In Gravity's Rainbow, Pynchon describes paranoia: "If the bastards get you to ask the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about their answers." Well, today, in Harriman, I never felt I was asking the right questions.
Perhaps it was my late start. I'd intended to head off around 7, but June didn't get home last night until around 2 AM, and when I woke this morning, I turned over to get a few more winks rather than hopping into the car. In the event, I didn't get onto the stream until nearly noon.
Perhaps it was the heat. "Low 80s" became mid 80s. Making my late start even more problematic.
Perhaps it was my desire to explore more of the river. I decided to skip all of the water I'd fished last week, and to explore the upper reaches. While it wasn't obvious when I started, it was painfully obvious when I walked out that the best structures were in middle reaches of the stream, which I'd mostly skipped.
I did see a few large fish, in the first couple of structures I fished. The water was low, quiet, and absolutely clear. My first few casts spooked fish. You could see a school of fish (mostly small dace, but with a few much larger shapes - obviously trout - mixed in). They would scatter below my approaching line, then coalesce back to the center after it landed.
Then I lengthened my leader to about 14', which, on a small stream with small structures, made for challenging casts. At least then I could cover a couple of nice fish without obviously spooking them, but they showed absolutely no interest in my dry flies.
My best shot at a nice fish was in large pocket, shortly after lengthening my leader. The brown trout looked to be 14" or 15". I could see it very clearly, holding comfortably in a V shaped slot between two boulders, in the gentle current. The water was crystal clear, with almost no turbulence.
I crept up as close as I dared, about 25' behind him. My only shot, as I saw it, was to launch a long cast (45' or so) to the very head of the pocket, to get my fly high into the current lane, and hope it would drift my fly through the slot. Too low, and it would catch the current braid passing the wrong side of the right hand boulder.
I felt this was one of those casts which had to be right the first time. With fish this spooky, your odds of catching go down about 90% with each cast.
In the event, I got off what I thought was a perfect cast, but my fly didn't drift. Unfortunately, it had snagged some brush right at the head of the pocket. The cast couldn't have been more than an inch or two long. As soon as I pulled on my fly line - still gently I thought - the taught line pulled out of the water and the fish spotted it. Spooked, it shot back towards me, then saw me, turned instantly and shot upstream past my line into the next pocket.
That was my last real shot, though I spent another 4 hours in denial. After that, I didn't see another nice fish (for possible reasons, see above).
I did catch a lot of fish. One pumpkinseed, and a ton of Dace. No trout.
At least I was challenged. For 5 hours. I am nothing if not persistent. No regrets.
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