On this particular day, the river was unfishable by most standards and only a couple bank eddies provided a thin sliver of opportunity. Even in those “spots”, I dared not wade out into the water more than a step or two. Just enough room for some semblance of a poor roll cast weaving my body, rod and fly line through the intricacies of the shore line flora on every cast. In all honesty, what I had to do to deliver the fly probably didn’t qualify as a cast but it was good enough in these conditions.

Upon “gearing up”, I walked up the path along the creek and hit the first fishable spot with my two-fly nymph rig dangling under a float. I had just tied two new fly patterns days before and was motivated to give them enough water time to assess their effectiveness.  My frustration with the high water, lack of fishable water and not even so much as a bump from a trout beat me into submission after only about 45 minutes so. I reluctantly conceded to the river gods and headed back to the Jeep.

On the walk back, I felt a ting of guilt for giving up so quickly and talked myself into fishing a deeper section of the creek near the parking area. I avoided it previously because the depth drop directly off the bank was about 6 feet and the creek bank was choked with high weeds and small trees. I tied on two of my confidence flies a size 12 weighted Prince Nymph and  size 14 old school Hare’s ear and pushed my way through the head high brush to the edge of the water.

I must have looked totally inept as I poked my 10 foot nymphing rod through the brush and over the water making a flip cast up stream that landed my rig only 6 or 7 feet from my position. The struggle is real! I repeated the awkward flip cast four times. On the fifth cast my indicator floated only several inches before ducking under water at an angle toward the middle of the creek. My instincts took over and I went into a near perfect trout hookset.

The fight was on! The fish bulldogged into the deepest and fastest part of the pool using the current and it’s wide tail to take control. I could do little other than direct the fish. I could feel the wide slow throbbing head shake of the trout signalling that it was a big fish. After several deep runs and a close call with a downed tree, I could feel the end was near.

It wasn’t until the final seconds of the battle that the fish surfaced. Now I knew why I had struggled to bring the fish to the net. The brown trout looked like an NFL tackle and it nearly busted out of the net when I made the last and final scooping motion that ended the tug of war. It was done! I had my trophy brown on a day when I thought that I’d go home empty handed.  I few quick shots and he was back in the water leaving me with a smile from ear to ear.

Anglers are often seen as eternal optimists. So true. Every cast brings new opportunity and new hope. On this day, a few last casts resulted in one of my best brown trout of the year. More importantly, the memory will be locked away saved for a day far into the future when my body is no longer capable of traversing the flowing waters of PA that have been an integral part of my life since my earliest memories.