Convergence '18: The Damage Done

While driving between tributaries on Friday Ben Bilello said he was thinking about just switching gears over to trout fishing this season. Trout, trout and more trout, just trout. Neither of us had the best attitude about the goings on of the day, pretty much immediately after fishing the first spot for 10 minutes... at least that's when my mood shifted towards uncertainty and slowly drifted towards complete pessimism.

Fishing for resident trout, despite what those who do little but may say, isn't a particularly mysterious endeavor. The movements of these fish are slight, the variables affect them are often very noticeable, and it is possible to catch a trout in CT every day of the year if you're so inclined.

By contrast, spring migratory striped bass, sea run browns, walleye, and herring are influenced by an immense number of variables. Couple that with dramatically declined populations and spot inaccessibility and you have a recipe for frustration. It takes an immense amount of time to get these things down to a science. There is no shortcut. Networking has sullied spots like the Housatonic and Cape Cod Canal, people close in when the bite is on and it lasts. But that doesn't work in this fishery. The fish are there and then they aren't. It may be an hour, a day, a week... there is no certainty. The conditions change constantly.

I sympathize with Ben, I've been tempted to go where things are more comfortable, more predictable, and I have more time than he does. But I spent five years fishing for trout and wishing I could be chasing the migration, and dammit when I got to experience it for the first time, like catching my first wild brookie, catching my first striped bass on the fly, hooking my first albie... it was a new kind of high and I'm not sure I can live without it anymore. So out I go, in the rain, in the dark, in the wind, in the floods and almost unfishable tides, trying to be in the right place at the exact right moment to intercept perfection. I got the taste and the damage was irreparable.

Ben and I did not get it right on Friday, though I suspect the difference between right and wrong was just mere feet in depth. The night before, I had closed the gap. I wasn't dealt a good hand but I made it count because I had seen much of what variables were presented before, although not all combined. I found fish, I made the right choices about where to move and when, I chose the right flies, and I got my fix. Three casts in a row to the same spot resulted in violent takes. They were small, but they were my first bass of the spring migration, a reward for two weeks of time and effort. 

The rain and tide changed. The water clarity changed. The fish moved. And for two day's I've skunked while trying to intercept the migration. Tomorrow I'll probably just fish for resident trout, but that doesn't mean I won't be back looking to intercept the migration in just a couple days. It doesn't last, and it has just starting. Letting it all just slip away is not an option.