An end of summer fishing session is always difficult to predict. Either the fish isn’t active yet, the water level is too low, it’s still too warm…
Yet you always leave home thinking this will be more of an early autumn-day, a turning point for some excellent fishing at the beginning of the end of this season. So when Jeremy and I headed out there a couple days ago, we totally counted on a day not to forget.
As we reached the bank, everything looked just perfect. Not too warm, sunny periods mixed with cloudy skies, and not a living soul within miles. The water level was still rather low, so we knew that fishing would be tricky. But hey, that makes it more technical, just as we like it!
Two hours later, we still hadn’t hooked a single fish. Even though there wasn’t any surface activity, we swapped our nymphs for dries. A good cast under some branches brought my small deer hair caddis close to the opposite river bank… and bingo.
Finally a brownie showed itself, giving a nice rush upstream to boost our confidence to a maximum again, our day of fishing finally started! We really didn’t have a single clue that this same day would end only one hour later…
Changing weather, more clouds, bit more wind. We catch 4 more fish in the same pool, always well hidden under branches. A bit more upstream the river’s profile changes towards a long and wide pool with a really low level.
Jeremy attaches a small nymph 50cm under the caddis-dry, and poses it in a small current between some rocks
The dry almost instantly sinks. Jeremy raises his rod, expecting to have hooked one of the rocks. But no rock, instead a rather good fish goes downstream like a madman. The first raindrops start to fall, just when Jeremy is netting the fish. We quickly take some pics when shit hits the fan.
Darker and darker skies, stronger and stronger rain showers. When thunder kicks in we stop and head for shelter. With our car about 2k’s away, there’s no reason to even try and get there. Instead we get some dumb idea to fight nature and… light a fire.
I always have a lighting stick in my backpack, and all of the sudden we find ourselves in some Man VS Wild mode, building a shelter, warming us with fresh flames.
Like a bunch of kids, enthusiastic of succeeding, soaking wet without even caring that our shelter is far from rain-proof. It looks real. And just like this same bunch of kids, we get satisfied/bored about what we have accomplished, and decide to head back to our car.
Time for lunch, somewhere really dry. See you one of the next days, dear river…
Eyh, I forgot to ask, what do you think of our shelter ? 😉
