Trout Lake Report: Liking October

You had plans to fish the day before, but the wind blew a gale, and things came up besides. So today you play hooky from the office. You never played hooky from school, but your priorities have apparently changed.

You discover that the south end is deserted. Campers have had that end staked out for the last month and a half, so you've avoided it. But you gladly pull in and launch.

The air is cool but the sun is bright and warm. You begin in shirtsleeves, although you have your longies on under the shirt. The lake is quiet, but the shorelines look inviting, so you work them with the orange stimulator. You fish and bask in the sun. It's good to be back.

You arrive at the little channel into the pond and a head pops up and takes the fly. Then another one.

You make the turn and work back down toward the put in. The mountain's shadow moves across the water bringing rises with it.

You stay snug on the sunny side of the lake as long as you can, then, as the shadow overtakes you, stop and put your jacket on. You move on up the shoreline.

There are fish along the shoreline, and you miss a couple of hits. A fish comes up out in open water, then again and again, so you plop the stimulator down in his hunger zone and he's instantly on it.

You go back to the shoreline and a little fish angles up out of the weeds and takes the fly.

While you're releasing him you hear a familiar sound, the huff and chirr of an otter. You look up and find not one but four otters coursing down the middle of the lake. Later you google the proper name for a group of otters. It's a family, or--better yet-- a romp. This family is definitely on a romp. They check you out, then go on their merry way.

You keep going up the shoreline, enjoying your evening stroll. You catch a couple of browns, but they're both 6 inches long. You hope there might be a bigger one somewhere up ahead.

You're enjoying casting, and most of the time are putting the fly right where you want it, right on the waterline. On one such cast into the skinniest of water the fly lands and a fish takes it with no hesitation at all. You've found your brown.

You keep going, thinking there should be some more. But a rainbow comes next.

The otters come back around.

They make quite a hubbub, and put all the fish down. Then they dive toward the shoreline behind you. They swim amazingly fast under the water, leaving a long curving wake behind them. You wish you could go romp with them.

Meanwhile you've come to a favorite little bay. You lay the fly down on its inside edge back under an overhanging tree. One strip and you've found another brown. A very nice brown.

You think there must be more, and you're right, but it doesn't turn out the way you hoped. The stimulator is done for the day, so you tie on a little dark muddler and continue up the shoreline. You drop the fly between a strip of weeds and the bank, and there's another instant take. It's a heavy fish, and you know it's a brown, maybe bigger than the last one. There's a great thrashing and then a lunge--and the knot fails. You're going to miss that muddler.

With the sun gone the cool air is now getting cold. It's been another good evening, so you decide to troll in. You tie on a streamer and start the kick home. You're just wondering if maybe a little bead head something might be a better choice when a fish takes the streamer.

You get two more on the way in.

You beach the float tube and begin to reel in and get yet another October trout.

You like October.

"When the Frost Is On the Punkin," by James Whitcomb Riley

Looks like Monday was the last shirt sleeve day at the lake for awhile. The wind picked up Tuesday morning where it left off Monday night and blew hard from the northeast all day. The temperature had dropped twenty degrees by noon, and we're in for hard frosts the next couple of nights.

So, having spent some of my growing up years in Indiana, James Whitcomb Riley's home state, I always think of this poem at this time of year. So here it is for your pleasure and edification.

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock,

And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin’ turkey-cock,

And the clackin’ of the guineys, and the cluckin’ of the hens,

And the rooster’s hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;

O, it’s then’s the times a feller is a-feelin’ at his best,

With the risin’ sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest,

As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock,

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.

They’s something kindo’ harty-like about the atmusfere

When the heat of summer’s over and the coolin’ fall is here—

Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossums on the trees,

And the mumble of the hummin’-birds and buzzin’ of the bees;

But the air’s so appetizin’; and the landscape through the haze

Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days

Is a pictur’ that no painter has the colorin’ to mock—

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.

The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn,

And the raspin’ of the tangled leaves, as golden as the morn;

The stubble in the furries—kindo’ lonesome-like, but still

A-preachin’ sermuns to us of the barns they growed to fill;

The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed;

The hosses in theyr stalls below—the clover over-head!—

O, it sets my hart a-clickin’ like the tickin’ of a clock,

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock!

Then your apples all is gethered, and the ones a feller keeps

Is poured around the celler-floor in red and yeller heaps;

And your cider-makin’ ’s over, and your wimmern-folks is through

With their mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and saussage, too! ...

I don’t know how to tell it—but ef sich a thing could be

As the Angels wantin’ boardin’, and they’d call around on me—

I’d want to ’commodate ’em—all the whole-indurin’ flock—

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock!

Trout Lake Report: A Very Good Beginning

It's the beginning. It's the beginning of October, the last month of the season. That means it's also the beginning of the end.

But on the way in you stop and look down the valley toward Secret Lake and think about possibilities yet unrealized. At the lake you find fish along the shorelines--browns and rainbows both, and your newly tied flies catch them. There's a gusty and variable wind all evening, but it stays warm. The sky is an ever-changing artwork of shapes and colors. And a big moon smiles at you all the way home.

It's the beginning of the end, but it was a very good beginning.