Sunday, December 15, 2013

Chasing Rabbits......


  And if you go chasing rabbits and you know you’re going to fall

             Grace Slick-1967

 My morning routine for several years now has become breakfast, Bible and then off for a walk with the pups. We live on the Fountain so we get to walk partly on the path and partly on a trail. The walks are a great way for me to exercise and plan for the day and almost daily gives the pups a chance to display their primal behavior by chasing rabbits. I have been able to watch the dogs learn and actually strategize but continue to fall short of their goal, rabbit domination. It is funny to watch how different Winston and Mushka try to go after poor little Buggs. When one jumps out in front of us, Mushka just runs as fast as she can after it, but it seems as if she has no depth perception because the rabbits will jump off the trail into a bush and she just keeps on running down the trail. Winston seems to take a little more thought out approach, as of late the spot where we first go off path has seen more than its share of rabbits. We get to that spot and Winston stands tall with his ears and tail way up in the air as he surveys his hunting ground. He then lowers his head and begins to trot in the direction of rabbits and when one pops up he tears after it. The chase is short lived but Winston’s smile and his chest sticking out tells you that the rabbit was terrified for his life. At that point the pups are feeling so dominant that they chase each other until they get winded. In the winter time the rabbits seem to hunker down a little more and we have found one spot where the rabbits hang out under a tree in some pretty thick brush. I saw one sitting still in there a few years ago and I decided to actually go under the tree and flush him out. The next day we went into the same section and Winston ran out in front of me to the exact spot where the day before the rabbit was chased back on to the trail. It didn’t help all that much but the smile on Winston’s face was priceless, as he was that much closer to actually “getten some.”  I am not sure what either of the pups would do if they ever did actually catch a rabbit but the joy of watching the chase over the years is priceless, both for the pups and myself.

  I was standing in the river today looking at my surroundings and I began to notice how similar us fly fishermen are to my pups chasing after the ever elusive buggs. As with Mushka’s lack of depth perception, on busy days, I watch anglers move as fast as they can to get to where they think the fish are, and so often go right past where the fish are. I watch the other anglers that spend so much time surveying and planning that they miss out on the actual fishing. On guide trips, a lot of the time my job is to get the clients to the fish and in a way, flush or point them out. The parking lot talk of the monsters that were caught seems all to familiar to the pups chasing each other after scaring the daylights out of a rabbit. And most of all I see the smiles of anglers faces as they experience the pure joy of everything about flyfishing. I hope that I never take myself so serious that I lose that same joy…..

  Today was certainly an interesting day on the river. A little birdy told me that the Nature Center and above was absolutely packed so Cat and I headed to City Park. I got into one of my favorite runs and started hooking fish immediately. I think I hooked half a dozen or so but just got one to the net. I was testing out my new GoPro today and got some pretty cool angles. We worked our way down river with Cat hooking fish every now and then. My afternoon was quite slow. As we were heading back up river I was trying to think of a reason why Cat had totally out fished me today and no lame excuse sounded good. The pic is kind of funny, Cats best fish of the day and since she knew she was out fishing me so bad she almost looks stoned with glee.

  Anyway, wintertime fishing seems to be upon us. Didn’t take a temp today but my feet said it was Freeken Chilly. Saw a few midges today and only a few dinks hitting the surface and we hooked most in deeper runs. As always, thanks for reading Connell, Cat, Winston and The Drift Fly Shop…
 

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