Hmmm… for starters, if you’re fortunate enough to have clicked your way to this page you’re either a fisherman, you like things to do with fish, are interested in the sport or are just lucky to be here.  It’s the time of year where lots of fishermen and women take to open water during any semi-available time of day to quench the thirst of itchy casting arms.  I’ve heard of a few successful outings thus far – probably more near-successes than anything else.  Many                 state agencies are beginning their fish stocking and the water and weather is warming, so don’t burn yourself out yet.  Let this be a practice period, the season is just starting!
 
                           Fishnewengland.org has been up and goin’ for about 4 or months now.  When I spoke with the owner/administrator guy he said the goal of this site was to simply “be fishy”; bait fishing, spin casting, worms, lures, trout, bass, catfish, you get the idea.  And not to be forgotten?  Yup, fly fishing.

                         Fly fishing is thought by many to be a sport of the elite, where one stands knee deep in serene ripples of river current, casting a majestic dry fly (on fluorescent line, of course) to rising trout.  Sure, whatever.  I grew up fishing the rivers, streams and beaver ponds of southern Vermont.  My 7 foot fly rod had a beat-up cork handle, two eyelets were missing and my non-majestic fly line was split-pea-with-ham green.  Did I catch fish with it?  Absolutely; I caught fish all the time and lots of them.  I caught trout, from brookies to browns, and bass from large to smallmouth.  The most valuable lesson I learned with my fly rod was that during the dog days of summer, when water temperatures are near boiling and fish are sluggish, it’s hard to beat a slow-fished fly of any type.  As with most types of fishing, fly fishing often requires you to tweak your techniques to suit a particular situation.  Catching fish might actually require you to break the traditional norms and think one step beyond the usual fishing scenario.

                          That’s the foundation for which this column will be based – to think more “out of the box” and let your fishing be done to simply catch fish.  I can recall a beautiful stretch of water just below the Ball Mountain Dam in the upper West River (Jamaica, Vermont).  When I was younger this stretch used to be home to an unmatched brown trout fishery.  I used to bike several miles down from our family farm with my fishing vest zipped tight, my rod strapped to my back and visions of brown trout dancing in my head.

                  On one particular June morning, a passing rain shower had left us good and soaked.  I hammered out morning chores and bolted out the door.  The water was murky brown and just wreaked of ravenous, feeding trout.  After reaching the river and enjoying a few hours of post-rain fishing, I had managed a few fish on my mangled muddler minnow but wasn’t having the luck I knew I should be having.  I rounded one bend about two miles below the dam and saw another human – very rare given the time and location.  But what a spectacular human this was!  He was standing board-straight in thigh-deep water casting a wide arc of fluorescent green fly line.  From about 80 yards distant I could see all the miscellaneous shiny items dangling from his vest, and his not-yet-used - dry - net hanging from his waist.

   I waited until the casting human moved down to the next stretch of river.  “Heck, there’s no harm in trying where he just did”.  I hoped the whole time the water was murky enough so that his 40 foot arc of glowing fly line hadn’t spooked any fish.  Next, I did what most sane adolescents would do.  I reached onto my vest and found my Big League Chew pouch.  From it I extracted one of my Mepps #1 Gold spinners.  I snipped off about two feet of my leader and tied a swivel onto the thicker line.  “There’s no reason that brown trout wouldn’t love grape flavored bubble gum anyway”.
   
           Though some would consider this technique slightly unconventional, a fly rod can be used to lob a spinner into the current.  The spinner is then stripped back up a current edge to the human, much in the same fashion as fishing a streamer fly.  On about the third lob-and-strip cast sequence I was successfully landing a juicy 15 inch brown.  Fortunately for me, the net affixed to my vest is occasionally used to hold fish.  And this single fish would fill it – and the frying pan – quite nicely. 
   
              So is there anything to be gained from having read this blurb of text you were so lucky to click on?  Well, yeah.  The act of catching a fish takes on many forms.  If the goal is to catch fish, does it matter which technique you used so long as you’re having fun and enjoying the process?  Sometimes the best technique might be a few different kinds mixed together.  Think out-of-the-box, and welcome to fishnewengland.org!



Vaughn perkins 2008 www.whitetailmicroplotters.net