Life's A Dance You Learn As You Go.

 

Todays fishing took on the guise of a three act play, one that ran the the gamut from romance to comedy to tragedy. A-119 was the stand-in for the fisherman who just never showed up.

Act I - With the air temperature at dawn 47, and the water temp at Lordville  hitting a low of 64, there was no question about where the understudy would fish. At 9:00am there were two anglers already casting bright green and red bobbers at whatever was residing in the pool. The star would have driven off in a huff, the understudy suited up and fished a pool that is near and dear to his heart. Hooked and lost a rainbow right away and then went an hour without seeing anyone hook a fish. Found some rising fish on the way back to shore, hooked four, ( including one 7 incher), and was refused at the last second by a nice rainbow. The fisherman that exited on the NY side said he had done nothing but the other guy caught three and had several other hits. It gave A-119 a warm feeling just to be able to fish in the home pool.

Act II - Promptly at 1:30pm, the curtain was raised to a standing room only crowd eager to witness the "Sulfur Zone" anglers perform. Six cars were crammed into the Stilesville lot, Eleven cars at the red barn, 15 at the men's club, and countless others parked along the river. People sitting in collapsible chairs both streamside and in the water, with anglers no more than half a cast apart in all the "good" places. A-119 miraculously found an empty pool and waded in, only to see an angler sitting in the grass on an island come to life and wade right into the best spot in the pool. The sulfur hatch was a poor one and only yearling trout performed. When a boat anchored between the two anglers, the curtain came down on Act II. If anyone caught a fish over 10 inches it was not shown on camera.

Act III - The curtain went up at 6:30pm with drone shots of A-119 driving up river to fish. After many stops along the way A-119 fished a spot high enough up the WB to have bugs, some rising fish, and some, (3), anglers for company. He landed two fish, then hooked a nice rainbow, being an inexperienced understudy who was use to fighting browns, he put too much pressure on the 'bow which ran, jumped and is now wearing one of A-119's flies and a piece of 7x tippet. When more anglers arrived, the hovering drone showed the understudy reeling it in, getting into the car and heading downstream, the on board clock said 8:00pm. With no more than an hour and a quarter of daylight left, time was clearly running out. A-119 enters the water and sees rising fish, lots of them. So many fish, so little time, he is instantly in full frenzy mode. He makes the casts, hooks the fish, and in his haste to catch every fish in the river, he forgets that he is hooking hot rainbows, not the browns that he's been catching for the last month. Two big 'bows leave with a fly and tippet, (six x), he lands one, them four others just come unstuck mostly due to excessive pressure, (they're rainbows you know). Finally, when it's so dark you can't see a size 12 Golden Drake, there's a splash about where the fly should be and he is into a good fish, and, when the 18 inch rainbow finally slips quietly into the net, a tragedy is averted. It's a happy ending to a 2 for 7 night, which is the best you could hope for from an understudy.