I think the word "epic" is way over used, but I just can't think of another word to describe my latest fishing trip. I recently got a top secret tip from a friend about a small pond located on Forest Service land far from anything. He said there were some pretty decent sized brooke trout. As most of you know brooke trout and decent sized and brooke trout don't usually go together in the same sentence. So needless to say he had my attention. So fishing my partner and I swore our lives to secrecy, and made plans to find this out of the way piece of paradise. We loaded up my pick up, and then proceeded to beat the poor thing to pieces following a barely discernible jeep trail for, as far as we could, before it petered out. We then loaded day packs on our backs, grabbed our fishing poles, and headed off down a small atv trail. That only lasted about another couple hundred yards, and then it was time to bush whack the remainder of the way as there wasn't even a game trail. This wouldn't have been too bad except that the area is infested with rattle snakes. Fortunately we made it to the pond without seeing any. It wasn't too long and we were into the fish. The first fish was small that my partner landed, but I had a big one miss my lure right in front of me and I suspected things could get really good...
IT DID!!!
Pretty soon my partner had a good one on too.
The water in the pond was really clear and the fish were cooperative. This may not be Heaven, but it was pretty close.
Once we got the fish figured out, we sounded like two little kids on Christmas morning showing each other what new gift each had received. In our case each gift came from the water and we couldn't have been more excited or happier. My partner ended up catching the biggest brookie of his life, so he was extra happy. Neither the rattle snake he stumbled upon or the wasp that stung him right below his right eye could deter his happiness. It was a great day. For a while the wind got pretty crazy and I had to turn my hat around backwards to keep it from blowing off, but we still caught fish after fish for several hours.
Eventually the day started to grow a little late and neither of us wanted to hike back out in the dark with the threat of so many snakes around. So I asked my partner to take one last photo of me as I was stepping up off the bank of the pond in preparation to leave. I wanted to remember the moment, the day, the whole trip. If not for the rattle snakes this would be literally Heaven on earth. I'm not sure when I'll have time to return, but whether I do or not, this one day was literally epic and etched in my memory forever.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Thumper
