As I sit here pecking away at the keys on this blog I dream of the summer and fall days of 2007 gone by I can't help but think of all the wonderful terrestrial moments I had both myself and with many of my guide clients. It makes me look forward with great anticipation of the coming 2008 terrestrial fishing...........it simply can't come soon enough!
My favorite fishing has to be summer beetle fishing to large fish that are in inches of water. There's something that makes it like hunting and fishing, and in the end one of the things that makes or breaks it is an angler's ability to stalk a fish. What a heart throbbing thrill it is to see a large fish, make a cast to the rear of its position (fish hears fly hit, turns and takes, and never sees angler, line, rod, or leader....). I have seen large browns lift half of their head out of the water. Then you, the angler, have to wait a microsecond as the fish starts down with its head to set the hook. Its interesting that so many folks bypass these opportunities, like walking upright into the tail of a pool without ever seeing the fish at their feet. The problem is that once you spook the near fish, he then runs upstream and spooks the next, and then all of the fish are spooked just like dominos, once set in motion, fall one by one. If there's a way to catch the fish of a lifetime, and maybe the brown of a lifetime, this may be the way to do it. Did I say I love to fish beetles........?
In the above clip, we had been casting to cruising fish in Dunlap Creek near Covington, VA. It gave a really neat opportunity to watch the slow, deliberate rise to a beetle that trout often do. I got really excited, and my first words were "there, he's got it, ....sweet!!!!!......." and to which the person fishing, Mike Perry of Thomasville, NC, whom I was guiding replied ".......that's intoxicating." And it definitely is. Once you've had a taste of it, you can never get enough. I can't wait !
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