TroutLegend

Well folks.  Long story short: “heartbreak weekend.”  I knew my odds at placing high enough to make the team were slim at best, but there’s always that little hopeful child deep in your soul that says: “maybe, just maybe!

Tuesday: After ferrying my 4 year old off to PreSchool I race home and pack the car and rocket towards State College, PA.  5 hours later I meet up with my Team Captain Leanord Sauers and we spend a couple hours throwing various patterns at picky wild trout on Big Fishing Creek.  Looks like the fish are keying in on patterns with rubber legs and smaller nymphs without hotspots seem to be the ticket.  Around 7pm I meet up with my roomies’ Kevin Compton and Randy Hanner.  It’s good to see old friends and we wax poetical about the competitive scene and fly tying late into the night over a few beers.  As always Kevin has all his wares with him including a rack of primo Dohiku Hooks and a box full of Coc-De-Leon capes that you could probably trade straight up for a car.

Wednesday: I meet up with my 2 other teammates Kevin Thomson and Barney Nailor and we bang our heads against Fishing Creek again for a few hours and then decide to high tail it over to Penns Creek.  Making our way over the mountain pass we find many of the competitors and the Youth Team practicing at Poe Paddy Park Campground area.  We hike upstream a bit and work our way down.  The fishing is tough on some seriously heavily pressured water, but we all manage a few.  All of a sudden a slim figure appears from the woods and jumps in a stretch of river I just fished.  It’s an older gentlemen wading like a maniac. He’s casting a dry dropper rig to the shoreline from the middle of the river and nearly stumbling over every rock as he works his way upstream with his wading stick.  About every 25 feet the guy is getting a fish.  I sit down to study the guy’s tactics and realize it’s none other than Eddie Pinkston. A little while later Barney fishes up through the same stretch with a size 20 Bead Head Baetis pattern and is catching fish left and right, but losing most on a non comp. style hook.  We head back for basecamp with a few pieces of the puzzle resolved.

Thursday: Against better judgment I decide to join Randy Hanner for a half day on The Little Juniata.  The problem here is The “J” is so darn easy you really don’t learn anything useful for competition.  However, we had really nice “confidence building” session right below the outflow of Spruce Creek.  There was literally a fish behind every rock.  It was a real treat getting to fish with a really high caliber angler who knows how to share a river.  We picked a 200 yard stretch of the river clean – sharing drifts and splitting the river into sections without ever making a game plan.  After 2 hours we had maybe 30 fish landed and headed downriver a few miles for a change of scenery.  More of the same downriver with a few very nice 18” fish in the mix.  Later that evening many old faces started showing up at the Motel.  Some of my favorite blokes started arriving like the “Southern Boys” : Chris Lee, Josh Stephens, and some new faces from the board.  This is one of my favorite parts of competition – sharing information and just the general good willed comradery between old friends and high caliber anglers.  Too bad there wasn’t more time for that kind of thing, but each and every competitor had a nagging little red devil sitting on their shoulder constantly muttering: “are you ready?”

Friday: The hotel is empty when I wake up.  Not a competitor or car in sight.  Everyone is off gaining info and fishing their butts off, but I decide to take the day off and just sit around tying and mentally preparing.  K2 finally arrives and we have a great time talking shop.  A bit later though the rain starts… and once it starts it doesn’t stop.  I call Leanord up and get my beat assignments: Spring, Spring, Little J, Penns, Fishing Creek is my stead for the weekend.  Basically the exact opposite anyone would want to fish for a blown out region.  Not only that but I’m on a bus with the “big boys” as Aaron Jasper says: George Daniels, Loren Williams, and Norman Maktima.  Not that there’s an easy bus in this competition, but this may be the toughest.  Before everyone falls asleep they do a quick mad dash tying streamers.

Saturday: Up at 5am.  Geared up and out the door.  Coffee and off to the Ramada to catch the bus.  It’s still raining.  Reports are that Penns Creek went from 400cfs to 5000cfs overnight!!  Everyone’s talking about how this is basically leveled the playing field and it could be anyone’s game now!  The organizers have rented 4 huge touring buses to cart the competitors around.  I jump on the Spring Creek bound trolley and after a few turns we arrive.  The stream doesn’t look that bad at first glance.  We roll down the path past Fisherman’s Paradise and line up along our respective beats.  I have #7.  There’s a long slow glide that eventually turns into 4 separate dump riffles after a large Oak Tree. Looks like a killer beat – I’ve got a mix of riffle water and slow water.  The Gods must be crazy because my good buddy and roommate Kalvin (K2) happens to be my controller for my first session – I take it as a good omen!  We set the clock and off I go!  First I try long leader nymphing up through the riffles.  Unfortunately, I don’t hook a fish in the first 25 minutes and just didn’t see the signs of the clarity decreasing and the water rising fast enough.  Not that I was totally oblivious to the situation, but I made a tactical decision to stick with Euro Nypmhing, and utilizing progressively larger flies, because I had determined there was sufficient visibility to do so.  At the 1hour mark I finally get a clue and run to shore and switch to a streamer rig on a type 3 full sink. I head up to the top of the beat with the long slow glide and start swinging down.  At the bottom of the glide I feel that delicious little tug and a bit later have 1 small brown trout in the net.  Luckily she just measures… I’m on the board! No blank.  Unfortunately, 2 rotations through my entire beat produce no more fish. On the way out I learn 2 other anglers have more than 1 fish, and 6 have 1… all are longer than mine.  I end up with 9^th place.  9 placing points. Just 1 better than the dreaded blank.

