The First Fish of Summer Vacation

It was the first day of vacation and I knew that I wanted to go trout fishing. My mind was racing with thoughts of all the fish that I would catch in the summer months ahead as I rounded up all the gear that was needed to land an 8 inch stockie and shoved it in my fishing backpack. I threw on my bike helmet and headed out for a morning of fishing. With the crisp morning air filling my nostrils I felt a sense of freedom, not only from school and finals, but, in a general sense, from the nauseating hustle and bustle of the world around me.

The first location that I wanted to try was a deep pool underneath a bridge headed by a four foot waterfall. Although this was a popular fishing destination for many, I figured that I would give it a shot. I made multiple casts allowing my worm to drift through a different section of the hole each time, but with no success. I decided to head downstream into a canyon which had been formed from years and years of erosion. After finding a way to enter the canyon I made my way to the first fishable hole. With current running rapidly through the five foot wide pool, I couldn’t imagine it would be a desirable location for a trout to live. I noticed a beautiful looking hole just downstream a little ways that looked extremely fishy, but unfortunately the shelf that I was standing on was met flush with the protruding canyon walls. The only way for me to fish the hole was to drop my worm into the brook and let it be taken by the current downstream. On the first drift I began to strip line out as the current grabbed hold of bait and pulled it into the depths of the pool. About a minute into the drift I figured that my worm had probably reached the back end of the hole and began to crank in. That’s when I realized that my worm had stopped short at the very head of the pool, which could mean one of three things, it was snagged on a rock or stick, my worm fell into an eddy, or a fished had gobbled it up. When my line tightened my first thought was that I had gotten snagged, but this thought only lasted for a split second as the stone began to make an explosive run into the current and all the way to the back of the pool! Adrenaline filled my veins as my rod throbbed with every head shake of the fish. After enjoying a minute of reeling the fish in and then having all of my progress taken away from me in a split burst of energy I realized the seriousness of my predicament. Due to the size of the fish and the 7 foot drop between me and the water, there was no way for me to land the fish from my current position. I was going to have to make a move if I wanted to land this river monster.

While I weighed my options and decided that there was only one that would result in me landing this fish. That option was to crawl through a ten foot long, wedge shaped, horizontal crevice in the cliff face that was approximately two and a half feet tall at the opening and ran back into the rock around two feet, narrowing the farther in you get. If a crawled through this crag, I would come out to a cut with a massive flat rock running down to the water's edge and that’s where I would land the fish. With no time to lose I threw my backpack on the ground, crouched down and entered the claustrophobic gap, which was filled with about six inches of water in the bottom. Once my shorts were good and wet I suddenly remembered that I had my cellphone in my pocket! I quickly snatched it and tried to elbow my way through the opening with my pole in one hand, my cellphone in the other, and possibly the biggest stream fish of my life on the end of my line, peeling drag the entire time. It was complete chaos and possibly the craziest thing I have ever experienced in my fishing career! Once I finally made it to the other side I put my phone down and raced down to the water. It was then that I caught the first glimpse of the 16 inch Brown Trout on the end of my 6 pound flouro. It took me around fifteen seconds to finally get him to the bank where I muckled on to it and took the hook out. I had fresh Brown Trout for lunch that day.