Perseverance

By Mike Hall, August 25, 2023

A not so young cowboy usually chases wild trout on Thursdays and yesterday was no exception.

I arrived at 6:30 a.m. thankful that I missed colliding with a deer that put on a quick burst of speed before he received a facial from my windshield.

After a successful morning, I traveled a couple of miles upstream where an elderly fella gave me an education last week. He must have caught ten fish in just over an hour as trout avoided my offerings like the plague.

Well, he was there again yesterday and class was in session once more with two fish netted in twenty minutes.

There were numerous Pale Morning Dun mayflies hatching and fish taking adults from the surface as I gingerly stepped into the stream.

The word gingerly is well chosen as three weeks ago I did a not so Louganis style belly flop from the bank after losing what’s left of my balance. Happily, no judges were present as the score would have been much lower than the splash.

I tied on a newly purchased Parachute PMD and began casting with no results, Seventy-five yards downstream, two anglers were having a ball with bent rods whenever I glanced their way.

I had three hits but no connections and two last second refusals.

A refusal is when the trout rises near your fly but turns away at the last second…kind of like he’s saying ‘nanner, nanner, nanner, I’m just toying with ya’.

Becoming a tad exasperated, I cast a bit further upstream and Whammo…a very nice fish inhaled my imitation and darted for deeper water. Ten seconds into the battle, the clouds opened up and it was raining like cats and dogs as all other anglers raced to their cars.

The cowboy was being pummeled by huge raindrops fearing that hail might be next.

Mr. Rainbow was relentless not caring about anything but escaping.

Eight minutes later, after four spirited runs, the feisty competitor lay gasping in the net as the storm continued.

He was a fifteen incher that I named Butkus after the powerful former Chicago Bears linebacker.

I wished him well as he swam away and, like any sensible person, hurried up the embankment to the car both saturated and satisfied.

.