Off we travel to our second beat – upper Spring Creek.  She is now TOTALLY blown!  Everywhere you look there is debris floating downriver including a toilet seat, foam blocks, a whole tree, and a dead duck.  You know a flood is rather severe when Ducks are drounding – they’re living PFDs after all!  It looks absolutely useless to even fish, but it’s just not my style. I rig up a trusty Winston 4wt 9ft with a Type 5 full sink and set off to try not to drowned.  I cover each bank twice and nearly risk my life crossing the river in the process.  Not a single tug.  At one point I’m fishing mid river to the banks, barely keeping my foot hold in the heavy current when a huge 6 foot tree trunk comes floating by not 2 inches off my flank – it actually lightly brushed my leg and would have most certainly chopped me off at the knees for a downriver debacle the likes of which I care not to imagine.  To add insult to injury I fish a slow stall out on the far side of my beat for the last 30 minutes of my session.  Every 8 minutes a fish rises literally right under my rod tip!  I can only look over to my controller and share shrugs of disbelief.  I blank.  However, the entire field blanks the whole second session.  That is except for one lucky youth competitor that some how manages to hook a single brown trout on The Little Juniata.  David Woody has 11 placing points and would be leading the pack at the end of the night if not for one lucky youth competitor.  Woody is in my group, and I believe, pounced on 5 fish earlier in our AM Spring session by going straight to big streamers!  It’s uncomfortable but I’m finding a way to physicall kick myself in the butt.

Back at base camp K2 and Kevin Compton are trying to pump up my sullen spirits.  They say: “anything is possible!   Come on man – it’s really still anybodies game!” They tie me up some nice looking streamer patterns and as I doze off for the evening, exhausted emotionally and physically, a little hope springs into my consciousness… a little hope bogged down by 19 heavy placing points. All but one competitor in the competition has 11 placing points though and there is room for hope.

Sunday: A new day.  Much of the pressure is off now.  The rain is gone and streams like Spring and the “J” are starting to get fishy. I’ve come to term with the stark reality of my situation and embrace it.  Coffee, a look at the leader sheet, and I board the bus bound for one of my favorite and easiest “wild” trout streams in the eastern hemisophere: The Little Juniata River.  Arriving at Spruce Creek we are greeted by Sector Judge RangerKeen and one extremely well oiled team of Controllers.  In no time at all we are off to our beats.  A short ride, be it a cold one, in the back of a F150 and I walk down to my beat with my controller.  Things are not looking that bad. I have a really sweet looking section with dump and slide riffles leading into a deep “drowned an elephant” pool.  I set up one streamer rod.  I don’t even take out another.  9am and it’s go time!  This time I start mid way through my beat. I pick off the last little riffle section and work down into the large pool. My thinking is thus: if the streamer approach doesn’t work out I’ve at least targeted a riffle section and the main deeper pool, but still left the really tasty upper riffle section for some Nymphing.  Nothing for the first 10 minutes.  I progress down to the bottom of the deeper pool. I’m starting to feel the omni present weight of a blank… but suddenly my spirits rise as I sting a beautiful brown and bring her to net!  1 down.  My controller hasn’t measured a fish to date and is immersed with detailing the account when I set another fish.  2 gorgeous Little J browns caught and released as quick as lighting.  I’m on the board now and spirits are rising. I thoroughly work the back end of the long pool now realizing that fish are situated there because of the flow and clarity.  Nothing. I run to the top of my beat.  From here out I catch a fish pretty much every 20 minutes of my beat.  There is a lull where I make a half hearted attempt to cross the river and fish some very fishy slow water sections, but curl off mid river for fear of my life.   Near the end of my session my controller says: “go get 8, you need 8!” I think to myself: “yeah 8 would be good but I probably need 12 to win!” We are both right.  I place 2^nd just above George Daniels who also had 7 fish, but mine end up being longer… we are both beat by the lucky and skilled Norman Makitima with 11 fish.

Now on the bus and off to Penns Creek.  The standard mediocre brown bag lunches of ham or turkey sandwich, lays chips, and cookies tastes absolutely divine just about now.  The sun is shining, the country side is picturesque, and I feel like all things are possible.  Maybe I can catch just one fish on Penns. I know there are whole trees floating down river. I know she is washing pick nick tables away. But maybe, just maybe I can catch one little lucky trout – one little lucky trout that will put me on the leader board. It’s possible. Other anglers are doing it.  4 fish in today’s morning session – 1 to each of 4 anglers.  With my 2^nd placing I might have a chance of still pulling this thing out of the muck.  This is one of those moments that stick in your consciousness like a controlled substance and cause you to return year after year.  It’s euphoric.  You are a leader.  You’re a winner… if only for a fleeting few hours you feel that anything is possible and you can manufacture your own destiny.  So addictive.  Just writing this I want more now!

