Two Days After Christmas

© Tim Tipton 2021

 

Two Days After Christmas

By Tim Tipton

 

    It was two days after Christmas when I drove into the Otter Creek Outdoor Recreation Area to meet up with a new friend and spend my last day of fly fishing for the year 2020. Seeing all the vehicles in the parking area should have given me a clue about how the day was going to turn out.

    Darrell was a guy I went to elementary school with, and I played on a basketball team with his older brother, but we didn’t really know each other. It was a chance meeting on social media that brought us together. Darrell had just received his first fly rod as a Christmas gift and was anxious to put it to work. I was just ready to get out of the house and hopefully catch a few fish. I only accomplished one of these.

    We hiked downstream about a half mile to one of my favorite spots. It’s a place that rarely seems to have anyone in it. A shelf drops off on the far bank, right where the current starts to slow. It is a great area to hook a few trout. Most of the time.

    As we were getting rigged up, I explained to Darrell the old fly fishing euphemism that states that it’s not about catching fish. It is all abut being out in nature, enjoying the sunshine, the beautiful scenery, listening to the birds singing etc. I then made an emphatic statement: “That’s what people say when they can’t catch fish.”

    The weather couldn’t have been any better for a late December day in Kentucky. The high reached 57 degrees. It was quite a turnaround from two days before, when the temperature dropped to 14 and the wind chill was one degree. At least it had snowed about an inch to give us our first white Christmas that my grandkids had seen.

    I don’t remember what fly I started with, but I do recall I was fishing it beneath an indicator. I believe it may have been the dreaded Mop Fly, because I had just tied some for the first time. I do know the next two flies I tried, because I wrote in my journal before I left the parking lot at the end of the day.

    I switched to a size 18 Beadhead Pheasant Tail nymph under the indicator and proceeded to produce the same number of bites as I did on the previous fly. By now an hour had gone by. I had nothing to show for it, other than my knot tying skills, and Darrell had a half-hearted strike.

    We moved further downstream to a couple more pools that usually fish well. I changed flies to a size 20 Beadhead Copper John. A few casts later I started to see a decent midge hatch coming off. I dug in my pack through seven fly boxes and realized that I didn’t have my box full of midges. I would later find it on the desk in my office. I have no idea why it was there, but the way things were going, it probably didn’t matter.

    I stuck with the Copper John and missed a strike. Two casts later, I drifted over the same spot, got a strike, set the hook, and had a fish on. Possibly for an entire five seconds. It would turn out to be the only action of the day. 

    We finally moved down to my favorite area, only two find four other anglers fishing, and two standing nearby waiting. We spoke with them for a minute and decided to call it a day. Hiking back up the trail became a challenge because large sections of it were covered in mud and it clung to my felt-soled wading boots.

    Once we reached our vehicles, I realized I had lost my net. This was not a big deal, except I wondered how I lost it. After all, it wasn’t used by either of us to net a fish. The net was old, with faded wood on the handle and a rubber mesh basket that had see better days. As I was removing my wading boots and waders, I took a moment to reminisce. The net had helped me land fish in Kentucky, Indiana, Tennessee, North Carolina, Colorado, and Montana. Still, it was no great loss.

    On the drive home, I started to relax despite not catching a fish. It happens, even to better anglers than me. It was still a good day. After all, it’s not about catching fish. It is all about being out in nature, enjoying the sunshine, the beautiful scenery, listening to the birds singing etc. At least, that’s what I tell my self when I don’t catch fish.