who lives down the lane stopped to ask if we had any luck to which we had to admit no we hadn’t.  I asked him what he liked to use down there and if there were any particular places he could suggest we try.  He was really great with sharing his knowledge and he also shared some stories of his younger days when he would fish the whole section down to the next parking area which would be about 5-6 miles.  With the beauty of the stream and the woods I can easily imagine spending all day fishing this area.

When we finally arrived home for a late lunch we had zero fish but a passel of great pictures and even more importantly memories of a great day spent with together.