Chapter 58 Day 41 - Trout Season

To The Woods And Water

Anytime I can get beyond the concrete, the asphalt, the pavement - I do.  Beyond these man-made things, and the brick and mortar, lies the excitement of the woods and the water. 

Today, was a no fishing day for me.  I couldn't possibly get to the river Blue for having to work at not one mercantile store, but, two. 

In between those two store shifts was a break and taking advantage of that break I escape briefly to the local creek for a little scouting. 

There is a section of the carp creek that Charlie and I so favor that we have yet to explore.  As a kid, I remember it quiet well and explored it often, but, that's been a long time ago. 

Our hopes is this stretch of water will hold carp and give us another avenue to pursue the grand and golden ones this coming spring and summer. 

This stretch of creek has the characteristics of much of the rest of the creek with sandbars or shoals, narrow areas that flow into wide flat pools.  The banks have been cleared at this place on the creek, probably the results of a local telecommunications company property being located here. 

There's an old dam just below this run of water and I remember it well from thirty years ago.  It had come a torrential rain in early October and my son and I decided to build a homemade raft and float the raging creek.  We put in about 300 yards above the dam, but,  our adventure would be short-lived.  When the raft went off the dam, with us on it, our not-so-safe ship sank and we became caught in the violent down flow coming off the dam.  The only thing that saved us that day was an inner tube we had tied on the back of the raft.  I was able to break the rope free and we hung onto the tube until we could get to a bank.

I won't have to worry about such nonsense things anymore though - I simply fly fish for carp in this creek. 

The weather looks really iffy for this coming week and a fly fishing trip for the pretty fish at Blue may be hard to come by.  However, somehow a way to get to the woods and water must be found.  Such trips are salvation. 





Chapter 58 Day 6 - Trout Season

This morning it was back to work for a couple of hours.  Tomorrow I am officially back to work, but, have more vacation days scheduled - hopefully I will be able to take them.

Decided to go back to the river since the weather was so nice.  It was an almost balmy morning with temperatures being in the low sixties. 

Having yet to travel into the wilderness area it only made sense that this would be my designation this morning.  At the beginning of the trail I could tell something was different.  Usually as we begin the trek down the steep road we can hear the loud voice of the river.  Today though it was loudly quite - a hush to Blue's voice - a testament of the low flow due to this summer's exceptional drought.

I hiked under an completely overcast sky and there wasn't a hint of wind.  Not getting to the river until almost 9 a.m. there were already a good number of anglers that had made the trip in. 

The experience was great this morning, but, the catching was not.  Staying for a little over an hour I would only find one trout.  During the entire time I fished near a spinner fisherman and he too would only find one trout.  And, Chris Adams was fishing and Chris only found one trout. 

I guess the lack of willing trout is due to only one stocking and heavy, heavy pressure on this area.  More and more people are choosing the wilderness areas because of it is such a beautiful open area. 

On the way back to my prairie home I decided to stop and take a look at Blue's little sister Pennington Creek.  Pennington is faring good like Blue, but, not her usual self and again it is due to the drought this past year. 

The weather is fixing to change.  Forecasters are calling for heavy rain Monday and Tuesday and the river's complexion may change.