Life and Signs

Sometimes you see signs and portents in your fishing in which it imitates your life. I managed an hour after work down at the Kelvin and it was a much needed session to get away from the stress of real life shit. I had been knocked back from a job and was feeling a bit despondent, not too pissed off as it would have meant more stress and importantly time away from fishing but still it would have been nice. Anyway, like I was saying, I got to the river and strung up my rod and headed to the river. I could hear it before I got there which is never a good sign however was pleasantly surprised to find that it was just fishable and no more. It was up by around a foot and in the shallows I could still see the boulders so walked up the river in pursuit of rising trout. It took a while however eventually found one rising in a bugger of a spot behind a fallen tree that jutted out of the river bank. When you get a sole riser it is always in a bastard of a spot I mused to myself as I figured out if I could get down to it.

I decided I could, I climbed over another fallen tree and felt myself sink into the mud. It was not pleasant. I got myself into position, thankfully the way I was placed meant I could get a clear back cast so all I had to worry about was the particularly debris filled water in front of me. I had a couple of exploratory casts, thought I covered the fish and then when I brought my rod up to recast the fly got stuck on underwater tree branch. I pulled it out and lost the fly. I heard a roaring noise which turned out to be a rain shower hitting the fresh new leaves around me and I scrambled back over the log to re tie my tippet from the ring down. Thankfully the rain stopped and I got myself back in position. There was a steady stream of olives trickling down and a couple of trout were really going for it. I cast once and was too short, I cast again and the fly was engulfed and my rod was bent over. Thankfully it shot down the pool past the sunken branch that had stolen my fly and bored deep. There was a lot of fly line kicking around the place so while keeping tension on the trout I quickly would the spare line on to my reel. This trout was big, the extra oxygen in the water was making it fight even more than normal as it bored deep all around the pool. Meanwhile, I was finding it difficult to move as my feet were stuck in the mud. Every now and again I would see a flash of fish under the surface as it twisted this way and that and I kept guiding it away from the evil fly snatching log. My line abruptly pinged back in my face.

I looked glumly at the tell-tale sign of a poorly tied knot, the tiny circles of nylon that had given way. I had rushed tying the fly due to the rain and need to catch this fish and now it was gone. I kinda made comparisons in my head to almost getting the new job to losing the fish and smiled to myself that sometime your head can come up with a right load of shite.