[Note: I’m posting my fishing journal from 2015 as “retro trip reports” in chronological order and plan to write up future trips directly on the blog.]
Weather: mostly sunny, 73, cloudier as day went on
After having to replace my phone with a new iPhone 6 after last week’s adventure, the phone stayed in the car. I was thinking there was no point trying to fish on Memorial Day weekend. Then on Friday I suddenly realized we could just go and fish on Saturday, it’s a free country, nothing really to lose. So I made plans with James to go back to StreamThatShallNotBeNamed. The weather report was excellent. I didn’t know how many people might be there on a Saturday, but the more I thought about it, not many people were likely to rush to an unstocked stream just because it’s a holiday weekend. The father of James’s BFF called Friday afternoon wondering if there were any plans for Saturday, and so I invited said BFF, Memphis. From that point I knew it wasn’t really going to be a fishing trip, more looking after two little dudes and trying to ensure they had fun.
Which is how it turned out. We got there at 9.30 and there was nobody there. Perfect day, creek clear. They took it reasonably seriously, but there was quite a bit of shouting and horseplay from the start. Memphis was in shorts and old runners. We made our way down to the stream and I got everyone suited up and the rods together. In the end, we only fished the first pool, then upstream to the big rock pool. I caught four creek chub, Memphis caught three including a nice big one, and James caught two. I spent most of my time dealing with their various snags, snarls, etc. The day ended around 1 pm. They were getting a little bored so we’d decided to go back and go downstream a bit. Then Memphis got my Rhodo rod tip stuck in high trees along the steep bank coming back from the rock pool. ‘Kay. So I climbed the bank…and got my rod tip stuck as well. ‘Kay. Then I heard “DADDY DADDY!” and James had slipped along the edge of the deepish pool and gone over, and gotten his waders completely full of water. I bolted down to grab him but he wasn’t in any danger (it was about a foot deep where he slipped), he was shouting because of how cold the water was. It was pretty clear at that point that the fishing was over. I got James sorted out (he was more excited than dismayed) then got them to start carefully making their way back and took charge of the rods.
It’s a beautiful stream. The first opportunity this week I’m coming back myself for an entire day and I’m just going to lose myself in it.
I was fishing the new 400 6:4 Nissin Zerosum rod. Have to say I didn’t take to it very naturally. I had the new size 3 level line on it. I think I was a bit inhibited because I had two small dudes to look out for and I was nervous about trees, but I had trouble casting well with it and wasn’t really getting much extra distance despite the extra length. I need to try it for real without distractions. I might try the second 12 foot floating line on it for woolly buggers. It’s possible that a 12 foot rod is the real sweet spot for these streams. When I grabbed one of the 320s from the small men, it felt much more natural. It probably just means I have a lot of recent experience casting them.
I also used the new backpack for the first time. It was a bit heaving with three lunches, snacks, spare clothes, etc. But it means I can easily take basically as many rods as I like.
I forgot my watch, so without the iPhone I had no way of telling time. I might need to put the watch in my vest for the future.
I don’t really like the new Japanese zinger. It has plastic coils and they’re not very long and some things with decent weight pull them out instead of hanging tight. It will be okay for some things. I ordered four more of the T Reign ones. Strange, I thought they were just fill in junk when I bought them just to have something right off the hop, but I really like them.
The new Dr. Slick black nippers are excellent, they just cut first time. I didn’t have time to try out the new leader straightener with the general hubbub.
