The Christmas Season is well known for it's propensity for adding some extra pounds to one or two of us, and it seems like the trout in the Mackenzie Basin are partaking of some yuletide feasting also.........
The morning started with a light frost (yep, it's summer), so there was a bit of a delay getting down the road as the windshield needed some time to thaw out. The whole frost thing prescribes that the air is rather cold, which took me a bit by suprise, so I hit the river right on sunrise with gloves covering my cold little fingies. Gloves suck for tying on flies and tippets tippets etc, so off they came before my fingers could recover from the initial shock of stepping outside the front door of the house.
Twenty minutes later, after much frozen fumbling, I got a fresh tippet and fly tied on and attempted couple of blind casts into a likely looking pool - no movement was to be detected. After crossing the mist-shrouded stream (yet another shock to the senses), I bumbled across a paddock through icy grass to a consistent pool that is always worth a quick look before work. At this point, I think the water temerature was a whole lot warmer than the air temp, so there was no hesitaion in getting back into ankle deep water as I approached the most likely piece of holding water in the stretch. Hesitation would have been a good option, as no sooner did I step into the pool that a movement a meter or two upstream caught my eye. Disturbed by the graunching rocks as I entered the water a solid trout of about 6-7 lb worked his way into a murky backwater only meteres away. he didn't bolt, but just ensured that whatever made the noise wouldn't get a chance to have a go at him. Slow learner! That was the second time I'd spooked a fish on entering the water in this pool while in a hurry to get to the 'sexy' water just upstream.......
The Sun started to come up and the air rapid began to warm rapidly. The black humpies I bought off trademe last season have been getting a hding, and today was no exception. 3rd cast along the steepening bank near the head of the pool elicited a response from a well concealed 2-4 lb rainbow, who spat the dummy within seconds of rather spirited thrashing midway through the water column.
Confident that the last 10 meters or so of the pool head was still relatively undisturbed, I kept casting blindly at some very high-percentage looking water. 2 more casts later a less impressive fish of the same species rose enthusiastically to the humpy. This time the hook up was solid. She had a lot of guts for a small fish, putting four or five spectacular leaps in before stripping the line off as she tore downstream into the well defined, fast moving channel below the pool. Five minutes later, after chasing her down to the rapid and coaxing her into some quieter water, she came to the net.
The trout would only have tipped the scales around 2lb at the most, but was in much better condition than any of the rainbows in the rivers have been of late. Her body had lost the gaunt, post spawning look and her deep flanks and shimmering colours made for an impressive sight. Not needing any meat for the table this week I slipped her back into the water and enjoyed watching her disappear into the rapids for cover.
Work-time was nearing, so I almost skipped back to the car and headed off to do whatever it is that I'm supposed to do when I'm not fishing.
