Columbus Day Trout Marathon

I shot out of bed as the alarm rang at 5:40am.  By 6:00am I was on the road headed to central PA.  Three hours and forty-five minutes later I pulled into the fly shop to pick up some flies and get a fishing report.  By 10:15 I was making the first cast.  I began fishing streamers and hooked a few fish.  Then I moved down stream to fish dries.  I saw a sporadic rise or two, but couldn’t get any trout to rise.  I switched tactics and began nymphing and brought a few more trout to the net.  The rest of the day I fished through with streamers to pick off the aggressive fish and then came back with the nymph rig to clean up the rest.  The highlight of the day was the last fish that was hooked just after sunset.  A beast of a fish slammed a small olive slumpbuster that was given to me by one of the guides at the fly shop that morning.  The fish pulled hard and I knew it was the fish of the day.  A few runs up and down stream, I had the fish under control.  Then it went ballistic, the fish shot out of the water like a nuke from a sub.  After a few summersaults and head shakes the line went limp.  The fish was gone.  It was a great trout, a 20 plus incher with big shoulders.  Losing a fish is always a real disappointment.  This was a little different.  I was disappointed, but I had an appreciation for this amazing fish.  It came out to play and it played hard.  I was in awe at this large fish that had just slammed my fly and won the fight.  The take, and the fight were awesome, but the acrobatics were the cherry on top.  That fish jumping out of the water is the stuff fishing stories are made of.