Sunday, August 7, 2011

Mental Health Day

Marty called me at work last Wednesday and said he needed a mental health day. It's usually not hard to convince me to skip work for a day anyway, but I could hear a slight frantic quality in his voice, and knew he was serious. A brand new baby girl doesn't leave much time for frivolous pursuits like fishing, and because of that he hadn't been out in over a month. He needed it bad so we scheduled a Friday trip to the only chilly water around.

An early morning storm soaked us to the bone and colored up the water a bit so we started out slow.

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Not getting much action on our favorite stretch we switched things up and decided to try another locale. About that time the skies cleared and the sun came out.

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Temps rose to near death levels but it also dried the grass and got the hoppers active. Hundreds of hoppers jumped and flew as we made our way upstream. A few ended up in the water on their own but we amused ourselves like a couple of kids by catching a few and tossing them to the fish. A few of our imitations also ended up in fish lips.

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Cows in the creek - Marty is thinking about making them into burgers.

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Don't get your hand too close to one of these when leaning over a bank to land a fish. He'll eat your arm off.

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Sometimes the fish were a little hesitant to take a hopper and found ants more to their liking.

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We didn't manage any big boys but did locate one huge fish that proved too smart for our offerings. I briefly considered impaling a live hopper on a bare hook but since I didn't have any bare hooks, I gave up on the idea. We worked that fish for a solid hour before he finally tired of the game and headed back to his undercut. We called it quits after that and headed home with some nice sunburns and a vow to get back and catch that fish. Hopefully there will be more to this story later...

5 comments:

  1. I have taken "sick" days, for precisely this reason. Those browns are gorgeous...nice!

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  2. Thanks e.m.b. Unfortunately this was just a regular old vacation day. I would feel too guilty taking a "sick" day for fishing and I've got plenty of time to burn, so...

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  3. Sometimes, my "mental health" is more in need of a sick day than my physical ever us. I think there should be some kind of "day" for this. ;)

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  4. Sounds like a perfect "mental health" day...great photos and great post!

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  5. Some very pretty browns, just the ticket to improve your mental health !

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