Sunday, June 17, 2012

I start each day

I start each outing hoping to catch one trout. Because I still think it's still kind of magic or miraculous that you can catch a wild trout on a fly, and because skunks stink. Catch one trout and I'm happy.
After one, however, I reevaluate. Depending on how that went, I will adjust my goal to five, 10, 12, 20, 500 .... whatever. And I never reach my goal because once I catch 12, I want 15 etc.
Yesterday my goal never got very high because I only caught one. As we'd heard, the upper Madison is fishing a bit slow right now.

But we fished new water: the slide, the islands upstream of Lyons, and the West Fork. The slide is particularly fun because if you hook a decent fish, you have to land it quick lest it take into the HEAVY water. You'll lose that battle. You have about a yard along the bank where you can let the fish play, but they know the game and will run away. And fish-god knows there are some bigguns in there. It's exciting.

But salmonflies will be on Varney Bridge soon and angling fortunes should flip. And the fish should be hungry because they don't seem to be eating much right now. May your goals be on the constant rise. Enjoy!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just found your blog. Very nice. Looking forward to following along and maybe picking up some tips on fly fishing that I can use here in North Idaho!

Josh Bergan said...

Thanks! I'd follow your blog but I'm at my 300 limit and stupid Google won't let me unfollow any. But I'll try to keep up anyway. And congrats on the cutthroat! May you catch many more.

Ivan said...

Very well put, Josh. I start each day the same way. What's that saying? The best laid plans of mice and men....

Josh Bergan said...

Thanks Ivan. It's true.