Verdigre Creek Journal

“I’ve got issues,” the fifth-grader behind me stated.

His words seemed out of place, almost out of character for a young person.  I turned and looked at him.  His fly line lay in a pile at his feet.  He was having issues with his cast, not with his life.  His ability to exploit the ambiguity of language for the sake of laughter indicated that his sense of humor had matured well beyond his age of ten years.

We were teaching school groups how to fly cast, how to tie a flies, and how to identify bugs.  The fly fishing station at the Nebraska Outdoor School Day Expo was a busy place.  There were a number of stations at the Expo, fishing, outdoor cooking, camping, water conservation, shotgun shooting.  The groups rotated from station to station throughout the day.

There is a reason for these expos.  We are not exactly swimming in new anglers.  Since the nineties, license sales, and participation, have dropped dramatically.  Although there was a slight increase in sales last year,  the trend has been down.  Recession of 2008 down.  And that is not good.

We need the numbers.  We need to recruit kids to the sport.  The Expo exists to recruit anglers.

Anglers and hunters are self supporting.  Money from license sales helps to maintain and conserve fisheries.  Money from excise taxes on fishing tackle, ammo, rifles, and boat motors helps to pay for improvements, conservation, and acquisitions.  The Pittman-Robertson Act, also known as the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act, was signed in 1937.  The Dingell-Johnson Act, also known as the Federal Aid in Sport Fish Restoration Act, was signed in 1950.  Excise taxes from these two acts have raised billions of dollars.  Dollars that have been dedicated to wildlife and fish.

Hunters and anglers have always been nickel and dimed.  We don’t seem to mind much.

We were on our fourth, and penultimate, group of the day.  Each group consisted of between 20 and 30 students; this group had twenty-three.  We divided the twenty-three into smaller groups of five and six.  Gene Kathol took the one of the groups, I took another.  Andrea Faas took the remaining groups and showed them the collection of bugs.

Andrea Faas showing off the Bug Collection

It was difficult to teach the kids the finer points of casting, we only had our groups for ten to fifteen minutes.  With the attention span of ten year olds mixed in, it was important to distill the cast into, well, its important parts.

Gene dealing with Slack Line

I’d distilled my spiel down to the essentials.  I started by showing them the proper way to hold the rod in their hand.  I showed them how to trap the line against the rod.  Then I showed them the lift, the stop, and the stop.  For this group, though, I’d varied my routine.  I had them wave the line  above their heads in figure eights.  I wanted them to get the feel of the rod loading.  Then I had them stop the rod when they brought it across their body.

“Stop it high,” I told them, hoping to pass on the notion of a short and subtle stroke.

They did, and they saw loops.  They saw the line laying down straight in front of them.

“Oooooo,” they all remarked.

Our station had followed the shotgun station.  It was hard to compete with the racing heartbeat and the culminating explosion of the shotgun.  It was today’s equivalent of a roller coaster and many of the kids were still feeling the adrenalin rush of shooting a twenty gauge.  This group, though, began to feel the sense of accomplishment the comes from performing a difficult and subtle physical task such as a fly cast.

I had them continue with the figure eights and incorporated a backcast and forward cast.  They got the feel of the line loading rod and the stop unloading the rod.  I had them continue while I helped several students individually, untangling lines here and there, and then helped the young gentleman with the issues.

I answered the young man, “issues, huh.”

All manner of knots decorated the pile of fly line at his feet;  the snarls gave the heap some character.

I rewarded his sophisticated sense of humor with some commiseration as I untangled the line.

“Most people my age have issues, it’s rare for a young man like yourself to have them.”

Witty banter was not yet part of his toolkit.  He had trouble grasping the concept of the stop, though.  That wasn’t unusual.  In most sports, follow through is important.  A baseball swing is, for example, a complete motion from rear-back, to initiation, to the hit, to follow through.  Golf swing?  Same.  Tennis, kicking a ball?  Both the same.   In fly casting, the act of stopping causes the rod to unload and propel the line forward in a loop.  We hoidy-toidy fly fisherman are loath to admit it, but  stopping a a bait caster or a spinning rod is the same concept.  It causes the rod to unload.   The casts are not that much different.

