What a Painful Day...

In more ways than one. I targeted sea run trout as I planned, spending enough time on the river to see the tide come and go start going. There was a riffle at the bottom of one pool. Then there wasn't. A few hours later, it was back again. I didn't move any salt flavored brown trout, which is what I was expecting to happen anyway, but I did have a few sucker takes and saw this beaver:

Suddenly and without warning, my upper back and neck developed the worst cramp I have ever had the displeasure of meeting. I had to lay down for a while. But eventually I got back up and started pounding the water with a size 6 Ausable Ugly. I figured it might take a sucker, a bass, a trout, a carp, a shad, who knows what, it's just a good all purpose pattern. I spotted what I thought was a decent carp. I cast ahead of him and let the fly sink. Up came the fish and chomped the fly. Clearly not a carp. The fish that jumped a moment later was the biggest god damned smallmouth I have ever seen. The stat record is 7 lbs 12 oz. This big girl was probably a bit bigger then that. I could not believe what I was seeing. It was just to good to be true. And of course it was, so the fish popped off right before I was about to grab it. I was crushed, dejected, and angry. What did I do to deserve that? All I could do was keep fishing. I caught that fishes son, then went to a pond nearby that I hadn't fished in about two years and caught a pumpkinseed bluegill hybrid thing.

The river was clearly no longer going to fish well, so I cut my losses and went to my carp spot. First cast, nice 'gill. Next cast, big mamma carp comes and sucks in my white sucker spawn pattern. I was in for a heck of a fight, this was one of the old fish of the pond. You know, the ones that are so fat and lazy they can barely move or be moved? Well at least that's what they look like. They can go! This one didn't get into my backing, but when I tried to move it I just couldn't when I finally started making headway the fly came unbuttoned. WHAT DID I DO? Whyyyyyyyyyy!?!?!?!?

 It has generally been my experiance that when I have a string of lost big fish, something really spectacular is coming. This isn't it, at least I hope not: