ranch creek

Claire is my favorite wife. I’m not supposed to make that sort of distinction but there it is. She’s young, never asks me about work, and takes my boots off at night. But none of that adds up to a hill of beans really. There’s a special place in Paradise for Claire because she let’s me go fishing.

Claire’s house is on the edge of town just ten minutes from the Big River. Supposed to be that during summer you can catch big ‘bows there if you throw ‘em a mouse fly. I mail ordered two mouse flies last year and fished ‘em every night for a week. I didn’t catch anything but it was worth a try I suppose. Otherwise summertime fishing takes place in the big pool by the railroad bridge. I go early in the morning when the trout are sipping dead mayflies . The rest of the year I walk the banks and look for rising fish.

To be fair I should mention that my other women are good wives too. Healthy babies, pretty looks and common sense, they’re fine women by any measure. Raylene for one, grows a big garden at her house and keeps chickens and swine too. There’s always good eats at Raylene’s.

Rocky Creek starts high up in the mountains west of here but I like to fish the stream where it flows through the hill country before it joins the Big River. The blue olives start to hatching before the runnoff. Caddisflies emerge later in the spring. One year I even got to fish the big stoneflies before the water got too big to wade. After the runoff it’s morning duns and evening caddis until fall.

Come fall I fish a meadow stream that flows through a ranch further up the valley. Even after the hottest summers that creek holds enough water to bring a run of brown trout up out of the Big. Fifteen years ago I asked the old rancher if I could fish the creek sometime and he said that’d be alright. I’ve fished there every September and October since. Mostly I’ll fish a grasshopper, either wet or dry it usually don’t matter. If it’s been cold I’ll swing a wooly booger through the riffle water, that works too.

Believe it or not Claire don’t like to eat fish, lets me go fishing but won’t eat the fish I catch. Won’t cook ‘em either. I don’t question it though, I know better by now. For fish dinner I have to go Marta’s. Marta hates it that I go fishing and makes it her mission to salvage the time I wasted catching fish by cooking them up into a fine meal. I ain’t supposed to say so but Marta is my second favorite wife.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 21st, 2008 at 7:20 am and is filed under Good Fishing Is Where You're At, I Got Yer Hotspot Right Here. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.