Petes Birthday

Friday night was over cast and I keep hoping to catch more Green Drakes on the water. It's not the kind of thing you can really expect, but the life of a fisherman is based less on expectations than it is on hope- so I guess that's a fancy way of saying that I didn't much care if its unlikely or not, I wanted the possibility of more "hot, trout-on-fly action"
And it was Petes Birthday- Pete's my Father-in-Law, A standup guy- and he's been busy with "real life" stuff for a year- the house, and death in the family and that kind of thing...without much chance to get out.
I called Saturday morning and I was surprised when he could get out- I expected more busy-ness...
We were on the water at "Chokecherry Creek"( we don't use real names here- a guy could get killed for that...)- a favorite haunt of mine. It had Drakes- some years they even hatch- and for a small stream it has some surprisingly good fish- in water that is anything but boring, there's a good mix of riffles, bend pools overhangs, and undercut banks, being on the edge of the Colorado plateau doesn't hurt either- nice red rock/alpine surroundings....
Pete hooked into a strong little brookie almost immediately- a relief because I figure he deserved to catch fish- and the first is always the lynch-pin- after you've brought one to hand all the rest is gravy.
It took me a bit to get into a fish - I had some kind of problem with my tippet and every time I'd get caught up in the ever-present willows I'd pop the tippet off the tiny loop a the end of the furled leader that I like- this usually never happens, I've often gone weeks without changing tippets because of the dampening effect of the furled leader...But today?...today I couldn't make it work- I wasn't frustrated, but I could have gotten there if let my self up the wrong train of thought, I got some good hits, but I missed some strikes too- I hooked up a couple of times and lost fish, and after Pete had had a couple of fish to hand I finally did too...which sounds more-what...? maybe, more"desperate" than it was- It was my home water and I was having tackle issues, but was still in good company, in a pretty place making contact with the fish so it wasn't like there was anything grim about it- I just wanted to hook up and hadn't done so...
Pete hooked up while I was tying knots at one point and I heard a loud splash- a big fish, and as I looked over Pete said "That was a good fish.." and it had to have been - the noise and sight of it throwing the hook wasn't consistent with the behavior of little brookies... ominous, yeah?...
I finally did have an honest fish- and a good fight, as it was a pretty nice brown who had been around long enough to try to take me into the willow roots a couple of different times- and ran down stream with the current, saving energy- and putting extra strain on that tippet that I wasn't very confident in at this point..I also stepped into a hole that was at least 3 feet deep during the fight(because that's what happens in these situations...) I had the fish netted and photographed within 3 minutes from the take, though- It's still a small stream trout - even if it was an honest 16 incher. I catch a couple of browns or cutts this big or bigger each year on this stream , but they aren't so common as to be unremarkable- a damn fine fish....
We continued fishing for a little bit but Pete had birthday stuff to do so we split before the evening hatch- which reminds me that the only insects we saw most of the day were sporadic and sparse, Pale Morning Duns- not even the usual caddis and midge swarms that you can usually count on on this stream...
Happy Birthday Pete!

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