“My line just doesn’t seem to form a loop,”  the young man said.  I had him repeat the figure eight exercise and thrust my arm in front of his rod.  The rod hit my arm and stopped abruptly.  The loop unrolled.

“Try it again,” I tell him.  He swung his rod in subtle figure eights and then stopped the rod abruptly as it was coming from his right to his left.  The loop formed and the line fell to the ground gently in front of him.  It was in a straight line.

“Ooooo,” he said.

Dave Wadzinski, Dave Jacobs, and I met at the Scheel’s parking lot at 6:00 a.m.  We made the three hour drive to Verdigre Creek in order to participate in National Stream Cleanup day.  Danny Meade, who had spent the evening in Norfolk after conducting business there on Friday, met us at the Bridge.

We started at the Bridge Pool and watched two rainbows dart in and out of the current chasing caddis pupa.

Looking upstream toward the Rearing Station

Dave gearing up

We worked our way upstream to the Rearing Station, then up to the Weir.

We picked up a good deal of trash but we all agreed that the streambed was surprisingly clean.

The Plastic was everywhere - Dave Jacobs retrieves a bag from the Creek

Ashes to ashes, one hopes that this wasn't the result of poor C&R technique

More Plastic

The Crew studies the Caddis Hatch

One of the reasons that one joins Trout Unlimited is to associate oneself with people such as Dave, Dave, and Danny.  People who are willing to give up their Saturday,  spend  three hours on the road, hit the bricks ready to work, get the job done, and drive another three hours to get home.

Today's Bounty!

Thanks, fellas!

The stench of stale garbage mingles with the delicate fragrance of Virginia Bluebells.  It is a strange tonic.  The transition from the places where the fish aren’t to the places where the fish are is usually a little more gradual.  My nose usually has a little time to adapt.  Not today.  I am minutes from the Key Bridge and a spectacular view of Washington, D.C.  The drive from Georgetown along Canal Street has been short.  And true to form, I managed to make a wrong turn along the way.

I inch slowly down the hill into the Potomac River valley and turn on my lights as I enter a tunnel.  The channel of the river is just visible on the other side.  As I emerge, I can see the expanse of the river and spot several rowboats anchored in the current.

The boats are occupied by a mix of fly and spin anglers.  The fly casters are tossing sinking heads upstream and stripping the line back quickly.  It’s hard for them to look graceful tossing around so much weight.  The shad will be deep in the river.  A sinking line will be a necessity.

“Everything’s gonna be alright,” I sing to myself as I pull into the parking lot.  I tap the rhythm of the song against my thigh with my right index finger.  My song choice is incongruent.

“I should be humming the refrains to something a more traditional such as Hail Columbia,” I think to myself as I park the car.

I see the Boathouse at Fletcher’s Cove across the way.  The trees buffer the sounds of the cars up on Canal Street.  Across the river atop the palisades, I see cars speeding along the George Washington Parkway.  It is the only sign that I am about five miles from our nation’s capital.

I am here to fly fish for shad, although I suspect that I am a little early in the season.  According to local wisdom, the shad run reaches its peak when the dogwoods blossom.  A few dogwoods are blooming over in Arlington; they are yet to hit their peak.

Fletcher’s Cove is popular today.  Families hold picnics in the grass.  Anglers have set up camp up and down the shore.  They study their fishing rods intently, watching for strikes.  An armada of rowboats is anchored in the current.

I emerge from my car, grab and assemble my rod, and thread the line through the guides.  As I pull the line through the tip top, I overhear two anglers recounting their morning.

“Not very spectacular,” one states, “only about thirty fish, all Hickories, only one American.”

The American Shad and their smaller cousins, the Hickories, are true anadromous fish.  They migrate from the Atlantic, through the brackish water in the Chesapeake, and up the Potomac.  Unlike other anadromines, shad can digest food as the move from the salt water into the fresh.

