Motionless (report with pics)

(More pics on the blog)

“Time to wake up Dad!” my daughter yelled from somewhere in the house. It was 9:20 a.m. on Sunday, the time I asked my wife to wake me. Turns out my wife was having a difficult time sleeping and decided to vacate the house early in order to do some much needed grocery shopping. With my feet firmly planted on the floor and wiping the sleep from my eyes, I smiled to myself, it was time to fish! One shower and a knock on my front door later, Donny P and I were hurling up I-75 in search of a cold trout stream and a few willing participants. In hindsight the cold trout stream was easy to find. The willing participants however, were not.

Sunday, weather wise, was forecast to be the nicer of the two weekend days. Both Donny P and I could not think of a better way to spend the day then being knee deep in a trout stream. As the luck of being an Average Joe Fisherman would have it, everybody and their brother thought the same thing. There were vehicles and fresh boot prints everywhere. While not seeing it with my own two eyes, I am pretty sure the trout were tucked as far into cover as possible, terrified and trembling.

The day was in fact beautiful. The air was cool and crisp and contrasted the warming sensation of the bright sun. The sky was a brilliant blue with a few fluffy dazzling white clouds thrown around here and there for good measure. The temperature gauge on my truck read 45 degrees. While I was looking forward to spending the day with my good friend and I relish the opportunity to fish with him, I could not help but look forward to the time when my daughter will be my main fishing partner. I have so many fond memories of fishing with my father and grandfather and will forever be closer to them because of the time spent on a stream. I hope to do the same for her.

After almost an hour of fishing, one small brown trout decided to throw caution to the wind and smacked my Panther Martin spinner. With the fear of being “skunked” gone, I reached for my camera, pushed the power button and immediately saw the battery indicator. It was bright red and flashing at me. The LCD screen immediately shut off. Ugh! It was going to be that kind of day. I took the picture anyway.

While standing in the deepest part of a run, I saw some movement not three feet from me. An eight inch brown trout was swimming around an oblong rock. Upon further inspection, the rock was not a rock, but a twenty inch brown trout! It was sitting there motionless. My spinner had gone by it countless times before I knew it was there. Realizing that the large trout was spawning Don and I left it alone, but not before we took a couple of long looks at it, admiring its spots, and taking in its beauty. What a creature it was, lying there motionless, fully aware of our presence. It was almost like it was saying, “Look, I am the apex predator in this stream, not you, and I am not moving!” This was the first spawning trout I have seen this year and I find it funny because the very next day I read a post about spawning trout by BiggerrFish on his blog. You can read his post here - http://bigerrfish.blogspot.com/2010/11/ ... clear.html

To say the fishing was tough would be an understatement. But the weather was spectacular, the company even better, and it turns out my camera will stay take pictures while almost out of power. Just another day in paradise.

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