Wading to Where I Expected Trout

I caught the trout where I expected to catch one. For months, I've thought of going to Neshanic and making my way downstream. There's a spot I know about from way back. All this time, I've imagined finding trout there.

I didn't expect to go to Neshanic today. There's another stocking point from where I would have walked well upstream. With the snow on the ground, though, I didn't find any parking. 

Beginning elsewhere, however, was an interesting exercise I decided upon as I drove from Bedminster. A spot where I've never got skunked. Today, I waded out, got into position, and then I noticed the brown of flood detritus and bare trees looked distinctly rust-colored in the sun. That was really quite unexpected and it surprised me, my emotional response lowering my anticipations even deeper into realism, everything about the trout seemingly brought low as if none held in the currents now. The sap of life gone like a rusted car body, and I got not a tap. 

Then I drove from there to Neshanic, where the water above the white bridge is very interesting, but nothing hit. Another guy came down. We talked for a few minutes, and then he took position a hundred feet above me. 

I started wading downstream. 

My lower back has been giving me trouble today, and it wasn't entirely comfortable out there for that reason. Temperature got up to at least 39, and I never felt cold. Not my bare hands, either, except for my left hand after I released a sucker I had snagged. Never troubled with gloves. It did take effort wading my way downstream, but it was a pleasurable way to release mere convenience. I cast as I went, aware that maybe there'd be a trout my black maribou jig would cross paths with. It wasn't until I got a cast right on the spot where I expected trout, that I got hit, and I played the fish patiently. It put up a good fight on my four-foot, six-inch St. Croix ultralight, but was only about 15 inches. A couple of casts later, I hooked another, but it got off. 

I might have got a foot or two of better reach with a five-and-a-half-foot ultralight, and I have one by Shimano, and another I built from a St. Croix blank, but my casts pretty much got where I wanted them to go. I was aware they were a little short sometimes. I like that little rod, though. The fight of the sucker I snagged in the back was a lot of fun. I thought I had a smallmouth. 

It wasn't, I believe, true that I "had" to do some trekking to catch trout. I know people today suspect everyone is lying, but the guy I spoke to seemed an aboveboard character. I decided to come back his way to tell him of my catch. He also told me of his!

"It was only five minutes after you headed down that way," he said. "It was 18 inches. I put it back."

"Good to know there's some fish."

Told me he caught it on a worm. Another reason I don't believe he lied.

There's a line you cross between the online world and the real world. But what is the online "world"? Everything that has become routine within its parameters. This post is part of it, but it does point to what lies beyond, and that's a world very similar to the world I lived out during the 1970's. A world in which I felt free, except when I was in school. I got beyond school every day, fishing, and otherwise. A world exists that the online cannot capture. It's always moving. It can't be caught. It can only be lived.   

January a Year Ago