Damn the Drift pt 1Sometimes I underestimate my proven ability to be an ass. So, often, in hindsight, I feel like one; that day, week, or maybe later that year. It was on one of those days that the real beauty of our sport again provided me with a feeling of clarity that so often only a cold running trout stream can.
Autumn had brought us north to the Bighorn. We’d come from Southern Colorado. The aspen trees, fired gold by each successive day’s frost, had majestically signaled the end to our inaugural season of guiding. The endless knots and breaking wrists, the accumulated frustration of ten thousand fucked up weighted double 7x nymph rigs, and the narcissistic harangues of so many awful fishermen were finally behind us. The time was our own, the fish our own, and the probability of success only our own. It was nothing less than a piscatorial pilgrimage that Patrick and I had commenced together two weeks earlier, and from the beginning, Ft. Smith and the Bighorn had been our Mecca.
It had started with Patrick’s purchase of a beautiful 17 foot drift boat. Fear No Rock it read
emblazoned on the side. For three weeks she had sat lifeless atop a gravel parking lot in Southern Colorado aside a mere 30 CFS of flowing trout rich water known as Goose Creek. Her sexy accented blue and white curves lie covered, yet still able to torture our drift depraved souls which seemed to beckon us north, more and more, with every shortening day. We’d planned the trip for weeks, mapped out other waters to drift along the way, and dared to dream dreams of fat hulking fall browns. It was certain to be epic.
Autumn had brought us north to the Bighorn. We’d come from Southern Colorado. The aspen trees, fired gold by each successive day’s frost, had majestically signaled the end to our inaugural season of guiding. The endless knots and breaking wrists, the accumulated frustration of ten thousand fucked up weighted double 7x nymph rigs, and the narcissistic harangues of so many awful fishermen were finally behind us. The time was our own, the fish our own, and the probability of success only our own. It was nothing less than a piscatorial pilgrimage that Patrick and I had commenced together two weeks earlier, and from the beginning, Ft. Smith and the Bighorn had been our Mecca.
It had started with Patrick’s purchase of a beautiful 17 foot drift boat. Fear No Rock it read
emblazoned on the side. For three weeks she had sat lifeless atop a gravel parking lot in Southern Colorado aside a mere 30 CFS of flowing trout rich water known as Goose Creek. Her sexy accented blue and white curves lie covered, yet still able to torture our drift depraved souls which seemed to beckon us north, more and more, with every shortening day. We’d planned the trip for weeks, mapped out other waters to drift along the way, and dared to dream dreams of fat hulking fall browns. It was certain to be epic.
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