“Yea, mostly on white shad flies,” the other angler adds.

Eponymous in name only, shad flies do not resemble the fish.  Many of the flies actually carry names like Woo’s Shad Fly, Tommy’s Torpedo, and Stretch Magic; many are a variation on a woolly bugger.

I tie on a Cone-headed, white bugger and a Red-headed Woo as a dropper and walk down to the boathouse.

I pay to rent a rowboat.  The attendant hands me a green, neon-colored whistle, to use, ostensibly, in an emergency, and tells me to grab a set of oars and a personal flotation device.

“Have the boat back by six,” the attendant tells me as I place the whistle around my neck and walk down to the dock.  I grab a pair of oars, drape a PFD over one, and find a boat.  Although the boats are custom designs, they look as though they belong on the Potomac.  They are made of wood using traditional methods.  Each boat has a heavy stone, tied to a rope, to serve as an anchor.  In a world filled with custom, painted, fiberglass boats, 200 horsepower outboards, and military grade, fish-finding sonars, these boats are wonderfully anachronistic.  Rowing out into such a historic river in such a craft is altogether fitting and proper.

As I row out to the channel, I hear perch busting the surface.  I can’t see what they’re chasing, though.  I see mayflies emerging here and there.  I row past other boats anchored in the current.  I find a likely spot and prepare to drop anchor.  The rowboat is surprisingly stable; I move to the bow and heft the stone anchor over the rail.  I feel like I’m participating in the stone put at the Highland Games.  The stone drops into the water noisily.  I attempt to let it down slowly but its weight pulls it to the bottom quickly.

I wrap my right middle finger with blue masking tape to protect against callouses.

I’m fishing a 400-grain shooting head.  It will sink like a rock but it is better suited to an eight weight rod.  With the weight, my very fast six weight will flex all the way into the butt and become very slow.

I make my first cast and remember how hard it is to look graceful casting a heavy shooting head.  I look like a complete newbie.  My cast collapses in the boat.

“Nebraskans can’t cast,” I imagine that the other anglers are staring at me and laughing at my expense.  I look forlornly at the line piled up at my feet.  I lift my head, sheepishly, and look left and right hoping that no one has noticed my incompetence.  I find, with a stiff breeze blowing down river, all the other anglers have their own fish to fry.

I wonder to myself if anyone can cast on a day like today.  I remember Ed Jaworoski’s advice concerning casting heavy, sinking heads.

“Slow the hell down.”

I slow my tempo to adagio and attempt a second cast.  The loop on my backcast tightens up.  I slowly accelerate into my forward cast.  The loop unrolls, shoots across the current, and sinks as it quarters downstream.  At the end of the drift, I strip the line back to the boat in short bursts.  I time my strips to the song that has been running through my mind, Shawn Mullins’ Lullaby.

“Everything’s gonna be alright, rockabye,” strip, strip, strip.  I stay in rhythm as I strip the line back to the boat.  With about half of the shooting head dragging in the current, I roll cast the line.  It clears the water, and I accelerate into a long, slow cast.

Slowly, in a tempo true to adagio, I make my forward cast.  The loop unrolls across the current and pulls line through my fingers.  It lands softly on the Potomac and disappears into the current.

“Everything’s gonna be alright, rockabye,” strip, strip, tug.  A tell-tale pulse interrupts the song.  I pause.  A shad, I imagine, is eating my fly.  I set the hook with a sharp strip strike.  The fight is on.

I work to get the fish on the reel.  I slap the handle and set the reel spinning while I work to keep the line tense against the fish with my right index finger.  The reel spins and pulls the slack line from the deck onto the reel.  I slap the handle again to pick up the rest of the line.  The shad is working to stay deep.  I can feel his muscles working to free himself.  I reel him to the surface and work to bring him to the boat.  I draw him closer, bend down, and cradle the fish in my left hand.  I let the fly rod drop onto my lap. I remove the hook from the fish’s lip with my right hand.   After a quick picture, I resuscitate the fish in the current.  He regains his strength and swims away.

