Wendy and I rarely sleep in. We are both creatures of habit and we get up at 6 AM most days, or earlier, during the week. It was no surprise when we both woke up before the sun rose. The thrill of scrolling through social media and being quiet in the house while other people slept lost its luster pretty quick. On top of that, there was a quiet and secluded river that was beckoning. Wendy told me, "Just go. I know it's what you want to do. I'll call you when you need to come back." I love my wife. She gets me. That was all it took for me to quietly sneak out of the house.
I activated my mountain goat hooves and navigated the steep path down the valley. It was still fairly dark around the river as the sun had not gotten very high in the sky yet. I stepped into the canoe and eased my way out into the river. I had seen some baitfish getting chased last night and already that morning so I decided to tie on a streamer. I have a lot of confidence in my all-time favorite fly, The Brave, so that's the fly that I went with. I also navigated to some water that we hadn't fished the day before. The river had steep rocky banks with deeper water on one side and shallower, less rocky banks on the other side. I decided to target the rockier, deeper parts which provided more variety for fish to hold.
Usually it takes me awhile to find a pattern. It is rare to quickly find the fly that the fish want and the spots that they are occupying. But sometimes, just sometimes, you strike gold with the first swing of a pick axe. It is also noteworthy that rivers offer fewer hiding places thank lakes for fish to find refuge so please don't get a falsely inflated impression of my abilities.
The first bass came fairly quickly. I was shocked to have a pull on my line at all, let alone during such a short time on the water. I wasn't sure what I had hooked into but after a short fight, I boated a small largemouth bass.
If this would have been the only fish that I caught all morning, I would have been happy. I was content with going home with a story of catching a largemouth on a fly on the Trinity River in Texas. However, I still had some time to fish and was hopeful that I might catch one or two more. I missed a couple of bites after that and realized that I was trout setting. I needed to lay the wood to the fish on my hooksets because I wasn't sure how many opportunities I was going to get. Going 1 for 3 was a little disheartening but I hoped that the bites would keep coming.
On the next strike, I gave a good strip-set to the fish. There was a solid pull on the other end with some violent head shakes. It felt like a bass but I wasn't certain because I thought maybe some unfamiliar species in the river fought the same way. After having my canoe pulled around for what felt like a solid minute, I saw the head of a largemouth come to the surface. My heart raced and all I could utter was "Don't come off. Don't come off. Don't come off." When the fish got close enough, I put a healthy grip on his lower lip and he was mine!
After my pleading, I was speechless. I couldn't believe that I had caught something so massive, on my own, in an unfamiliar state and river. I am going to estimate that this dude went about two pounds. and he was healthy. After some photos, I eased him back into the water and watched him swim off. I didn't think things could get better than that and was extremely satisfied with an amazing experience...but it still wasn't over.
A little further downstream, I hooked into another fish. It fought similarly to the previous fish but I could tell that it didn't have the size. The short bursts and headshakes gave it away as a bass but when I got him to the boat, the smaller mouth and markings on the belly shocked me. I hadn't expected to catch a Kentucky/spotted bass at all but there he was!
I ended up catching one more smaller bass and that concluded my morning. We had places to go and things to do over the course of the day but I walked up the steep path with a smile on my face and some pretty cool stories to tell. I was extremely grateful to have so much success on a stretch of water that I knew absolutely nothing about. I was also surprised at how it fished so much like a lake back home or an Ozarks river. It reminded me that one of the reasons that I fish is for the stories. The stories that have ups and downs, the stories about getting skunked, and the stories of success. This was a story of success that I didn't see coming, but I guess you never really can predict what will happen on the water. That is also one of the allures of fishing for me. You never know what is going to happen...for good or bad but you sure aren't going to catch anything by sleeping in and sitting on the couch!
