Pretentious Snobby Bastard Fly Fishing!

Fly Fishing Reports => Local Trip Reports => Topic started by: Yallerhammer on October 09, 2021, 18:04:23 PM

Title: Pondering the Imponderables
Post by: Yallerhammer on October 09, 2021, 18:04:23 PM
Haven't been able to fish for the last month and change due to taking care of my elderly mom who had a stroke, so I find myself sitting around pondering imponderable things. Things like why are native specks so durn colorful and pretty? They live back in inaccessible places, mostly surrounded by creatures that have no artistic bent or aesthetic taste, as far as we know. It seems that they are much more colorful than they need to be to be functional. Even to the point of being detrimental to their survival, because they stand out in the water sometimes. They are a swimming contradiction. That vermiculation on their dark backs is great camouflage, but, that perfect camo is offset by the shocking scarlet and white-edged fins that glow through two feet of water. As far as I can tell, they've been here a lot longer than we have, so it isn't designed for our enjoyment. But I'll take it. It's part of what makes them so fascinating to me, I guess. They are surreal in appearance, like something dreamed of instead of something that actually swims in our streams. And of the millions of them swimming, no two have the exact same pattern. Each one is a unique creation with its own color scheme and assemblage of spots, swirls, and swatches of color.

It seems that they are distilled incarnations of the environment surrounding them. Dark, deep greens from the rhododendrons and hemlocks. Intense oranges and scarlet reds from the autumn leaves that peak about the time they begin to start to really color up and feel the urge to spawn. Golds from the beams of sunlight that dapple through the canopy to land on the water. Purples and indefinable colors from the sunrises and moonlight on the water. Blacks from the deep crevices and shadows and moonless nights. Fins edged with ivory white from the winter snows that blanket the ground. Cold blues from the glaciers that drove them south into these old mountains, and left them stranded here when they receded, and the icicles that still hang dagger-like in winter from the cliffs that brood over the streams where they live.

To semi-paraphrase Norman McLean, I am haunted by native southern Appalachian brook trout.

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Title: Re: Pondering the Imponderables
Post by: greg on October 09, 2021, 20:11:14 PM
Sorry to hear about your mother's health troubles. Pretty pictures.
Title: Re: Pondering the Imponderables
Post by: Trout Maharishi on October 10, 2021, 04:20:18 AM
Sorry to hear about your mama, those sure are some nice specks. Wild coloration between fish, where they all from the same watershed?
Title: Re: Pondering the Imponderables
Post by: Yallerhammer on October 10, 2021, 08:04:41 AM
Quote from: Trout Maharishi on October 10, 2021, 04:20:18 AMSorry to hear about your mama, those sure are some nice specks. Wild coloration between fish, where they all from the same watershed?

Thanks, she's slowly improving.

Those are all from different watersheds, or at least sub-watersheds. Cataloochee, South Toe, Pigeon, Little Pigeon, and Oconoluftee. 
Title: Re: Pondering the Imponderables
Post by: Woolly Bugger on October 11, 2021, 09:28:13 AM
Sorry to hear about your mom, I know of the difficulties caring for ageing parents.


thanks for your words and photos, I need to get after some brookies too  <-;:
Title: Re: Pondering the Imponderables
Post by: Dougfish on October 11, 2021, 09:52:33 AM
Mom stories. We have many.  :cheers
Nice feesh.
Title: Re: Pondering the Imponderables
Post by: Trout Maharishi on October 11, 2021, 19:30:13 PM
Quote from: Woolly Bugger on October 11, 2021, 09:28:13 AMSorry to hear about your mom, I know of the difficulties caring for ageing parents.


thanks for your words and photos, I need to get after some brookies too  <-;:

What we should be worrying about is who is going to take care of us?
Title: Re: Pondering the Imponderables
Post by: Dee-Vo on October 12, 2021, 07:40:10 AM
I'm sorry to hear about your mother. Best of luck to her!

Enjoyed the writing and the photos.
Title: Re: Pondering the Imponderables
Post by: Woolly Bugger on October 12, 2021, 08:47:28 AM
reminded me of this from the Nick Adams Stories by Hemingway.

QuoteHe swung the hook on which the two worms curled out over the water and dropped it gently in so that is sank, swirling in the fast water, and he lowered the tip of the willow pole to let the current take the line and the baited hook under the bank. He felt the line straighten and a sudden heavy firmness. He swung up on the pole and it bent almost double in his hand. He felt the throbbing, jerking pull that did not yield as he pulled. Then it yielded, rising in the water with the line. There was a heavy wildness of movement in the narrow, deep current, and the trout was torn out of the water and, flopping in the air, sailed over Nick's shoulder and onto the bank behind him. Nick saw him shine in the sun and then he found him where he was tumbling in the ferns. He was strong and heavy in Nick's hands and he had a pleasant smell and Nick saw how dark his back was and how brilliant his spots were colored and how bright the edges of his fins were. They were white on the edges with a black line behind and then there was the lovely golden sunset color of his belly. Nick held him in his right hand and he could just reach around him.