WELCOME TO MY WORLD

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I hadn’t been here in fifteen years.  There were some very obvious changes since my last visit.  The trail I used to get here was an expert trackers nightmare.  Overgrown and cut in places by both new and other abandoned trails it seemed to lead nowhere.  Only by remembering certain landmarks and a compass reading I had written on the edge of a map I would have lost my way.  In my world you need every advantage you can get to find those specs.

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It was the tail end of June and the major bug hatches, except for the May Flies, had come and gone.  There was little evidence to support this as swarms of black flies attacked from all sides in the 27 degree heat of early afternoon.  My idea had been to hike in and take a few specs for super and get out before nightfall.  The twenty-minute hike in turned into an hour and a half.  The bugs got vicious and I got stubborn, I was going to eat specs tonight.  The rim of my stetson was dark with sweat when I finally broke out into the clearing of the first beaver dam.  Almost fell in that is, the clearing was full of willow and alder and the ground had firmed up considerably.

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The pond surface was still fairly active with insects, but there were no circles to mark feeding trout.  I was indeed hopeful as I pulled my two piece spinning rod from the PVC tube strapped to my back.  Once I had screwed the top back on it was time for the 25 year old grandfather of spinning reels to be attached.  The eight-pound clear line would be tested to the fullest in all the underwater debris left by beavers and deadfalls.  A single #8 long shank hook was clipped to a small silver Colorado spinner.  A worm hooked through half way down and the hook point buried in the thick end of the worm completed my preparations, but for a couple tiny split shot two feet from the hook.

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The silver blade flashed briefly in the bright sun and entered the water without much of a ripple.  Years of practice on speckled trout ponds had perfected the cast.  There was, I knew from many visits in years past, over six feet of water on this end of the pond.  There was also an underwater hump, which came to within a couple feet of the surface.  If my cast was good I would just skim the edge of this and entice a fat brilliantly coloured spec to shore.  Almost successful I watched a spec break off only five feet from shore.  He had been interested.  Two more casts and the same result, no fish in my creel.  Quickly I changed to a double bladed spinner.  The blades were much smaller but made the whole presentation a much longer one.

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As I waited for the next cast to sink I noted a tensioning of the line.  The bail swung shut with a satisfying click and I arched the rod back.  The light action six-foot rod arched toward the fighting dynamo I had hooked.  Once in close to the beaver dam I stood on I could see the slash of white, red and black on the fins of the spec.  Several more valiant runs and I slipped my net under the twelve-inch squaretail.  The blue halos around his speckles almost shimmered as I admired the fish before putting him into my creel.  Three more fish sampled the juicy earthworm from the same spot.  Two of them, almost identical to the first, went into the creel.  The third, once released dove to the side of the dam and froze under a stick of wood jutting out from the dam.  As I watched it seemed to disappear from my eyes, it’s colour was so perfect as it blended into it’s surroundings.

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In the centre portion of the dam, where the water was the deepest, some slip bobber work produced several strikes but only one more addition to our super that night.  The fish were acrobatic as several broke water and a beauty of maybe 14 inches gave me fits before it finally found a moments slack and swam of unconcerned into the darkness of the depths.  It took another half hour to fill ‘my limit�?of six; in those days you could take 15 specs or ten pounds and one fish, which ever came first. 

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As I put my rod back into the tube I became aware of the flies and the number of successful feeds I had given them.  As I recrossed the dam I sprayed some dope around my neck and hands.  A quick look found my tiny slash mark that would mark the makings of a new trail for me to come again to this bit of paradise in the middle of nowhere.

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That night sitting at the super table, the trout eaten along with the home fries, fried onions and mushrooms, I reflected on how lucky I was to live in a place like this.  The slight itch of the bug bites disappeared as I again saw those brilliant colours of the swimming specs.  There seemed to be more than one way to enjoy the richness of my world.