Optimists

The pressure was on. Mike, from Mike’s Gone Fishin'…Again fame was going to join me for a day of fishing on the Davidson River. We had been trying all winter to get together for a day of fishing and finally it was to occur. Mike has only been chasing trout for a couple of years and as a regular reader of my blog, he assumed that a day spent with me would enhance his developing skills. Especially after I bragged last week about my nymph training at Big Cedar. Ooooops.

We met up at the fly shop under a blue sky and perfect conditions, and headed up to a stretch of the Davidson below the hatchery. Walking down to the run that I had selected we passed a few rising campers, warming themselves over campfires. I admit to being a little jealous of them – not for their fires and the coffee they were brewing – but for what must have been a special time camped along this beautiful stream.

Unexpectedly, we had the water to our selves. Just us and the trout. But they were expecting us. Yes these wonders of creation had to know that we were coming. Their water was warming from the winter’s chill and surely they knew that on this clear day they would encounter a few fishermen.



Mike (shown above) and I tried every trick we knew and the fish ignored all of them. In the four hours that we fished I touched not one of them, and Mike’s luck was only slightly better. But a good time was had, a friendship was solidified and both of us knew that the day was not wasted. Back at the parking lot we talked of planning a next adventure. We talked of Mike’s home water, the Haw River and the river bass that he’s so familiar with; we talked about meeting up on Wilson’s Creek for a day of rock hoping and chasing native trout. We talked about fishing with the optimism that fishermen have. That’s what fishermen do.