I rinse my hands in the river and look over to shore.

“Tide must be moving in,” I think to myself.  Several areas that were dry are now covered in water.  For a few minutes, I stick and land a shad on every cast.  These fish were pretty high in the water column, in the top ten feet.  I started casting downstream and stripping the line in the minute it hit the water to prevent the line from sinking in the current.  I should have rigged with a floating line.  Changing tackle, though, is one of the last things on one’s mind when the bite is on.

“Rockabye,” strip, strip, tug.  I could hear Mullins’s falsetto building into a crescendo against the stacatto strums against the open D tuning as I reeled another fish in.

Rowing back to the dock was a chore.  The wind had been gusting at about 23 mph; I rowed directly into the wind.  I progressed slowly.  Out on the river, the cormorants bob up and down in the river.  Their heads look like so many little Loch Ness Monsters.  Occasionally, one disappears into the river only to reappear down stream apiece with a shad or perch in its mouth.  If the cormorant was lucky, he’d feast on his prize by swallowing it whole.  Many, though, were molested for their prize by their mates.

Overhead, an osprey flies away with a perch in his claws.  Buzzards work to find the thermals above the osprey.  Above that, the planes fly in and out of Reagan National.

“Perhaps one of them,” I think to myself, “is the plane that will take me to Chicago.”

I made it back to the dock in relatively good time and turned in my oars and PFD.

I tipped the woman on the dock, returned my whistle, retrieved my license, and broke down my gear.

Over in the parking lot, an angler was rigging his fly rod.  He asked how the fishing was.

“Not very spectacular,” I said, “only about thirty fish, all Hickories, only one American.”

I packed up my gear and drove through the tunnel.  I was leaving early enough that I could drive South on Canal Street NW.  If I didn’t make any wrong turns, I could be at the airport in 20 minutes.  It was highly unlikely that, even with a GPS, I would not make any wrong turns.

Just before the Key Bridge, I made a wrong turn.

“Dangit,” I said to myself.

“Recalculating,” the GPS said in reply.

I paused.

“Everything’s gonna be alright, Rockaby…” I sang to myself.

The hatch occurs, on the Verdigre, in early April. It  doesn’t rival the famous hatches such as the March Browns on the Beaverkill or the Ausable.  Today, though, it was  spectacular.  It started at ten a.m. and continued until well past three.

The spring BWO hatch on the Verdigre had not been this good since 1993.

Prior to the hatch, I fished a BWO nymph behind a Copper John Red and did well at the big pools.

I switched over one of my grass rods (bamboo…for the uninitiated. Fly fishing, like anything else, has its own special slang, for better or for worse) and began fishing parachute Blue Winged Olives.  I worked the Monolith Pool and up Brown Alley before the hatch began.

As I rounded the bend, I saw the Blue Winged Olives escaping the water’s surface en masse.  With hungry trout right on their tails, the fishing started to pick up.  Actually, “picking up”  is somewhat of an understatement.

The fishing was stellar.

It is rare, on the Verdigre, when fish will sit in the riffles.  Occasionally, there will be a few.  There two or three riffles that always seem to hold fish.  Today, though, almost every riffle held hungry fish waiting to capture a rising BWO.  As Pat Dorsey once noted, “riffle fish are feeding fish.”

Today, Pat’s statement was true.  It was a sight fisherman’s dream.

“It is an art that is performed on a four count rhythm between ten and two o’clock.”  The protagonist of A River Runs Through It quotes his father, a Presbyterian Minister, restating the phrase that was repeated so many times that it was tatooed upon his memory when he learned to cast “Presbyterian-style.”

Certainly, only a Presbyterian Minister would coin the phrase “on a four count rhythm between ten and two o’clock.”  Such constrictive parameters could only arise from the verdant field of protestant guilt.  Latter day Presbyterian Ministers would probably celebrate the differences of an unorthodox caster with a cliche that is one or two generations old.

