Sometimes It Rains

Sometimes it rains. Sometimes it even rains every day for a week. WNY has been getting hammered this year, which is a distinct difference from the draught conditions the area was stricken with at this time last year. 

It has been messing up the spinner falls this year. I even got chased off by lightening right as a big green drake hatch started on the Wiscoy. It was my first experience there. We watched single drakes pop off and get dive bombed by swallows, only for them to explode into a heavy fall that finally woke up the fish. It was like God was playing a cruel joke as we saw the storm move in, complete with ground-crashing lightening. We ran out with broken down rods, scared to death that the next roll of thunder would lead to a demise inducing crash. 

But all things end. Between these storms we have had moments of clarity. Like a day on the Oatka when the black caddis were so thick that your daily value of protein was satisfied simply by breathing. The fish were hungry that day. Loving the cold water, high flows and lack of fishing pressure. 

Life can be a lot about perspective.... and sometimes it rains. 

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My Mantra

At my age, there aren't too many life lessons that I got a handle on yet. There are a few things that I do know though. I know that nothing in life is easy. If you want a better life, you have participate in the process of getting it. If you want to fish the for something you haven't fished for before, you have to buy a plane ticket. If you want to become a better person, then you have to make a daily conscious effort to become a better man/woman. Write down the things you want to accomplish. Look at them every morning and make plans for your day that get you one step closer to that goal. 

Don't type them into a word document and save them in your documents folder. In fact, they should rename that folder. "Where Dreams Go To Die" is a more fitting title than anything you could possibly name it. There is a change that happens when you physically write something down with pen and paper. So write down your dreams. Look at them daily. Then plan your day as if your only goal is to get one step closer to each of those goals. 

If you want to live life to it's fullest... the first thing you have to do is live.

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I Can Feel It Coming In The Air Tonight...

80mph Winds

Sideways Snow

Ice-coated Beards

These are all things that I can feel falling behind us as we walk steadily towards spring. The other day... well... I fished olives for the first time this year. Every reservoir around seems to have it's ice melting quickly away. So I have been throwing big streamers into the open water in hopes of a hungry pike coming up to take advantage of his new bounty. The rivers will soon be filled with mayflies and I will shed my waders in exchange for wet wading. 

I am so excited that I could piss myself.

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My Fishing Buddy

Did he bite me several times as a puppy? Sure... but he got over it. I think it was all of the fishing trips that made him trust me. Or maybe the cold water made him mellow out. No, I got it... it was the dead pike that he rolled in last summer. Ever since then, he realized that when I tell him not to do something, it is in his best interest.
       
Dogs don't feel hate, jealousy or care if you fart with the windows up on a long car ride. They are just happy to be going fishing with you. Getting wet and sniffing the fish you catch is nothing less than the bee's knees. My dog knows that I wont leave him or let him get swept away in the current. He knows that he is part of the fishing trip, not just along for the ride. Most of all, he knows he can trust me.
 
Yup... it had to have been the dead pike.              
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Release

Finning, gliding silently
Over pebbles, 'neath a tree
Seeking minnows, worms, insects
Holes where rocks the flow bisects

Brightly spotted sides of brown
The slightest sound will put him down
Lurking, hunting as he goes
Still he must beware his foes

The eagle, heron and the fox
Weasel, coon and man who stalks
About his world with hook and fur
Feathers, tinsel, line a blur

Man shoots the line and sees it rest
Above the square-tail in his nest
Among the currents, rocks and foam
Safe in his riparian home

Sees an insect, hunger sounds
Like a bell, upward he bounds
Grabs the insect from the flow
Closes maw and turns to go

Panic now besets the fish
Flee this place his fondest wish
Hindered by an unseen force
He turns and there beholds the source

Man has tricked him, he must run
Deeper, away from the sun
Under logs or behind rocks
Far from where the man now stalks
Muscles now begin to ache

He wishes to regain the lake
In deeper water he could hide
Rest himself, restore his pride

Now he's in man's mighty grip
The pain has left his lower lip
He scarcely can believe his fins
Man picked him out and then back in

He swims and ponders on this thing
Why man would cause the line to sing And wrest him from his river home
Just to leave the stream alone

Written By: Kenneth A Davy