By Tom Keer
A half-dozen boulders as large as a Volkswagen Beetle sat at the head of the pool, and trout held exactly where you’d expect them to be. Some were in the hollowed-out river bottom in front of each rock, others finned in the slow water inside the vee current while smaller fish drifted in the soft flow further downstream. Bouncing a Goddard caddis or a Stimulator off the rock always produced a strike, but those paled in comparison to the best spot. The best place was 30 yards downstream and in the middle of the pool.
The kidney shaped pool was joined by a feeder stream that ran down the mountain. In the spring, run-off hammered down the mountain and when it dumped into the river the force hollowed out a deep trough along the bank. Trout held in that slower water against the bank, and they were among the biggest trout in the river. Rainbows and brookies liked the faster water, but if your goal was to hang a big brown then this was the place to do it. Nighttime was the right time, but when a hatch came off those big fish lost their head.
Ray Bergman wrote about that kind of pool that was lined with ancient maples that when they turned color you’d swear you stood in the middle of an oil painting. It was a process to get to the river but it was always worth it. I’d ride my bike down Main Street to Center Street and take the dirt road to the bridge. Everyone wondered why I’d go around my elbow to kiss my thumb, but the more direct route had a gravel path that was tough. My tires shook when rolling down hill, and if I slipped on the loose shale I could wipe out and break my rod. But the direct way saved 45 minutes, and since it meant more fishing time I took that route every time, even in the rain.
A chapter in one of those books talked about some nymphs that burrowed in the mud and silt of slow-moving water. Most fishermen around here called ‘em Giant Mayflies or Golden Mayflies, but that’s because they hadn’t enrolled in a Latin class. If they had studied that ancient language then they might have figured out that the giant burrowing mayfly was called a Hexagenia limbate, or a Hex for short. Around here those flies hatched in July and August when all I had on my mind was bucking hay, playing football and hammering fish.
Ray Bergman also said that of the most common trout species—brookie, brown, and rainbow—the brown trout was the most difficult to catch. He said they were smarter, preferred low-light conditions, and were tough enough to survive higher water temperatures. Although Bergman didn’t come right out and say it, I could tell he believed brookies and rainbows were inferior catches. There was something about brookies lashing out at anything gaudy while rainbows smoked any fast-moving fly. Brown trout were the best, and if I could catch one, and a big one at that, I’d be a great fly fisherman. My name would be etched into some mythological ledger that maintained the names of all of the world’s best brown trout fishermen. Where ledger was I did not–and still do not–know, but Ray’s name had to be in it. I’d figure out the ledger thing later on, because I first had to catch the fish.
Mr. Beaumont used to fish, and he knew I’d rather be on the river than bucking hay. One hot, humid day in the middle of the Hex hatch, he said that I could go when the hay wagon was empty. You’ve never seen 50-pound square bales offloaded and restacked with such precision and when I was done Mr. Beaumont was pleased. I did ask him why a bale measuring about a foot by a foot and a half by three feet was called square. He scratched his head and asked me if I wanted to go fishing or if I’d prefer to round up another load of square bales that I could stack tomorrow? I headed to the river before he could change his mind.
Bergman said nymphs got active before the hatch started, and there were a few bugs coming off. The sun was still above the tree line and the temperatures were warm, so I twisted on a Hex nymph and added a couple or three pinches of split shot. I’d throw in a mend or two to get that fly on the bottom which is exactly where Bergman said they’d be.
I cast and cast and cast until I thought there was no glory in whipping the water to a froth. By now, the sun was starting to set and the fish started rising. Off came the split shot and on went a big size 10 dry. No sooner did that Hex dry land on the water than it was sucked in and disappeared.
Fishing a 4X tippet meant I could hammer on that fish and get a hookset appropriate to a trophy fish. I reared back with my rod, and the line shot through the guides. The click/pawl drag sang with every steady tug, and I had hung a beast. I saw my backing for the first time since I spooled the reel, and dang if I didn’t wonder if that Albright was going to hold? The backing ripped through the surface water of the pool, and when it started to get low I got worried.
To keep from getting totally spooled I used a technique I saw on a TV show called the American Sportsman. I pumped my rod back and reeled down, then pumped back, and reeled down. You’d think I was fighting a grander tuna instead of a trout, but that technique worked here in the sweetwater, too. I made progress, first with the backing, and then there was the line. When I saw the butt section of the monofilament leader my hands started to shake.
In the tannin-stained water flashed the most beautiful, luscious gold ingot. There wasn’t a second to waste, no time to gawk. I pushed my rod back, shoveled the net so hard through the water’s surface that I left a wake, and scooped up that fish. That monster brown that Bergman talked about was mine. It didn’t take long to figure that if I gave half of this colossal fish to Mr. Beaumont he’d let me out early every afternoon for the rest of the summer. That’s how the mind of the obsessed seems to work, and mine was in overdrive.
I hoisted the net and looked in to take a first look at my prize, but that trout had lips puckered like my classmate Susan Roudie’s, and they were the ones I wanted to kiss. There were no black spots, there were no red dots, and the eye sockets weren’t black as coal. This wasn’t a trout, and a few moments later I figured out what it was. I caught a miserable, trash-feeding carp.
If Bergman were watching I figured he’d be shaking his head. He’d be let down, disappointed that I wasted his education on a trash fish that was fat and heavy from sucking up every brown trout egg in a redd. Bergman probably would have pointed out that in this carp’s gut was at least one egg that could have created the 25-incher that would have landed me in the record book. My face got hot, my jaw hurt from being clenched, and I cocked back my arm to fling this trash deep into the woods. If I gave this fish to Mr. Beaumont, I’d be stuck doing two-a-days of hay bucking. This inglorious fish deserved a fate of being fed to another lowly animal like a racoon or a skunk. I cocked my arm way back and prepared for a good fling.
I was about to whip him into the brush when I stopped. Hmmm….. That carp put up a damn good fight. In fact, it fought much better than any trout I had caught. He didn’t deserve to be flung in the woods. Instead, I released him as gently as I did a native brookie. But one thing was for sure; there was no way I wanted to catch another.