Unfortunately, the reality of the evening would not be a fairytale ending.  Penns Creek is an absolute debacle.  I have a beat with a slow roundout at the top and a slow deep channel at the bottom, but the rest of my beat… approximately 90% of my territory is inaccessible due to the overflowing waters butting up against overhanging trees and thick rose bushes.  So, I gear up and throw a prayer into the river for one single fish. I fish the top roundout hard for 45 minutes losing about 14 flies on 2 sunken trees.  No hits.  I fish down my beat for about 15 minutes dapping my flies here and there, but there is absolutely no holding water until the bottom channel.  At the bottom I wade chest deep and then shove my 10 foot 5wt another 8 feet off a drop to the bottom twitching back two large streamers.  For some idiotic reason I only wore a lonely pair of boxers beneath my waders.  The rushing frigid waters soon turn more than my lips a deep hue of blue. I close my eyes slightly and enter a meditative cycle of cast, swing, wait, strip. Repeat.  After about 1.5 hours of this I get a slight tug, tug, tug, but as I lift my rod it’s gone! Might have been a fish.  Might have been a leaf broadside in the current.  Hard to tell. My heart races for a moment then sinks.  Soon after a few old timers stroll up and tell me one of the best, and deepest, fish packed channels in the entire river happens to be exactly where I’m fishing.  I thank them with a tinge of sarcasm that I’m glad they don’t detect.  The bell rings and my session ends.  As I get on the bus I find the usual leaders like George Daniels and Norman Makitma were able to find a fish.  Most others blanked.  Some times you learn that not only skill wins the day in these competitions, but that incalculable factor some call “being fishy.”

Back at home base most anglers can see the writing on the wall.  Some have a shot at finishing strong, but the bulk of the field are now “out of the money.”  There’s actually a serenity that comes with knowing the game is over.  Not that anyone ever gives up – we all fish hard to the end!

Monday: On the way to Big Fishing Creek there’s a beautiful tinge of fall in the air.  A bright harvest sun crests the valley and starts melting the evening frost.  Things are pretty relaxed. My controller sets up a lawn chair to watch me fish the only tiny stretch of fishable water on my beat, but quickly retires to his car’s heater to warm up every 15 minutes. I have the stream to myself.  My section is a straightway with no reprieve.  There are a few tiny little eddies behind flooded trees that I dap for 40minutes, but the prime section is the mouth of a tiny little feeder trickle.  My controller mentions right off the bat: “that’s where you’re gonna wanna fish! That’s where a guy got one last time.” So I explore my entire beat in one long 40minute walk, but return to that little piece of filet mingon and pound it for 2 hours and 15minutes with every single fly on my palate.  Nothing.  Not even a nibble.  Since I was pretty much self controlling I set a timer on my watch – as the last 5 minutes of my 2009 National Fly Fishing excursion tick away I’m feeling at peace with it all.

Back on the bus there are 7 other blanks.  Norman Makitma nabbed 2 and George Daniels grabbed 4 swimming with his surf jacket in the process. Cell phones are a buzz and soon it is apparent that GD has most likely won back to back Nationals.  Incredible.  I ask George if he’d caught those 4 specific fish before and he just smiles: “there’s definitely an advantage to fishing on your home waters.”

Later at the Barbecue people are casting rods, swapping stories, and checking over the results.  The losers start to slip away while the winners pool up into little groups and head off to celebrate. I meet Walter Ungerman in person for the first time and we talk about blogs, and the team, and how to identify a computer.  I consider staying for the awards ceremony, but my drinking buddies the “southern boys” have flown the coupe and after awhile I realize it’s totally selfish, but I just can’t stand to sit through a long dinner watching happy faces receive shiny medals.  So I tear back to the motel, throw all my gear haphazardly into the car, and get out of dodge!

As I drive the first 2 hour leg of my 5 hour trip home I take stock of the last 3 years of competitive fly fishing and my journey to make Team USA.  All though one of the goals was not reached my angling skills and knowledge of the field have soared… and that was my first and ultimately only reason for entering the circuit.  I decide to “retiree” from active competition for the next 2 years.  I think: “if the spark is still there in 2012 then I’ll give it another go just once before I’m 40.  It’s been a great journey, but there’s no doubting the financial and emotional toll it can wreak on you and your loved ones.  Time to settle down and concentrate on family, spend more time guiding and instructing, who knows maybe I’ll go back to school!  Another fun chapter in my angling career has come to a close.

2 hours later I’m calculating how I can get to the very next regional.

Cheers,

Dejon Hamann

www.TroutLegend.com