“Hey, I’m cool to that.”  They might pronounce.

Ministers from an earlier era, though, would condemn a sinner to eternal damnation for a transgression such as taking the rod too far back.  In that sense, Norman McLean has painted a realistic picture in his book.

Interestingly enough, Norman, the protagonist, and his ill-fated brother, Paul, came to realize, after they became good fishermen, that their father was not a great caster.  He was, though, “accurate and stylish.”

This brief commentary on the book, is perhaps, appropriate.

I fished today with my son Sean.

Sean is both musical and a great caster.

Sean has the innate ability to vocalize rhythms that  he sees on a written score.  He can quickly translate what he sees into expressive solos on the snare.  This is something that the remainder of us, who are still counting “one and two and three,” aspire to, but can never attain.  Sean spent years on the drum line and I could always pick out his rhythms from the other drummers.

His musicianship and intuitive understanding of rhythm makes him a natural caster.  When he first started, he could easily throw any style of loop with grace and ease.  And just as he has advanced well beyond the constraints of counting rhythms out in a mechanical manner, so, too, has he advanced well beyond performing on a four count rhythm between ten and two.

Indeed, I don’t think he was ever a mechanical caster.  When I taught him to cast, he took to it like a fish to water.  “Accelerate, dead stop,” was my mantra at the time (hardly original).  After his first lesson, Sean was crafting tight loops.  He was also dead-on accurate.  Like his musical apptitude, Sean’s cast is highly improvisational.  Sean knows, intuitively, that the elegance of the fly cast can not be expressed in a simple rhythm.

In addition to being a natural caster, Sean is a Verdigre Creek veteran.  He first fished the creek back in the nineties.  He must have been six or eight.  But it had been a while since he had fished the Verdigre.

A cold front blew through last night.  Today, the temperatures, dipping below 30 degrees, challenged the both of us.  With two fresh inches of snow on the ground, the wind ate our casts and spat them back out in different directions.  I had been reticent.  I was not anxious to make the drive only to fish in raw conditions.  I knew that the fish would be holding tight and our chances for success would be slim.

Sean sensed this, but he wasn’t buying.  Or should I say, he wasn’t biting.

The fish were holding tight.  They moved very little.  Any offering would have to be placed right on the trout’s nose.

With accuracy that would make the best snipers jealous, Sean placed the fly right on the nose of the trout.  The trout took the fly and Sean set the hook.  The game was afoot.  The trout fought valiantly

The first trout of they day.  Sean’s smile spoke volumes.

The trout did a faceplant in the snow, but we got him back in the water quickly and he swam away strongly.

On a tough day, Sean was well into double digits.

Despite the cold, it turned out to be a surprisingly good day on the creek.  On the last full day of Winter, it was good to be on the Creek.

Over the last few days, the sunlight, what little could peer through clouds, melted the shroud of snow that surrounded Highway 275.  Corpses of deer litter the ditches.  Frozen in contorted and disfigured poses, giving us a clue as to their ultimate and untimely demise, the sunlight thaws their gruesome poses as the crows begin to scavenge.  I don’t know if the snow or frigid cold led them into the path of an oncoming car, it was, most certainly though, a contributing factor.

Winter has been gruesome this year in Nebraska.  Frigid cold in December, January, and February.  Blizzards in December,  constant snow for most of January and February.  While the Creek never freezes, despite the fact that nymph fishing is my bread and butter, I grew weary of chucking indy rigs.  This was probably more psychological than anything else, fishing nymphs under indicators became symbolic for the winter of our discontent (which was made inglorious by the fact that the sun did not shine at all).  We all suffered from seasonal affective disorder.

The temperature, however, had taken a turn.  We were on the tail end of a warming trend.  The snow, while still piled high in spots, was starting to melt.

And the first week of March on the Creek usually means the first dry fly fishing of the year.

Midges, mayflies, and caddis were boiling from the water.  The trout were eager to sip at the bounty.

