40 Rivers To Freedom

Other than those creepy glowing eyes that follow me during the hike in and out of a spot, and all those bugs that fly in my mouth when I turn my headlamp on, fishing at night is probably one of my favorite times to be on the water.

I love the whistle of the fly line as it whips back and forth, probably inches from my nose.  Adrenaline surges with the sounds of fish rising in a stretch of river that was obviously vacant before the moon came out of nowhere.  And most of all, I love those little white waves that simultaneously appear with the sounds from those fish.

There I was, standing 10 yards off the south bank of the Delaware River.  I’d been working a decent fish that was rising every 5 minutes or so to something I couldn’t figure out was there.  A fog suddenly, yet slowly, appeared over the water’s surface; almost in sync with the sun falling below the tree line behind my left shoulder.  Three good drifts.

“If it didn’t take after three, then it wasn’t going to take that fly the fourth or tenth time it floated by.”   I reasoned

The sky had been black for nearly an hour, and the fish must have been putting on weight from the bugs it was eating, cause as the sky grew darker, the rises got louder, the fish started sounding bigger- and the fly on the end of my leader was changing a whole lot quicker.

Cornuta compara spinner- nope
Big Stimulator- notta
Parachute BWO- no chance
Emergent Caddis Pupa- as if
Stillborn Emerger- getting colder

It went on, and without warning, I turned and started wading towards the bank.  I hadn’t even been given the chance to start replaying the scenario back over in my head when, about a second before I was out of the water-

SPLOOSH!

Without warning, I again turned and started wading back into position.  It was as if the fish had been toying with me the whole time, and then had a little hissy fit when I stopped falling for it’s jedi mind games.

“One more fly”  I thought.  And if you could have seen my face in the black hole of the night sky, it would have looked just like Harry Callahan(played by Clint Eastwood) as he pointed a loaded .44 Magnum at the robber’s head in Sudden Impact.  Teeth clenched, I grabbed a downwing Brown Drake imitation.

It was big and floaty, and stuff.  Why not?

I tied it on facing away from the fish, illuminated by a red headlamp.  After biting off the tag end, the line swished and swashed as I worked it through the air;  then, like a Navy SEAL on a black ops mission, it parachuted down upon the flowing water.

I don’t know if it was the second or third drift, but what I do remember is the standing wave, and the faint silhouette of a trout’s head as it shook my fly free before I could set the hook.  It was one of those moments where your internal metronome suddenly stops, and time stands still.  You get to watch life as if you just hit your TV’s  slow-mo button, frame by frame.  Yet, even as you see disaster coming, there’s nothing you can do to stop it.  The script has already been written, and that’s all I have to say about that.

I love fishing at night.