Sunday Morning Session

The alarm broke the silence like finger nails on a chalk board and I quickly rolled over to find the snooze in the darkness. Having fine tuned the entire process I was back fast asleep in no time until 10 mins later and dammit the submarine was sinking once again. Those of you with IPhones will know the tone. It is unmistakable and will wake the most hung over of individuals in a heartbeat. It is an evil tone directly sent from Lucifer himself but this morning it was different. It was semi welcomed. Semi meaning only met with 3 or 4 snooze sessions. With Saturday's successes still fresh in my mind and visions of monster bucks and chrome hens I managed to pull my aching bones from the warmth of the bed and out to the kitchen to put some coffee on for the useless rubes in the other bedroom. We all must have shared the same excitement as the boys were soon to follow. We found ourselves on route to the river shortly after first light. The word must have gotten out as our first choice of starting water was well populated. We shook it off and put the legs to work and hiked down river. The early exercise was a mixed blessing as the morning temps were a crisp -13 C on the truck thermometer. The snow crunched under our feet as we navigated through the forest along the river. We were blessed to have the remainder of the river to ourselves this morning and spaced ourselves out in a very long sweet section of productive water. It didn't take long before we each had a couple of lb fish to our credit and I noted just how much colder the water felt on the hands this morning. I also felt a burning sensation on the tips of my ears that was certainly reminiscent of January and February Steelheading.
Unknown to me Harv had hooked up with a nice hen and put her on the bank for a quick photo op with Arns help. I was out in the river on a sweet little gravel bar that virtually isolated me from any other company up or down river. I had just happened to retrieve my rig and looked down river to notice a fish had come up to the surface just before a large sunken tree about 25 yards down from where I was standing. I gently dropped my float in front of me and watched in anticipation as my rig approached the location. And like it was scripted my float slowly disappeared followed by a quick and firm hook set. The surface of the water erupted and then line screamed from my reel as another very large fish shot down and across the river.

Suddenly a giant buck leaped from the water on the other side of the river upstream from the direction my line indicated the fish was headed. The brute was racing through the run so fast that the line drag in the current didn't allow me time to catch up with him.  A sudden feeling of hopelessness set upon me for what felt like the next 15 mins as I tried fruitlessly to persuade the beast to come to my grasp. Harv came out to the gravel bar to assist when things started to look like I had a remote chance of success. We got the fish to within ten feet of our location when the rod went silent. I was certain the fish had gotten me on some wood directly in front of us in some deeper water so I released all tension and watch the float waiver in the current void of life. I was about to give up and try and pull it out when the float moved a foot sideways and the game was once again on. After another couple of minutes we managed to get the fish about a foot from Harv's grasp when it seen his mug and made one last ditch effort at freedom. I was a good call on his part as the hooked popped free and came back at me with a nasty mess of braided line tangled on it. The braid must have been the culprit of the initial snag and it was a wonder that it became untangled from the bottom without my line breaking. Good knots and good Flouro I guess. By now I was almost relieved as my hands were in a very poor state.

I remember fishing one December with Norland in the Shire and his hands were so cold fighting a giant fish that he was begging me to take the rod and spell him off . I now knew what he felt that day and as I attempted to warm my hands in my jacket warming pockets the pain intensified as they came back to life. Big fish have their place I thought to myself but this location was no place to fight giant fish. Especially without a net. I shook it off rather well and at least Harv got a good look at the beast as did I when it did it's initial jump from the river. After my hands regained dexterity we fished the section a little more before secumming to Arn's desire to hike through the brier patch to the inside of Suicide.

We made the hike from hell and fished that miserable piece of water to no avail once again. Don't get me wrong...it is nice water but I have learned that it has it's time and place and is better fished when fish are starting to do their business. We plugged away fishing our way back towards the access site. Arn lost another decent fish in the middle of the river as did I. By now it was getting towards the middle of the day and we had a long drive home so we made the call to "high-tail it" out of the valley and get back to the cabin to pack up. It was a good morning outing with everyone experiencing victories and defeats. Things are headed the right way and with the coming weeks warming trend they can only get better. It's always a lot of fun when the boys get together for a reunion and this trip proved to be no different. I sincerely hope our schedules align once or twice again over the coming month for an opportunity to better our successes and increase upon our laughs.

Norland is a DB!