Unexpected Snag?

 

Unexpected Snag?

4/14/2021

 

 I decided to brave the cold morning and go out trout fishing. I’ve been trout fishing the Tionesta everyday, except 2, since the day before Easter. It has been from 70 degrees at times to high 40’s. This morning it was still in the mid 30’s when I left the camper. By the time I got to the crick it was in the low 40’s and spitting rain. Jeff and I had fished this spot the evening before with good success catching trout on streamers and I couldn’t wait to return before the predicted snow Thursday evening and on Friday.

  It felt like a typical early April spring morning in my opinion. The air temperature was colder then the water temperature which we measured at 54 degrees the day before. The short bursts of wind gusts brought an even colder chill just in case you were getting semi-comfortable with the air temperature for the time being. The bushes and trees were starting to blossom with whites, yellows and orange blossoms adding much needed color to the over winter bare trees. Even the pines appeared to brighten up a bit with lime colored needles overtaking the drab olive colors from the colder months. There were still a few oak trees showing off their brown crispy leaves that hung on to the branches over the cold winter as if they were proud of it. With the sun peaking out between the clouds, and the blossoming trees, it sort of gave a promising feel that warmer weather was to follow and stick around till summer.

I had just got done picking off a few trout from where we left off the evening before. There were still a few hungry frisky trout without sore lips that were looking for a brunch meal.

  

 My hands were cold and my cheeks felt stiff from the overall cold windy conditions. I looked upstream and the two guys that were fishing were gone. I decided to take a walk upstream and fish a section I never fished before. By the time I found a bunch of rocks beneath the surface I could wade out on to get to cast further out my feet had warmed up some and I felt much warmer from the exercise. It didn’t take long though, once I stepped in the water, to feel the coldness surrounding me once again. I already had a Woolly Bugger on and added an extra split shot so it would drop deep in the deeper looking section of water I was casting into. My first cast was only about 3 rod lengths away. I dropped the bugger just before the rocks and boulders I planned on walking on and let it drift into the deep water with the slow current. My second cast wasn’t much further. I was watching my floating fly line waiting for a trout tug when the fly line quit drifting. I didn’t feel a tap or a tug so I figured my bugger snagged bottom. I lifted the rod with an upper wrist pull but it didn’t come loose. The second pull was a little more forceful but not so much to try to break the line, still nothing. I angled the rod upstream some to maybe dislodge from a different angle. On my third try I gave more of a tugging pull. The line began to move slowly down stream. I figured I must have dislodged a knotted root and the undercurrent was taking my snagged bugger and root down stream. When I felt a nudging tug I knew there was something live on the other end. It didn’t fight hardly at all but it was heavy enough to bend the 9’ rod sections that I had no control of trying to move it my way. I thought maybe I had snagged a big old sucker being that it wasn’t fighting much. After I let a little tensioned line out whatever creature was on the end of the line decided it didn’t want to be there anymore and started thrashing about. It took off towards mid crick and I didn’t have any choice but to let it run. Then it made a semicircle down stream. I still hadn’t gotten an eye on it as it stayed deep and out of sight. I held on tight and let it play around feeling the jolting tugs in the cork grip but really nothing to fierce. I watched I as lifted the rod and it became visible just below the surface. It looked like a big long smallmouth bass. When it was just under the surface it whipped around and took deep again with fly line zipping off out of the reel. It was finally mad enough it was going to be coaxed into a fight I don’t think it really wanted. He forcefully got his way for a while but the hook didn’t let loose. It was a good hard struggle getting him close enough to net and by the time I did my upper arm felt the strain. There was no way I snagged him. The bugger hook was deep in his jaw.

  Now I have caught smallmouth bass in this crick before but mostly in the warmer months. I never expected to catch something of this size this early in the year.

 Well, that WAS the big excitement for the day. I did catch a few more rainbow trout on Woolly Buggers and even caught a brown trout on a dry fly which was pretty peculiar. I thought being it was pretty cold out and windy and I didn’t see flies coming off the water. Then again I’ve been known to make trout rise out of the blue.

 

 

 Back at camp I tried to warm up but I swear, fishing almost everyday for the past week or so, my core body temperature felt like it was in the 50’s. I finished off the evening eating venison steak bites smothered in Jim Beam Smoky Barrel BQ sauce and a cold Molson XXX watching snow flakes fall outside of the camper window. 

 ~doubletaper