Lake Report: Being There

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Time is slipping away. One more week left in the season. So the main thing is simply being there.

But that's always the main thing.

On the way out the door I stopped and tied up Bomber 2. I thought it was a faithful copy of the original, except smaller, a #8 hook instead of a #6. But when I took a look at the original I realized the deer hair was all wrong. Should be the gray-brown variety.

Still--pretty little thing. I tied it on.

It was a wonderful and windy late October day. A small fish went all OMG on the Little Bomber. That raised my confidence. I worked my way down this bank into the lower lake for awhile but didn't raise anything.

I struck out across the lake, quartering against the wind, and let the LB drift behind me. Halfway across it lost its innocence with this nice Rainbow.

I got to the other side and started back again.

Halfway across I had another strong take. This time I was over a stretch where the weeds were just under the surface, and down the fish went. He was hung up, but I could still feel him headshaking. I paddled back against the wind and tried to pull him straight up. I felt him--then I didn't, and pulled up a broken 4X tippet.
Maybe it was a better fish than I thought.
And that was the end of the Little Bomber, cut off in its youth, a promising future unfulfilled.
I tied on a Muddler and caught several small fish before I got back to the channel. But it just wasn't the same.
Time for a break. I put on the fleece and wished I had a big tent with a woodstove in it, like that guy.

Back out in the thinning light and the waning afternoon. There's a sense that all things are going into themselves, the fullness of summer thinning to the spareness of winter.

I passed through the channel to the upper lake. It was still windy, so I cast the Muddler out into the riffles where I've had good fish come up before. This was where the Bomber really shone. This time the Muddler brought up a good fish.

The wind was trying to quit.

Finally it did. I looked for the bloom of rises everywhere, but they were sparse. I didn't see any dorsals. I hope the fish don't go into themselves until the season is over. I thought about the dropper rig and decided against it. I tied on the CDC caddis on 6X and had at it.

It took patient waiting, but once in awhile a fish would come up nearby and you could entice a take. Or, out of nowhere, a fish would suddenly break that glassy surface and take the fly. I caught a handful of small fish, and two that went a ways toward respectable, before the rises shut down.

It was a good day, one of the last of the season, one that's gone now, like the Little Bomber, never to return. I could have missed it.

But I was there.