Tying up loose ends ...

I notice that I left a loose end in the beginning of the blog concerning this picture here below:

The Modern Mink with a Story

 

   Obviously something has happened to this fly. What? Well we were on a family outing by a nice little lake. We had a little barbecue and were in general quite happy with life. Naturally I had in the back of my mind that some dry fly fishing would be a proper dessert.

    Unfortunately it seemed that the trout had agreed that they would have a hunger strike that evening. No action whatsoever when it comes to surface feeding. We were about to give up since it was getting dark and the path to the lake isn't so easy to walk in such circumstances. Then I suddenly heard a trout taking something from the surface. Yes, I'm not kidding it was clearly audible although a little harder to see.

    OK, I set out in the boat and took the oars to calmly try to get a closer look and see if I could tempt the trout to take my fly. It was a weary trout and I had to be very careful since there was almost dead calm on the surface. Then I suddenly saw some action on the surface. I tried to cast my fly without rocking the little boat too much. I couldn't see the fly since it was almost pitch dark.

    Almost like when a friend in the north of Sweden had taken us down to over 800 meters down in a mine and switched off the lights on the vehicle. Have never experienced anything darker in my life.

    Only truly passionate fly fishers are crazy enough to take a boat out on a lake when it's almost pitch dark hoping to catch a trout. Well I'm certainly among that crowd. Like a rod  builder and designer said when he was going to help me fixing one of my rods: ”Fly fishing is not an interest or a hobby it's a disease”. I definitely have that ”bug”.

    Well back to the trout where I had placed my fly near to i's last known location. The place where I had seen the trout take something from the surface. Then, just like that, I saw a trout taking something from the surface from where my fly should be. I lifted the rod and felt a heavy weight on the other end of the line. I almost got into a panic state because my fly line were entangled on the bottom of the boat and I couldn't give any line. I thought that the battle was lost already in the beginning. It was almost like the trout was towing the boat away. Just waited for the tippet to brake but strangely it didn't and after a while I had been able to get some line loose from the mess it had become and could play the trout. 

   But I didn't have much line to give so I had to play him hard. Finally I saw something just by the boat and happily I had a net with me and could net the trout. It was a gorgeous old brown trout and in the net the fly came loose. So that was what happened to the fly above. The shape tells the same story. I can't express what I felt but it surely was an event beyond happy. 

   Since it was late in the season and we hadn't had a descent trout meal for a while I took the trout home and the whole family had a delicious dinner together the other day. Have never used that fly ever since that. It's a constant reminder that It can pay off to persevere in fly fishing.