Shaking Off the Slumber

    I know some of you will laugh when I say this but I actually consider myself to be a pretty positive person. The last few weeks I found myself battling this funk that I am not entirely sure of the source. I think the onset was seeing Cat’s chance of a lifetime fall through the cracks and the two of us staring at each other in shock asking now what. The rivers and weather have not really cooperated in filling up our slack time and maybe last of all, my real job has really kept me hopping as of late. I have had three customers this week tell me that they want to own a Subway because they think it would be a lot of fun. Yep, all I do is sit around and count money……Well I was griping to Cat and we started thinking that maybe we needed to take part of a day off and get away to fish somewhere else. Spinney came up but too much work for a one day trip. Ptarmigan sounded fun but a long way away, North Lake would be fun but not for the dogs. We decided to pack the car and head west and allow the “Spirit fish” guide us when I got off work on Wednesday. I was hoping to sneak out early but internet issues kept me way later than I had planned. We got on the road and decided on the upper Ark and headed all the way to Hecla Junction in hopes of escaping the heat. We pulled in at about dark and the smile returned to my face. 

 After an "interesting" nights sleep in the tent, with two dogs and noisy neighbors, Cat and I got on the water just a little before 8:00am and were immediately blown away by the pure beauty of Browns Canyon. The boulders, the gin clear water, the really smart fish, and the contrasting colors of all the flowers made it hard to think about anything else. During the first hour I was so mesmerized by the beauty that it didn’t really seem to bother me that I was being schooled by every fish in the river or that Cat had one fish up on me.  In the second hour and a half however I started to take it personally.  I was getting pretty frustrated and finally I sat down looked around at God’s beautiful creation, scratched my head and asked myself that all important question W.W.J.D.  Which in the fishing world stands for......“What Would Jeff Do”.  If you know Jeff Ross you know why I asked myself this.  So I put on a Z-wing caddis and as if Jeff was actually looking on from South Korea, I hooked and landed my first fish of the day(thanks Jeff). The next hour was a blast, landing several and being able to look up and hear the Ciggle as Cat was playing another brown to the net. We didn’t get to stay as long as we wanted but hopefully those few precious hours of beauty will carry me through till our water turns on again.