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Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Hooky

A mountain of reasons to go were in my head as I hung up the phone with Wilkie to think it over. It did not take long before I re-dialed his number and made the arrangements. Departure as soon as I crank out some Woolly Buggers and a Woody or two. Hooky of the finest kind. Fuck everything else hooky. Fish your ass off tomorrow or sit on it all day pissed off you didn't go hooky.

Days like these happen so infrequently, yet for some reason I just knew it would be one. Two or three of my previous days like this were in Maine; the rest in northern Quebec. Days where you decide at numerous moments that you'd like to catch a fish pretty damn soon and then you do. Days when you take turns. Days when you can't help but smile when you've got another one on. Days when you keep count to see what it actually ends up at. Days when you catch a fish on your last cast. Days like these.

Why is it that Poseidon gives a smile and a wink to us every now and then? A thank you for all the liquor and beer offerings you've given him? A touch of reward for all those skunks? More likely, a false sense that you actually know how to catch some fish. Or perhaps he likes to see you have a good time. At any rate, I better get my next skunk out of the way sooner rather than later.

The actual story: Just like Wilkie wrote in his post, the fishing was just nuts. Flies you love to catch fish on, Stimulators and Buggers, doing the trick in every pool we came to. Fish in the first three casts at, no joke, every single pool. Water temps a dozen degrees cooler than the mighty Kennebec and a perfect flow to match. Gravel-bottomed riffles leading into deep drop-off, ledge-banked pools around each bend in the stream. Ask me for the count and I'll give it to you.



"Lookout Mountain" - Drive-By Truckers

4 comments:

Keith said...

Awesome video and a stellar trip guys. It was funny, after I got off the phone with Wilkie I was talking to Ethan, who fishes twice a year with his dad in Maine, and I told him you guys had an awesome day. He asked where you were and I told him you guys were on a stream that runs into the Kenebec up north. He goes, "Oh were they on Cold Stream?" I was like "Uh actually they were." He goes "We fish Cold Stream and Cold Pond every year in the spring. Its a great fishery but we've never fished it middle of the summer" Pretty random huh?

Andrew Wilkie said...

Jesse, I swung by my parent's house at lunchtime just to get a highspeed connection so I could watch this vid. Stellar work, loved the intro with the clips of google earth going to the beat of the song. Keith, Cold Stream Pond is upstream about five or six miles. Lots of road access to the stream up there but the stream is much smaller. This stretch we were on proved very difficult to access without a good GPS and some serious scouting on unmapped roads. We'll have to get you up there in the fall.

Keith said...

You know I'm down. How about next Friday morning? I need to go up to Stowe NH for Pete Lyneis' bachelor party friday night. I could run to your place Thursday night and then we could fish friday morning. From there I could head to VT.

I find it crazy funny that the fishing there is so good because the water is cold right now in the middle of the summer so all the Kennebec fish move up the stream. Yet the name of the stream is "cold stream". It's amazing that nobody's caught on! You'd think it would be an obvious place to fish!

Jesse Lance Robbins said...

told my old man about the trip on saturday evening and he was on the road by 6 am the next day. sounds like he didn't find the exact spot we parked, but got to the river and fished it all the way to the confluence with the kenne. he and a buddy got 13, i think he said.