The first brown of the day came on the first cast.   I saw the fish laying next to some cover, working in and out, taking flies near the surface.  I cast the fly, quartering upstream into a short drift.  The fish reared back, rose, and took the fly with a definitive gulp.  It is hard to say if I reacted to the sound or the sight.  Whatever the case may be, I raised the rod tip gently and drew the line tight.

After the first brown, I started catching rainbows.  It was as if the browns had all left the building.  Many of the ‘bows were sporting some nice spring colors.  I landed one that was big, I could speculate on the size, however, the adjective big will have to suffice.  As I set the fish up for the picture, he escaped.  This was, perhaps, the only depressing moment of the day, it was, indeed, a really big fish.

I recovered and reminded myself that I was well into double digits, there was no sense crying over spilled milk.

Then, it was back to browns.

And more browns.

And then some more rainbows.

Monday had been unseasonably warm.  The temperature was 58 degrees.  Fetching items that I’d forgotten, I’d managed to make it to the truck and back in my stocking feet several times.

Today, the temperature was ten degrees just outside of Neligh. Going outside in stocking feet was out of the question.

There was slush on the Elkhorn River and some sheet ice.  Many of the smaller ponds had frozen.

By the time I parked at the Bridge Pool, the thermometer read a balmy 21 degrees.  The water temperature, though, was 43.2 degrees.  Certainly, the water was warmer than the air; it was, none-the-less, cold.

The browns would be holding tight to cover, I’d have to put the fly right on the their noses to get a response.  The ‘bows would be a little more inquisitive, but not too much.  It would be a slow day.

It was still a little early in the season to fish scuds, they would be active in January.  It would, though, be possible to entice a trout with baetis imitations.  I tied on a Copper John Copper, size 16 to act as a stimulator, and dropped a size 20, beadhead Barr’s Emerger to the rear.  With the cold weather, fishing an indy rig would be standard procedure.

I tried several pools where the spring water kept the pool a little warmer than the surrounding creek.  I saw one ‘bow chase the Barr’s Emerger but he made his way quickly back to cover.  True to form, the browns were nowhere to be seen.

I made my way over to the bigger water.  It is usually a little more productive when the weather gets cold.  On the first cast, I saw a small twitch on the indicator.  I set the hook quickly.  The rainbow made his way toward the deeper water but I coaxed him up toward the shallows.  He made several nice runs before I brought him into the net.

I managed to catch several more rainbows.

Upstream, I was getting strikes, they were gentle and hard to set.  The Little Western Weedy Water Sedges were hanging about the heavier vegitation; a few baetis nymphs swam about here and there.  Despite the fact that the calendar still said fall, winter had come to the creek.

Sunrise reflecting in the Monolith Pool

Traces of Snow at Brown Alley

Sunrise on the Bridge

Ice on the Guides

Ice on the Top Top

Nice 'bow from the Big Water

Another Nice 'bow from the Big Water

Little Western Weedy Water Sedges (Amiocentrus aspilus)

Ice at the Weir

In Book VI of the The Brothers Karamzov, we learn how Father Zossima is transformed and is placed on the path to salvation.  In, perhaps, one of the greatest passages from literature (chapter 41), we see the mystical side of Zossima that stands in stark contrast to his days in the army.

It is a poignant sentiment to remember at a time when we give thanks.

Every day and every hour, every minute, walk round yourself and watch yourself, and see that your image is a seemly one. You pass by a little child, you pass by, spiteful, with ugly words, with wrathful heart; you may not have noticed the child, but he has seen you, and your image, unseemly and ignoble, may remain in his defenceless heart. You don’t know it, but you may have sown an evil seed in him and it may grow, and all because you were not careful before the child, because you did not foster in yourself a careful, actively benevolent love. Brothers, love is a teacher; but one must know how to acquire it, for it is hard to acquire, it is dearly bought, it is won slowly by long labour. For we must love not only occasionally, for a moment, but for ever. Everyone can love occasionally, even the wicked can.

