Quick Catch at the Zoo

At the AT&T Zoo just before 5:00, getting just a little preoccupied with photography, flippin' an egg into the current under the exit bridge a couple of minutes later, I hooked my first quickly. I spent more than three minutes with my Go Pro mounted on my extension bar and placed underwater and half-in, half-out, taking that long to make sure some footage works as still shots.

Then I got into what turned out to be an onerous process--feels real good now--of missing at least 50 hits. I caught 13 in the hour-and-a-half I fished, losing another almost at my feet, losing a few others during the fight, all of them coming on one-pound test Suffix. A couple of them measured nearly 13 inches, these fish really running long and hard on the microlight.

That current right at the downstream edge of the bridge is especially difficult to drift when water is high and moving as it did today. Color was OK. Not clear, but not dingy, either. But the flow made getting a direct pull impossible, though I picked up the line quickly enough on these 13 fish. I let the trout take eggs a couple of seconds before setting, but obviously this didn't work too well, though it did work better than pulling back immediately.

I emptied a  large jar of Atlas Mike's King. (I think it's possible I bought the last large jars of salmon eggs available in the nation, at Walmart, Morris Plains, in December last year or January. I cleaned them out of large jars.) Then I got started on Shrimp. I was going to stay around until I reached a total of 15, but I inadvertently snapped off my rig, and then I found tying on a new little snap with that thin line so aggravating, that I decided it was wise to bow out before I felt any worse. Doesn't seem I would have felt that way now, but getting home early to get started on other stuff hasn't let me down. My hand-to-eye coordination has gone so far south with age--they told me 15 years ago I need tri-focal lenses, but I use only reading glasses on occasion--that it is the revenge of my brother David. I pitied him while I was growing up. He does use glasses. His frustrations with tying knots. I was reminded of Winston Churchill--"Never, never, never, never give in." Then, I kept trying, but when a wisp of wisdom visited me, whispering that I can let it go and it will be OK, I listened instead to this.

Eating some trout at present. Cooked them well before darkness fell, thinking I could have caught 25 or 30, maybe more, had I stayed. Definitely would have caught more, had I got the hook into them more often.

Have music playing on my laptop. "Haitian Divorce," Steely Dan. Segued into it from a number of old Motown selections: "Family Affair," "Diamond in the Back," Boz Scaggs' "Lowdown" tossed in, "Who's that Lady," and "What's Going On." Makes Chris Hayes on TV interesting.

Donald Fagan just drips with sentimentality. So much for the tearful reunion. I'm going back to Motown.

…Though you may not drive, a great big Cadillac.

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