My brother asked the birds to forgive him; that sounds senseless, but it is right; for all is like an ocean, all is flowing and blending; a touch in one place sets up movement at the other end of the earth. It may be senseless to beg forgiveness of the birds, but birds would be happier at your side — a little happier, anyway — and children and all animals, if you were nobler than you are now. It’s all like an ocean, I tell you. Then you would pray to the birds too, consumed by an all-embracing love, in a sort of transport, and pray that they too will forgive you your sin. Treasure this ecstasy, however senseless it may seem to men.

I found out the hard way that this unit was not waterproof.  I dropped it in the water.  The creek torched the two LR44, 1.5v cells.   The unit was worthless for the remainder of the day.

Sooner or later, if it is in your vest, it is going to get wet. Water is pretty much a constant with regard to fishing.

According to the flyer that accompanies the unit, the WJIT will give the most accurate readings when the unit is held as close to the water as possible.  I noted that, if the unit is held within a foot, the WJIT measured, on average, a degree, or more, below the the actual temperature of the water’s surface (as measured using a Fluke 53II Thermometer with an Omega .005 Gauge, Teflon Thermocouple).  The WJIT’s accompanying flyer indicates that for every foot away from the target, the unit will lose about 2 degrees of accuracy.  I found that the WJIT tended to lose about a degree, toward freezing, for every foot it is moved away from the target.  However, the ambient temperature seems to affect the accuracy of the unit.  For water that is near freezing, 32.3 degrees, with an ambient temperature of 55.2 degrees, the WJIT measures about 10 to 16 degrees warmer as you move the unit away from the target.

Ironically, when measuring hot liquids, the unit failed miserably.  I took several readings of a cup of coffee.  The Fluke indicated that the coffee was 144.7 degrees, the WJIT consistently indicated that the coffee was 132.9 degrees.  Since I spend little time fishing in coffee, I’m not really too concerned about the discrepancy.

To get the most accurate readings, as I’ve noted, the unit must be as close to the water as possible.  In practice, I found that when I did hold it as close to the surface as possible, water tended to splash into the unit (the unit complained by displaying the undecipherable error message “Err_25.” In all fairness, though, the unit continued to work).

William Joseph Thermometer - Front View

Is this unit worth $39.00?  I don’t think so.  It provides moderately accurate, but not “dead-on, balls accurate, ” readings.  When used in accordance with William Joseph’s directions, it can get pretty close.  Fly fishing, though, is a sport that doesn’t really reward “pretty close.”

The WJIT just not sturdy enough to use.  Sooner or later it will go under, or I’ll go under, with the unit attached.  After that, it’s unusable.

Save your money.

It was on my mind.

Conway Bowman had recommended bringing along medication for seasickness.  It was on my list, but higher priority items had pushed it to the bottom.  I didn’t pick any up.  My mind was trying to trick me into thinking that I was getting sick as we cruised out of the Harbor at Mission Bay out to the blue water.

I had nothing to fear but fear itself.  Nothing ever happened, but it was in the back of my mind all day.

Mission Bay is a no wake zone.  We cruised to the breakwater passing several large, almost gargantuan, cranes and barges.  They were reinforcing the breakwater with large boulders.  A barge, holding a heavy crane, listed lazily in the Santa Ana breeze.  The neighboring barge was laden with boulders, herculean in dimension.  Dave Trimble didn’t know where the came from.  Had they been granite, I mused, they probably would have come from the Sierras.  “But at tremendous expense,” I thought to myself.

Wherever they came from, they were massive.

My reverie was broken by the sound of the motor.  Trimble accelerated as we exited the Bay.

Right outside Mission Bay are the kelp beds.  Famous for harboring many species of fish.  We motor on, our destination is the continental shelf.

The sea life is spectacular.  We pass several mammalians.  Blue whales, bottlenose dolphins, common dolphins, and California sea lions (also know as dawgs or furballs).   We see several mola mola cruising the surface….

California Sea Lions

A Blue Whale in the Distance

On to Part V – The Chum Slick